American Household Debt

As reported by thenewyorkfed.org: "As of September 30, 2017, total household indebtedness was $12.96 trillion."  This is the highest household indebtedness in the history of the United States, even higher than its previous peak in Quarter 3 of 2008, in which the only possible mitigating factors to take away from this debt level, is that on an average total debt per indebted household, today's average at $134,642.86 is lower than 2008's average of $142,122.44, in addition to the fact that though inflation has been low over the last decade, the value of money still has declined.  The reason then that the aggregate indebtedness number presently is higher, even though the average household debt is lower, is because there are more households in America than there were a decade ago.

This above household indebtedness is calculated by the amount of debt that the average household has for credit card loans, student loans, auto loans, and mortgage loans, in which as reported by studentloanhero.com, the average credit card rate for those that are assessed interest is 13.61% APR, the average mortgage rate is 4.10% APR, and the average auto loan rate is 4.79% for a new car.  In regards to the interest rate charges for mortgages and auto loans, these continue to be at or near historic lows, though the future trend, based on the desire of the Federal Reserve to want to "normalize rates" is for these to go up in the near future.  As for credit card rates, creditcards.com reported that as of November, 2017, the "national average APR stayed put at 16.15 percent," so that rate has already begun its move up.

The problem of debt for households that have it, are manifold, starting with the sheer amount of debt that must be paid in a timely manner per the conditions of such a debt, regardless of circumstances, so that losing one's job, ill health, incarceration, divorce, car repair, and other unexpected expenses or events, can take a given household that was doing just fine, and turn things upside down in just a manner of weeks, perhaps never to recover ever again.  Additionally, for loans that are not fixed, in which, the present trend is for interest rate charges to go up over time, higher interest rates, mean higher minimum payments that are necessary in order to stay current on a given loan.  So that, if it is a struggle to maintain one's debt today, higher interest rates, will make that struggle far, far worse.

In addition, take a look at the categories of basic debt in which people need the following things: a house or place to live in, which is mortgage debt, a car or vehicle to drive in, which is auto loan debt, higher education to get ahead in life, which is student debt, and things such as food, clothing, and healthcare, which often need credit cards to procure, which is credit card debt.  The main reason why there is so much debt in America is not really because Americans on average are such spendthrifts, but fundamentally because Americans on average do not earn enough income that enables them to earn a living and live, without going into debt.

The most basic problem of debt, is the service of that debt, that is to say, with the exception of some credit card teaser rates, which set a 0% interest for a period of 12 months or so, all debt, costs the consumer money, that is to say, to borrow money now, will cost the consumer money over not only the short term but over the long term, until such debt is fully discharged, if it ever is fully discharged.  So that $100,000 borrowed today for a mortgage, for instance, at 4.1%, will cost over that thirty year span $173,951, not $100,000, and if that mortgage rate is 6.0%, the cost would over that thirty year period be $215,838, so the rate of interest that a borrower has to pay, is a very significant factor, along with the fact that whenever money is borrowed, the borrower must pay in total, more money to the lender than they borrowed in the first place.

This very high average household debt, represents on a fundamental level, that the borrowers of the money, do not currently have the funds to purchase the things that they need, so they borrow money to do so, in which, a significant portion of these people will not ever fully and successfully discharge their debt, but will essentially, like the Federal government and its national debt, continue to kick the can down the road, until such a time as they cannot.

American declining Savings Rate

The main reason why people go to work is to make money in order to make a living, pay bills, and to have some money set aside for future needs and events.  In today's society, pundits like to point out how the unemployment rate has come down significantly since the "Great Recession" so that in October, 2017, it had dropped to just 4.1%, which is considered to be an unemployment rate that is even below the natural rate of unemployment, but the proof is in the eating of the pudding, and despite low unemployment rates, the savings rate in America, is far below historic norms.

In 1960, as reported by nerdwallet.com, America's personal savings rate per that year was 10%, in which, personal savings is defined as a given person's income less personal outlays and less personal taxes, of which the amount remaining is for investments and such, designated as savings, and this number is calculated as a percentage against that personal income.   This means, for example, a person that earns $40,000 but has outlays of personal expenses and taxes of $36,000, leaves that person with $4,000 as their disposable personal income, equating to a savings rate of 10%.  It was not until 1979, that America's personal savings rate dropped below double digits when it was just barely below such at 9.8%, while also in 1983 it slipped to 9.4%, this left 1984 as being the last year of a double-digital personal savings rate at 10.7%, in which, since then in over twenty years, it has not hit 10% or better, and in the new millennium its highest rate was 7.6% in 2012, with the 2016 rate being just 4.9%.

All of these above numbers are the averaged American savings rate, in which, obviously, there are people that exceed that average and those that do not.  Businessinsider.com then broke down American income groups into five equal quintiles, in which the bottom two quintiles had an average savings rate of a paltry 0.12%, or virtually nothing.  The middle quintile had an average savings rate of 11.1%, whereas the fifth quintile had an average savings rate of 23.6%, in which the top 5% savings rate was 37.2%, and the top 1% savings rate was an astonishing 51.2%, in which, remember, the savings rate is a person's income less personal outlays and personal taxes, of which, in the decades of the 1950s through the 1970s the highest personal tax rate for high income earners was around 70%, signifying that today's superrich don't pay close to that amount in taxes, let alone expenses, allowing them to easily accumulate more and more money.

The reason that the savings rate matters so much, is that when one retires, or is unable to work anymore, or to find gainful employment, than that person must live off of their Social Security benefits, or their 401K, or their pension, or any of those equivalencies, along with any monies that has been saved up.  When you have 40% of the population that have saved essentially nothing, then you have a massive social problem of a significant amount of people that will not be able to make ends meet without permanent governmental assistance.  Yet, clearly, there is money that is being made in America, and clearly there is money being saved in America, but that money has since 1985 been more and more concentrated within the rich and the wealthy.

The decline of the American savings rate from double-digit growth, to today's single digit stagnation, despite unemployment being low, signifies that the rich are getting richer, and the poor are getting poorer, while the divide between the two is getting larger.  In addition, the fact that the bottom two quintiles of Americans have no savings whatsoever, indicates, that the middle class is being inexorably decimated, with more and more people each year becoming essentially wards of the state, having at one time, been part of the middle class through a previous generation, but now, instead, are an integral part of the lower class, with the trend between rich and poor getting wider and wider by the day, and the middle class struggling valiantly just to hold their own.

Welfare for the rich v. welfare for the poor

There are many pundits and people that rail against general welfare programs that provide lower income and impoverished people with benefits such as food stamps, housing assistance, an earned income tax credit, health insurance such as Medicaid, and supplemental aid, as well as everything else local, State, or Federal, which takes money from the government and its taxpayers and doles it out seemingly somewhat indiscriminately to people as grossly unfair and imprudent.  Those that complain the loudest may indeed have legitimate points that they make, for government "hand-outs" are rife with fraud, bureaucracy, incompetency, and inefficiencies, in addition to the fact that none of these programs ever appear to get smaller year by year.  Yet, all of these benefits are in their intention, provided to those that have little or nothing, in this the richest nation the world has ever known, in which, this government and its people have a duty to take care of those that have little or no part of the American dream, but live instead, its nightmare.

On the other hand, far less talked about, is the massive welfare for the rich, that is to say, not specific individuals, but the corporate entities that the government, for whatever reason, has stepped into on behalf of the connected to prop up, subsidize, forgive, extend, and help to the tune of billions upon billions of dollars.  For instance, banking institutions appear to be the most favored group to have received financial help from the government, repeatedly, and therefore its taxpayers, in which at critical points, for example, the Savings & Loan crisis, of the 1980s through the 1990s, ultimately resulted in the closure of over 1,000 Savings & Loan institutions, with Wikipedia.com reporting an: "…estimated cost of the crisis to around $160.1 billion."  Then, during the banking crisis and meltdown of 2007-2009, the Trouble Asset Relief Program (TARP) as well as the separate bailouts of behemoths Fannie Mae and, Freddie Mac, in addition to institutions such as AIG, General Motors, and Chrysler, came to a staggering total as estimated by propublica.org of $625.7 billion dollars. 

These bailouts of institutions are primarily for the benefit and specific  stabilization  of those particular institutions, of which, the American people as a whole, have no or little voice in the matter, so that these entities are thereby labeled as being "too big to fail" and consequently, are immune to bad business decisions, and can therefore pay exceedingly well its executives and management teams, so that when times are good they will mint millions upon millions for themselves, and when times are bad, they know that they can stick the government and its taxpayers with the full bill for their imprudence of monetary assets, which is exactly what has transpired.

This means that certain big corporations in this country, are often able to work hand in glove with the government, so that, their bad decisions are bailed out, in addition to being favored in the first place by their government sponsors; whereas, the people that are born into abject circumstances, are thereby stuck with poor housing, poor health options, pathetic schools, and are made to essentially beg, hat in hand, for their government benefits, of which, what they receive from their government is just enough to live another day but never enough to allow them the opportunity to actually live, so that there is a massive divide between those that profess a belief in the "free" enterprise system that provides these favored few with an economic safety net, tax benefits, and fat salaries, contrasted against those that are considered to be the refuse of this country, tired, poor, and wretched.

Driving Under the Influence (DUI) Auto Insurance

According to statisicbrain.com 1,500,000 drivers are arrested annually for drunk driving, and the consequences of that arrest, can be rather dire for that driver, depending upon the laws within that State, as each State has its own protocol in regards to DUI offenses.  So too, each State has its own car insurance which all drivers are mandated to have, with the sole exception being New Hampshire.  When a given person procures car insurance, they are able to select the coverage that they do or don't want or do or don't need, subject to State sanctioned minimum coverage, in which, presently, no State of the Union, offers something akin to DUI insurance, but they should.

In the procurement of insurance, most people purchase insurance, hoping to never utilize it, but grateful to have it, when they do end up using it for their home or car or personal injury.  The fact that so many people are arrested for a DUI in a given year, would imply strongly, that having some sort of insurance to help mitigate that DUI arrest in the sense of being able to secure the car so that it will not be impounded, nor be subject to exorbitant fees if so impounded, or to get the car off of the street in a timely manner, so that it will not be damaged or be the cause of a vehicle accident, or to secure a person's personal effects, such as house keys, cell  phone, and various other items, so that, those having to spend mandatory time behind bars for a DUI offense, know that their personal effects are not being held by the police, but are being secured by an independent 3rd party all have their benefits.

The very first thing that would be necessary about DUI insurance, is the fact that when a consumer opts in, this would not reflect that they are going to be now insured at a higher insurance rate than they would have been for the same auto coverage, if they had not picked the elective DUI coverage as an add-on.  In other words, the auto insurance company will not be permitted to make a judgment that a person electing for DUI coverage is somehow a more dangerous driver, instead it will be mandated by the appropriate State insurance agency regulation administration, that DUI insurance is a separate elective insurance and therefore separately priced.

In regards to auto insurance companies, they are in the business of pricing insurance so that they are able to make money, so that, having a new elective service for DUI insurance, which, depending upon the rules for DUI arrests within a given State, would cover things such as transportation of the driver, resolution of the vehicle, transportation of the passengers, keeping of personal effects, and so on and so forth, would be dovetailed to meet that State's specific DUI constraints and sold as such to consumers. 

The value of such DUI insurance for the consumer would be the value of reducing their expenditures for things no longer in their control, for having been arrested for that DUI, so that, extra fees, impoundment, and penalties, would be mitigated by a third party insurance company taking care of this, on behalf of the insured.  Depending upon the price of this add-on insurance, and how heavily it is advertised, people will pay for it, especially when they see the potential benefits of having such, should they ever be arrested for a DUI, as 1,500,000 are yearly.

The visual coverage of war and the incursions of war

We receive our information in all sorts of ways in today's world, from the printed word in magazines, newspapers, and books, to social media, to news stations online and on the internet, mainstream or not, in which, all of this combined helps us to visualize the world at large.  In particular, as the saying goes, "a picture is worth a thousand words", and in reality, a picture or video, in and of itself, without even any vocalization or detailed description attached to it, does often convey a short story to the recipient or viewer of such.  This does mean that images matter, and that video matters, and when it comes to war, these images and videos are of immense value and he who controls it, is therefore in the driver's seat of controlling that narrative.

America is an empire, of which most Americans are either blithely unconcerned about it, or simply don't recognize the length, depth, and the breadth of our military and its military or shadow-military campaigns that America is involved with on a continuous basis, from wars that have not been officially declared by our congress but are wars nevertheless, against countries such as Iraq, Syria, and Afghanistan, to covert incursions or special operations forces engaging in battles in which as reported by thenation.com in regards to 2015, "…US Special Operations forces have already deployed to 135 nations," which is an absolutely staggering amount of nations to have deployed to in one calendar year.

While there are always going to be independent, foreign, and mainstream reporters, filing and submitting reports to the American people, of what is or what is not going on in battles around the world, the fact of the matter is that in America's wars, incursions, invasions, stealth attacks, and covert operations of all types, no one reporter, no one organization, or no entire group of reporters or no entire group of organizations, is going to know everything that is going on, because there are too many "hot" points to know everything about it all.  That said, the military, though, in all of its many manifestations and departments, essentially knows what is going on in fairly significant detail, but a meaningful portion of that information is classified or obscured in such a manner that the general public and therefore the American people are not permitted to actually know, and certainly not permitted to know on any real-time basis.

All of this leads to the point, that in a fast world that consists often of sound bites, of which pictures and video, have never been more prevalent in telling a story of what is really happening around the world, that, when it comes to our military adventures, the military knows that when they are able to control the taking of and the dissemination of such photos and videos, that they are able to control the narrative in such a manner, that our military engagements aren't view from the standpoint of fair access to what is really going on and what is really happening from a worldview humanitarian standpoint, but instead is viewed primarily from an American-centric  viewpoint which is deliberately prejudicial in such a manner that the real human impact of what is occurring against other nations and their people is minimized or obscured.

That is, think about it, where do the pictures and videos come from, in regards to our military adventures of all stripes, for if you believe that they come from truly independent reporters, that are able to gain full access to battlefields, as well as covert and special engagements, all permitted without restrictions from our military, and that therefore they are able to snap pictures and roll video at will, you are mistaken.  The official access to our battlefields and covert operations by those recording such, are essentially controlled by the military, and those that do not present the visual storyline in accordance with the military desires, will lose their privileges, so that the storyline, in effect, the pictures and the video, are absolutely masterminded by the military, itself, to the best of their ability and influence, and their influence is massive, for the military in all of its might, has a yearly budget of nearly $700 billion dollars, and the mainstream media, has little issue with being "patriotic" if the money is right.

The war to end all wars is….

The war to end all wars is not possible, for you cannot end anything that is wrong in and of itself, by doing that very same thing, no matter, what justification is claimed in order to do so.  While self-defense in any of its many forms has its place, seldom is such self-defense limited to true self-defense, rather, in most cases, self-defense is proclaimed, but in action, it is not actually self-defense, but merely another form of war, mislabeled and misidentified by the practitioner as self-defense.

So too, this means that those that believe that certain crimes must be punished by killing that person in cold blood by utilizing state resources, as if this act of state sanctioned murder, though not called that by the state, is somehow justified, is absolutely senseless.  You cannot end murder by the act of murder, just as you cannot end thievery by being a thief, nor can you end hatred in any of its many forms, by being hateful, and so on and so forth.

The very things that are wrong right now by some agent to do, cannot ever be corrected by doing in essence the very same things as long as it is sanctioned or justified somehow by the state, as if this will put everything right, for it will not, it might end a particular bad deed at that time, but it will not fundamentally and morally correct the causes of it and it is not an appropriate answer to wrong actions. Fundamentally, you cannot produce peace by the sword, or justice by the hangman's noose.

The reason that so many people don't believe in the type of justice that is not retributive justice, is because they don't believe that turning the other cheek, or that non-resistance to evil, or that the giving up of one's cloak, could possibly be the correct response to wrongdoing in the real world.  That is to say, they might agree with Christian philosophy in a house of worship, or while watching a movie or while reading a book with that narrative and theme, but the actual return of good to evil is more akin to a fairytale, as this world is filled with very bad people that will stop at nothing, and, therefore have to be dealt with forthrightly.

As you might expect, when it comes to judging oneself, most people are rather generous towards themselves and their loved ones, and far less so, when dealing with others, especially when those others don't look, respond, or act the same as they do, making it rather easy to judge them from a supercilious vantage point, but that sort of judgment is flawed, for having not lived in another person's shoes, you really don't know much about that person, and certainly not enough to be ethically permitted to render judgment upon them.

In reality, the time to turn your swords into plowshares is not after you have killed off all of your enemies, but when you recognize, that you have no enemies in the first place, for if you can take your enemy, and turn that enemy into your friend, than you have gained a friend, while losing an enemy, and that fundamentally is the very thing that needs to be accomplished in order to bring lasting peace and justice to this world.

The real purpose of good government

On a fundamental level, the birth of our new independent country was meant to be the birth of a country that would recognize by the operation of its government that the legitimate purpose of that government was to forever secure our unalienable rights which include life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, gifted to us by our Creator, and that this country would be in its structure, a county of the people, by the people, and for the people, and not a country that was controlled by a select few or ruled in such a manner as to deny its very people their God-given unalienable rights.

Many people say that the nature of any good government is to provide safety, security, jobs, education, infrastructure, welfare, justice, and so on and so forth, and while these things may all be worthy attributes of good government they are in and of themselves just attributes.  What is important, more than anything, is to have a government that knows what it should be on the most principle of levels, and if that is right, the result of such will also be right.

A good government, must at its foundation, be about the discovery and dissemination of truth, for if the government does not know what truth is, or desires to deceive the public, or to hide important information from the public, or does not care to find out the truth of the matter, than this government, will not be a servant to the people, but will, in its essence, be structurally and operationally wrong.

A government does not and should not be in the business of indoctrinating its citizenry, though most do, but should instead, be desiring to create a band of citizens that recognize that the discovering of truth and then living up to that truth is the very basis for good government in the first place.  This is why the most important question to seek the answer to is to figure out why and for what purpose we are here to begin with, and the answer to that question, takes principled reasoning, and should be thoroughly discussed and considered.

There is no higher value than truth, and that truth may very well be inconvenient, and may very well upset institutions of long standing, but inconvenient or not, upsetting or not, those that know the truth but purposely do not live up to it are doing themselves a disservice; and if it is the government that does not live up to truth, than that government is illegitimate morally, ethically, and in reality.  For it is the government, that should structure itself so as to purposely desire to impress upon its citizens that the pursuit of truth, is the most important pursuit of them all, and that thereby one has no greater duty than to acknowledge this truth, and should therefore by their actions and accomplishments deliberately do so.

The real purpose of good government is to be an ever present help in increasing the good of that society, and in order to best perform such, that government must as its template, live truth, and thereby then do its best to affect this to its citizenry, for that is its duty, to be that good neighbor, to steady the ship, and to bring home all, safely.

National debt, demographics, and growth

The United States is ranked third in the world in regards to its present population, estimated to be 324,459,463 as listed by worldometer.info, the two countries that have a higher population than America, are China at #1, and India at #2, in which India will in the next few years surpass China as the most populous country in the world.  To get a picture of how much larger, the population is in India as compared to the United States, India's populated as listed by worldometer.info is 1,339,180,127 peoples which is  more than four times the population of the United States.

Not too surprisingly, both China and India are on GDP growth rates that are absolutely crushing America, of which, some of the  reason why this is so, is because their population is so much greater than ours, in addition to a lower GDP point to spring off from, as well as the fact that their demographics are superior to America.  That is to say, GDP growth is strongly correlated to both population growth as well as the actual demographics of the people that reside within that nation, especially in regards to their age as well as their educational achievements.

America, has not had an annual GDP growth rate greater than 3% since 2005, and doesn't appear to be on track to exceed 3% anytime soon, if ever, again.  Whereas, back in the 1950s, America, had four years in that decade in which its growth rate was at least 6.9% or better.  One of the biggest difference between now and then, is that the demographics of the median age in America was considerably younger in the 1950s so that in 1960 as listed by statista.org that median age was  29.5 years, whereas in 2016 it is now 37.9 years.  In regards to India, their median age in 1960 as listed by statista.org was 20.3 years, and in 2015 was at 26.7 years, making India even younger than America was back in its heyday of real GDP growth of the 1950s and 1960s. 

The significance of having a young population entering the workforce of India, is that these workers are just starting to begin their careers which puts a downward pressure on labor costs, as well as the fact that they are healthier and more energetic than older workers, along with the reality that younger workers consume more products and goods per capita than older people, because they want and have a need for more products and have a stronger desire to work hard to get them.  Since 2009, India's slowest GDP growth rate was 5.5%, whereas its faster growth rate was an astonishing 10.3% in 2010.

The reason that GDP growth matters so much is that America has taken its national deficit which use to sit just under $1 trillion dollars in 1981 to over $20 trillion dollars in 2017.  This national debt is so large, that it equates to an individual taxpayer debt of over $150,000 per taxpayer.  That sort of debt can only successfully be discharged through real economic growth and America neither has the growth, nor the demographics to do so, therefore, America is on the path to discharge that debt only through any of the various forms of default, such as repudiation, inflation, or the re-pegging of its currency to some other medium, which would create civil unrest and strife at an unprecedented level, unless America, is somehow able to create the growth needed so as to enable a pathway to address their huge debt overload.

This pathway can only come through the growth and active encouragement of immigration, fortunately, America is a country, that the best and brightest young foreign minds have prominently as one of their top choices to immigrate to, if not the top choice of many, so that, in a country that is the third largest in land size, there is plenty of room to grow, plenty of food to eat, and plenty of higher educational facilities to attend, so that, it is time to lift up our lamp and to re-open our golden door to take in all those yearning for freedom and opportunity.

Getting along with others

If you look at the traits that people utilize to get along well with others, virtues such as empathy, consideration, respect, and tolerance, would be some of the notable attributes that those that do this well often have.  On the other hand, traits such as selfishness, obstinacy, immaturity, and jealousy are basically not the attributes that are the characteristics of those that want and do get along with others.

When you take a look at children growing up and their dealing with others, the basic characteristics that parents really don't need to teach their children is how to be more selfish, more aggressive, more sullen, and more disruptive, because many children already have enough of each of these characteristics in the first place.  Instead, parents want their children to get along well with others, so that they will share, they will be fair, and they will be more inclusive, all things that make for not only better children, but also a better world.

The fact that it is almost universal that parents when addressing  their  children's behavior, wish for better behavior from their children, would seem to indicate strongly that the very things that we wish for from our children, should be the very things that adults should be about in their own lives, for it isn't good enough to preach tolerance to youngsters if we are not tolerant ourselves, it isn't good enough to encourage children to control their temper, if we can't do the same, and it isn't good enough to impress upon children the value of thoughtfulness, if we are impulsive in our actions.

The very lessons that children need to learn must be the lessons that we ourselves have learned well, or else we are poor exemplars of what we should be as the parental authority to our children.  It is somewhat amazing how parents can clearly see what children are doing wrong with other children, such as being unnecessarily mean and selfish, and wish to see that corrected, but somehow aren't able to see themselves in the exact same light when they do the very same things in their own lives.

As good as childcare can be, as good as teachers can be, as good as a given household can be, children need to be taught the best appropriate behaviors, and further, in order to demonstrate that they have actually understood the lesson, they must be given the opportunity to make the right decisions with their peers in real life, and when they are successful in such, receive acknowledgment of such, and when unsuccessful in such, the lesson must be redone and redone, until it is done right.

Of course, some children are going to fail at some tasks, but parents and other parental authorities are far better off trying to improve such behavior now, before it becomes absolutely ingrained, than ignoring such, and just hoping that it will disappear over time, which, it might.  The bottom line, though, is that behaviors developed in childhood, good or bad, often develop into good or bad habits in adulthood, in which these habits once rooted are hard to dislodge, which is why parents and parental authorities must do their best to train up a child in a manner that will consist of the characteristics of a good person, today, while striving also in their own lives to be that better person, themselves.

Police initiated contact of the general public

Governments like to keep track of all sorts of things, for all sorts of reasons, and the U. S. Department of Justice, is one of those departments that does exactly that.  In their report, of 2011, dated September 2013, and revised on October 27, 2016, bjs.gov reports that: "In 2011, over 62.9 million U.S. residents age 16 or older, or 26% of the population, had one or more contacts with police during the prior 12 months," which is an absolutely staggering number of contacts by the population with the police, of which, those contacts are broken down into two basic categories:  street stops and traffic stops.   A street stop is defined as: "…contact involved being stopped by police on the street or in public, but not in a moving motor vehicle."  An absolutely fascinating part of this study deals with the perception by the person being contacted as to whether they believed that the conduct initiated by the police indicated that the "Police behaved properly", in which the absolute lowest percentage of those feeling that they the police behaved properly were street stops of black people at the abysmal rate of just 37.7%.  On the other hand, in comparison, in regards to traffic stops blacks indicated that the police behaved properly at 82.7%.

Clearly, this study also shows a substantial difference between the perception that the police behaved properly between street stops and traffic stops, in which "A higher percentage of drivers in traffic stops (88%) than persons involved in street stops (71%) believed the police behaved properly during the stop."  That street stops have a substantially lower amount of people that believe that the police acted properly is especially disappointing, because unlike vehicle stops, in which the officer because of being behind the subject vehicle and with car windows often obscuring the officer's view of the driver, a given officer may not easily be sure of even the sex of the driver or the race of such, until that driver is pulled over.  On the other hand, street stops, allow a given officer, to have in many instances, a view that will permit them to at a minimum know the sex of the person being stopped, and many times the race of that person, before that contact is actually made, so that when blacks indicate their dissatisfaction with street stops, it is implied very strongly, that they have deliberately been targeted by the police to be stopped, based primarily upon their race.

In any event, the amount of citizens contacted by the police either through street or traffic stops, at over 62.9 million U.S. residents, is a phenomenal amount of people that have such contact in a given year, in which, some of those people contacted by the police, won’t just have a conversation, or won't just get a lecture, or won't just get a warning, but will get a traffic ticket, or will get searched, or will have their vehicle searched, or will have to deal with police threats or police physical force, including lethal force, or will get arrested.  While it is conceivable that stops initiated by police are received by such, as a courtesy and as the proper and due consideration one gets from a department that ostensibly serves and protects the public, the real point to take away from this, is that this is not contact initiated by residents to the police, but contact initiated by the police at an absolutely astonishing rate of incidents against millions and millions of people in 2011.

In point of fact, when the police contact anybody, the police will as a matter of course, have on their person, a lethal weapon, along with their arresting authority, so that, those that are contacted, whether guilty of a traffic violation or not, guilty of jaywalking or not, typically are not going to see such contact as being an experience that they were looking forward to, though they may well appreciate the professionalism displayed by the officers just doing their job in a competent and courteous manner.  That being said, it is well to remember, that being able to travel the roadways of a given city or town, via a vehicle or walking, without undue interference by the policing arm of the state, seems not to be a given or the norm in this country that professes liberty and justice for all.

The Non-establishment of Religion in our Constitution

The First Amendment to our Constitution was ratified in 1791, in which it states in part: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”  This Amendment was essentially the first of its kind in any written Constitution, for it took away the possibility of the power of a coerced religion established by our national government to rule over the people, but instead made the commitment that the national government would not established any religion upon the people, and that, the people, themselves, had the right to freely exercise their own volition in regards to their religious preference.

At the time of this Amendment, there were several States of the Union that had within their own State, an established religion, such as Anglican in Virginia and New York, and Congregational in Massachusetts, but there were also States that had no established religion such as Georgia, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey.  Though some of these States did have an established religion, such a religion was not national in scale, and all of these States eventually dropped such, in which after the passage of the Fourteenth Amendment, the validity of an established religion within a respective State was null and void.

What made the proclamation that this country would not establish a national religion, so special and so profound for its time, was first off, England, itself, had an established state religion, as well as most other European countries had essentially merged the power of the state with the power of religion, so that the people were effectively under the hand of a combination of state and church, which saw them as subjects to be controlled rather than as free people to be liberated in their lives and viewpoints.

The United States believed that when it came to religious liberty, that the most important part of such was for the individual to be able to make their own choice of whatever religious faith that they so desired, or even, to have no faith, not because America believed that religion was bad for people, but because America believed that to compel people to have a certain faith as dictated by the power of the national government, was a violation of one's freedom of choice, one's freedom of belief, and one's freedom of exercise to believe or disbelieve in whatever Higher Power that a given individual gravitated to, for that belief or unbelief is an individual matter between that person and his Creator, and not therefore something that the national government should infringe upon.

The greatest value of this non-establishment of a national religion is that America, more than any other nation, openly embraces the free exercise of an individual's choice of religion, which has allowed this nation to openly embrace faiths of all different flavors within this great country, which is why America has such a great diversity of faith, but also such a great diversity of people, so that it is truly a melting pot of different people, of different cultures, and of different faiths, that are joined together under a national Constitution that permits all people to have liberty and to pursue their own happiness for the good and betterment of those same people.

Low Interest rates, low growth

We live in historically different financial times in the sense of the cost of money, in which, before the financial crisis of 2008, the cost of money that is the interest cost of loans for mortgages, for personal loans, for brokerage margin loans, and for business loans, was appreciably higher than it is today.  On one hand, that sounds great, for the cost of money makes a big difference as to whether a particular business investment or its equivalency on a personal level, makes financial sense, and all things being equal it is far easier to pay back a loan at 1.75% than at 10.75%.  This would imply that a low interest rate environment should increase business investment, which should, in kind, increase business activity and thereby heat up the economy with higher growth.

In point of fact, America has not had growth greater than 3% since 2005, indicating without a doubt that low interest rates, in and of itself does not increase economic growth.  In addition, to the fact that America has suffered through a low growth atmosphere for over a decade, it has also had very low inflation in which the last time inflation was 2% or higher was in 2012, of which the Federal Reserve believes that an inflation rate of 2% is necessary for steady economic growth and for full employment, of which, their biggest fear, is outright deflation, for when products get cheaper by the month, than the economy can quickly devolve into not just a recession but a depression, because people and businesses are less inclined to purchase things now, since they can thereby purchase them later, at a cheaper price. 

The fact that inflation is low indicates that low interest rates, which should be adding liquidity and higher purchasing capacity, somehow does not.  This then means that low interest rates does not necessarily produce either a higher growth rate, nor does it necessarily produce a higher inflation rate, even though these lower interest rates, surely makes it easier to those in debt to manage their debt, since their corresponding interest payments have been reduced by lower interest rates on things such as: mortgages, car loans, business loans, and even credit card debts, but since economic growth remains low, this implies that within America, there is a significant amount of debt, that despite lower interest rates, cannot ever be successfully managed or discharged.

In addition, how money and where money is issued in the first place, makes an appreciable difference to the economy in whole, that is to say, if money is given directly to those that are struggling the most, they will spend it, because they lack ready money in the first place.   On the other hand, if loans are provided  at incredibly cheap rates to mega-corporations and individuals that have stellar credit ratings, that money, might trickle down to those of lower socioeconomic levels, but has a strong tendency with all of that great wealth of cash available, to not so much be invested in the growth of America, proper, but will be speculated in worldwide stock and equity markets, for if it costs less than 2% to borrow, there is a strong tendency to passively make money through such equity markets with well managed risk, rather than to invest in factories and labor domestically, especially when the perception is that the people in whole, while having the desire to purchase, don't have the money or loan capacity to do so.

The end of the Middle Class

What makes America great isn't that we have the richest of the rich in this country, and certainly isn't because we have a seemingly permanent underclass, but that the country evolved into having a vibrant and robust middle class, so that, for many Americans, that is, the majority of Americans, the dream of owning one's own house, and having enough assets to see them through their entire lives, and to thereupon to  leave an inheritance to their children was part and parcel of being an American, or so we thought.

However, despite the fact that America is by far the richest nation in the world, that money no longer gravitates to its great middle class, but instead is being siphoned  off from the middle class by the upper class which has never been richer and never been more exclusive than it is today.  The rich are truly richer, whereas the poor are pretty much as poor as they have been, but it is the mainstream middle class that is being hollowed out and is in the process of being eviscerated within this nation.

The thing that is vital to remember is that having a middle class of the breadth and scope of America hasn't really been the norm in previous civilizations, it is more been the exception than the rule, in fact, it's fair to say, before America existed, the middle class was relatively small and limited to professions such as lawyers, doctors, clergymen, and local shopkeepers, with the upper class consisting of those that were large moneyed property owners, well-placed merchants, the ruling class, and factory managers.  The middle class came about, more by happenstance than by design, so when America became more prosperous by its trade, built more things, became more complicated and coalesced into major cities, with the needed infrastructure of roads, shops, transportation, education, and the endless desire to pursue the better things in life, this produced over a period of time, a middle class that encapsulated that in its entirety, so that, it could be said that this enormous rising tide did indeed lift all boats.

But, alas, that was then and this is now, and the times they are a changing, in which, the most obvious changes are right straight in front of us, for despite the fact that there are more two-income families than ever before seen in America, many of those two-income families are struggling just to maintain their status as middle class, for globalization while offering many positive things from a purchasing standpoint, is indeed a dual-edge sword, for the very things that can be built here, created here, and reproduced here, can all be done abroad, at a lower price point with foreign labor and then imported back to America, which is of enormous benefit for those that own the production of such, and an enormous problem for those that seek employment domestically, for their jobs are not only outsourced, but have been replaced too with robotics, leaving just the crumbs, of reduced pay, of reduced benefits, and reduced standards for those that labor.

The Pew report defines the middle class as: "earning between two-thirds and double the median household income," so that:  "In 2015, just under 50 percent of American adults lived in middle-income households. That’s down from 54 percent in 2001 and 61 percent in 1971."  Yet, during that same period of time, America in aggregate has gotten richer and richer. Rather sadly, during this period of time those representing the lowest household income have grown from 16% in 1971 to 20% in 2015, indicating that America is clearly a country that is dividing itself more and more into the very rich and the very poor, in which the percentage of both are on the increase, reducing significantly those that are classified as middle class.

It is well to remember that trends that are in motion have a tendency to remain in that same motion, so that those that believe that the middle class will soon mount a comeback aren't reading the tea leaves correctly, for the way that businesses are presently constructed, in a country in which profit is so often the driving motive, is that cheaper labor means bigger profit, and in a world that has gotten appreciably smaller, the labor outside America undercuts the American middle class.

Five Justices to Rule it All

America's national government is divided into three branches, of which in theory there are checks and balances of each branch so that no one branch is all powerful, but these are just words on paper, and then there are the actual actions of these branches in reality.  The Supreme Court or the defenders of an activist Supreme Court have done a wonderful job of basically convincing the American people that the Supreme Court has the Constitutional right to not just interpret law and thereby be limited in what it does and accomplishes, but to actually make new law, sometimes profound and national new law which supersedes the legislative branch as well as the will of the people, along with make the executive branch essentially of no import, except for the fact that the executive branch  is the branch that nominates Supreme Court justices, indicating, that because we have two major parties, that the Supreme Court, consists of men and women that have specific party leanings which most definitely affects the ideological decisions that they make.

There are many Supreme Court decisions that have shook the very foundation of Constitutional government, of which, fundamentally the reason that these decisions have such import, is that they wrest away from the States their own specific laws and their own specific precedents, so that the new law of the land is national and not governed by local or State policies.  For instance, in Obergefell v. Hodges, 576 U.S, ruled in 2015, took what had been a State rights' issue of same-sex couples and the right of marriage, and made it instead a national issue, that overnight stipulated in every State of this Union that same-sex marriages were the law of the land, guaranteed by the Due Process and the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.  This decision, effectively stipulated that when the Fourteenth Amendment was ratified in1868, that somehow it applied to same-sex marriages, which inexplicably had been overlooked by our counterparts in the 19th century.

Another profound decision which once again interfered with State rights was the Roe v. Wade (1973) decision, which ruled that States that restricted or banned abortions were in violation of a woman's right to privacy in which the Supreme Court basically made up their own rules about how privacy and abortion were to be treated on a national scale. 

The Supreme Court has also weighed in on draft dodgers and conscientious objection, as in the Muhammad Ali case; the Bush v. Gore Presidential election recount, decided essentially on party ideological grounds, and the legality of separate public schools, based on race in Brown v. the Board of Education of Topeka, and so on and so forth, of which, some of the decisions are brilliant, some are not, but many of them are overreaching, overbearing, and infringe upon the legislative and executive branches, and most disturbingly, infringe upon the voice of the people, as if these Supreme Court justices, are a law and a wisdom unto themselves, which essentially is exactly what they are in impact.

Again and again, the mass media, blithely goes along and even encourages the Supreme Court to act the way that it does, never seeming to realize that if one branch can be not only the boss of its own house, but can boss the legislative and executive branches, making this Supreme Court, effectively the final say of their activist interpretation of a "living Constitution" than this government is not a government of the people, by the people, and for the people, but instead has devolved into a clique of nine special men and women of which if five of them wish the law to be one way, and four do not, than the five will make that new law, that will be imposed upon the people, for better or for worse, in which, that Constitution, is treated not as the law of the land, but as a document that can be made to say whatever those five wish it to say.

Martial Law and the assassinations of the 1960s

America has never had their police force or their military force more armed and with more personnel than they have today, in which, Wikipedia.com states that: "in 2008, state and local law enforcement agencies employed more than 1.1 million people on a full-time basis," and further that in 2010, our military force consists of about 2.25 million people, including reservists.  This total force of police which have become more and more militarized in its tactics, weapons, and equipment as well as our military force, which essentially has nobody to fight or to war against, except against third rate nations and insurgents, are well trained and have demonstrated in action that they will reign destruction on innocent or guilty, alike, without compunction, and without questioning orders as given by their superiors.

In the 1960s, we suffered the assassination, of one President, John F. Kennedy on November 23, 1963, one black nationalist, Malcolm X on February 21, 1965, the great civil rights leader, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. on April 4, 1968, and one Presidential candidate who had an excellent chance of not only winning the Democratic nomination but the Presidency, Robert F. Kennedy, on June 5, 1968.  The only assassination that led to any extensive rioting was the MLK assassination, of which, to the credit of the followers of MLK, as well as to other statesmen great and small, and citizens of all colors, calmness was the order of the day, and it was by that calmness by so many, that reduced the effect of the rioting that still occurred in many cities, of which, the biggest riots were in Baltimore, Chicago, and Washington DC, in which the National Guard was called out, but considering that King was a remarkable, iconic, and an exceptional man, the greatest voice of his people, the overall negative reaction to his callous assassination could have been far, far worse, but it was not.

Today, though, should assassinations of this sort, of these sorts of great visionaries re-occur or be re-visited, the response, one fears, would be the type of chaos, rioting, destruction, violence, and the declaration of martial law, on such an unprecedented scale, never before seen in this nation.  The difference that we have today as compared to the 1960s, is that the 1960s, represented for those that were oppressed a belief, that through the great society programs, through the recognition that blacks as well as other minorities, deserved and were due a place at the great table of opportunity in America, that indeed, these inequalities and these injustices, though they may take time, would eventually be overcome. 

Unfortunately, we are fifty years removed from that place in time, and while there has been progress made, and there are indeed people of color in positions of power, in government, and in the private sector, the vast majority of minorities are no closer to the promise land than they were fifty years ago, and very strong arguments can be made, and are made, that they are even further away; for the justice requested, has been replaced with unprecedented high levels of minority incarceration, the job opportunities requested, have resulted in higher unemployment vis-à-vis the white majority, and more and more minorities being stuck in dead-end jobs with no opportunity to make a living or to have a meaningful life, in addition to the fact that schools that should now be fully integrated, are, in fact, separate, unequal, and too often absolutely abysmal for minorities.

The divide between the "haves" and the "have not" is greater today than it was back in the 1960s, and the faces of the "haves" while not 100% white are predominately the same class of whites that have been on top forever, and the faces of the "have not" while having some white mixed in, are essentially the same faces of color that it has always been since the first slaves were stolen from their homeland and forcefully taken to America.

So then, the real reason why today's police force is so militarized, and why our military forces are so plentiful, has little to do with foreign fears, but has everything to do with domestic ones, for America has given up on its minorities, given up on even the semblance of fairness, and will by all means necessary, put down via martial law, the oppressed that would have the audacity to think that they can rise up against the state.

You cannot create existence out of non-existence

Modern man's ignorance of basic universal laws is stupefying.  That is to say, as man has become more intelligent, and has passed forth its collective knowledge from one generation unto the next and thereby improved upon it, man has gravitated from the knowledge that we must have a Creator to the revised knowledge that we must not, that man is indeed the measure of all things; but this cannot ever be true, isn't true at the present time, and will never be true.  This means, that man, because man doesn't want to answer to any Law that is above man's own arbitrary law, ignores the obvious, mainly because mankind wants to adhere unto itself the attributes as if man is a god, whereas man most certainly is not, and never will be.

Think carefully about the most basic of truths, that you cannot create something or anything out of nothing or non-existence, yet, esteemed scientists, teachers, and their ilk, make that argument all of the time through insipid theories such as the big bang, in which the universe theoretically came out of nothingness into our present day universe.  So too, scientists somehow are able to with a straight face believe that humanity, came forth from some primordial soup, of which intelligent life eventually evolved.

The problem with any of these atheistic theories is that taken down to the very core, there comes a time, when nothing, that is an absolute void, is somehow is able to become something, but that is foundationally flawed.  It is flawed, because it has not and cannot be produced in nature, there is nothing that has ever been made, or that has ever been created, that has started from absolutely nothing--that is to say, from a complete and total void.  The scientific model that proves the point that something can come out of nothing has not been proven and will never be proven for it cannot happen.

While it is intriguing that mankind desires to know the origin of things, and desires to ponder upon such, a scientific approach for the origin of things is hopeless.  On the other hand, mankind is gifted with the intelligence to know, to implicitly know, that time itself is an illusion, so that scriptural words such as: "In the beginning…" should not be taken literally but are given to mankind as an aid for his understanding that man is part and parcel of God, so that in reality, in regards to the creation of the earth, as well as to the creation of mankind, there never was a time when earth did not exist, or that mankind did not exist upon it, for that creation, is beyond time and space, though to us, it appears to be entwined with time and space, but that is based on the limited perception that mankind has in the physical sphere.

The reason that you exist, that is to say, your consciousness, and thereby your soul exists, is because it has always existed, and will always exist, for all that will ever be created has already been created, God therefore is not in some sort of constant flux, changing, re-inventing, or morphing, for God does not evolve, for God is timeless, changeless, and immortal.  Our very existence has naught to do with earthly things, for these, as real as they appear to us, as physical as they might be, are in reality our opportunity to play in the drama of a different dimension, in which, the true objective of the exercise is to demonstrate in action that we are knowledgeable about who and what we really are and thereby to do the right things with others, so as to be in harmony with the Creator of it all.

Brotherhood and Fratricide

Western nations, whether nominally Christian or not, all claim to be civilized countries, but that is belied by the most basic of facts, that these nations do not treat their fellow countrymen, let alone those outside of their nation, with the care and consideration that would be in keeping with the mantra that all are equally created and thereby all are our brothers and sisters.  In point of fact, the taking of anyone's life should be considered to be fratricide, for either you believe wholly in the gospel as written, that all thereby are brothers and sisters in God, or you do not, as there cannot be any conscious equivocation of what is a fundamental tenet of the Christian faith, for this too is consistent with basic morality, and there are none born of a lesser God.

The fact that many acknowledge that we are brothers and sisters on the one hand, but are not true brothers and sisters on the other hand, can only be explained by vilifying one's opposition, so as to make those certain people into something less than human, that is subhuman, something less than God created, and thereby something equivalent to an animal, which is why in wars, the opposition through media and images is universally displayed as some sort of savage, and referred to in terms that negate their value as humans.  Although, these may be the descriptors utilized, and these may be believed by people, implicitly, literally, or not, none of this is actually true in fact.

For instance, every human being in this world, from a DNA perspective, from a biological perspective, and from a visual perspective, is, in fact, a human being, despite what religion may be their faith, despite the color of their skin, despite their language or their customs, and so on and so forth, they are all human, and to try to make them into something that equates to them a value of being less than human is to wrongly deny to them their true essence.

That is why the great human religions, the great men and women of real substance, will not take up arms against their fellow man, for they see that doing so, would be a version of fratricide, for that is indeed what it actually is.  This does not mean that man has no right to defend himself, from enemies foreign and domestic, for self defense has its legitimate place, but it does mean that wars of aggression against country or neighbor cannot be right, especially when doing so, necessitates in the killing of both the "guilty" as well as the innocent.

Those that believe that it is "kill or be killed" are truly blind, for they aren't utilizing the gift of their human mind, but instead are behaving as if their mind has been subverted and has instead been taken over by their lower animalistic instincts.  That is why some of the worst fratricidal atrocities are performed by those that have had their minds addled by drugs or drink or their minds somehow have become damaged or mesmerized, for to take the life of your brother and to not recognize it as such, demonstrates a callous disregard that all come from the exact same First Source, and that therefore every life taken, takes us further away from where we need to be going.

The Fourth Amendment and the Automobile Exception

The Supreme Court in 1925, ruled in Carroll v. United States that because automobiles are highly mobile, that a warrant is not required to search a given vehicle, if the police have reason to believe that the vehicle contains evidence of a crime, or contraband of a crime. In short, this meant that while driving a vehicle, the right of the people to be secure in their persons and effects, are subject to being violated, without a warrant needing to be issued, simply based on the "probable cause" that a given crime, has been committed, as determined by the police.

This decision, was somewhat remarkable, in the sense that cars were at one time, commonly referred to as "horseless carriages," signifying that there was a time when the normal means of transportation was the utilization of horses, also highly mobile, in addition to the fact that horses could be attached to carriages, making them readily capable of transporting contraband or other goods, so that, at the time of the writing of our Constitution, the mobility of man from one place to another, was often conducted utilizing a form of transportation, that was highly mobile, i.e. horses.

Since this Supreme Court ruling there have been additional rulings, in regards to warrantless searches of automobiles, but fundamentally the Supreme Court decision as determined in 1925, stands as is, which permits warrantless searches of vehicles, based on probable cause as determined by the police, still being the law of the land.  The substance of this law as enforced in America, is that, by definition, anytime that a given individual desires to move from one place to another, that person, is subject to being stopped by the police and subject to a search of their vehicle as well as to their own person, all under the guise of "probable cause," of which, the police, can essentially pull over anybody for any reason, under the color of law, so that in effect, "witch hunts" are authorized by this statute, and the Fourth Amendment, for all practical purposes, is null and void.

The upshot, though, is that the Fourth Amendment, could have easily dealt with the issue of the mobility of man, by making it part and principle of its Amendment, of which, it did not.  In addition, during any part of a given person's mobility, a person will begin from one destination and arrive at another destination, so that, the police or other governing authority obviously still have the ability and capability to see and to notice all and everything done out in the public view from such transportation, so as to thereby create an actual probable cause of real actionable information, that a specific warrant can therefore be generated upon.

The reasoning behind the automobile exception becoming law, is that because automobiles are mobile, therefore, an exception must be made in order to stop a crime in process, or to interdict contraband, all under the logic that this has to be done, before the vehicle travels away and therefore is able to offload the contraband or to remove all vestiges of a crime that has been committed, but in point of fact, police essentially use the automobile exception, to violate the people's Fourth Amendment rights, under the guise that they need do so in order to stop crime and to punish criminals.  However, in practice, what is established is a police state, in which the people are never secure from unreasonable searches and seizures, because the police have not been troubled beforehand to find probable cause and have not been issued a warrant specific to the place and thing to be seized. 

The mere act of driving in one's vehicle, the equivalency of riding one's horse, should not now, and should not ever mean the removal of the protection to be free from arbitrary searches conducted by the state against the individual.

The 4th Amendment and your Cell Phone

The 4th Amendment states in part: "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures ….no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause …and particularly describing the place to be searched."  In today's world, there are two common devices that people use on an everyday basis which have extremely personal information about an individual that the police should as a matter of course, not be allowed to search except under the most stringent conditions as well as under strict controls, and those would be our personal computer and our cell phone, but in fact, the police are eager, overeager to search both, which presents to them a wealth of very personal information about an individual, of which, the vast majority of that information is not germane to the case at hand.  This information is so personal and the viewing of such so invasive, that it is fair to say, having gathered all of such data from a given person's cell phone is somewhat akin to vacuuming information directly from a given person's brain.  That is why, if there is not specific legislation passed which restricts and monitors carefully such activity by our policing arm, the present situation will go from bad to worse.

The most important thing to get across, is that cell phones are essentially for many people, a detailed diary of their activities on a very specific minute-by-minute basis, of which, such information, should never be allowed to be freely accessed by the police, because, by definition, the searching of such information, is a massive net, scooping up literally everything, which includes all sorts of reams of data, which are not specific to any probable cause, and not distinct to an alleged crime that the police would have, it is, instead a great opportunity for the police to go on a personal fishing expedition, which then will create the potential to find a probable cause to fit a crime, ex post facto.  So too, such information, can easily be stored, classified, and mined, so as to be available to the policing force, information that will allow the police to open up investigations or to do additional research for future crimes or for their own data collection interests.

A cell phone in the hands of the police, without any oversight by a strong independent party on behalf of the people, is a huge disservice to the people.  That is to say, perhaps a reasonable accommodation for a search of a cell phone can be created, in which, first the police get a warrant issued upon probable cause and signed by a judge, that specifically lists the information that they desire to search for on that specific cell phone, and rather than the police doing such a search, that search could be done instead by a third party, in strict conformance with the search warrant instructions, so that only such information that specifically fits within that warrant is presented to the police, and all other information, is never provided, never saved, and never reviewed by the policing authorities.

If, on the other hand, the police are allowed to search a cell phone without oversight and without constraints, implicitly or not, or undetected or not, than the country will essentially create two worlds, one in which, those that collect and access information can permanently know everything about you, but you, will know nothing about them.

Like for Like

People like to overcomplicate life, so as to create all sorts of avenues and alleys that meander all over the place, that thereby go back and forth, as well as up and down, even though anyone of any real sensibility can clearly see that the destination desired is actually just straight ahead.  For instance, think about this very carefully, if someone is rude and disrespectful to you, and you respond in kind, does the situation actually get better or does it get worse?  Or consider if someone slaps you across your face, and you respond in kind, does this bring peace and satisfaction to each party, or does it get worse? 

In point of fact, all things being equal, if you hit someone, they will hit you back.  Of course, most of the time, things aren't equal at all, so that when you hit someone, and they don't hit you back, it isn't really correct to believe, that they somehow have recognized that you are right and that they therefore deserved it, though that is possible, but often they want to retaliate but do not have the resources to do so at the present time, or, at a minimum, they strongly desire to pay you back in kind, with an action similar to yours, if they can only find the necessary tools and the right time to do so.

The above suggests what should be fairly obvious to all, that a destructive war that kills and maims many, while also destroying infrastructure, and creating all sorts of havoc, will, in and of itself, not bring lasting peace.  In fact, for the side that has been defeated by such, it will bring a certain resignation, signifying that they cannot overcome their opponent, but hardly recognition that war has somehow enlightened these people that they were in the wrong, and therefore they will now live peacefully with their erstwhile opponent.

There is a basic truism, known implicitly by all, which simply states that if you want more of the same, than all you have to do is to keep doing the same things that you have been doing, and you will expectantly get the same result. If, on the other hand, you want change, real fundamental change, than one of the parties, must make a change on their end in order to effectuate a different result.  So that, those that conquer by the sword, must at some point, truly turn their swords into plowshares, and having done so, they will find that their mindset and the things that they do, day-by-day, will materially change from what it once was, into something more pacific, making for a more tranquil world.  Of course, there are many that argue against this same point, indicating that a nation or a person must always have a strong defense at a minimum, in order to protect oneself from dangers, foreign and domestic, but mankind has tried this very same thing, under all sorts of different names and reasons, for millenniums, and to what effect, has all this accomplished?

In short, on the most fundamental level, you cannot end violence with more violence, though granted violence is very good at ending another person's life, or taking over another country's sovereignty, but having conquered through violence, this has created the seeds of yet more violence.  To end violence, therefore, you must stop the act itself, and by doing that, by refusing to take up arms, by refusing to respond in kind, you may indeed lose your life, or even lose your country, but ultimately there will step-by-step, be birth real lasting peace, for like will, as surely as the morning follows the night, bring forth like.