7 Year Pornography Expiration

The internet is ubiquitous with pornography, and the internet appears to be the preferred method for viewing and procuring porn because of the variety available, its anonymity, and the accessibility of all particular genres.  How much money is made off of porn, how big a business is porn, and how porn is doing in the internet age are questions that are difficult to answer since the vast majority of adult entertainment companies are privately held but estimates range for the entire pornography enterprise of pay-per-view, video sales and rentals, internet sales and rentals, print media, and audio media to be in the range of $2 to $6 billion per year.   (Estimates of porn revenues vary so widely and the methodology to come up with the estimates aren't consistent that any number generated is somewhat suspect.)

What isn't in doubt is that the real money to be made in porn is not on the acting end but on the production and distribution end.  Porn performers are non-unionized, typically receive no residual pay, no health insurance, and are often free lance with many having no agent representation and therefore are on their own when it comes to making a financial deal with the producer.

While I won't argue the point that an adult owns their own body and therefore should have the right to do with their body what they will, porn presents an unique problem that should be addressed, which is, for how long shall any performer continue to have their images sold and resold in which this particular performer is receiving no further monetary compensation.  The quick answer is that their contract stipulates the rules and therefore that is just the way that it is, but I find this to be quite unacceptable.  The question is one of how long any porn performer for a one-time payment should have to see their image reproduced time after time after time, in which that said performer would prefer to opt out.  I believe that time span should be seven years from the date the media was first available for sale.  Obviously, you cannot create an ex-post facto law, so all porn created before this law came into effect, would effectively become dated as of the date of the law itself.

The advantage of the law would be it would allow all porn performers to by default opt out of seeing their images portrayed again and again ad nauseam.  Seven years is a very long time for producers of porn to make their money and then some.  However, if all performers agree at the end of seven years that they wish to continue with that particular media distribution, a contract with the necessary signatures could be drawn up and the deal would then become valid for an additional seven years.  This does mean that if one or more performers do not agree or will not re-up,  that the media will then either have to be shelved, pending future negotiations, or edited to take these actor(s) out. 

The bottom line is pornography is not a wholesome business and people's lives change and those that were once a part of the business for a day or for many years should be allowed the dignity to walk away from it and thereby not be haunted or harmed by images from yesteryear.  Snapchat has the basic concept right, there should be a self-delete button automatically generated and this should be implemented within porn. 

TV Use to Be Free

If you live in a rural area or if you are over 40 years of age, you probably remember when TV was free or are still experiencing broadcast television for free.  In fact, according to Knowledge Networks’ 2011 Ownership Survey and Trend Report, "… 15% of all homes now just depend on free TV, up from 14%.", that number is no doubt a combination of people that predominately utilize free broadcast TV by choice and those that have cut their cable cords by their own volition (whether desired or not).

There was a time when free broadcast TV was the only game in town for television.  The consumer had the big three of ABC, CBS, and NBC, alongside PBS on his VHF channels.  On his UHF channels the viewer received a couple of local or independent channels which were much lower budget than the big three, and if you lived near a major metropolis you could also probably pick up an additional channel or two on your TV.  Although the choices were relatively few there was enough variety to suit nearly everyone and whether you were in school or at the office, there was always going to be at least one person who had watched the same show at the same time as you did.

The consumer today who pays for cable or satellite is given a multitude of channels, perhaps 200 or more, but he also pays for the privilege of doing so.  Besides his TV, today's viewer can still access media in a variety of formats and ways, some of which are free, some relatively low-cost, and some via the pay-per-view method.    I am often surprised though, how often the television consumer doesn't at least consider his free and low-cost possibilities first before purchasing his paid subscription, as the cost differential over a year's period of time can be quite meaningful. 

How valuable a cable subscription is situation specific and it is also virtually impossible to compare plans and services in an easily recognizable way.  Additionally, it just seems to be a truism that the channels that one person likes are wholly different from their significant other's choices and therefore you have to migrate up to a higher paid plan in order to accommodate both parties, as I am unaware of any cable provider that allows you a la carte choices. 

This brings me back to free TV and the big three which has since been joined by Fox, which is now available for free on broadcast TV, and for most people there is also the further choice of CW.  So free channels on broadcast TV have actually increased over the last generation and while these channels are overwhelmed by the variety and complexion of what cable and satellite providers have in their arsenal, they are free with no contracts and no commitments.

However, there is a disturbing problem, while we can still get free broadcast TV depending on our location, our sophistication, our TV, and our antenna, the major broadcasters are not in our corner.  People that receive free TV broadcasts don't pay a dime for them, whereas cable and satellite providers must pay retransmission fees to ABC, CBS, and the like for providing these stations to their subscribers.  The difference then breaks down as follows: for the cable/satellite viewer the major broadcasters get paid through those subscriptions.  For the free broadcast viewer, the major broadcasters just get paid through advertising revenue. 

As I said, TV use to be free, enjoy it while you can.

SWAT

SWAT stands for Special Weapons and Tactics and is a special police force organization which was initially setup to handle crowd control and civil unrest in light of the Watts riots in LA of 1965.  Although it took some time to develop, mature, and synthesize, a typical SWAT team of today according to Wikipedia would consist of some or all of the following: "Such units are often equipped with specialized firearms including submachine guns, assault rifles, breaching shotguns, sniper rifles, riot control agents, and stun grenades. They have specialized equipment including heavy body armor, ballistic shields, entry tools, armored vehicles, advanced night vision optics, and motion detectors for covertly determining the positions of hostages or hostage takers, inside enclosed structures."

SWAT teams are so common and ubiquitous nowadays, that it is estimated that over 90% of cities with a population of 50,000 people or more have a SWAT team as part of their police force.  Yet, the initial mission of SWAT teams was to be only used in extraordinary situations in which the community at large was either in danger, and/or there was an illegal or threatening organization that was heavily armed and unwilling to surrender without armed confrontation.  Examples of the latter would be the shootouts involving: MOVE, the Black Panthers, and the SLA. 

Yet today, SWAT is most commonly used for alleged drug or contraband crimes and the houses that are thereby raided are deliberately raided in order to arrest the suspects and confiscate their drugs.  But in so doing, the SWAT team puts into harm's way other family members, such as children or grandparents, who are wholly innocent or ignorant of these drug crimes.  Therefore, by these actions, it could be argued that these officers of the law are in direct violation of their primary mission which is to "protect and serve". That leads us to question as to why SWAT feels the need to  break into a house with overwhelming force in order to catch a drug criminal when houses are stationary and. have common egress and ingress points.  If there truly are drugs within the house those drugs are going to either have to come in to the house or go out of the house or both.  Why can't SWAT teams concentrate on catching the specific perpetrator at hand and not endanger themselves, the community, and those unfortunate enough to be in the wrong place at the wrong time by simply staking out or observing the suspect over a certain period of time.

Additionally, when it comes to SWAT raids, the data available indicates that it isn't even close to 100% of the time that the warrant is successful in producing criminal charges against any of the occupants of the house that necessitated SWAT in the first place.  Therefore there should be absolute transparency to every SWAT raid in regards to who, what, how, why, when, and where transpired.  How else, can a community properly oversight their police, their SWAT teams, and their community safety without this very pertinent information.

SWAT teams are yet another example of good intentions gone wholly out-of-control whether deliberately or inadvertently.  A man's home is his castle, this is a fundamental right, and what a man does in his home is really his own business unless there is valid proof that there is an activity within the home that endangers the public safety and/or the exigencies of the situation warrants an immediate entry.

Stock Market Cheerleaders

Monday through Friday the stock market is open and it's covered before the bell, during the trading hours, and after the bell by television organizations like Fox, CNBC, and Bloomberg, along with numerous online websites.  The overriding sentiment, no matter what is going on in the real world, is one of bullishness.  Of course, I want to be realistic here, the pundits are never 100% bullish, but that is the overall sentiment.  The message that these media outlets typically want to send out is that stocks and your investments in general, are only going to go up, up, up.  Further, that even if your stocks should go down, why that is just another buying point for your selections and they will still go up if you just have the courage to hang on, think of the long long term, or to purchase more at this new bargain basement price.  While this all looks and sounds great, especially when the stock market in general is going up, the fact of the matter is, sometimes the market goes down and it can go down by a lot.  In those types of situations, the pundits muddle through it, try to justify or unjustify it, try to explain it, pontificate, bluster, but it isn't quite business as usual.

Through it all, do these media outlets actually care or are they concerned about how you the individual investor performs?  Actually, I do believe that they do care and that any legitimate organization is trying to give you good and often sound advice.  The problems are that their track records may be rather poor, past history is not a guarantee of future success, and the hot hand of last quarter or last year by the time he or she becomes a name, is often having a poor year or a reduction to mean, when you unfortunately hear about them.  Their intentions may be good, the articles may be informative, but it doesn't necessarily add up to investment success.

The stock market cheerleaders also want to get you excited about the market, to trade with the market, to get in, to get out, or to just get involved somehow.  In order for the market to move, it needs action, for every buyer there has to be a seller.  The cheerleaders want to give you the illusion that you too can make that easy money, that it's only a click away, and that if you compound some daily gain over a weekly period and then compound it again and again, you'll be filthy rich.  They don't bother with telling you these important and fundamental facts, that you are an amateur up against professionals, quants, high-frequency traders, and insiders.  Do you really think or have the audacity to believe that you are the smartest guy in the room?

Before investing in the stock market, you should be aware of what you do and don't know.  You are not a congressman or legislator, or lobbyist, discussing pertinent legislative laws which will have a material impact on your business.  You are not a corporate insider well aware of whether your company is or isn't going to make its quarterly goals and well aware of the pipeline of future sales.  You are not part of the Federal Reserve and consequently do not know ahead of time, future Fed policies.  If this is who you are not, you are on the outside looking in.

Standing Armies

In our grievances as listed in our Declaration of Independence it was stated that King George had in the American colonies: "… kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures."  The colonies were right to be concerned and to feel imperiled by Great Britain's standing armies that answered not to our own domestic legislatures but to the King and its parliament instead; and when war came between us, those standing armies were loyal to the crown and not to the coloniesAfter our independence, the importance and the fear of standing armies lead to important debates between the federalists and anti-federalists during the constitutional convention, in which ultimately the funding of a standing army in America was vested to Congress and not to the President or to the Executive branch. 

A standing army is a mighty instrument that inappropriately applied can be used for all sorts of nefarious purposes.  First, it is important to understand that the military indoctrinates its soldiers to believe that they are part of a greater whole, that while there is room for individual heroism it is also a given that the individual soldier is subservient to the unit, that the overriding objective of soldiers is to be obedient to their superior officers, to follow orders promptly, and to implement them without hesitation.  While it is written in military manuals that soldiers need: "obey only lawful orders", in times of crisis, of exigency circumstances, there will be few soldiers, if any, that will have the courage or effrontery to confront their superior with their viewpoint that a particular order is, in fact, "unlawful". 

The history of standing armies is hardly comforting to us.  James Madison in 1787 stated: “The means of defense against foreign danger, have been always the instruments of tyranny at home." For every great leader and general such as George Washington or Cincinnatus, history demonstrates that they are hundreds more of tinhorn dictators, tyrants, despots, cabals, and the like that wreak havoc both domestic and foreign, and use their military power as a blunt instrument to effect their desires and beliefs, whatever the cost, and whatever the consequences. 

The mission creep of standing armies can easily morph from protecting the homeland, to generic peacekeeping overseas, to promoting foreign democracy, to attacking our enemies both foreign and domestic, to outright war, and finally to enslaving our people themselves in order to best protect and provide for them from enemies yet unknown. 

A standing army should best be looked upon as a permanent and dangerous threat to liberty.  Justice comes in many forms and many guises and one of those forms is when you are looking down the barrel of a gun.  When the guns or the army that you thought was there to serve and protect you is in fact turned against you, where then will you find your freedom, your liberty, your happiness, your livelihood, your country, except in the lost pages of history, or in a declaration of independence now forgotten, or a constitution effectively overridden and dismissed

Safe Drinking Water

There are a slew of things that we take for granted in our modern world each and every day because for the most part you can count on them working correctly day in and day out, and while there are plenty of resources that we would be loath to lose the use of for even a partial day, one of the foremost items that we would be most troubling to lose is water.    While we can quibble and argue that the most essential element for life itself is air, the fact of the matter is, with the exception of the most dire of emergencies you can find yourself good or at a minimum adequate air, but nearly one billion people upon this great planet lack reasonable access to safe drinking water and without safe water your health, and your life itself is seriously imperiled.

According to nicoletwater.com, "90 percent of Americans receive drinking water from a public water supply, such as a city, town or county water department."  On the surface that appears to be wonderful news, except for the fact that there are significant logistics involved in bringing that safe drinking water to our homes.  The first issue is that the water has to be safe--it cannot be compromised.  We typically get our water from sources such as lakes, reservoirs, streams, and rivers, but that water isn't simply just piped into our homes as is, it has to be diverted first into and then typically pumped into a holding pond which will then have the water treated with chemicals, then the usage of filters to screen out sediments, and finally a more thorough filtration will be utilized.  Next, further cleaning chemicals will be used to destroy bacteria and other harmful elements, than tests will be run to assure that the water has been properly purified before that water is stored pending its delivery to the population.

Now with the safe water being stored typically in a water tower it is available for distribution but that brings in a host of other items needed for that distribution.  Water must flow through pipes to arrive at your home, it must also have the energy needed to flow through those pipes, while part of that movement of water will come from gravity,  part also comes from the flow of water through the mechanism of high pressure to low pressure, but in order to accomplish that, that necessitates electrical energy.  A water supply without appropriate power and without necessary pressure is stagnant water in which the quality of that water will be become suspect in a very short period of time due to the possible contamination of the water by bacteria.  You may still have access to the water, but now it must be treated, typically by boiling the water for a period of time, before you can use it.  Should your access to water be completely cut off, you are at the mercy to any previous storage of water that you may or may not have.  Without safe and clean water, the quality of your life deteriorates rapidly, and chaos & panic will quickly ensue. 

For millions of people around the world, that do not have either safe or a clean water supply available to them, and therefore they must either use water that is convenient but contaminated, or travel long distances to procure hopefully safe water in which the transport of water is neither convenient, easy, or reliable, since the weight of only one gallon of water is about eight pounds.  Without an easy, affordable, and steady supply of safe drinking water, your life, your livelihood, your sanitation, and your health is on the wrong side of the line drawn in the sand. 

Revelation 21

All the wisdom that we need to know, to contemplate on, to pray upon, to meditate with, is contained within Holy Scripture.  God has given us no task in which we cannot but succeed or overcome, if we are willing to listen and to obey the still small voice within.  It is only man, in his ignorance, who sees the body, and believes that this physical body is the be-all, and the end-all of life; but indeed nothing physical can last, only our soul, only our spirit.  No matter what occurs to your body, your soul can never be vanquished; it can only be ultimately absorbed into omnipotent God.

Genesis 3: 17 states: "And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life."  What this means is as follows; that mankind deliberately listened to the voice of its own ego, beguiled into believing that they too could be gods of a sort if they followed the advice of the serpent and tasted the fruits of the path of temptation, as opposed toobeying God's perfect way.   By eating the forbidden fruit, the relationship between Adam & Eve in regards to their Creator had been turned asunder, no more were they immortal beings worthy to be co-heirs to our Lord; they had been reduced to human beings subject to the laws of physical life and death.  Their life could no longer be one of paradisiacal splendor, a garden of love, instead they would have to toil, to labor, and to live within the physical laws of earth which includes suffering, pain, injustice, fear, unfairness, darkness, and ultimately death.

However all was not lost, as Adam & Eve had not been abandoned by God, as His wisdom, His power, His omniscience were still present to be One with Adam & Eve through prayer and contemplation, what had happened to them was that the physical needs of the body had corrupted and now competed with Adam & Eve's ability to draw upon, to listen, and to love their Creator. 

This was not the end as Christ showed us the perfect way back to our Lord, through his willful obedience and surrender to God's Word.  Far from living a life of sensory enjoyment, and ego fulfillment, Christ followed the admonition that each of us has a stark choice to either follow God or to follow mammon.  These choices are fundamentally opposed to each other, and when tempted by Satan and offered dominion over all the kingdoms of the world, he rebuked Satan and broke forever the bonds of Adam & Eve, for now here was a man who would not only overcome physical death, but would resurrect himself and walk the earth again while commencing the Great Commission before ascending to heaven.

Which leads us to Revelation 21:4: "And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away."  "For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found" Luke 15:24.  Revelation 21:4 is the end of our story, it is man coming back to God, being one with God, it is man overcoming self, it is man regaining paradise, and finally it is man receiving God's total and complete compassion for us, forgiveness of us, and unending and unfailing love for us.

Presidential Proclamation of Fasting

Each thanksgiving in America is celebrated with friends and family, feasts of good food, family communion, thankfulness for our gifts both merited or unmerited, care for those less fortunate than us, and an appreciation for our God and our great country.  Thanksgiving is a holiday that many people look forward to and celebrate, but whatever happened to the counterpoint to thanksgiving, a day of humility, penitence, prayer, and fasting?  While we do have a National Day of Prayer, within that day there is no call for penitence, forgiveness, or fasting, but just a general call for prayer and meditation.

Our Continental Congress from 1775 - 1782 (with the exception of 1777) declared a national day of humility, fasting, and prayer.  John Adams as President declared in 1798 and 1799 the same sentiments.  President James Madison in 1814 also proclaimed a national day of humility, fasting, and prayer.  Finally, President Lincoln in 1861, 1863, and by title only in 1864, declared a national day of humility, fasting, and prayer.  It has been nearly 150 years, and since then not a single President under any conditions, war or peace, good times or bad, has declared a day of humility, fasting, and prayer.  A country and a people that no longer believes it has a need to humble itself, to fast, and to show appreciation to our Creator is a country of arrogance and mistaken pride. 

To show how far we have fallen from grace, a call now for America to humble itself, and to fast, would be subjected to the most virulent calls for a separation of church and state, the inappropriateness of such a measure even being considered, health concerns that thousands of people would die (fasting can include water, juice, necessary medicine, or even small meals before sunrise or after sundown), and the general acknowledgment that America dips its flag, nor bows its head to any power, here or Above.

A country or a people that will not humble itself is a country and a people that are lost.  Christ has many passages on humility throughout the New Testament, for instance, Matthew 23:12: "And whosoever shall exalt himself shall be abased; and he that shall humble himself shall be exalted." Nobody, nor any country remains on top forever.  Life has its seasons, its cycles, and its stages.  A people that are unable to humble themselves, to sacrifice themselves, not even for one day, is a people that have judge themselves to be above it all. 

To think that one is always justified, and those that come from a different place, a different country, a different attitude, are not justified, is a dangerous ideology and a dangerous god to listen to.  Humility, prayer, and fasting, are a true chance and an opportunity to submit ourselves to our Creator, in gratitude for His benevolent grace, His tender mercies, and His wonderful wisdom. 

There is no higher calling than to serve our fellow man by helping the helpless, aiding the hurting, and by loving the unlovable.   Man does not live by bread alone that is why we must occasionally fast to remind ourselves of that vital fact.

Your National ID#

The government wants to track your whereabouts in everything you do and in everywhere you go.  A database or a population that is traceable is easier for the government to manage, to predict their predilections, to infiltrate, and to control.  The government is always outnumbered by the people, and those few that are the most powerful in any country are far outnumbered by the people, yet minorities of a minute percentage of people in conjunction with para-military and intelligent elements are able to keep the population pacified or constrained within certain acceptable boundaries for very long periods of time.  

The government wants you to be like lemmings.  Measures are passed in which your rights are protected only for your rights to be eroded over time.  Take, for instance, our standard social security cards which when initially issued in 1935, contained no separate identity numbers at all, but that was changed by the next year and even though this number was specifically set up to keep track of social security earnings and benefits that too would change.  While in 1946, cards were first issued with the specific warning that stated: "FOR SOCIAL SECURITY PURPOSES -- NOT FOR IDENTIFICATION"-- a warning so clear and specific that it should bring us a feeling of relief, that warning was removed by 1972.  This removal was a clear indication by the government that your Social Security# was no longer just for Social Security.  In fact, common usage of your Social Security# today whether you give out your entire number or just the last four digits includes but isn't limited to the following:

            Assigned at birth (1994)

            Landlords

            Banks

            Cable companies

            Employer

            Cell phone

            Utilities

            Credit cards

            Libraries

            Universities

            Medical & Dental

            Hospitals

            Credit Bureaus

            Taxation

If you don't give out your Social Security# to any of the above entities, you can expect that your application will either be denied, delayed, or processed very slowly, even though your Social Security# has never by law been assigned to you as your National ID#.   Your Social Security# is, though, for all intents and purposes exactly that.  But with computers and algorithms having never been more accessible and more powerful than they are today; the necessity of using anybody's Social Security# for identification purposes isn't valid.  All the same information that these organizations require to validate you could just as easily be obtained by your full name, birth date, and birthplace, with possibly a few other quick questions on previous addresses or miscellaneous information within a multiple choice format.  (I've already seen this exact format used online previously without having to provide my Social Security#.) 

The government sells you the illusion that it protects your Social Security#, your medical records, your tax records, your phone records, and so on and so forth from one agency from another, but if each of these agencies is using the same ID#, it doesn’t take any stretch of the imagination to picture the government stitching this all together again for its own purposes.  If you believe that the government is your great benevolent friend, than no worries, but information is power, and information that you thought was private or proprietary is even more powerful.  When the government has enough information to compromise you or a family member or someone of significance to you, they then have the ability to manipulate you, to coerce you, to find you, and when the government's back is up against the wall, they will not hesitate a moment into using you, to protect the ruling class and the power brokers. Your National ID# is like a permanent tattoo on your body, you are born with it, you will die with it, and you can never escape from it.

Minimum Wage

There was a time when I made just over the minimum wage, was I embarrassed by this fact?  Not at all, at that point this was my first time being fully employed and quite frankly I was delighted just to have a job, any job. Did I deserve my wages?  Yes, I believe that I was productive for the wages paid and I maintained my job, learned responsibility, and advanced.  Did I wish I was paid even more?  Duh, who wouldn't want more!    But the most important thing about my first job was it allowed me eventually to get more pay, more opportunities, mainly because my skill set, my networking, and my experience improved.  Without someone taking a chance on me, giving me that opportunity, my history may have been far different, and instead of being a success, perhaps my results would have been pathetic or worst.

When it comes to discussing the fairness of the minimum wage, the first test should be, are there a multitude of minimum wage jobs in which nobody will take the job, and it just stands vacant month after month after month.  The answer to that appears to be no and the reason why I can say this is that if this was true, the employer would have no choice but to raise wages in order to attract employment.  Another reason why we know this isn't true is the fact that the unemployment rate for youth ages 16-19 is around 25%  and for young adults 20-24 it is around 15%, as compared to the nationwide average of about 7.2%.  How is it possible that the segment of the population that makes the lowest wage on average has the highest unemployment rate?  On the surface, this doesn't make any sense, since your labor cost is an important component of your company's expenses.  It only makes sense if one recognizes that an artificial minimum wage above what the free market would settle on, allow employers to cherry pick their employees and therefore they often opt for someone more experienced, more reliable, and steadier.  Therefore, despite the good intentions of a minimum wage, the people that the minimum wage purports to help, those that are struggling to make a living wage, to get a job, any job, are left with no wages, no job, and effectively become wards of the state.  That is the irony of good intentions.

I do believe that a man should receive an honest day's wage for an honest day's work, but is it necessary for the government to impose a minimum wage upon private enterprise?  In the modern world, I doubt it and I suspect that if the government followed a more carrots-and-stick approach that they might find themselves more successful in providing more employment and better wages for the public at large.  Corporations are not stupid and are enterprises that as going concerns will typically last long beyond our human lifetimes.  Do you actually think for a minute that corporations will allow themselves to be legislated out of existence?  It won't happen, and therefore taking an antagonistic attitude towards corporations is both short-sighted and ill-served especially in a country created with the spirit of self-reliance.

The government can play a role in increasing wages, but this role should perhaps be done by engaging businesses in comprehensive discussions in order to formulate common goals that benefit both parties.  Additionally, tax consequences make a huge difference in the decisions that corporations make, so it is high time to think outside the box and formulate some new plans such as the deductibility and depreciation of capital investment vis-a-vis labor.  If government truly wants to see more jobs available above the current minimum wage and/or to see labor utilized more, provide those specific incentives to do so to businesses and it will happen.

Mass Media

The United States offers the illusion of choice every day in regards to our entertainment, reading, television, and other media, but in fact, these media "choices" are controlled by a large oligopoly.  These huge conglomerates control, process, and provide the media that we consume and utilize on any given day.  The big six by revenue are listed below:

Walt Disney   

            Media, consumer products, parks, resorts, hotels, cruise lines, ABC (media) ESPN (sports), Marvel (comic media)

News Corp

            Newspapers/multi-media, (UK, Australia, USA). Dow Jones (includes WSJ), HarperCollins (books)

            21st Century Fox

                        Spun off from News Corp  TV/movies

Time Warner  

            HBO/Cinemax, Time (print media), IPC Media (print media), Groupo (media), Turner Network (multi-media), Warner Brothers (multi-media)

CBS

            TV, print media, radio

VIACOM  

            Paramount (movies), MTV/Nickelodeon

Comcast

                Cable, NBC Universal (TV/multi-media)      

While there is something to be said about the synergy and consolidation in media as providing better pricing overall to the consumer, with both higher quality and superior service, the flip side is that diversity is minimized, controversial or innovative viewpoints are stifled, and the lust for power and money has been magnified.

While this is the age of the internet in which any viewpoint, any opinion, any idea can be solicited to the public, if you are not on the right wavelength, connected to the right people, or have made nice to the power brokers, your views will be marginalized with little or no hope of ever achieving a foothold into the American psyche. 

America still does offer freedom of the press, but if nobody actually reads or listens to what you have published or said, you are the sound of one hand clapping.  It isn't so much that mass media deliberately wants to censor your voice, it has a lot more to do with the fact that if you are not with the program, that mass media can't market successfully what you say, can't make money off of what you proclaim, or such, they will simply ignore you and ignoring you is their perfect response. 

Mass media always wants to give you a choice but it's always the choice of "heads I win, tails you lose."  The choices that you are really offered are essentially going from one conglomerate to another, as long as you're doing business with one of the big boys, the oligopoly are happy.  Sure they compete with each other but they understand that not everyone wants the same thing, at the same time, and that people will gravitate from one media to another, depending on their age, income, social background, and whatnot.  All they really want from you is your attention, your money, and some sort of loyalty. 

The mass media understands that America is the world leader in media in all of its many forms, and if mass media can't get its own population to adhere to certain standards and behaviors, how would it be possible to influence others beyond our own borders.  Mass media has little interest in a strong nuclear family which demonstrates clear, independent and moral right thinking.  While that is okay in a few exceptional cases, mass media wants to be your family, your daddy, your mommy, your sister, your brother, and your special friend.  They will tell you what to do, what to think, and how best to please them, and all you have to do in returnis simply absorb their message day by day.

World's Richest Country

There was a time when the United States really was the world's richest country by GDP, by median income, and by any other recognizable metric but that total dominance ended by 1973 in which countries such as Sweden and Switzerland surpassed us for the first time in their per capita GDP.  The United States is the third most populous nation in the world but its population trails far behind India and China in which both of those countries have only one billion residents each as contrasted to our three hundred and thirteen millions.  Population is a key component to a countries' overall GDP in which the United States GDP is double that of their next closest country which is China. However, a Forbes article of 10/7/13 predicts that China's GDP will catch up to the United States by 2020.  This won't be the first time that China was the world's largest economy as they had the biggest GDP till around the turn of the 20th century when the baton was handed over to the United States which has not relinquished it since.

In the 21st century we can see that the United States has continued to slip down the charts, for instance, in 2000, the United States was ranked by Credit Suisse as the #1 in average wealth per adult, but by 2010, the USA had slipped to #7 with an average of $236K which was behind countries such as Switzerland, Australia, and France.  For 2012, Credit Suisse stated that the United States median wealth per adult was at $38.8K which was ranked 27th in the world, surprisingly behind such countries as Germany, Sweden, Japan, and the United Kingdom. 

Which leads us to the next problem for the United States which is that out of 50 countries, only Russia had a larger disparity between average wealth and median wealth in which the ratio for Russia was 12.6 times its median wealth, whereas in the United States it stands at 6.7 times, in contrast to Australia and the United Kingdom in which they are at 1.8 times and 2.2 times median wealth respectively.  (Remember that the median is defined by having half of the numbers above the median and half of the numbers below the median, therefore the closer an average salary is to the median, the more equitable the number; the higher the disparity the more inequitable, because an average takes all of the numbers together and divides them by the quantity of numbers taken.) 

This disparity between average and median wealth is part of the reason why the United States is perceived as wealthier than it really is.  America is very wealthy for the special elite, in which the United States is first in billionaires, and first in millionaires, and their conspicuous consumption is felt worldwide.  But America also has an impoverished underclass in which a report issued in 2011 by the Organization for Economic and Cooperation Development stated that our poverty rate was more than twice that of countries such as Denmark and Hungry, and our poverty level was higher than countries such as Germany and Italy.

Marcus Aurelius said that "poverty is the mother of crime."  We can see that in our prisons which are full, this despite a country that is widely acknowledged and perceived as being the richest nation that the world has ever known.  America is a country divided by rich and poor, with a middle class being squeezed out of existence by taxes domestically and labor outsourced internationally.  America is great and is impoverished, unfair, corrupt, and heading for the shoals.

Welfare state

The welfare state  as currently constructed should not exist in this country, not now, not ever, as it is by definition diametrically opposed to what this country was founded on, which is life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.  This country provides you life, because there is no compulsory draft, and therefore your life is your own.  America provides you liberty to live where you want to, travel unmolested, think and do what you desire, and consequently you are free.  Your pursuit of happiness is left in your own hands so that you can pursue your dreams, your goals, your plans, and to blaze your own path.  The welfare state opposes all of that.  The welfare state demands one very important thing which is anathema to the principles of America, which is for you to be subservient to the government, so that they can take care of you.  That isn't America and that isn't what this country was founded on,

The welfare state means that the more that you reward a particular action the more that you will get in response that particular action.  Further, when you provide for people's welfare and treat them as wards of the state, the more wards you will discover.  Additionally, when every little problem or setback is dealt with as if this is an ongoing disability, the more disabilities you will find.  Finally, if the rivers of welfare prosperity and sustainability appear unending, welfare largess will never end.

To make matters worse, the government doesn't have the moral courage to tax the gainfully employed and income-producing peoples directly  to assure that the welfare state is self-supporting, instead it taxes through its massive yearly deficits generations yet unborn.  That is hypocrisy at its worse, as those that have yet to enjoy the fruits of their labor, are stuck with the bill which simply states: "payment due" and gives no value in return.

It's always easier to spend other people's money.  When a congressman pats himself on the back for spending money on this or that welfare program, he hasn't spent his own money, he has spent yours; yet he gets the plaudits, he gets the buildings named after him, he gets the roads that sing his name, and the editorials that praise his generosity.  That's wrong in every aspect, it's nothing more than a con game, in which the government pretends that it can create wealth, whereas the truth of the matter is the government is very good at coercing wealth and ill-using labor and resources; because our government essentially produces nothing, it re-allocates and re-distributes resources to favored groups while taking a large slice of the pie for itself for its troubles.

America owes its citizens, a chance, a level playing field, opportunity, and anything that we can do to encourage these things is a net benefit to society at large.  We don't owe anyone a free ride, entitlements, or promises that we ourselves cannot keep without taking from others.   The welfare state has not worked to date and needs to be reformed, so that properly understood and reformulated, charity and welfare should be a helping hand and not an indiscriminate handout.

Utility Pricing Plans

If you're like me, when you moved into your home and signed up for trash, gas, electricity, water, and sewage you pretty much figured that you got to pay what you got to pay and you really didn't worry yourself or were concerned about it any further.  That's a mistake.  While it doesn't appear that in my community that you have a choice in regards to selecting a different vendor for water & sewage, you definitely do have choices for trash, natural gas, and electricity and a good consumer makes good reasoned choices.  I initially didn't do that and to compound my error further I signed up for paperless billing.  While paperless billing may be better for the environment, if you don't ever take a look at your bill, but blithely pay it, you will probably miss the opportunity to audit your bill and consequently you won't make any changes to your utility vendors or your pricing options.

Of course, it isn't entirely your fault, for instance, on my natural gas provider, I was by default signed up for their introductory rate which was approximately .349/therm but that literally lasted just a couple months before being automatically switched over to their variable plan at approximately 1.029/therm, which is the default plan and the preferential choice that this vendor wants you to make.  The reason that I know it's their preference is when you log onto your account and wish to select or remain on their variable plan, this can be done online with no human interaction, whereas, when I attempted to switch over to the fix rate for 12 months at approximately .629/therm, the website insisted that I call an operator or else the change would not go through.  The phone call was quite eye opening because rather than simply signing me up for the fix plan, she attempted to bully me into staying with the current plan by warning me that the fixed rate plan has a termination charge of $150 and that the variable plan is well, variable.  Although I consider their termination fee to be an outrage, I also am not moving anytime soon, additionally I believe that if it comes down to a termination that this something that can be negotiated or pro-rated, especially since I have a track record with the company.  In any event the comparison was pretty straight forward:

            Variable 1.029/therm (this does vary and it can go up as well as down but I've never seen it lower than .879/therm and that was during the summertime!) with a $6.95 monthly service fee

            Fixed .629/therm with a $5.95 monthly service fee and a possible early termination charge

That decision was pretty straightforward as I went with the fixed plan and have probably saved myself $80 - $200 per year.  The savings will vary depending on how much natural gas you use and how cold the weather gets in your area.

In regards to trash, I was initially with Waste Management, which is the biggest waste company in America, and although I was satisfied with their service, I became annoyed over their raising my price a couple of times and I figured that the competition was probably also going to be satisfactory. I mean it's trash pickup, right?  I've now switched twice since leaving Waste Management, and I estimate my current yearly savings to be at approximately $90/year.

Benjamin Franklin said it long ago, "a penny saved is a penny earned", and that was back in the day when a penny was worth something.  Utilities are a part of life; you have to have trash, gas, electricity, and water & sewage, so you may as well try to save yourself a few dollars while doing so.

The New King George

A great portion of our Declaration of Independence was the facts submitted to demonstrate the tyranny of King George and our Great Britain suppressors against us as a people and the colonies as a whole.  Unfortunately, as time has moved on, the independence that we once had and so richly cherished, has been compromised by the very government that is in theory, of the people, by the people, and for the people.  The people have become subservient to the government, and especially subservient to our National Government.

For instance, "He has erected a multitude of New Offices…" such as:          

            Director of the White House Office of Cybersecurity

            Director of the White House Office of Health Reform and Counselor to the President

            Director of the Office of National AIDS Policy

            Assistant to the President for Energy and Climate Change

The above agencies were just some of the appointments made by the current Presidential administration without Senate confirmation.

"He has obstructed the Administration of Justice."  For instance, after both bodies of Congress pass a bill, it is submitted to the President for either his signature or his veto.  However, recent administrations have added their own Executive interpretation to this straightforward signature option, by adding a signing statement to their signature, signifying how the President believes this particular law should be construed which essentially interprets the law as if the Executive branch was the judicial branch and thereby modifies law and consequently supersedes the congressional legislative bodies.

"He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power." The Executive branch has consistently waged war without congressional declaration, by declaring that since the President is the Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces, that he is in effect, able to call forth military forces at his prerogative, to fight enemies both foreign and domestic and without the need or aid of congressional approval.  This effectively makes the President, and therefore the military, independent of and hence superior to Civil Power.

"For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury," in which more than 90% of criminal trials, are settled with essentially coerced or extorted plea bargains, a Faustian bargain at best, and basically a perversion of justice for the convenience and service of the state. 

Our new King George has been in existence for quite a while, each President in his own time adding his particular imprint to the list of grievances impressed against the people.  The Presidency has devolved into an effective dictatorship, in which all laws are obeyed at his convenience, and the ones that the President feels the right to supersede, amend, or to ignore he does so with seemingly unlimited immunity.  The President is no fool, he makes sure to attempt to placate his political party, to provide the general public its bread and circuses, and he treats the military with all due deference and consideration.   The President wants the public to be fat, dumb-downed, morally suspect, and subservient.   The President smiles while he kills us softly.  We are his bleating sheep to be fed and then shorn again and again,

Self-sufficiency

Many people believe that America was founded and succeeded with a lot of grit, hard toil with diligent labor, and a benevolent helping hand from our Great Provider.  While this is ultimately true for the most part, it didn't start out that way as the Pilgrims upon creating the Plymouth Colony in 1620, were seeking to create a socialist utopia in which all shared equally in a communal society in which the population joined together in growing crops, hunting, washing, feeding, child rearing, and creating shelter.  While on the surface this seems to be a formula for equality and justice, in practicality, the Pilgrims were barely able to sustain themselves, and so in 1623, as chronicled by William Bradford, the land was divided up into parcels and each family was given dominion over its own area and its progeny.  Bradford wrote: "This had very good success; for it made all hands very industrious… The women now wente willingly into the feild, and tooke their litle-ons with them."

The primary reason the Pilgrims went from starvation to a successful and striving community is that they now had incentives to take responsibility for their own welfare, for their own success, and the impact of their success or lack of, would be immediately noticed in their bellies, in their family, and on their property.  On the surface, it seems fair, that all of God's nature should be shared equally but when you find that your hard work is being shared with peoples that have done nothing to contribute to it, and have no interest in doing their part, despite their capacity to do so, your work ethic, your desire to push yourself through dangerous conditions, bad weather, or poor health, is severely diminished. 

On the other hand, give a man an incentive, gave a man 'skin in the game', and you will see the mark of that man.  Yes, not everyone is capable of doing certain work because of their health, their mind, their abilities, or their age, but each person is capable of doing something of worth.  For instance, on a farm, children are quite capable of milking cows, collecting eggs, and tending the vegetable patch, while older adults can cook, give wisdom, and sew.   Teamwork consists of various members working together for a common goal or purpose.  When you are responsible for your own success, when you know that it is you that must answer the call, you will do so, tired or not, strong or not, hungry or not.  You will do so because you know the consequences for repeated failure and this is something that you will make all efforts to avoid.

America has fallen far away from its ideal of self-sufficiency.  Certainly, if you tell virtually anyone, even those that have to date worked hard, have high intelligence, or are diligent, that you don’t need to do a thing, you don't need to study, you don't need to push or test yourself, that 'daddy' or 'mommy' or 'big government brother' will take care of anything and everything for you, this will change you for the worst.  This will put you on a path of complacency and laziness, and when you find that the silver spoon has been taken or wrested away from your mouth, you won't have a clue what to do except perhaps to have a temper tantrum and hope that the world will continue to cater to you.

Rights

President Obama and his minions would have you believe that each of us has rights which are not inalienable, that is to say are not God-given but Government-given.  Because these "rights" are government provided, it also means four very important things:

1.      The government can arbitrarily give as well as arbitrarily take away your rights

2.      The government has the right to tell you what to do and how to behave and the government can change its mind about these rights at any time

3.      Your inalienable rights are superseded by government rights

4.      Government is your god, and there is no god but government

The falsehood and fallacy of the above can be demonstrated easily, our Declaration of Independence in which we the people declared our freedom from King George, was created to overthrow a tyrannical government and to assert that when our inalienable rights were oppressed and taken from us that the governed had the fundamental right to rebel against this said authority.  In short, the purpose of legitimate government is to protect our inalienable rights, not to subvert them.

When the President declares in regards to health care that "…it should be a right for every American," he is wrong.  When the President declares in regards to wages that "… in the wealthiest nation on earth, no one who works full-time should have to live in poverty, and raise the federal minimum wage to $9.00 an hour," he is wrong.  When the President declares in regards to housing that "Congress should give every American the chance to refinance at today’s low rates," he is wrong again. 

President Obama is wrong about health care because your liberty and your life will no longer be sovereign to yourself, but instead will become sovereign to the government.  Your freedom of choice will be compromised; medical costs and premiums will rise because of an unnecessarily bloated bureaucracy and mandated inefficiencies, restrictions will be implemented, demands will change based on corrupted incentives, poor health lifestyle choices will be perversely rewarded and subsidized by those who make good choices, and medical personnel will bow to the government and not to the Hippocratic oath. 

President Obama is wrong about the minimum wage because he suffers from the vision of "good intentions" but fails to recognize that businesses operate with a profit incentive.  When minimum wage salaries are increased as mandated by law, those that do not produce in labor the value of that wage will be terminated, therefore the very people that Obama purports to help are the people that are fired or will no longer be hired.  Instead, the bar to become employed will be raised higher and only those that merit the minimum wage as mandated will be employed; in addition, private business management will take steps to reduce minimum wage numbers in aggregate by replacing workers with machinery and taking tax advantage of capital investments in lieu of raised labor costs.

Finally, President Obama is wrong about housing.  The housing fiasco occurred for several reasons, not least of them, the congressional charted corporation (Freddie Mac) and the chartered government-sponsored corporation (Fannie Mae) in which as reported by the Atlantic: "Of the 19.2 million subprime and low quality loans that were on the books of government agencies in 2008, 12 million (about 62%) were held or guaranteed by Fannie and Freddie."  In which the taxpaying public is stuck with losses from subprime mortgages which are estimated at $250 billion.  The chance to refinance is not a congressional responsibility, but the responsibility of the borrowers' income, credit rating, and the price of the housing in question.

Lastly, it would be wise to remember that rights from governments, come and go, inalienable rights that come from our Creator do not.  Also, "a government big enough to give you everything you want, is a government big enough to take away everything that you have."   

Prisoners living well

According to povertyusa.org "more than 46 million Americans are living in poverty", yet somehow we have the means to provide prisoners shelter, food, and medical care--free of charge to the imprisoned person.  Boingboing.net reports that Victor Conte a former musician with the Tower of Power served four months at the Taft Correctional Institution, a privately-run minimum security federal prison in which he stated the following: "The first morning, when I woke up it was a kind of university-campus like setting…" and "I looked over I saw the rec center. And I walked over to that and looked in and there were six pool tables, six foosball tables, six ping-pong tables." "There's no fences around the place, about every 200 feet they have a sign on a stake that says 'Out of Bounds.'"

Further, as reported by the ACLU, "Prison officials are obligated under the Eighth Amendment to provide prisoners with adequate medical care," and that "Restrictions on prisoners’ access to publications cannot be arbitrary; they must be “reasonably related to legitimate penological interests.”"  While there isn't any doubt that prison conditions will vary widely from city to city, state to state, and jurisdiction to jurisdiction, the above serves to demonstrate that prisoners have Constitutional rights and further that prisoners have organizations that help to support them in receiving access to those rights.

But the right to something implies also an obligation to that right.  Prisoners in America are given free room and board, but what do they contribute in return for this largess which comes from the taxpayers in America?  Prisoners cannot be legally compelled to work or to do anything of merit while incarcerated, and while America has an obligation to be humane towards those that are imprisoned, a fair prison system would provide the means for prisoners to "pay their keep" while incarcerated, subject to a governing review for extenuating circumstances such as mental health, physical health, and disabilities.  Additionally, the original intent for prisons was for those imprisoned to pay penance for their crimes, both spiritually and physically.  Today, that sentiment for the most part seems to have been thrown out the window and prisons appear instead to be nothing more than a way to take certain peoples off of the street and away from the general population; meaning that monies spent on prisoners is mainly money spent in order to have the convenience and safety of not having to deal with them on the outside.

Still none of that answers the question as to why or how people that are incarcerated do not have to carry their own weight while in prison.  That being the case, you can make a very strong argument that all victimless crimes in which as part of your punishment you have been incarcerated, that these prisoners should be immediately released.  (Some examples of victimless crimes are drug usage, prostitution, and gambling, in which the overriding principle is if there are no unwilling participants there are no victims to protect or that have been violated.  Instead, you are imprisoning people for 'the crime' of treating their body and/or their mind as their own.) 

According to libertariannews.org their September 29, 2011 article stated: "Roughly 34% of all prisoners in the U.S. are incarcerated for victimless crimes."  There isn't any good reason why we as taxpayers should pay to keep these people in prison, since they have harmed nobody but themselves.  Taking this first major step in prison reform by releasing those presently incarcerated for victimless crimes will then allow us to better concentrate our reforms on the other criminal inmates to come up with meaningful solutions that are fair to the public, the prisoners, and especially to our good citizens whose only 'crime' is being impoverished.

Closing your eyes for concentration and a little more

It just seems natural for me to close my eyes when I'm in the process of lifting weights while exercising, or if I'm having difficulty I close my eyes to help unscrew that annoying jar top, or if I'm thinking about a problem in which I'm puzzled, but it also intuitively seems strange.  We count on our eyes for so much, to take in visual information, to know where we are going, to see what is around us, so that to give up vision, even temporarily, in order to accomplish something doesn't seem initially to make much sense, yet closing your eyes seems to be necessary in order to get certain things done, as if you need that extra effort, that extra concentration, to help push you across that finish line and get that problem resolved.

The main reason for closing our eyes to improve our concentration has got to do with the fact that vision brings us a multitude of information, in which while working on the particular problem at hand, we don't need our eyes open continually in order to complete that task.  For instance, the weight is heavy enough already, we have a good grip, and we just want to lift it up; we don't need nor do we desire seeing other objects in our peripheral vision, not until we've actually lifted the weight and are now bringing it back down.  With our eyes open, we appear weaker, and therefore we close them intuitively, feeling that we're better able to perform and to concentrate on the task at hand. It's the exact same weight with our eyes open or with our eyes closed, but the task is accomplished easier with our eyes closed.

That leads us to a general premise, that just because you have your eyes closed while listening to a lecture, you aren't necessarily tuning the lecture out, you may in fact be tuning the lecture in to absorb it better.  Yes, you may miss out on some pertinent visual cues, but more importantly you are probably not being distracted by visional items that are taking your attention away from the lecture.  Closing your eyes allows you to get engrossed in the task at hand, to reduce the multi-tasking that your brain is processing and to stay focused on the real point.

Taking this premise further, one would think that people born blind, are more capable at processing and understanding speech and Scientific America confirms this by stating: "Blind people can easily comprehend speech that is sped up far beyond the maximum rate that sighted people can understand." Further they state: "Vision is such an important sense for humans that a huge portion of the brain is devoted to visual processing—far more gray matter than is dedicated to any other sense. In blind people all this brain power would go to waste, but somehow an unsighted person's brain rewires itself to connect auditory regions of the brain to the visual cortex."

The above study is absolutely fascinating and demonstrates that something as important as vision, which we use every day has its flip side.  Great yogis' understand this and that is why their eyes are typically closed in joyful meditation in order to envision the radiance, the divine eye of God, and our Bible propounds this further in John 1:1: "In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God, and the Word was God."  The Word can only be one thing, the Divine Consciousness spoken into each one of us.

Bombing

First off, I will admit that I'm in general agreement with General Patton who believed that the object of war was to let "…the other poor dumb bastard die for his country," and I'm sympathetic in principle to the Rumsfeld Doctrine in which the thought is that a combination of superior high-technology information used strategically with advanced weapons systems and overwhelming air power, would best allow us to accomplish our military objectives without putting in harm's way an abundance of our ground troops and thereby would keep our fatalities and war injuries to a minimum while accomplishing the goal(s) at hand.

Having said this, one of the major problems with being so technically adept and so technically advanced, is that it becomes easier to not see the enemy as fellow human beings because the physical distance between us is so great in modern warfare.  Additionally, soldiers are indoctrinated to not see the enemy as anything other than targets, combatants, they, them, and of course there are plenty of racist terms to dehumanize the enemy combatants further.  Further, soldiers are instructed that they are the good guys and that they and they alone are fighting for right, justice, and the American way.  In the world of war, there isn't any room for nuance, it's often broken down into the basics of a kill or be killed scenario and soldiers on the ground directly experience the complete ramifications of deadly force and its effects and aftereffects while doing battle.

However, up high in the air the view of the enemy is far different and the higher you are the more surreal the ground, buildings, countryside, people (if you can even see them) appear.   (I've been to the top of skyscrapers and when you look down at the people and automobiles below, they don't seem real, even though you know that they are.)   The height that you are at, changes your perceptions, and things that you might not normally consider, are far easier to consider, and unless you or your country is held accountable for its actions, you will make decisions that appear valid on the surface but are far from it in reality.

Bombing is a shortcut.  Instead of boots on the ground, infantry, artillery, and other important armaments, why not make a surgical strike to decapitate or to effectively destroy your enemy's military-industrial complex.  The first problem is that it usually can't be meaningfully done without significant collateral damage, that is to say, without killing innocent civilians, destroying private property and taking out institutions that are necessary for the normal intercourse of human affairs.  Killing civilians should be a last recourse, especially by a country as military adept as we are, and that prides itself as being known as the land of the free.  It shouldn't be a crime to be born in a country that in some sort of way or manner is at 'war' with the United States, and you as a resident of that enemy country shouldn't have to pay with your limbs, your livelihood, your blood, your sanity, or your life.  America is better than that and should be held accountable for that.

Technology keeps getting better and better and sophisticated drones that put no American in danger makes it even easier for a military technician to push buttons, move military pieces, and to drop bombs on designated targets against certain countries, wreaking havoc and destroying lives.  Our greatest general and two-term President who knew war far better and more intimately than virtually anyone else alive today said in 1953: "Every gun that is made, every warship

launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed." President Eisenhower