The Power of the Word: No

Most people have a desire to get along with others, to please others, and to, in general, obey others, for a lot of reasons, some well thought out and some not really thought about at all.  But, it is wise to remember, that you have been gifted with your own mind, by the very same Creator that has gifted all with free will, and that the greatest usage of that free will, is to utilize it in a manner that provides the greatest service to others, as well as to yourself, in which, the truly wise understand the value of, as Shakespeare told us, "…to thine own self be true."

While people get into trouble for all sorts of reasons, if one takes an honest look, at decisions and things that they have done that gave them the most trouble, a significant amount of that time, there is blame that lays not so much exclusively at their own door, but blame that rests somewhat with someone else, that deceived us, tricked us, used us, or took advantage of us, by suggesting or pressuring us into making a fateful decision that resulted in very negative consequences, and pretty much our fateful decision, started not with the word: "No", but rather with the verbal word "yes" or mere silent acquiescence to their demand or request, even though, many times, within our mind, it cried out to us, that the correct answer, was indeed, no.

We have friends, parents, bosses, teachers, and associates, that we deal with day by day, but these people, in authority or not, our peers or not, are not perfect within themselves, and while many are good people with good advice, there are many more that are just plain wrong in what that they do, in what they suggest, in what they ask or request or demand that we do.  It is those times, we should utilize the free will given to us, to stand strong, and to not give in to what we either know to be wrong in the first place, or to the temptation to do something that we suspect is wrong, or to unthinkingly just do it, when we should actually think it through.

The decisions that you make, day by day, define you as a person, those decisions, badly influenced by others or not, are still ultimately your decisions, in which you will have to take the responsibility of such, so that, while it is true in order that to make progress one has to move, not every step is the correct step to take, for some steps are on the wrong path, or in the wrong direction, and further to the point, the goals and desires of one person may be diametrically opposed to the viewpoint of another person, for they are not you.

Therefore, have the courage and the strength to make a stand, and to thereby walk away from what appears to be wrong, or at least, give yourself time to properly consider it, or to even consult with people of respect, rather than hastily make a decision that you may well regret, sooner or later.  The very best time to do the right thing is at the beginning, when the decision must be made, of which, in life, in general, learn of the power and usefulness of saying "no", for the dead go with the flow, but the living do not necessarily have to.

Injustice and Justice

There are on any given day a multitude of unjust decisions made on formal and informal levels, and the people making those unjust decisions know it, but still they do it, knowingly.  They do it, for a lot of reasons, one being that they do not have the courage to do the right thing, that is to say, for example, seeing someone that is suffering from racial baiting, in which there are others that are aware of it, but all fear to interfere with it, for they fear that they will suffer for their interference no matter how direct or indirect.  So too, there are laws on the books that are applied in unfair ways so that certain people are discriminated against, clearly demarking a society in which some are more "equal" than others, yet, those on the side of the line in which they benefit from such discrimination, are often afraid to voice their viewpoint, for they appreciate on some level the fact that they are treated better and with more privilege.  Then there are laws and societal norms which precludes being just to one's neighbor, because within that clique, within that societal norm, to do so, would bring dishonor to the family name, therefore that is not the way things are done, so hence you won't do the right thing.

The bottom line, though, is that there is never a time not to do the right thing, there is never a time not to do correct justice, there is never a time not to be fair, and there is never a time not to recognize that all mankind are created equally by our Creator.  For when we state that the time isn't right for justice, and that the time isn't right to be fair, we imply, or more than imply that when certain conditions are met, and these conditions always seem to be in flux, then, and only then, will we do right.  This type of thinking is corrupt, for either something is right, and it is right -- right now, or it is wrong right now, wrong in the first place, wrong forever, and wrong to keep doing.

The incomparable Theodore Parker stated that: “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.” The very reason that the arc of the moral universe is so long to begin with, is because mankind is so stubborn in providing justice to their fellow man.  Especially irksome, are do-gooders, which preach one thing, but practice another, stating to the oppressed people all over, that their time will come, but not now, as if justice for all, would upset the entire universe and make for a world that is worse than it is, already. 

The bottom line for politicians and the people that they represent is this, Constitutional government has been the law in America for over two hundred and twenty five years, through civil war, domestic disturbances, and other wars, and still justice is miles and miles away.  Clearly, those that run this country, those that are our legislatures, our executives, and our judges, do not and have not read or comprehended fully the Constitution of this country, nor the Declaration of Independence. For if they had, they would, for a certainty, do the very things, that would make this a country of the people, for the people, and by the people, with liberty and justice for all.

The Spirit and the physical

Imagine a world in which there are dinosaurs, monkeys, guerillas, alligators, and all sorts of animals, a world that you are aware of but not part of, yet, you find the world to be so fascinating that you desire to visit it, but you have no physical form to do so, because you are spirit, and because you are spirit you are free to incarnate into physical forms and to thereby experience physical life, its limits, its fascinations, its dilemmas, and so on and so forth. 

Tempted,  you go aheadand incarnate, and at first, incarnating into physical form is something that is done as a mere sideshow, because you are consciously aware that you are spirit, but as you incarnate from this animal to that animal, from this thing to that thing, you begin to lose sight of who and what you really are, which is spirit, and more and more begin to find yourself becoming to believe that you really are exclusively that physical thing, subject to physical laws, subject to the lusts and needs of a physical body, subject to all the limitations of material life, but in a perverse way, enjoying the thrill of that experience, the power of being able to take from other animals, the excitement, the everyday drama, and the thrill of physical form.

Yet, on the downside, your physical body suffers harm and damage, it ages, it experiences cold and heat, hunger and satiation, victory and defeat.  In addition, whereas once you were free to disincarnate from one animal to another, now, your spirit is somehow encased within the physical, and for the most part, forgotten, so that, whereupon the death of that physical form, there is a momentary confusion, as to who and what you really are, before the scales fell off of your eyes, and you know that you are as you always had been, spirit, but your spirit, itself, feels unclean, and unworthy to join itself back with the First Cause, for having lived a life as an animal, you had taken on the characteristics of an animal, of selfishness and of aggression, which are inimical to the attributes of spirit.

This meant, that you felt a need to correct what had gone wrong, thereby having a strong desire to re-incarnate back into animal form, not to continue along the path that you had been on, of pure animal passion, but to take the animal, and to evolve it into something that it had not previously been, so as to make that animal, not only more sentient, knowing right from wrong, but to make the animal more sociable, less selfish, and more in harmony with the First Cause.

Unfortunately, while there were those in spirit form that felt the urge to reform and to uplift the animals that they had incarnated into, there were many others, that felt no need to do so, whatsoever, so enraptured in physical life that they had become, that they preferred not to change a thing, to ignore that still, small voice, and to do the things that gave them pleasure, or power, or satisfied their material lusts and desires, so that, this material world, once a fascinating paradise, became instead a battleground, of which this battleground continues until this very day, good v. evil, right v. wrong, selfishness v. unselfishness,  on and on, but the end result will be to come back to how it was, in the beginning.

The industrial revolution and labor

There was a time when the only thing helping human labor to produce goods and foods, were various beasts of burden, but in the late 18th century, mankind began to make and to utilize machines, primarily powered by coal, of which these multitude of machines were able to help produce power in order to manufacture textile products, in addition to manufacturing machines specifically for agricultural and textiles, as well as tools to help extract more coal, and to aid in the creation of transportation systems such as railroads, of which, once the industrialists began to fully understand just how much vital production that could be achieved by utilizing new power sources as well as utilizing machines to help in the creation of products, previously done entirely by hand, the industrial revolution, literally changed the day-to-day conditions of western civilization.

This meant that societies changed from being primarily agricultural societies, into creating the need for cities, so as to have the economies of scale and efficiencies of labor, machinery, and transportation, working cohesively together, which in aggregate, made societies significantly richer than they ever had previously been before, so that the everyday products from food, to travel, to housing, to farming, to clothing, all became much cheaper and produced at unheard of scales. This, also, created the rise of the middle class, because products needed managers, sales people, infrastructure, logistics, and all the other things that make up an organization, creating a labor force that was able to assert itself through fits and starts to receiving reasonable accommodations and pay, in return by doing so, the manufacturers of such received a reliable and productive work force.  So that, in effect, societies inexorably changed from being basically the noble class or its equivalency, along with a relatively small class of lawyers, clergy, doctors and such, with everyone else being day-to-day laborers or artisans, into the need for skilled laborers utilizing the machines so as to make products, maintain them, and to coordinate all this so that the entrepreneurs of the age could make good money.

This rise of the middle class during the industrial revolution, was not then, an anticipated event, or even necessarily a desirable thing, it was more part of a happenstance of the age, for the industrial revolution, was not really driven by a need or desire to uplift the human race as a whole, but fundamentally was built upon more profit, cheaper product, bigger scaling, better transportation, all so as to have a bigger market share, and the desire to make more money through the usage of machines,  in lieu of human labor.  What occurred, through the industrial revolution, however, was a change for the vast majority of laborers, from previously having to make their money solely through their physical labor into a new workforce, that utilized machines guided by the hand and mind of man so as to produce more product more efficiently than had ever been done before.

We now live in an age in which the sophistication of machines has grown so much, that these modern-day robotics, have become truly a force unto themselves, replacingoften times, scores of humans that were necessary for earlier versions of such machines and robots.  Today's robots are so sophisticated, so precise, and so consistent, along with their ability to work 24/7, that this negates the necessity for a huge swath of blue collar workers to work alongside them, and are a clear and present danger for the necessity of the current infrastructure of white collar middle management, leaving basically only the requirement for laborers that are minimally skilled, or laborers of highly specialized skills, whereas the upper management of such, reap the monster share of enormous financial benefits from these robotics.  Everyone else, (e.g.) the former middle class, which has had a tremendous run of good fortune, since the onset of the industrial revolution,  are now trending towards dropping into subsistence levels, where their future are ones of lifetime indebtedness and of treading water, for the age of robotics needs them not.

The Economic Debt of the Four Horsemen

It's difficult for anybody to really fathom exactly what one trillion dollars represents, for in the everyday way of things, we have a good conception of a million dollars, but a trillion dollars is so far beyond that, it seems unfathomable, but it is very real and it definitely exists.  First off, a billion dollars is a thousand million dollars, so a thousand millionaires would be worth in aggregate one billion dollars.  This then means that one million millionaires would be worth in aggregate one trillion dollars.  While there are plenty of millionaires, there are less than two thousand billionaires in the world, and the man with the current highest net worth in the world, is Bill Gates at about $86 billion dollars, which is less than 10% of a trillion dollars.

The white horse is the student loan debt which is estimated to be $1.31 trillion dollars, of which, this debt has increased from a fairly reasonable amount of just $90 billion dollars in 1999, to its current debt load of over a trillion dollars.  All of this debt might be okay, if the United States, over the last generation had spent an inordinate amount of money to produce a country of geniuses, but that isn't true, whatsoever.  The higher education con-game, has extracted billions upon billions of dollars primarily from financially unsophisticated young adults so that they have mortgaged their future to a debt load that in many cases is incredibly oppressive to their budget, with a lot of these students having either no degree, that is, they didn't even complete their collegiate courses, or a graduate degree that has been of little or no worth to them.  While it seems fine, to pay the money now to get the education that will make life better, the price of education is exceeding too high for many, and basically is a virulent form of exploitation of the young.

The red horse is credit card debt, in which marketwatch.com states that we have: "$1.021 trillion in outstanding revolving credit in June 2017."  Those banks and other banking type institutions that issue credit cards do not see such as some sort of beneficial favor to consumers, but as a way to make money off of consumers, in which, their preference, of which there is an abundant amount of people that fit this description, are people that are forever behind the proverbial eight ball, so that they must use credit cards in order to either make ends meet month by month, and/or are tempted to spend money that they don't readily have in order to get something that they would like to have, now.  This allows those banks to charge a princely finance charge, along with other assorted penalties and fees for those that short-pay their monthly payments or are late, of which those financial fees along with financial interest charges, are a rich source of revenue for the banks, for the cost of money to the banks is negligible but the cost to consumers is stratospheric.

The black horse is automobile debts,  according to qz.com, the "US closed out 2016 with just shy of $1.2 trillion in outstanding auto loan debt," of which these loans to consumers have never been longer in the length of time, that is to say, whereas five years was the maximum amount of time for an auto loan, thirty years ago, in today's auto loan world, according to time.com, "…less than 35% of us take out financing for five years or less," indicating that never has the length of time for auto loans been longer than it is at the present day, despite the fact that the interest cost for said loans have been at historic lows for the last decade or so.  This indicates clearly, that for far too many people, they are lured into purchasing far too much car, by what appears to be low or reasonable monthly payments that go on forever, while starting further and further away from the real equity in their vehicle, because the amount that they owe exceeds the actual worth of the car upon purchase.

The pale horse, is mortgage debt, and this horse visited us not so long ago in the years 2007-2009, and despite changes made in the mortgage world, to verify employment, to sell to credit-worthy recipients, for higher down payments, and so on and so forth, the bottom line in the mortgage business, is that the more loans that are generated, the more potential profit and fees that are generated, in addition to the fact that mortgage originators often off-load their loans to the quasi-governmental guarantee organizations, known as Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae.  The amount of mortgage debt in America is currently over $14.5 trillion dollars, yet, it wasn't until 1977 that mortgage debt first crossed over $1 trillion dollars, and this current amount of debt is probably within months of exceeding the highest amount known on record which occurred in 2008. 

These four horsemen, are all under the most extreme danger of any sort of normalization of interest rates, that is to say we have been living in an interest rate environment in which the borrower of such, especially those of excellent credit, have never paid lower interest rates, but the Federal Reserve has slowly begun to raise their rate of interest to a more traditional higher rate, and should this continue, each of these four horsemen, will find that being the borrowers of such, that they cannot and will not be able to stay current on their payments, leading not to a more severe version of recession that was suffered through just a scant ten years ago, but an outright depression or even a collapse of our monetary system as we currently know it.

America's Three Estates

Before there was a French revolution, the monarchy of France was divided into three basic Estates.  The First Estate was the clergy, which not only owned a significant amount of land, but paid no taxes on their income or their land, but instead collected taxes from their constituents so as to maintain their status as well as to pass onto the monarchy these taxes as a form of tribute. The Second Estate were the nobility, which also owned a significant amount of land, and in an era in which wealth came from the land, owned the hunting and fishing rights of their land, as well as the agricultural resources, so those that worked such land, or had need of such land in order to hunt or fish, paid a fee, or were taxed, or paid a percentage of their produce to these nobles, for the privilege of using their lands.  Everyone else in France, not part of the monarchy, or the First or Second Estate, made up the Third Estate.  The Third Estate, was essentially the commoners, which made up the vast majority of the population, who essentially subsidized the first two Estates as well as the Monarchy, as they were the ones that paid the taxes needed for the regime, provided the soldiers for the regime, paid fees to the regime, and owned, if they were fortunate, small tracts of land, and were virtually never upwardly mobile, so that becoming members of the first two Estates was typically a forlorn hope.

In today's America, each year, we devolve further and further into Three Estates.  The order of such in America, is different than was France, in the sense that the First Estate, are not nobles, but the business owners of our largest mega-corporations, in which, such corporations, through the corruption of our tax laws, pay corporate taxes at such a low rate, for instance, as reported by cnn.com, Apple paid in 2014 in the European Union "… a tax rate of just 0.005%.."  In addition, the highest executives in these massive corporations, prefer their compensation not in paid salary but in stock options, so that they can postpone the tax man till such time as it is most favorable for them, which precludes them from being taxed at the ordinary income rates which are considerably higher, but instead are taxed, at the much lower capital gain rates, or possibly even escaping taxes, depending upon the moves and maneuvers available to them. 

The Second Estate in America, is our religious organizations, that do not pay property taxes, nor do they pay any federal, State, or local income taxes, so that churches that own their own property do not contribute to their community by paying taxes on their property, but in theory, contribute through their contributions and investments made within the community in their charity and services as provided, of which this money comes from the commoners of their community.  Additionally, the pastor of a given church, is provided with a very nice tax perk, of being able to deduct from the pastor's income, a housing allowance, so that if a given pastor earns $40,000, but has housing costs, of $30,000, than their effective income tax is based not on their $40,000 income, but on the much lower number of $10,000. 

The Third Estate in America, is everyone else, though they may own their own homes, own their own small business, have other investments and things of worth, all are subject to the full taxation authorities of federal, State, local, property, and any other assorted taxes that are charged to common Americans. Of course, within that Third Estate some people are doing much better than others, but in aggregate, as each year marches on, the Third Estate must carry more and more of the burden of the nation, which is why the middle class has been struggling just to maintain its own over the last two generations, and why we seemingly have a permanent underclass, that will never get out from under.

Education and Morality

While education has many purposes along with being of immense value for the improvement and advancement of society, the most fundamental thing that any good education must address is morality and thereby one's perspective of life itself.  That is to say, it's great that through teachers, application, books, tools, classes, discussions, thinking, and so on and so forth, that we can bring forth to each succeeding generation, better engineers, better scientists, better doctors, and better educated people, but it isn't good enough to simply have smarter people if they have little or no moral compass to correctly steer their life upon, for the greatest danger in any world, isn’t any particular individual intent upon evil, but a particular individual that is well schooled, charismatic, ruthless, driven, and persuasive, that thereby has the ability to lead many, many people to do evil things against the good of society.

There are many people, for whatever vacuous reason, that believe that there isn't a known truth, or that truth is relative, or all sorts of basic philosophies built upon deceptions and falsehoods that persuade them to believe whatever convenient thing that it is for them to believe, yet, just studying children as they interact and play, clearly shows that there is one very basic truth that all are ingrained with, and it is this truth, that we should always keep front and center.  For instance, when one child bullies another child, does the teacher encourage this behavior as being something that should be emulated; or when one child refuses to share with another child, does the teacher applaud such behavior; or do teachers encourage and admire liars, cheaters, hatred, and disruption?  The very basic answer is no, because most people believe intuitively that life should be fair, equal, just, and that we should deal with others with respect and courtesy, yet, looking around at how often adults interact on a business and personal level, indicates that many people have put aside such concerns in order to get ahead, or to get over on somebody else, or to just be selfish, for the most basic truth of them all is that we should treat others the same way that we wish to be treated ourselves.

It is imperative within any education system, supported and aided by the state, that proper morality and ethics be taught to children within that system, and further should continue to be taught to those that then attend higher education.  It isn't good enough to simply tell people that certain things and certain actions are wrong, for children are inquisitive, and adults question just about everything, so that, there needs to be an interplay, which allows students to begin to understand empathy, other perspectives, as well as the importance of integrity, honor, reciprocity, and respect.

It's unfair to expect that people will do the right thing, if they don't really know, if they don't really understand, if they don't really comprehend, what the right thing is to do and why that is the right thing to do in the first place.  That is why any educational system that lacks the fortitude to teach basic morals and to impress these upon their charges, has failed those students.  Our educational system has an inherent obligation to teach children how to think, and within that thinking, why it is important to think things through and to thereby do the right things, for if we can't accomplish that, we shouldn't expect the world to become a better place.

The misuse of handcuffs

Police routinely use handcuffs when arresting people, no matter if the person is pregnant, wounded, injured, a child, suffering from dementia, or even if they are dead.  The basic police procedure of handcuffing everyone so that the police don't appear discriminatory to anyone, is nonsensical, for there are a lot of really bad reasons to handcuff everyone indiscriminately, along with the most fundamental problem of them all, which is, many people that have been arrested should not be handcuffed with their hands behind their back in the first place for they pose no flight danger, no physical danger, no conformity danger, and have offered no resistance or have not the capacity to offer resistance or trouble to the arresting officer.

To say that all crimes, or alleged crimes, fit the exact same mold, so that all those that are arrested for crimes, should be handcuffed is stupid and unacceptable, for there are many crimes that have absolutely nothing to do with violence whatsoever, in which, these people have shown no predisposition for violence, aren't acting violent, are physically weak, are vulnerable, are a female, elderly, or very young juveniles, and they should not be handcuffed unless circumstances clearly substantiate the exception to the obvious.

The handcuffing of arrestees has not a lot to do with the actual need to control an arrestee but has a lot more to do with police asserting their power to control, to humiliate, to hurt and to belittle the arrestee.  The fact that a particular person has been arrested in the first place, has essentially turned their life upside down, but to add pain and punishment because a criminal charge has been made against a given person, does not make that person, guilty of that charge, in addition, with most people, if you treat them with respect and dignity, they will treat you the very same way back.

While, certainly there are times that necessitate handcuffing a suspect, and while it is pertinent to take into account, the size and strength of a suspect, their mental state, whether they are a fugitive, and so on and so forth, it isn't right that handcuffing suspects of all stripes and types is considered to be routine or policy, because, it really is a form of street punishment meted out by the state through its policing authority, against suspects that have been convicted of nothing, and have yet to be found guilty in a courtroomof their peers, though they are handcuffed as if they are guilty of something.

The police like to talk about safety, in particular, they imply that handcuffing of suspects is necessary to protect the public, to protect the person being arrested, and only as an afterthought as a protection for the arresting arm of the state, but the truth is that handcuffing suspects often isn't necessary, adds unnecessary tension to the situation, is deliberately cruel to the suspect, and a form of punishment for those that have been convicted of no crime.

The policing authority of the state is supposed to serve and to protect the citizens of that state, bur their actions of treating citizens as if they were animals, in need of restraint through the indiscriminate usage of handcuffs, reflects their contempt of those citizens, who have an inherent right to be free of any punishment and to be free of any coercion, until they have been lawfully convicted in a court of law, for those that are arrested but are never convicted of any crime, yet suffered through being arrested, embarrassed, inconvenienced, harmed, and handcuffed, never do receive any recompense from the policing arm of the state, other than the stamp of disrespect they received by that policing arm when they were first handcuffed.

The deathly spiral of the impoverished that are left behind

America prides itself of allowing its denizens to move from place to place, from town to town, from city to city, from State to State, so that, just becauseyou currently live in a safe neighborhood, or a decent neighborhood,  or an okay neighborhood, or a great neighborhood, doesn't necessarily mean it will always be that way, as though, in theory, things always get better, because there are certain specific neighborhoods in which things don't ever seem to get better, rather, they inevitably get worse, and sometimes a lot worse.

For instance, whether it is labeled correctly "white flight" or not, when a given neighborhood for whatever reason has a traumatic change in its perspective, or demographics, or work force, the cascade of changes affecting such a neighborhood can have an enormous impact upon those that are left behind.  That is to say, neighborhoods that have more money, neighborhoods that have more income, neighborhoods that have more wealth, neighborhoods that have more net worth, are typically going to be neighborhoods that have a surrounding infrastructure that supports that material fact, so that the parks will be better and safer, the policing of such will be more professional and competent, the schools will be better, the infrastructure of stores, shops, libraries, hospitals, roads, and so on and so forth, all will also be better.  This signifies for those neighborhoods, that living in such a community will be pleasant, for it is, by definition, a nice place to live.  On the other hand, when all these things are going in the opposite direction, the very opposite thing will happen, which means that the neighborhood and all the peripheral things that go with being in a safe and nice neighborhood, will be appreciably worse and trending strongly to that downward spiral.

This means, when, for whatever reason, there is a perception that the racial mix of a neighborhood is considered to be trending towards intolerable, or the religion of new residents is suspect, or the look and behavior of residents seems uncivil or uncomfortable, or there has been a notable closure of a means of employment, or the infrastructure of public places is suffering from disrepair, that those that are most perceptive, or perhaps more correctly considered most selfish, will, if they have the means and wherewithal, begin to plot their escape and removal from their current living situation into a neighborhood that they find more suitable.  This would be okay, except for this very important reason, which is, if the neighbors that first leave a neighborhood which appears to be on the downswing, are those neighbors that have the most money, that have the most wealth, that have the most education, that have the most means to move out and they do indeed move out, than the residents that are left behind are in aggregate, less of all of these material things, making the neighborhood not only appreciably poorer but also far more vulnerable to dire consequences.

In America, it seems far too often, that is always easier to build something new or to start anew, rather than take what is already in place and to thereby take the necessary steps to fix it, or to repair such, before it becomes too late to mend it or to replace it.  Communities in which the economic opportunities have been eviscerated, in which the school system has become second-rate or even worse, in which the policing is seen as the problem and not as a service, and the residents have devolved into apathy, or incivility, and fear and discord are part and parcel of such a community, aren't going to be communities of people that are good neighbors, but instead are going to be communities of neighbors that have become an underclass which is under-served, under-cared for,  and left behind as the losers in a game that they didn't even know was being played.

A Decade of super low interest rates

The Federal funds rate is the interest rate that a depository institution (e.g. banks) lends funds maintained at the Federal Reserve to another depository institution, and this rate since October of 2008, has not been higher than 1.5%, and currently resides at 1.25% as of October, 2017, after being quiescent at 0.25% for over seven years, indicating that for the last ten years, the United States along with other nations, has had an historically low Federal Funds rate, which is completely abnormal to the history of this rate from previous decades.

While there are many ostensible reasons why the interest rates have been so low for so long, the most prevalent reason given by mainstream media is because of the financial crisis, specifically the housing mortgage crisis and the collateral debt obligations (CDO) created in order for banks to profit, only for the buyers of such to discover that many CDOs were essentially toxic, leading to the severe discounting or outright default of these CDOs, along with the material assets (e.g. houses) plummeting in value, effectively making these mortgage loans significantly higher than the revised intrinsic value of such homes, plunging the loaners of mortgages along with the buyers of CDOs to the brink of a catastrophic meltdown.  The Fed felt that they had no choice but to effectively drop their Federal Fund rate to essentially zero, so as to postpone and to stave off debt which already could not successfully be serviced to the lowest level that could be created in the hopes that by doing so, this would allow debtors to get their house in order.

These super low interest rates did reduce the debt service load for many debtors, so that debts that would have cost billions of dollars more to service, were essentially transferred from the debtor to those that had monetary assets (e.g. savers), so that those that previously parked their money in Certificates of Deposit (CD) or other cash-like instruments, while still having such available to purchase, discovered to their dismay, that CDs rather than paying their somewhat traditional 5.25% were instead now yielding 0.25%. 

This would imply that in today's new super lower interest rate environment, that it has never been better to be a debtor than a saver, which is true to a certain extent, and that extent basically only is accurate for those that have excellent credit and large monetary assets, for those people and institutions can receive loans at rates previously unheard of for any appreciable length of time, and thereby leverage up their investments so as to make money via real estate or equities or other financial maneuvers.  On the other hand, while debtors find that servicing their debt has been significantly reduced, the problem that they still have is the fact that they have debt that they cannot seem to escape from, for debt can never be paid back, if the debtor cannot generate the income or growth to pay such debt back, and if the assets, if there are any, used as collateral for such a debt, are worth less than the debt, indicating that the creditor will not wish to foreclose on such a debt, for there is little or nothing to collect, but rather the creditor will desire tokeep the debt open forever, continually bleeding their debtors, so as to at least receive something, for if and when, the creditor has to write off what are uncollectible debts, than the creditor has lost that asset for good.

A decade of super low interest rates are a reflection that the economic growth rate in virtually all western nations is very low, that the debt load within these nations is already so high that higher interest rates on debtors would wrought financial disaster, and that therefore continual low inflation, low growth, and an overall precarious financial situation is the norm, for the balance sheets of nations such as America, shows a monstrous debt load, increasing yearly, with absolutely no fiscal plan to deal with it, so that the creditors of American debt, recognize that interest rates must continue to remain low into the foreseeable future, or a worldwide recession will occur, or much, much worse.

Advertising and that pleasurable feeling

"Just the facts, ma'am", has little or nothing to do with advertising that consumers are inundated with each and every day, no matter, the medium that they engage it with.  That is to say, while advertisers could spend an inordinate amount of time listing all the reasons why consumers should pick their particular product over a competing source or an alternative source, fact by fact, they seldom bother to do such.  Rather, advertising is much more about trying to create an emotional connection between the consumer and the product that is actually being advertised, so that facts for the most part are put aside, especially since facts for a given product, as in its particular effectiveness, are often illusive, transitory, and not necessarily true, so rather than being caught making claims of some dubious veracity, advertisers find it far more lucrative and successful to advertise in a manner that invokes good and pleasurable feelings in an audience. 

For instance, most everybody wants on some level to be liked, or admired, or respected, and other attributes of that sort, because it makes them feel better about their validity and about themselves.  Advertisers are well aware of this need for self-validation, so they make it their purpose to advertise products that will make you feel that if you own such, you will feel better or more accomplished about yourself.  So too, advertisements are a way to take a product and to make it appear to be something that if you are able to own it, your status rises because you have it.

While advertisements could make it their point to appeal to consumers in both a logical and straightforward manner, they recognize that they are far more successful in selling products to consumers through emotional tie-ins, that tap into the inner yearning and desires of consumers, so that by partaking of a certain something,  this will enable their customers to be part of something that helps to make them feel better and more complete about themselves, which is often why advertisements through their imagery and music, construct a storyline in which the real objective of the story is for you to want to capture that emotional feeling of the narrative.  This means, for people that are enraptured by a particular advertisement, that they will want to purchase it, because they believe that by doing so, they will add that feeling to their persona. 

What many people fail to recognize when they speak of the "necessities" of life, is that everyone already knows that they need food, water, shelter, and so on and so forth, but they also consider necessities the things that will allow them to within their social milieu, to hold their own, and advertisers are able to exploit this over and over again, so that people feel strongly that they must have certain purchases in order to conform and to affirm that they are part of that social group, or even, beyond it, even though, from an objective standpoint, they really are not. 

So that, the real reason that there is so much advertisement in the United States, isn't because the advertisers are trying to provide necessary pertinent information to their audience base, but rather, to make people feel that they need this specific product in order to feel good about themselves and/or to demonstrate that they have achieved something of real status by virtue of their ownership of that special product.

The Eviscerated 4th Amendment

Our 4th Amendment states: "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated…" but the way that no-knock raids are conducted in America on a routine basis, in which, as reported by the vox.com, "Cops do 20,000 no-knock raids a year," clearly indicates that the police can raid just about anybody's home under the most dubious of circumstances if they simply justify such a raid by classifying the subject property that has been designated as needing a no-knock raid as being too dangerous for a normal warrant and/or that a warning would allow such to destroy evidence of criminal activity.  This pretty much makes it relatively easy for police to specifically target individuals in a manner that their 4th Amendment rights are effectively null and void.

In addition, to houses being routinely broken into by policing authorities under the guise of the necessity of doing so to catch criminals and to reduce crime, so then, have the police become more and more aggressive in routinely conducting unreasonable searches of people out in the public sphere, such as in walking, or in the driving of their vehicles, so that, targeted citizens, have effectively no protection from searches and seizures at any time that they are in the public sphere, as well as no protection within their own private space, if the policing authorities have determined that they are a subject of interest to them.

This effectively means that our 4th Amendment is in tatters, for no longer is the citizen sovereign of his own space or his own person, subject only to reasonable searches and seizures, specific to true probable cause, as well as to a specific description of the place so being search, and specific to the targeted item alleged to be on the person or premises, but instead has become subject to any search and seizure at any time, for any reason, if the policing authorities simply decide that this is what they want to do, for the justice system, consistently, backs up such in the court of law.

This means, in effect, that citizens are never presumed to be innocent, but all are presumed to be guilty, and therefore, knowing that such are guilty, the police construct a narrative that is consistent with their actions, and the citizens suffer from it, so that false arrests are made all of the time, for gathering of information, for criminal charges, for intimidation, for harassment, for control, and so on and so forth, all in service to the policing agency of this country.

It has been said that a man's home is his castle, so that each individual can be made to feel that he always has some space within this world that is inviolable by anyone of any authority at anytime.  That is a most basic tenet of true freedom and to therefore to violate one's castle, the policing authority of the state should be held accountable at the highest level to this written Constitution, for when a man has no sanctuary from the policing arm of the state, he is not his own man, and he is not free.  So too, your person is your own, your body is your own, your mind is your own, your spirit is your own, so when these are also subject to being seized, or controlled, by the policing authority of the state, so that to leave one's own home, endangers your person, than you aren't free, you aren't a man, and you have becomeeffectively the chattel property of the state, having no rights that need be respected by that state.

Public Lands and royalties

More than 25 percent of America lands are actually owned equally by all Americans as federal public lands.  Some of these lands are quite valuable, for their natural resources, such as oil, natural gas, and coal, of which, one might think, since these are public lands, that the extractor of these mineral resources would be a Federally owned company, such as the "Federal Oil Resource" company, but in actual fact when it comes to the extraction of oil, for instance, the government instead of creating its own Federally owned company, typically leases its land to publically held oil corporations, such as Shell Oil or ExxonMobil and similar, and in return for these leases receives royalties from any oil discovered and extracted from these lands.  That, on the surface, might seem to be okay, as these mega corporations are very adept at the business of extracting and developing oil resources, but at the same time, they are experts at all the angles, of which there are many angles, of negotiating contracts that favor them as oppose to favoring the American public, that owns the land, and is managed by public employees on behalf of the people.

 For instance, royalty contracts vary depending upon whether the State owns the land, such as Texas, North Dakota, and so on, or whether the oil is offshore, that is in the outer continental shelf, or whether it is on Federal land.  One State that has a high royalty rate for oil is Texas, which sits at 25%, which is a boon for the people that reside in the State of Texas, than somewhat surprisingly the royalty rate for ocean continental shelf drilling is currently set at 18.75%, whereas the public land based royalty is set at 12.5%, which is the exact same percentage that the royalty has been at since 1920.  So then one must ask the basic questions, since 1920, have oil companies gotten bigger or smaller, have oil companies gotten more profitable or less profitable, have oil become a commodity of more importance or less importance, and in each of these instances, the obvious answer is essentially the same, oil is by far the most important commodity in the world, bar none, in addition to the fact that oil companies are amongst the highest stock market capitalization companies, of which the ExxonMobil market capitalization as of October 6, 2017, was $346.21 billion dollars, with its greatest year for sales being 2007 at $404 billion dollars, and their profit in that year being $40.6 billion dollars.

All of the above, would clearly indicate that the royalty fee of 12.5% is far too low, but like any business that is "getting over" on the public, the oil companies have no reason nor do they have any incentive to want to renegotiate such a royalty, and at the same time, since these are public lands and therefore not private, the incentive by our public servants to construct or insist upon a new deal, lacks vigor and energy.  The bottom line, though, is that the current construction of leasing, royalties, bonding, and bidding, favors the oil companies at the expense of the people, so that these oil companies profit upon the wealth of the natural resources that the people own, in short, then, the people are being robbed of the wealth that is theirs to begin with, enriching the oil barons at their expense.

Plausible Denial

Most Americans like to consider themselves to be good, conscientious, and caring citizens, especially in regards to their everyday interactions, and when things go wrong and they get upset with something so that they do something ugly, that this is considered to be the exception to their normal everyday behavior and never the rule.  So that, the basic feeling is that our laws in regards to crime and punishment are fair laws in the sense that when somebody commits a crime against another person, for instance, such as assault and battery, or rape, or murder that it is justified that they are punished for having done so.

The above seems to make sense, that is to say, when somebody commits a crime against another person, that they that committed the crime should be punished for it.  However, modern life is far more complicated than we might imagine, for not only are there in almost any given situation, often real mitigating circumstances, but the responsibility of the ultimate bad act, itself, may not entirely be in the hands of the person committing it.

For instance, look at the vociferous debate about gun control, so that those that decry all the gun violence that is committed in America, make a strong argument, that the very nature of guns which allows people to basically be able to point and shoot at their target with lethal effectiveness, is the reason why we have so many deaths and injuries via gun violence, each and every year.  That is to say, that guns are extremely effective in their purpose, which is in essence, the killing of others, and that the abundance of such lethal weapons in the hands of those that are less morally adept than others, is a significant reason why so many people are killed each and every year via gun violence.  The lawful response to such is to incarcerate the purveyors of gun violence in prison, while within that argument, there is at its core, the belief that the manufacture, distribution, and sales of these weapons should be severely curtailed.  On the other hand, the defenders of our current gun laws hide behind either the 2nd Amendment or like to come up with cute little sayings, that guns don't kill, that people do, but in actuality, it is the gun used by people, that does indeed do the killing.

Further to the point, guns don't just create themselves out of thin air, for they are first designed, than manufactured, before being distributed and sold through gun stores or gun shows; in addition to the fact that necessary parts, machines, and infrastructure has to be available in order for all of this to readily occur.  This means, that those that make and sell the parts that are utilized in order to construct handguns by gun manufacturers, as well as the final manufacturers of these legal weapons, ultimately have a responsibility that they must and should be held accountable to.  That is to say, those that are in the process that enables a gun to be made, be it the purchasing of goods, the design of such goods, the creation of the goods, the quality control of such goods, all are contributing to the final product, which is a firearm, that is a lethal weapon, of which, for a certainty, is used in this country for exactly the task it was designed for.

This means, that if you are in any part of the gun industry, periphery or not, that you as an individual, have a responsibility to the ultimate and very predictable outcome of the product that you aid and abet, whether you wish to own up to that fact or not, for that is your choice, but at least be cognizant of it, because that is the truth.

The Real Commander in Chief

According to our Constitution, the President is our Commander in Chief, which is why pundits like to write history, with words like Bush's war, or Kennedy's war, or FDR's war, and so on and so forth, since each of these Presidents were the respective Commander in Chief when America was at war.  The problem though with this simple-minded viewpoint is the absolute distortion it actually provides to what is really going on behind the scenes when it comes to America and its wars.  For instance, with the exception of FDR, no President has ever served more than two terms, or a limit of eight years, whereas Generals and other military figures can and have served decades in the "service" to their country, not to mention the armament corporations that are built to last seemingly forever.

This means, when our President that is elected by the people, comes into office as our Commander in Chief they are up against, the military-industrial edifice, which has as of 2017, a budget of $582.7 billion dollars, which represents more than 50% of the government's expenditure on what is considered to be "discretionary spending".  This would clearly indicate that any President, would if he was determined to butt heads with defense spending, find himself thoroughly outmanned in every avenue of influence upon such, for the military-industrial complex is so gargantuan large, so ingrained, and so entrenched, that no single man, no matter his position, even as Commander in Chief, would be able to make a meaningful impact without some other massive government agency of power working side-by-side with the Commander in Chief, and that just isn't going to happen, because the history of worldly power, has been almost always the history of he who has the guns, has the Might and he who has the Might, makes the rules.

There are, however, been twelve Presidents of the United States, that were actually generals, of course, not all generals are equal, so eight of those Presidents, while being generals, were not truly close to being at the pinnacle of military power, but still that leaves four generals that were forces in of themselves, that knew intimately the military-industrial complex, and could truly be said, to be the real Commander in Chief. The first of these four was George Washington, unanimously elected twice as President, the "father of our country" and its General and Commander-in-Chief of its armies, of which, the men that served our newfound nation were absolutely loyal to our first President, George Washington.  Next, there was Andrew Jackson, who fought not only in our revolutionary war, but also was the hero of the War of 1812, with his masterful stand in New Orleans and reached the rank of Major General, of which those that served under Jackson, revered him.  Ulysses S. Grant became Lieutenant General of the Union Army forces during our Civil War, was Lincoln's favorite and most important general, and was twice elected President of the United States. The last formidable Commander in Chief, was General Dwight D. Eisenhower, Commanding General of the Allied Powers in Europe during World War II, and was twice elected President of America.  Each of these men, were true Commander in Chiefs, for they were military men of the highest order, and thereby held meaningful sway over military personnel of all ranks, yet even Eisenhower, warned Americans that "In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists, and will persist."

This warning, given by Eisenhower, was prescient, for the military-industrial complex since the time that this speech was presented in January of 1961, has gone on to become a power onto itself, controlled not by the American people, controlled not by the elected Commander in Chief, but controlled by unelected military officials in conjunction with their massive defense contractors to rule the roost, and to essentially determine American international warand armaments policy without legislativeand without executive input, for their influence is conducted behind the scenes, in which they are never outvoted, never outwitted, and never told what to do by a so-called Commander in Chief.

The Disruptor: Cell Phones

Depending upon what generation that you are, you may or may not have had the experience of smart cell phones being in the hands of individuals in a classroom setting or a business setting, if not, as most people are now well aware, smart cell phones are ubiquitous in both areas nowadays and therein lies a massive problem.  While the usage of cell phones in school as well as in a business environment can theoretically be a benefit, or certainly be a convenience for staying in touch with others, the lack of discipline and self-control in the usage of these cell phones, in addition, to the ability to use cell phones to surreptitiously record audio or video has a serious impact on society, which is typically not for the better.

On the positive side of the ledger for cell phone usage in school or at work, is that it allows people to stay in real-time contact with critical information, whether that be personal or school or work related, which has a value, especially for tasks that require real-time input from the other party.  However, other than that, pretty much everything else about cell phone usage at school or at work is an unmitigated disaster.

The very first problem that people have with cell phones is that significantly way too many people are essentially subjugated to them.  That is to say, if your phone rings, or buzzes, or does whatever that indicates that you have received a text message, or phone call, or email, it doesn't seem to matter much what you are doing, or whether you actually respond to that disruption immediately, because the very fact that you are aware that you have a new  "contact" with the outside world, breaks often your concentration, in a manner in which losing that focus, impairs the task that you were currently working on.  For instance, ask yourself the question, would you want the surgeon working upon your body to have their cell phone in their pocket while conducting such surgery and the most probable answer is that you would most definitely not!  The reason that you don't want your surgeon to have that cell phone when performing an intensive specific task is that you do not want to see their cognitive process, their intense focus, interrupted by an unanticipated outside source.

The above actually indicates that it isn't even good enough to not answer your cell phone or to not respond to your cell phone when you know you have been contacted, because in order to really maintain focus and concentration you need the cell phone to either be out of your possession completely or completely silenced so that the interruption of your train of thought never occurs.  Nevertheless, students and workers, actually keep their cell phones all the way on, or have them on vibrate, believing wrongly that they can successfully do a good job or study while having this constant distraction, or actually not really caring, because they don't much care about school or their job performance to begin with.

The fact that so many people are enthralled with their cell phones, means that you will see students doing just about anything to camouflage their usage of, to the discredit of their academic performance; as well as in the workplace you will come across disturbing things, such as when someone that is directing traffic on a road, or repairing such, rather than keeping their eyes and concentration on traffic, or on the repairing of that infrastructure, actually have their eyes down on their cell phone, because they figure, they can still sort of competently do their job, or that they can actually multi-task.

All of the above, really means, the self-control needed by so many to keep their concentration, so as to actually perform their jobs well, is sorely lacking, making for poorer students, less efficient workers, and unnecessarily increasing danger when tasks that require focused attention have been disrupted.  This would indicate that the usage of cell phones should be far more restricted, far more often.

Bigger societies, bigger inequalities

There are enormous economic and societal advantages to both size and scale, in which many people are able to take advantage of such by virtue of the incredibly cheap pricing for food, for clothes, and for everyday conveniences that we take for granted, including clear and abundant water, electricity, and the basic infrastructure that modern society provides for us.  In order for all of these good things to have happened, people have had to put their minds and tools together, and build upon known principles in order to effectively and efficiently build things up for the benefit of all.  Thereby, these creature comforts that modern society has are a real boon to the overall quality of life.

However, the sheer size of modern day communities, allows a very small select few, to rise well above the common man, and while this may not be an unmitigated evil, it offers extreme danger to any society which purports to be of the people, by the people, and for the people.  The reason that an elite so often arises in modern society, is that in order to run such a society, powers are delegated to judicial, legislative, and executive branches, of which having such power there are the inherent temptations of favoritism, cronyism, and the making of laws favoring one group or specific set of individuals in such a manner, that a playing field that purports to being level, is in fact, tilted to favor a specific group or set of individuals.  While not everyone plays that game, many find the lure of doing so, so beneficial, that they sign up for it.  This then benefits those that ostensibly are in the service to the public, via inside information, proxies, or kickbacks, while making those that have been so favored, immensely rich by virtue of being privy to favored rules, favored laws, and favored choices, with little or no interference to contend with, providing them with a wide open highway to mega success.  While the general public does often benefit, their benefit comes at a cost, of which that cost is the unfairness and inequality in justice, in taxes, in structure, in opportunity, in costs, and in legacy, of which the many being cheated a little, permits the privileged favored elites to reap massive amounts of unwarranted money based on that overall volume, repeated and recycled to those elites over and over again.

So too, most people know their neighbors or at least know some basic things about their neighbors, simply because of the proximity of such, and therefore see them at stores, or schools, or other such public places.  However, in societies that are so big, so rich, so unequal, and so advanced, there are people that you will never see in person, because they don't go to the same restaurants that you go to, they don't travel in the same circles as you do, they don't go to public schools, and they don't frequent public areas, they are actually set aside, purposely set aside, so that they can enjoy theirs without having to interact with you.  These people are above it all, for they often get their power and wealth, at the expense of the many, so as to permanently favor these certain select few.  Additionally, people in power, typically have no desire to cede any of that power or any of that wealth, which is why taxes are so complex and so convoluted, why rules are so winding and so contradictory, and why the rich and powerful do not try to purposely embarrass or to impress upon the general public just how rich that they really are, for if all the wealth in America was divided equally amongst the adult population, each individual adult would have, as reported by Wikipedia.com as of November, 2016, "$344,692 per adult," but the median of such in America is just "$44,977 per adult".  Is that then the nature of capitalism, or is that really a small clique unfairly furthering its own, at the expense of the many?

To secede from the Union is not an option

Abraham Lincoln was elected by the people of the United States, in which, Lincoln promised not to interfere with the institution of slavery as conducted within the southern states, for he felt he had no Constitutional right to do so, yet, because the south lost the election, and because the south perceived that Lincoln was inimical to their principles, South Carolina became the first of eleven States that seceded from the Union, with South Carolina seceding on December 20, 1860, and later it was South Carolina that fired the first shots of the Civil War when they fired upon the Fort Sumter, a Fort held by Federal hands, that South Carolina wrongly believed belong to South Carolina and the new Confederacy.  

There are many fundamental flaws within those that seceded, of which, the first is that no State, under any circumstance, can simply decide on its own, through its own State elected representatives or some other means, to just up and leave the Union, for the United States is a compact of States that have voluntarily bound themselves together into a Federal union, and hence their individual sovereignty outside of the United States, in which they are essentially their own country or their own nation, is not an option that any State can Constitutionally make by its own volition, for that option is not available to them.  In addition, no State within this Union, was or is currently sovereign unto itself, therefore, even the semantics of the word "secession" are fundamentally flawed, for to secede is not permitted within the Union, so that those that "seceded" did not legally secede, in fact, they were in rebellion against the Union, and it is this rebellion, that the Union had the Constitutional right to suppress, which it did. Third, the Constitution is the supreme law of this land, its laws, treaties, debts, obligations, lands, infrastructures, and so on and so forth, are owned by the people, represented by their elected representatives of such a people, all ruled within a Constitutional government, divided into the three branches of judicial, executive, and legislative.

Further to the above points, the other forty-nine States of this Union do not have the right to force the secession of any one State from this Union, for this is a present-day compact of fifty States of which this Union is inviolable. In addition, secession or rebellion is detrimental to the continual sovereignty of the nation, for foreign adversaries in times of such, see the opportunity to interfere within this domestic Union for their own advantages, so that a Union that will not stand strongly together, endangers the Union, by inviting foreign interference.  It so then follows, that certain States of this Union that have greater natural resources or significant populations or are far wealthier in aggregate than other States of this Union, lacking clarity of Constitutional law, and its sacred compact, may choose to believe that they can essentially extort terms from the other member States of the Union so as to remain within the Union, or else they will choose their own way.  That belief, if it does so exist, is fundamentally flawed, it is not only disunion, not only secession in its talk, not only rebellion, but at its core, it is treason, and has no place in a country that provides its United States citizens ballots to make fairly their democratic choices.

The 10% Tithe and Transparency

Churches are institutions that should primarily exist in order to bring comfort, wisdom, fellowship, teaching, sanctuary, love, and other positive Christian attributes to those that attend that church and should also be good community members.  Apparently, it's believed that in order for churches to perform well their function, they typically in one form or another, require tithes or donations or bequests from those that attend their church, and therein lays a fundamental problem.

The business of churches should never be about money, in any of its many forms and functions, for the true business of any legitimate church is to be a benefit for the constituents that attend such, and a benefit to their society, of which, if those constituents do not have the ready means to money, than the church can still exist by the simple gathering and congregation of like-minded people, joining together to worship their Creator, and to help support one another, which does not necessitate a building structure of any sort, though such a building brings creature comfort and convenience.

So too, our minds and hands are capable of producing and creating things that may not bring forth a direct monetary compensation, but are creative forms of labor that produce things of worth, that a church can then draw upon, so to pigeon-hole anybody and insist that a proper churchgoer must produce 10% of their paycheck and thereby donate it to the church coffers is fundamentally flawed, for it is in the volunteering of the congregant, the love and faithfulness of such, the service of church members to their God, as well as to their community, that defines the true effectiveness of what it truly means to be a Christian, and monetary donations while having their place are not the sine qua non of what merits true Christian faithfulness.

Churches that insist upon tithing as a point of honor or even to the insistence that paycheck stubs be provided to the church so that proper tithing can be calculated must be held accountable to the very things that they hold their constituents accountable for; that is to say, if a given church insists on its members religiously making their tithes, than that church, in return, should be completely transparent about its accounting books, in regards to where these tithes go, who in the church benefits, what bills are paid, what things are accomplished with the money, and further to the point, the very people providing the money for the church, should be permitted to have a strong say as to what is done with that money and the prudence or lacking result thereof of it.

Anyone, who gives up money to any church organization, or gives up labor, or gives up their free time to such an organization, has not only a right to know thoroughly what is going on at that church organization, but one can easily say, has a duty to know what is going on, for that money, and even that labor, or even their good head on their shoulders, are all gifts from God, and as faithful stewards of those gifts, it is their incumbent responsibility to see that these gifts are being appropriately and prudently utilized at that church for the betterment of the congregants and of society.

So that, churches that impress and insist upon their congregants that they require their financial donations, must be completely transparent with their devotees, for those that ask loudest and that make the biggest noise, will one day stand before the Most High God and be call to their account, whereas those that walk softly and lead by good example, recognize that "…the Kingdom of God is within you" (Luke 17: 21).

Standing armies and the destruction of democracy

America's inception was fundamentally based partly upon the fact that British troops and British conscripts came to America to enforce the British crown' desires, taxes, and to thereby stamp their authority upon the colonists, which lead to the uprising of the colonists, outright revolutionary war, and eventually to American independence.  Perhaps, the colonists would not have become independent from the British crown, if Great Britain had not made the fatal error in regards to imposing military force upon the colonists, as opposed to reasoning out the differences between the two parties, which had worked out for so well for so long.

Today, in America, there are two types of essentially "standing armies", the military arm which is utilized to maintain our presence and authority all over the world, and the various types of policing agencies, such as the police, but also agencies such as the FBI, and all those that from the support for such groups.  The combined numbers of these types of standing armies are in excess of well over two million peoples, and they are professional, well trained, extremely well armed, with a high degree of integration as well as intelligence, and in unity, cannot be vanquished by any militia or personal-based counter force in America.

Many Americans see the above as a very good thing, but the most basic problem is that when the people cede the armament of the nation to what is in substance, a professional standing army, the question becomes, is this policing arm of the state actually for the people, or actually for certain specific elements of the state, for the difference, between the two, is the difference between a vibrant democracy which has a right to protect and to serve its constituents as compared to a false democracy, in which, the force of the state, answers not to the people, but to an elite status quo.

America has been in existence, long enough, that the answer to the above question can easily be seen by the history of how this standing army treats the heartland of America.  For instance, in 1786, disgruntled revolutionary soldiers who had served faithfully for the cause, did not receive the anticipated pay for such service, and because of their unpaid debts, were subject to confiscation of farming lands that they own, so Shays' rebellion was their response to this injustice, of which, the federal government made its stand protecting its armory against this rebellion and defeated them.  During our civil war, conscription became a requirement in order to add men to the Union cause, of which riots broke out in New York city, because of the perceived injustice of such a draft, as well as a legitimate protest that not all were in favor of the Union cause, so that these riots were met by federal troops that quelled the rioters by their superior firepower and strength.  In the coal mining region of West Virginia, in 1921, the powerful mining owners effectively made it impossible for the miners to unionize and further controlled the activities of the miners by utilizing their own private detective force, so that when the miners finally rebelled at this continued injustice, the mining interests combined with the force and firepower of the sheriff and his cohorts put down this incipient miner rebellion.

Again and again, throughout American history, whether the people rebel or riot, the instrument of the state, is always used to destroy or to control those that are in rebellion, caring not whether their cause is legitimate, but only caring that they are silenced through the power of the state, so that, it is this power, that effectively coerces compliance by the people to support or to acquiesce to whatever policy that the status quo so desires, whether it is just or not.   This signifies that when the state has powerful standing armies, well trained, and in league with the justice system, than the people don't really have a true voice, for to voice their protest, invites the full armed power of the state to neutralize them.