Cruel and Unusual Punishment: the Jim Crow south

The southern States that became the rebellion against the national government of this country, were defeated, after a long, bloody, and divisive war, in which, Constitutional amendments were passed, specifically the thirteenth through fifteenth amendments, that would once and for all, assert that all Americans, regardless of their color, creed, or former servitude were entitled to their full Constitutional rights.  For a moment, perhaps, or at least as long as the north had a real military presence in the south, blacks, essentially for the first time in the deep south, were able to actually get elected to political positions and were accorded equal rights, but that lasted but for a blink of an eye in the skeins of time, and the defeated south, the defeated white men of the south, soon took back what was always theirs, total control of the political process, total control of policing and justice, and total control of what was permitted or tolerated within their communities.

The white man's animus against blacks, absolutely knew no bounds, for as plantation owners, the white man came from a perspective, that he had to be ruthless and efficient in carrying out "justice" against blacks, for the white man within his plantation, was sorely outnumbered, in addition to being obligated to protect and defend his children and in particular his invaluable and innocent white women.  This meant, as a matter of course, that the white man, was always well armed, was always up on the latest local news, and always had additional men that could be called upon to aid him on short notice, in addition to the abiding fact that the justice system with its policing arm, knew what to do.

All of the above firmly put to the lie, that the black man was well treated, happy and complacent working as a slave, and that the southern way of plantation life, of taking care of these ill-educated and simple minded blacks, was akin to a Christian courtesy,  that the north never seem to rightly understand, whereas the truth of it was always what it was, pure exploitation of another man's labor, so that the white man could live nice, free, and easy, off of enslaved people's blood, sweat, and copious tears.

The disappointment of black men living in the deep south after the civil war, was the immense disappointment of recognizing that this national government, seemed not to care, that their rights were abused on a constant basis, and thereby it wasn't until after World War II, that blacks in the deep south, began to make inroads on getting the most basic of civil rights, such as the integration of schools, the integration of neighborhoods, fair employment opportunities, fair representation in the judicial system, of which, all of this, they had to fight tooth and nail, inch by inch, because the obstinate southern ruling class, would not give up anything, not one thing, without a battle royal.

To sum up succinctly how much hatred, the white man had for the black man in the south, consider that these segregation laws, were specifically directed against blacks, so as to obviously keep those blacks in their place, so if you were an Asian man, of which, granted there were no many in the deep south, you could skate by and for the most part not have to worry about Jim Crow, for the laws and edifice built in the south, were specifically meant to separate and to subjugate, forever, the black man. So that those that today proclaim, how the laws have changed, and that everything is now on the up and up, that this therefore is an egalitarian society, are ignorant of the past, ignorant of the present, and ignorant of the future, for the black man has had to fight on the streets and through the justice system, to get what is theirs, and they still don't have it, cause the white man has never played fair, never will play fair, and doesn't have to play fair.

… And the Republic for which it stands….

The above comes from "Our pledge of alliance" which was originally composed in 1887, and finalized in 1954, of which, perhaps some people would be surprised that rather than stating that we live in a democracy, something that is bantered about each and every day through all sorts of media outlets, we actually are a Constitutional republic.  Further to the point, Article 4, Section 4, of our Constitution states specifically:  "The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government," which makes it very clear that the United States is a republic and not a democracy, and in fact, a democracy in America, was not the intention of the founders of this great nation, and specifically was something that they put in writing that we were not.

First, it must be understood as to what the difference is between a republic and a democracy.  A democracy is simply government by the majority, which if you happen to be on the side of the majority, rather convenient, for democracy at its worse, is mob rule, and if one side is out voted, they can in theory, have absolutely no voice in the government, leading to despotic majority rule.  On the other hand, a republic, such as we have in America, has representatives that while typically being democratically elected by the public, are constrained to act within the Constitution, governed by Constitutional law, with a specific delegation and separation of powers, so that no one branch can dictate to the others, or make irrelevant the other branches of such a government.  Further, it is assumed or presumed, that these elected officials, unlike the common citizens, are able to make decisions and to vote based on a careful analysis and proper consideration of a given situation, as opposed to being swayed by the passions of the day.

The reason that we hear so much about "one person, one vote", in which all are equal in the weight of our vote, is that it sounds fair, but when anyone can vote, with little or no diligence of the capabilities of that person voting, or of their accomplishments or lack of accomplishments, than democracies devolve into the majority desiring strongly to vote for whatever it is that they want, especially for what they want in the short term, without real consideration of future events or possibly basic human rights; whereas with a government of elected officials, our representatives are not only constrained within the Constitution as to what they can or cannot do, they also must recognize implicitly your basic human rights, your inalienable rights, and the rights as given by our Constitution of which all these combined serve to protect individuals, and especially the minority voice.

If one thinks about it logically, than one would not really want to live in a democracy, because quite frankly, most people on a day by day basis, have things much more important and personal to accomplish on a given day, rather than to look at all aspects of a given ballot measure, or an amendment, and so on and so forth, and would, all things reasonably considered, prefer someone of integrity, someone of character, someone that is well respected, to weigh on those issues on behalf of the people. For if the majority are not constrained by Constitutional law, are not constrained by wise and experienced minds, are not constrained by the divisions of powers, than you may will get majority rule, for better or for worse, but it will devolve rather quickly into despotism, for the majority will simply take from the minority, because they have granted themselves the right to do so, again and again, taking advantage of their power, to create a country divided into two, those of the haves v. those that have not.

America: The Invincible

Civilizations do rise and they do fall, so those that believe that there is absolutely nothing that will ever knock America off of its lofty perch simply don't know their history.  Think of great civilizations such as: the Roman Empire, the Greek Empire, Ancient Greece, and the Mayan empire, to name just a few of the most prominent empires the world has ever known, all gone, remembered, but of little import to the world, as it is, today.  For America, the last chance that other countries had to stop them from becoming the most powerful nation on earth was its Civil war, in which, the European nations, watched with interest, but did not interfere with, and after America re-united, consolidated, and got back on track, it essentially through its size which placed it on both great oceans of this planet, its industrious people, and its desire to strive to be all that it could be, became the dominant nation entering into the very beginning of the 20th century, a power that it has not relinquished, for well over 100 years.

That said there are many ways and many possibilities that America could fall of which some of these possibilities are as follows:

1.       Another civil war, whether it consists of the minorities v. the white majority, the Democrats v. the Republicans, the massive underclass v. the elite majority, of which, all of these could indeed happen.

2.       The decay from within, in which the moral compass of America simply erodes to nothing, so that truly anything goes, bringing us constant confusion, uprising, and endless troubles.

3.       An economic collapse, in which the monetary system as we presently know it, defaults, causing massive unemployment, massive civil unrest, and massive economic change, all done in a haphazard and disruptive manner.

4.       The resentment of the world at large, that since America muscles everyone else, as well as constrains everyone else, but never lets international law preclude it from doing what it so desires, in which the world, unites in its avowed purpose to take down the richest and most powerful nation the world has ever known.

5.       A military coup, because the President in conjunction with the House, finally decides that devoting nearly 1 trillion dollars to our national defense, year after year, is literally stealing food and opportunity from the good people of this country, so that an overdue change to such, is actually implemented, forcing the military to either bow down to their Chief Executive, or to seize power from that Chief Executive and declare martial law.

6.       An active rebellion and determination from the likes of California, Texas, or New York to secede from the nation, and to become independent of it, cascading to more States doing the same, till the United States simply is no longer united and is no more.

All of the above are possibilities, though nothing much more than that.  The real probabilities are shown below, for the earth and this universe are in constant flux, and sudden change can have catastrophic consequences, for instance:

1.       America is the bread basket of the world, but due to incredibly colossal volcano eruptionsfrom Yellowstone, as well as the Cascade range, America's weather patterns are disrupted so dramatically, that crop yields drop to a mere fraction of what they previously were, leading to massive starvation, massive civil disruption, and collapse.

2.       Earthquakes of unprecedented fervor rock America, to its core, and Oregon, Washington, and California, within just a few days, completely vanish into the Pacific Ocean, in addition, New Madrid, Missouri, in the heartland of America, develops earthquake levels at unheard of levels, swallowing up much of Middle America.

3.       An asteroid of a truly impressive dimension strikes the American homeland, wreaking utter destruction, not only at the impact zone, but because of the energy waves so generated this also lays waste to a radius far exceeding the size of the asteroid, basically bringing down the complete edifice of America to the point of no return.

Sure, America is the only superpower, but it isn’t indestructible for it cannot control "acts of God", but it does have the ability to work together with other nations in harmony, respect and brotherly accord.

Terminator Robots must be banned

The American public seems to be okay with our endless wars and overseas conflicts, especially when few of our men and women die, or are even in harm's way.  So that with the American military having the most powerful military instruments as well as the most dominating military budget in the world, and with no other single country coming close to what America represents in both military muscle as well as military killing power, America rules alone.  This means that America is never behind the curve, in fact, they are forever pushing the curve, day after day, dollar after dollar, but they are clearly cognizant that Americans, for the most part, aren't thrilled about "boots on the ground", so the military has been relentless in adapting to this new paradigm.  That is a good reason why, America bombs countries at an exceedingly high rate, for those bombs have mighty destructive power, but with virtually no risk of the bombardiers being harmed, further to the point, purely automated drones, eliminate the human risk completely, which is the direction and tendency that America is ceaselessly gravitating to.

This then means, with the air effectively controlled by either semi-automated weaponry, and advancing leaps and bounds to fully automated weaponry, the next frontier to control via robotics and their equivalency is the ground.  While one can make a very strong case for robotics being a valuable tool that provides real actionable information by being sent, for instance, into a warehouse or building to examine, inspect, and reconnaissance, the real upshot is, if a machine can do that much, it isn't much more  to decide to make it fully lethal by adding munitions to it, or to its automated sidekicks, so that if the biggest risk while taking down a block, house by house, are the houses, the snipers, and so on and so forth, one could easily imagine sending not the Marines in first, but the robots instead, to search, target, and destroy, with real human soldiers, only coming in to clean up the aftermath.

Additionally, it doesn't take all that much more science to take robots that are controlled remotely, with a human viewing the landscape and thereby engaging the enemy through the robots, to fully automated robots that are programmed to engage the enemy, upon perceiving enemy fire, or upon the recognition of human body heat, and so on and so forth.  The thing about fully automated robotics used in military conflicts, is that for a certainty, the actual robot has no conscience whatsoever, so these terminator robots should as a matter of humanitarian principle, alone, never be allowed to be manufactured or utilized.  So too, any semi-automatic robot, controlled by humans who are far removed from the action, of which these humans are in no danger, but permitted to push the buttons that target "enemy" human life, must be constrained per international agreements, for the further remove a given human being is from the action, the further down the chain-of-command that the individual is that triggers the action, the easier it is for that human individual to not comprehend or take personal responsibility for those targets being identified and engaged, which makes it uncomfortably easy to calculate coordinates and kill human life.

The day in which robotics are utilized as autonomous killer machines would be disastrous for human life, so too, robotics that kill and that are being controlled to do so by humans, should be internationally restrained, banned, and eradicated, for the more remove that human consciousness and human responsibility is from war zones, the more war and the more killing we will have.

Parole, Social Media, and your cell phone

There are many people that after becoming incarcerated are released each and every day from prison through the process of parole, in which their "freedom" is permitted as long as they demonstrate their compliance with their parole conditions, which typically involve restrictions such as no illicit drug usage, and no contact with other criminals, and so on.  The adherence to such restrictions was significantly easier to pull off before the age of social media and cell phones, because in order for the judicial system to really know what you were up to, they previously would have had to deliberately track you, or follow you, but nowadays your social media account and your cell phone are pretty much your on-person spy tool that will tell everything about you, so that things that may involve a momentary indiscretion, are stored, for possible review by judicial authorities.

This would indicate strongly, all things being equal, that parolees do not want to have any social media account, whatsoever, nor do they want anything but the simplest cell phone that does not track the individual via GPS, has no on-line access, no stored images, but basically serves as a way to talk to other individuals, of which, all of these individuals are on the up-and-up.  Of course, humans have a natural capacity to want to communicate with each other, to congregate, to do things, especially with like-minded individuals, and do not naturally gravitate to a non-social controlled life, especially considering the very person that is incarcerated in the first place is someone that probably doesn't have either the best habits or the best character.

The very first thing that all parolees should be distinctly aware of, is the fact that as a condition of their parole, their social media accounts will/can be monitored by judicial authorities, as well as the knowledge that private social media setting or not, that they should suspect that even their password or privacy setting is susceptible to those authorities, for once, you hear words to the effect that your parole will be revoked, if you do not release your password, you are betwixt and between.  In regards to your cell phone, the smarter that it is, the more data that can be retrieved by authorities against you, signifying that everywhere that you have been, every conversation, every picture, every text, every contact, is susceptible to judicial authorities, so if you are not completely clean, than your smart phone, is pretty much the death of you.

You might wonder, how this is all true, how that your Fourth Amendment rights, which protects an individual from warrantless searches, has become somehowforfeited , but the simple answer is that upon the condition of your parole, you have agreed to surrender these rights, to waiver those rights, in order to have this reduced version of freedom.  The problem is that, social media and smart phones are like having big brother 24/7 broadcasting your life to judicial authorities, whereas, twenty years ago  these things simply didn't exist.  This means, and the justice system knows this, that pretty much at any time for any parolee, if you provoke them, if you annoy them, if they are busybodies, you can easily be targeted, and almost without exception, be guilty of some sort of parole violation and therefore subject to immediate re-incarceration. 

Is this a good thing?  For those that do not desire a ubiquitous police state, definitely not, for if, somehow, there comes a time when the government is explicitly permitted to monitor everyone and everything, guilty or not, convict or not, incarcerated or not, parolee or not, then they have the power to deliberately target those that are a nuisance, those that are a hindrance, those that are an annoyance, and everyone so targeted, given enough time and invasive searching by the judicial authorities, will be found guilty of some crime, so that legitimate social protest and minority viewpoints will be eradicated, and this land of freedom will be no more.

Credit card capacity and non-capacity

People have a tendency to take things for granted that have been around for quite a while, and/or have been around since the day that they were born, and therefore reasonably conclude that things such as the easy access to credit has always existed, but it has not.  There actually was a time when there were zero credit cards, but that didn't mean that you as a consumer had no credit capacity, it meant instead, that any credit capacity that you had was dependent upon the local store or the local depot, actually knowing personally who and what you were, as well as the possibility of bartering something of yours for  something of theirs, or a personal guarantee that you would be good for the credit or vouchsafed by another family member, or surety in something that you physically owned, for the trading of goods in one form of another, has existed for millenniums, and is the type of transaction that done with appropriate prudence, of definite benefit, for both parties.

In today's society, those that desire credit get such typically through an application done in store, or to the response of mail solicitations, as well as the phone or internet solicitations, in which the institutions accepting your application of credit, do not personally know you, whatsoever, but rely on public information, previous credit history, demographics, and assorted other factors to determine your credit reliability, and often will, in absence of blatantly bad credit, issue you credit routinely, even for people, that have somewhat suspect earnings or earning capacity. 

This issuance of credit, can either be a boon or a bane, depending upon how it is treated by the recipient, in which, for some people, a relatively significant percentage of people, once that they do receive credit and make their first charge, do not ever, except perhaps when in receipt of a lump sum tax refund or similar, pay off their credit card balance in full.  While it is true, that the banks issuing such credit, love those types of consumers that constantly have to pay interest, penalties, fees and the like, surprisingly, those that are indebted to such, don't really mind doing so, because without this additional credit capacity available to them, they could not make it day by day, or week by week.

This then leads to the thought, what happens, when your credit capacity disappears overnight, or your credit limit is significantly reduced overnight; for those that extend credit, have the option of terminating such or reducing such, in order to protect their assets, for it is always them extending the favor to you, and therefore it is their option to do so, as compared to believing that you as a consumer, have a "right" to have credit.  The most recent time when credit was reduced or terminated, suddenly, was during the great recession from 2007-2009, in which, some banks, were quite quick to reduce credit limits orto even close accounts, in which, the closing of such, necessitated payment in full.

This means that those that are not able to function in today's society without the credit extended to them by credit card issuers, are essentially in hock to those banks, signifying a dependence to an institution, that giveth and taketh away, and should that credit disappear, would thereby force one to live within their ready-cash means, with their options available going forward being much worse, making them vulnerable to financial ruin.   So that those without money or at least enough money to stay current, or have access to credit that serves the same purpose, will find few options, other than a life that will become the equivalency of permanent servitude to those that control the purse as well as your access to it.

When the American Dream turns into the American nightmare

The basic American dream for a huge swath of Americans is to have their own home, a good job, or jobs, a good family life with a couple of kids, and all the other basic accouterments that come with being in the most recognizable version of the middle class which is a fair and reasonable goal to aim for, and pretty much de rigueur of attainable achievements. 

The thing, though, that often seems to be the most insidious destroyer of them all, is the loss of employment, for that very loss, can be and has been for many a good American, the actual beginning of the end of not only a pretty good life, but the ultimately the loss of everything that made that life good to begin with.  When it comes to working, in our modern age, most people, in one form or another, do not work for themselves, as in owning their own business, having their own trade, farming their own land, and so on and so forth, but rather are working for somebody else, and therein lies the potential problem, for when you are not the master of your own domain, but essentially are a servant or employee to somebody else, you may well find, that your value to your employer can literally plummet overnight, and if that indeed just happens, it may well change everything, and not in a good way.

When you have a job, for many Americans, even those that have degrees, tons of experience, professional skills, up-to-date in their professional abilities, personable, conscientious, and all that sort of stuff, your job, may easily be that type of job, in which, unbeknownst to you, is actually vulnerable to unanticipated employment disruption. Further to the point, you are employed at will, or, even if not, can be dismissed without foreknowledge for various dubious reasons and thereby your means of employment, the very thing that literally puts food on table, a roof over your head, protects your family, and that many people defined themselves as, is effectively gone.

It would be one thing, if the sudden departure of your job, often lead to other opportunities which were just as good or better, as opposed to the rather frequent reality of it, in which your salary and job opportunities are basically literally eviscerated, so that those that use to have something and now find that they are earning close to little or nothing, will become in a relatively short period of time suffering the privations of a life that has completely fallen apart, and as bad as that is, the conscious realism that things are not ever going to get better.  Those type of life changes, sudden, unexpected, and completed undesired, will take a man of magnanimity, virtue, and grace and turn him into a vulnerable, defeated man that has been reduced to a mere shadow of his former self.

The long and short of it is as follows, for those that used to make good money, finding employment at 50% of your previous salary will often be not nearly enough to stop catastrophe, which means that when everything of value is gone or is being inexorably depleted, that a future good life has been reduced to pathetic wishful thinking, which will hollow out a man to his very core, and place him effectively amongst the walking dead, never to rise, for he is nevermore.

People of Color, get on a jury, and don’t convict people of color

The criminal justice system in this country is grossly unfair to those that are poor, uneducated, and lacking the funds to actually retain their own attorney.  The biggest hypocrisy of the American justice system is the fact that rather than being able to assert their Constitutional rights and actually, by law, get what they are supposed to get which in a criminal trial as the 6th Amendment states: “In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed…”, they get instead in over 90% of cases, the rather dubious plea bargain offer, of basically, the pressured coercion of pleading guilty to a lesser crime or having to face the unpleasant consequences for the rejection of such.  Not too surprisingly, for those that do not know the law, have no money, have no lawyer, have pretty much next to nothing, and especially for all those that are presently incarcerated, pending their so-called “speedy” trial, these defendants will take a rather poor deal as opposed to fighting and trying to beat their charges in a court of law.

That then leads to what we see in present-day America, a whole bunch of people of color, that are incarcerated for all sorts of things, of which most of these people were never actually convicted by a jury of their peers.  It is high time, that those that have nothing to lose, determine that they will fight the system, and instead of bending to the will of the state, determine to show that they will instead make their stand in a court of law.

Of course, it just isn’t good enough to simply have a jury trial, for the most important part of any jury trial actually isn’t the evidence, or any of the various lawyers, but the jury, itself.  The jury is supposed to be made up of one’s peers, which obviously, would and should take into account, their income, their color, and their social status.  This means, by definition, for those that live in communities in which a significant portion of the population is of color, that the only fair jury selection must have at least some people of color on it.  The Supreme Court has already ruled that defendants are entitled by law, to equal protection, and that thereby the racial makeup of a given jury is germane to that guarantee, so a fair jury, must, by definition, have people of color on it, or the trial itself is subject to review and of being overturned.

There are times in one’s life, when an act of civil disobedience is the highest possible and the most ethical act that a person can make, so that, those people of color, that are on juries, all over this country, should take into account, the undeniable fact that jails and prisons have a disproportional amount of people of color that are incarcerated, which essentially is indicative of prime facie evidence that the justice system is corrupt against color people.  Therefore, in order to rectify such, people of color, when on juries, should make it a point of principle, that they will not convict fellow people of color, as a consecrated act of civil disobedience, because when justice over a long and extended period of time spits in the face of those of color, than no justice has been served, and the people, for which this country and this Constitution is constructed upon, must assert their civil rights as citizens, until the walls of injustice fall down, and these heavy chains of servitude have been broken asunder, never to be forged again.

Suckers and the Grocery Store 10% surcharge

In the south, there is a grocery chain, known as Food Depot that advertises that their prices are "our cost plus 10% added at the register", which on the surface seems like a very fair deal, as there are other grocery stores and other retail businesses, that advertise that their mark-up is their cost plus 15% or thereabouts, and some of these enterprises charge a membership fee, so a 10% mark-up does sound really, really good. 

But, like most things, that sort of sound too good to be true, there are flaws, deliberate deceptions, and the exploitation of consumers that is actually going on within this enterprise.  The very first deception is that if your business model is really your cost + 10%, than rather than this 10% being added at the cash register as a separate but distinct charge, it should actually be part of the retail price to begin with.  That is to say, rather than marking a given item as $10 and then adding $1 for the 10% mark-up at the cash register, the item should instead be marked as $11 which includes that 10% mark-up.  The reason that this is fairer is the fact that the price would now show the complete and full price, with no trickery, whereas an item with a price sticker on it that says $10, makes the real price appear to be $10, despite the "knowing" that there will be a cash register surcharge to it.  The showing of the true price also makes it easier for people to consciously price compare between one item that they are use to purchasing elsewhere in comparison to that price at the cost + 10% store, so that when that price does not reflect what it truly costs at the cash register, it is relatively easy to get fooled into believing that you are getting a better deal than you really are, or even whether it's a deal to begin with.

As bad as that is, there is the total hypocrisy of advertising in big bold words that your prices are "our cost plus 10%..." when in very small words, discreetly placed or seldom noticed are the words that most consumers do not read or are unaware of which reads: "Our cost includes freight, stocking fees, and associated expenses."  This statement that their costs include freight, stocking fees, and "associated expenses", gives the game up for what it truly is, a sucker game, for most people just simplistically assume that cost would be the equivalency of the invoice amount of the goods so purchased, but in actuality, for Food Depot, costs are really whatever that they want those costs to represent, because "associated expenses", unless specifically broken down to the consumer, can cover or cover-up just about everything.

The exploitation that is used by Food Depot, covers two basic areas, of which the first is, when the true cost is the stated sticker price + 10%, humans have a strong tendency to see the price as shown on the sticker as the price of the good, so this encourages them to believe that what they are buying is cheaper than what it really is, and while Food Depot can talk all day about how they have clearly displayed that the full cost is the sticker price + 10% at the register, if they really cared about being price transparent, and they don't, they would simply change their stickers to actually reflect the total cost which allows consumers to then compare apples to apples.  The fact that they don't indicates strongly that Food Depot knows that if they actually disclosed how much their true price is to the consumer that they would not compare well to their competitors, further they know that stickers that fail to reflect that true price makes those goods appear cheaper to the consumer, which benefits their bottom line.  Additionally, and this is rather quite pathetic, but the educational system in America is so unequal, that there is a signficant percentage of Americans, that literally do not know how to calculate 10%, don't know what it really represents in cost to them, couldn't calculate it in their head, can't cacluate it with a calculator because they don't know how to use that, and simply kind of know, that an extra 10% represents some additional cost to them, but still believe that whatever that they have purchased is that retail price plus a tiny bit more, never really realizing that the extra 10% is actually a massive markup, specifically designed to trick them

Give me Liberty or Give me Death

Patrick Henry was nobody's fool, and on March 23, 1775, he gave an impassioned speech to the denizens of Virginia, urging them to take up arms and raise a militia in order to face off against our British oppressors.  In that historic speech, Patrick Henry, stated these words in reference to what to him was indeed the moment of truth, and thereby the time to stop any equivocation or accommodation to the British: "I consider it as nothing less than a question of freedom or slavery…"  Further, Henry, stated, "…it is natural to man to indulge in the illusions of hope," indicating that those that thought accommodation with England was still possible were sadly mistaken and failing to grasp the truth of the matter.  Further to the point, Henry, rightly spoke that in order to know the future, we just need to consider the actions of life under the British in the past, in which the British while preaching reconciliation and patience, but were in reality, bringing across the seas, more troops and quartering these new troops amongst the colonists. Henry correctly saw this as: "…the implements of war and subjugation…" and was not fooled into believing the cooing words of the British, nor their deceit, for their meaningful intent was to bring the colonists to heel.  Henry states that the colonists had done everything within their power to entreat the British to show them the consideration and respect due to them as people deserving of representation and justice by the British crown but all to no avail.  Henry then urged his fellow Virginians that the only appropriate means to resist the tyranny of the British was to fight, and to fight now, before the odds against the colonists got even worse.  Then, in his closing remarks, Henry questioned: "Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery?" This, indicating that those that vacillated as to whether to actually fight and to thereby willfully oppose the British had instead made the conscious and cowardly decision that they would rather prefer "safety" and hence a reduced form of life, even to be placed in a form of perpetual servitude to the British crown, rather than to risk it all, so as to have real liberty, and real freedom.

The result of Henry's impassioned speech and the blood, sweat, and tears of those brave colonists that took the fight to the British was ultimately the successful establishment of a new country, a republic, known as the United States of America.  But recognize this, as great as Patrick Henry was, and he was a very great man, he also was white, and for the most part, nearly two hundred and fifty years later, those words spoken by Patrick Henry are not the same words that a respectable black man can safely make even today in America.  For, in reality, if a noble black man was to raise ruckus in this country, demanding that he and his people have true liberty, true freedom, true opportunity, true justice, and true equality, of which all of these things are in theory his already as Constitutional rights, unfortunately, this black man would as a matter of course, be subject to all sorts of slings and arrows of misfortune, from the ruling elite of this country.  For America, loves to talk about fairness and opportunity, loves to talk about how egalitarian that it is, loves to talk about how progressive are its ways, and America can point to all sorts of things that supposedly prove how liberal that it is, but the reality is the reality of the overall present day condition of those that were previously brought to this country against their will as human chattel to be used by the white man as he so willed.  Though that has changed, that change is acres and acres short of what it should be, so for a black man, today, right now, to demand his liberty or his death, will find, he won't get his liberty, but he will surely get his death.

Monks, Nuns, People, God, and Society

There are all sorts of religious organizations throughout the world, some formal, some not, in which for devotees of such organizations, there may purposely be created sanctuaries for such devotees, such as a monastery, abbey, convent, or structures similar to this.  Those that live within a monastery, for example, must follow the discipline and rules of that domain, in which, the structure and purpose of what can or cannot be done, prayer times, devotion, duty, and so forth, are typically defined in a way that are consistent, purposeful,  and strict within that given discipline.  The main purpose for any of these devotees is to find solace in the word of God, through quiet devotion, as well as through the purposeful acts and accomplishments of a given day.

While the greatest purpose for anyone's life is to find our way back to God, it isn't quite good enough, to simply close the door on outside influences and outside disturbances, and simply walk away from the world at large.  Granted, it is no easy task to perform a monk or a nun's duties faithfully, and full credit should be given for those that are devotees of the highest order, but there is also an obligation that every person has to society, which is to engage that society, and to make that society better by bringing your knowledge, knowhow, and grace to your interactions with others. 

This means, that while it isn't necessarily wrong, that some monasteries essentially are closed systems, in which once you are in, you never leave, nor do you deal with the outside, except in special circumstances and conditions, it essentially means that such a system is far from ideal, and lacks the gift of giving to the world at large.   What is a far better approach, is to look upon your sanctuary, your prayer, your discipline, as the means to become daily invigorated with the love of God, and to thereby take that love and rather than hiding it under a bowl, place it high up on a stand, so that our fellow brothers and sisters can see the revelation from such a brilliant light.

This signifies that within our own domain that we should indeed take the time to contemplate, to meditate, to step away from the din and confusion of our everyday world, so as to reset our minds and thereby to renew our spirit, so that we will be stronger and more self-assured, for the world brings us many troubles that easily can wear a given person down, and thereby change someone from caring to someone that just sees life as something inexplicable that must ultimately simply be endured.

There can be no higher respect than to respect those that truly have their house in order, of which, from such clarity of mind and spirit, they help us to see the world and society for what it really is, a proving ground, so that those of calm temperament and serene presence, do not panic at the travails of a given day, but show us best how to competently deal with them, along with letting us know the inestimable value of listening to that still small voice within, that each of us, must, if we are true, recognize as the soundest touchstone of our lives.

Hell is Voluntary failure

Bishop Fulton J. Sheen stated on his long running television program, Life is worth Living that "hell is voluntary failure."  You really can't put it better than that, though many simply see hell as a place for those that have committed sins of omission or sins of commission, or as a place for those that have not personally taken Christ as their savior, but in actuality it really comes down to the fact that to find yourself in hell, you have had to have voluntarily failed in your duties as a human being, that more than anything is apropos of why hell exists.

Too many people, have rather simplistic views of the afterlife, which fits in well with their demeanor, as they believe or purport to believe, that whether you get to heaven or go to hell, comes down to essentially whether or not you have politely requested God's grace, which as fundamentally bad as that doctrine is, is made even worse, by stipulating that the positive acts that you have accomplished won't make any difference in regards to your afterlife, but in actuality, that is exactly the opposite of what really occurs.

In point of fact, belief without actions is the same as non-belief, it is therefore your actions in your everyday interactions with your fellow brothers and sisters, as well as the challenges and dilemmas that you have inevitably come across day-by-day that define who and what you really are, for you are tested over and over again, to prove thereby your worth or non-worth, for life on earth is the proving ground and there are no shortcuts here, for anyone.

This then means for a certainty, that the decisions that you make: matter.  Further to the point, all are gifted with a conscience, free will, and the innate ability to discern right from wrong, so that at the end of the day, no matter how things have turned out, those decisions and those actions have come from ourselves, which is why those that complain or moan that their life is a life of misery because of this or that, or because of this person or that, or from lack of this or that, which while having some validity in what they are saying, must so recognize that it isn't so much where or what you have or don't have that bears its marks, it is what you do with the circumstances that you have been given to work with to begin with, for membership in heaven is free to all, if they are willing to put forth the effort to gain admission to it.

If you will not exert yourself positively for anything of worth, you will fail.  If you will not try to heal yourself as well as to try to be of benefit to others, you have failed.  If you live entirely to yourself, thinking just of yourself, playing games to benefit solely yourself, your failure is complete.  The bottom line is that If the test of your character was solely about yourself and none other, than earth would just be a place with just one soul, your own; so then, you must recognize that the whole reason why there are so many people on earth, such diversity and divisiveness on this planet, is to give one another a chance, to piece everythingback together again and to thereby make this world better for you having been a member of it, for in this endeavor, you will find success, and for those that voluntarily turn their back on such, they will find that havingfailed themselves as well as others,  a hell of their own making.

Police and Your Cell Phone

Arrests happen all of the time, and since most people in America actually have cell phones, than when they are arrested, what could be considered to be for many people their most important and personal item that they own, is now essentially in the hands of the police.  Of course, there are laws, laws of seizure, laws in regards to a warrant, all sorts of laws, and permissions granted or implied, which can protect citizens from unlawful search and seizures, in which the Supreme Court has made it clear that cell phones cannot be searched without a proper warrant, but cell phones are still searched, anyway.

The police are very good about applying pressure on suspects, and when the police have an arrestee in an either-or situation, in which, the either is to give up your cell phone voluntarily and the or Is to be arrested and taken to jail, than you as individual are really up against the wall, for once your cell phone leaves your hand, it doesn't really matter how "secure", or how "encrypted" your phone is, because unless you, yourself are some sort of professional hacker encryption expert, the police typically have all the tools that they need to "unsecure" your phone, or to "un-encrypt" your phone, and hence everything that has been done on that cell phone of yours, is available for their perusal.  This means that the voluntary relinquishing of your phone so as to not be arrested, most probably gives the police a portal to the most intimate aspects of your life, as well as giving up the connections that you have to people that are part of your social network, which may, of course, endanger them as well.  Not only that, police like to make promises and not honor them, so that, even when there is supposed to be a quid pro quo, they still arrest you anyway, so all things being equal, you are probably better served by insisting that the police get a warrant to search your phone.

The fact that cell phones are not legally searchable by the police unless under warrant or unless you give explicit permission that they can do so, doesn't mean that they won't be searched anyway, for once the cell phone is out of your hands, you aren't going to really know for a certainty what happened, and even if you are able to put together forensics clearly showing that your cell phone was searched, without a warrant, proving so in an actual court of law, is problematic, at best.  The police know all this and quite frankly the police don't really care, for at worse, there isn't really any penalty for them, except perhaps, the suppression of evidence in that particular case, but why would the police worry, because now they have all of your personal information as well as your contacts so they can easily arrest you or one of your contacts at their convenience on something else, or simply put you in their vast database to monitor and to track.

Still, it gets even easier though, for the smartest police don't want to take the chance that their evidence will get suppressed, so for certain suspects, they will play it by the book, and actually get a warrant to search your cell phone, and those warrants are issued by certain judges routinely, indicating, that the convenience and ubiquity of cell phones that carry a significant portion of our personal thoughts and activities are readily available for the police and that should definitely deeply disturb you.

All these $100 dollar bills outside America

America is not only the largest economy in the world, in fact the American economy is so large, that it is greater than the third through tenth largest country economies combined; America also has been around as a stable country since its revolutionary war against Great Britain, commenced in 1776.  Just as English is the international language of business, the American currency is the de facto default currency in numerous countries throughout the world, and not really by accident, rather, for the most part, this is by deliberate design by many other countries which align their currencies with the American dollar, even utilize it in international monetary transactions, as well as utilizing American dollars as a additional source of currency accepted within their country.  That the American dollar is so universal in usage and value throughout the world, shouldn't come as too much of a surprise, for not only are most countries' economies a very small fraction of the American global empire, many also have a past history of an unstable currency, or unstable government, or basically recognize the prudent value of conducting business in dollars, which are perceived as stable in value, as opposed to their own currency.

This then leads to the rather amazing fact, which doesn't just seem possible, but as reported by thebalance.com, "…75 percent of $100 bills" are actually held outside of the United States.  Surprisingly, not only do foreign countries have $100 bills, they typically use them as a store of value, as well as an easy and liquid way to conduct business, both legal and illicit. Still, it is amazing, that somehow in aggregate there are significantly more $100 bills outside of America, than within America, especially considering how large the American economy really is, and how there are plenty of transactions in America which also range from legal to illicit.

The above seems to imply, that Americans have many other viable options to conduct business, that typically doesn't even involve paper-bill cash, such as debit cards, credit cards, checks, crypto currency, and so on and so forth, whereas these other countries, that are far smaller in size, without ubiquitous banks or an established and stable banking system, find that the better way to take care of business, personal or otherwise, is to use what is universally considered to be of real value, American dollars, and while $100 doesn't have the value that it once did in America, the cost of living in so many other nations is significantly lower, so that $100 or even $20 have real value, and are sort of in an ironic way, considered to take the place of hard currency such as gold and silver, and are thereby treated as the equivalency of thathard currency, for the trade in these foreign lands, are not the bits and bytes of modern computers, but real physical $100 bills transferring from one hand to another.

All of this leads to the rather reasonable conclusion that having $5,000 in the bank, bearing no interest or perhaps a very minute amount, as compared to the actual $5,000 in cash, that the man that actually has the cash, is richer than the man that has the money in the bank, for that cash, is real, tangible, and fungible, whereas money in the bank, is subject to seizure, can be frozen, can magically disappear, or be re-pegged to a new discounted value, so incredibly, as dumb as it might sound, having real cash in your hands has a value beyond the actual denomination of its apparent worth.   We know that there is truth in this, for that is exactly how physical $100 bills are treated in many a country, throughout the world.

The right to be forgotten

Nobody is exactly the same as they were yesterday, or even today, or will be tomorrow, for people as well as things are in a constant change of flux, of which, some of those changes are rather dramatic, some are intensely personal, some are most definitely private, and some are pretty much of blithe unconcern.  The thing about the internet is that it is a relentless beast and massive aggregator of data, of all sorts of data, of which some of that data is outdated, embarrassing, wrong, distorted, inconvenient, truthful, untruthful, and all sorts of things, that are part and parcel of life, itself.  The thing is that this information skein which relentlessly lengthens day by day, hour by hour, minute by minute, with search engines such as Google, social media sites such as Facebook, websites such as Amazon, has the capability and the capacity to remember everything about anything.  There wouldn't necessarily be a problem with any of that, if, you, the individual, controlled the narrative, or had a material input into the material, or could cull or edit the narrative, but once information about you gets out into the public space, that control, if it even existed in America, essentiallyends.

Europe, though a recent court case, recognizes that individuals should not be compelled through internet search engines to have their old news, rehashed, over and over again, that is to say, news that may, in fact be true, but no longer has any present-day relevancy or basically represents an unwelcome invasion of a particular person's privacy, who would prefer instead, to simply be left alone, and thereby exerts their now established right to be forgotten.  While, not too surprisingly, various news organizations as well as Google, are up in arms about such legislation or law, as if the erasure of certain information off of the internet, somehow changes everything about the free flow of information, the fact of the matter is, the request is reasonable, and should be part of law, throughout the world.

There isn't a good reason, why certain news, especially when it involves non-public individuals, with pictures, with video, with graphics, with comments, with this or that, should be played or be available to the public, ad nauseam, through a few clicks on the internet.  It would be one thing, if everyone's interest on the internet was one of pure reasonableness, equanimity, fairness, concern, caring, but the fact of the matter is, the internet, is sort of like a bad Lifetime movie (and they are all bad), in which the dirt about just about everyone can be dug up and displayed, all for fun, or for shame. 

People should have a right to be forgotten, people should be entitled to privacy, and people should not have to answer to busybodies throughout the world, about things that have nothing to do with those nosey people that take pleasure through other people's discomfort, misfortune, or embarrassment.  The internet is a beast, and a beast without a bridle, is a beast that is out-of-control.  The least that Google owes the people that use its search engine, day by day, is to take responsibility for their product and its search results, especially considering that their search engine has made them billions of dollars, and thereby to show the concern and responsibility of being a good steward of this awesome invasiveness and pervasiveness that the Google search engine represents, and to thereby recognize that a reasonable concern for the discretion and consideration of individuals, makes for a better world, and far less evil.

Hi-Tech and the outsourcing of your job

This is a global economy, in which the world has gotten a lot smaller and continues to get a lot smaller, because not only is travel to all points all over the world, both relatively inexpensive while also being readily available, in recent years too, the world has become totally interconnected via the internet with all of its assorted bells and whistles.  The international language of business is English, of which those that have a good grasp of English, along with the required STEM skills, have given themselves a meaningful leg up on those that have difficulty comprehending or utilizing English.  The two most populated countries in the world today, are China and India.  India, having formerly been treated as a colony of Great Britain, but seemingly holding a fairly benign attitude towards Great Britain as well as western civilization, is a country on the rise, in which its massive population total of 1.19 billion people, as well as the fact that around 40% of that total is below the age of 20, indicates that in order to continue to economically grow, India must somehow employ millions.  Further to the point, a significant portion of Indians are competent in speaking English, as well as many of those same having strong skills in STEM capabilities, in which, Indians have an advanced public post-secondary educational system known as the Indian Institutes of Technology (ITT) of which there are currently twenty-three of these ITTs spread out through India, which have stringent admission policies, and graduate extremely competent students of technology.

This means that not only does India have degreed hi-tech engineers that can easily hold their own against their American counterparts, but they also are able to communicate well in English, and because the cost of living is more than 60% cheaper in India than in America, as well as their corresponding labor price-point being substantially cheaper than America, all this being indicative that their hi-tech engineers are bargains in comparison to AmericansAll of this, in combination with the internet means that very high paying hi-tech jobs that currently employ thousands upon thousands in America, are available, for the most part, or in conjunction to, in India, as well as other foreign countries.

As the well educated hi-tech world in America is essentially without a union, and seems to pride itself on not needing to ever be unionized, many thousands of jobs that could be conducted here in America, have already been outsourced, perhaps argued internally and somewhat mendaciously, that there aren't enough competent STEM graduates in America, so the work had to be outsourced, anyway.  The truth of the matter is, the globalization of hi-tech, and the greed and competition of hi-tech companies, have driven them to save money or make money, wherever that they can.  The rather easy decision has been to outsource jobs, for if you can utilize hi-tech workers in a given location, in which these workers are significantly cheaper in price, as well as being able to perform the work needed at a competent level, than you are going to do this, again and again and again.

The bottom line is that educated hi-tech workers in America, cannot compete against Indian educated hi-tech workers that reside and work in India, because the cost of employing those hi-tech workers in India is appreciably cheaper; this means, that hi-tech workers in America, educated ones, very competent ones, will, for a certainty, find less opportunity going forward, more fierce competition internally, as well as hitting their head against an unexpected salary ceiling again and again and again

Standing Armies and the Police

Our founding fathers knew well the danger of standing armies, as James Madison stated: "A standing military force, with an overgrown Executive will not long be safe companions to liberty."  So too, the Third Amendment to the Constitution states: "No Soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the Owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law." Currently, the United States doesn't just have a standing army, we are far beyond that, instead, we have the budget of our vast military empire, along with the associated personnel and corporations that serve this empire, so that this vast military-industrial complex lends itself to the very thing that creates a constant disturbance to citizens of the United States each and every day, which is, the more areas of this world, America has its footprint in, the more trouble is brewed, not staved.

That aside, there are in fit, form, and function, truly standing armies in America, they are in our communities, they are part and parcel of our justice system, in which, we recognize them today, as the police.  What most people are not aware of, is this modern-day police force that we take for granted as a necessity in order to maintain law and order, safety, and civility, did not actually exist back in colonial times.  Further to the point, one of the greatest errors made by Great Britain, when we were still just a colony to them, was the decision made by Great Britain to board their troops in the homes of civilians in America as well as to utilize these troops as essentially their version of everyday law enforcement against the recalcitrant colonists.  This meant that a "standing army" was absolutely part of the colonial experience, interfering with the colonists day-to-day activities, constantly monitoring the colonists, with obviously the means and firepower to assert their authority if need be.

It then follows from the above, that today's centralized police force that are ubiquitous in any city of any significant size, represents in fit and form, a standing army.  These police forces are armed, they are the equivalency of a military force, and they have the right or own the right, to arrest people and to confiscate material items from the public, with virtual practical immunity from any justice system.   Not only does the police force arrest whomever that they so desire, in the public sphere, but routinely they do not identify themselves so as to infiltrate designated organizations, which, of themselves are guilty of nothing, so as to monitor and to regulate such.  Further, under some of the slimmest pretenses, certain citizens of this country are not even safe within their own private space, such as their homes or their cars, from forceful entry and even the use of lethal force.

While, many citizens believe that there is a necessity for a police force, they are missing the most important point, which is that there is a massive difference of a police force that responds to the people, as created by those people, as opposed to a police force that works hand-in-hand with untouchable governmental agencies of all sorts, prosecutorial agents with their own agenda, and the overall invasiveness of a well trained, aggressive police force that targets certain classes of citizens, while protecting specifically a favored few.  Today's police force has far too much power, with minimal accountability, that creates unnecessary tensions between the population as a whole and such policing agencies.  It would be one thing if police actually did serve and protect, of which, some do, but rather in whole, the typical mindset is to aggressively pursue those that have no power, so as to put their boot upon their neck, and make them to know, that at all times, with no sanctuary to be had, that they are subjects to the master class.

Military weapons and graphic warnings

In the real world, things that we buy and consume that have any sort of inherent danger attached to them, whatsoever, carry warning labels that are often mandated by law, of which most of those warning labels have an excruciatingly long list of adverse consequences that could happen, if the particular product is used incorrectly, or overused, or misused, and so and so forth.  The point of these warnings is obviously to protect not only the intended recipient of the product but also to help serve as a warning to carefully protect the product from getting into the hands of the innocent and inept.  Of course, most of these warnings are written, though some may have little sketch figures attached, demonstrating in picture form, perhaps the danger of hi-voltage electricity, and then there are a very few products, such as cigarettes, being the prime example, in which certain countries make it their business to decree by law, rather graphic images of how damaging that smoking cigarettes can be to one's health, with the basic point of such an exercise being to help to reduce smoking in which it is believed that breaking the fantasy that, for instance, smoking is cool, or smoking is hip, with the replacement of a rather nasty graphic image that indicates that smoking is neither cool or hip.

The country that sells and manufactures the most military weapons in the world is the United States.  Not too surprisingly, a significant swath of these weapons, are weapons that are lethal, and deliberately lethal, that is to say, these weapons, such as virtually all armaments and all bombs, are purposely designed to destroy infrastructure, and/or to kill people.  In addition, the various companies that manufacture these weapons, are well aware of their intentional design destructiveness, for that is the very thing that they are selling to national and international defense agencies.  This means, that these companies, besides mandating safety internally when manufacturing such weapons and the controls that go with that safety, could, if they so desire, or could if they were mandated by law to do so, assign graphic warnings onto the shipping crates that contain such weapons, as well as placing in strategic areas throughout their facility, graphic warnings about the products that are produced there, in addition to, such graphic warnings could on certain weapon systems be attached to the actual weapon itself.

It is vitally important that those that make money in the killing business, which is essentially what all weapons are manufactured to do when boiled down to their true essence, be compelled by law, that for their annual stockholder reports, for their annual stockholder meetings, and for their public meetings of all sorts, be compelled to display proudly in graphic form, the obvious consequences of what happens to people when their weapons are used in the form that these weapons have been deliberately designed to accomplish.  While there isn't anything wrong, with military defense contractors talking up how vital that they are to the nation's defense, it isn't fair and it isn't truthful, for these same contractors, to not also stand behind what their product does to people in the real world, so that if pride is the immediate emotion that comes to mind when you realize the destructive awesomeness of your product, or the incisive accuracy of your weapons, it seems only fair and right, to also show the end result of those weapons as utilized in the most common and likely way that they are, which would include explicitly or implicitly what these weapons do to people, with graphic pictures taken from the real world, proudly posted, so that there wouldn't be any confusion about the actual nature of the business as conducted, which is really "blood for money".

To The Government: Thou Shalt Not

Over time and through the years, the people have been browbeaten by a federal government that has aggrandized unto itself more and more powers, and more and move invasiveness into the ordinary affairs of its citizens.  While, on the one hand, we can appreciate the usefulness of a powerful national government in helping to provide the citizens with a common national defense, along with good infrastructure, such as roads, electricity, transportation, schooling, and assorted other things that we take for granted each and every day, there is on the other hand, something troubling about a government that takes it upon itself that it should know each and every detail, no matter how obscure, no matter how private, that involves a given individual, placing the government always in that catbird seat, which allows them to have the power to boss and to control its citizens, or else, steal from these people their very freedom, or freedom of movement, or freedom of thought, or freedom to just be about their business.

The Constitution which is the law of the land, is something that the federal government, the courts, and those in the upper echelons of power, have re-constituted to suit their particular needs and desires, of which, the very first sign that things are woefully amiss is the fact that the Constitution should not be looked upon as a document that enumerates certain specific rights and obligations that citizens have, which have been granted to them on a specific case by case basis, but rather that the Constitution is actually a document that specifies, in particular, by its Ninth and Tenth Amendments, that the true power of this land rests in the hands of the people, and therefore it so logically follows, that this is a government of the people, by the people, and for the people, signifying that the Constitution, as well as our Declaration of Independence were specifically written to uphold the common man, his freedom, his vision, his dreams, and that this government derives its just powers only and by the consent of those so governed, and is not, and shall not be a power unto itself.

Further to the most obvious point, this means, that a government in which the citizens have to petition the government as to what they can or cannot do, is not the government that the Constitution created.  The Constitution was meant to create a free people, with free will, in which the primary purpose of that Constitution was more akin to laissez faire, than a government that insists it must regulate and control virtually everything in the ordinary affairs of its citizens.  There are many problems with governmental monitoring and governmental control, of which, the most basic of these problems, is that rather than the government helping to create or to maintain a level playing field, the government typically plays favorites, and thereby those that have influence with the government, or, even worse, are part of the government, have an unfair advantage over all those, that are not so favored, for the government as presently constructed, is virtually never fair, never equal, and never just.

This then is the very crux of the problem, for a government that is large enough to do everything for you, is the very same government which is powerful enough to destroy or to control you.  The best government, then, for those that are true seekers of freedom, is truly the government that governs least, for powers by the people ceded gradually or suddenly to governmental authorities, results in oppression and tyranny, and thereby the trading of one's freedom for servitude.

Remembering our modern war dead

Servicemen and servicewomen all over the world, that have given their last full measure of devotion to their country, deserve to be remembered, and deserve not to be forgotten, especially by their country and their people that requested their service in the first place.  This means that either laws must be made or implicit encouragement must be given by this government that through the public air waves of all sorts and types, through the internet, through national and local media, that these devoted men and women, shall be remembered.

In particular, this acknowledgement of service in action, should be done on the most current basis possible, that is to say, as soon as military authorities know for a certainty that a particular soldier has died in combat, and have notified the next of kin of such, than this information shall be disseminated to the appropriate governmental news source for dispersion to news outlets throughout this great nation, and in particular, that it shall be actively encouraged that the names of any and all soldiers so killed, shall be read and/or published, on a timely basis, daily, if appropriate,  as a public announcement, deserving of the attention of the people of this nation.

This would indicate that for newspapers, for example, that within an appropriate area of such a newspaper, such as within the obituaries, that the listing of servicemen and servicewoman that have died in combat shall be listed.  So too, for television and radio news organizations, as a requirement by the Federal Communications Commission,  a public service announcement in regards to war dead, shall be disbursed throughout this nation, as a courtesy and as a show of respect to these devoted soldiers.

Additionally, each Memorial day, it should be highly recommended and encouraged by this national government, that at places of eternal rest, the names of those that have died in service to their country over the last running twelve months, shall be read to the public, as a show of respect and of honor to our dearly departed.  We owe this hallowed roll call to those that gave all, on behalf of this great nation.

It is important to remember and never to forget those that have died on behalf of their nation, because when wars are being fought overseas, there is a tendency for the population, to be ignorant or somewhat forgetful of the fact that real men and real women, typically young in age, have died in the service of their nation, and that we, the living, have an inherent obligation, to make sure that their deaths have not been in vain, by resolving to do what we can to honor freedom, virtue, sacrifice, and courage, for these are the very things that make this country great.

It is vital to see war for what it really is, for war is always that inconvenient truth, that when mankind will not get along with each other, when mankind will not listen to reason, when mankind attempts to wrest away something that isn't theirs, when mankind refuses to compromise, and when mankind insists that the battleground is the only appropriate place to resolve disputes, than soldiers will die, good soldiers, and may we the living do our best to see that their deaths have not been for naught.