American Indians and Broken Treaties

America was a land occupied by American Indians before the arrival of Europeans to which these two very different cultures clashed repeatedly with the ultimate and clear victor being the Americans from Europe which would in the process later create the colonies and a new Constitutional government which we know today as the United States of America.  Unfortunately, for the American Indians, they were over a period of time, quickly outnumbered, outmaneuvered, hoodwinked, divided, outgunned in war, denied true justice, and forced off of their traditional tribal lands, irrespective of whether they had legal rights to that land or not.

The American Indians were no match for the machinations of the American government, to which the American Indians believed that given their precarious position, that bargaining with the white man was their best choice, and therefore they signed numerous treaties with the United States government, all to little or no avail.  A treaty, by definition, is an agreement between two or more parties with specific terms and conditions to be followed by both and with specified penalties for any violations of such.  What the American Indians did not realize was that their signatures to treaties, really didn't mean much in practicality, as the American government, unilaterally re-interpreted, broke, amended and subverted treaty after treaty with the American Indians so as to achieve their desired aims, which was to push virtually all Indians off of virtually all lands east of the Mississippi and to displace them to the unsettled west, by force, if necessary.

In effect, the American government vacated every treaty with the American Indians and/or interpreted such so as to favor whatever that the American government wanted in actual results.  This meant, effectively, that the American Indians were treated as wards of the State, which continues to this very day, and that the American government was the sole determinant of what the American Indian would or would not receive, own, or have on any given day.  The overarching objective of the American government was to displace the American Indians onto worthless land, from every single perspective of the word: worthlessness, and to have nary a concern about American Indians and their traditions, their ways, and their tribal territories.  To make matters even worse for the American Indian, if it was later discovered that the land that they occupied had some worth, such as minerals, strategic or other, no matter the terms of said treaty, the American Indians would be moved again.

The upshot of the American government's treatment of American Indians and the treaties of such, was that in effect, the treaties were just a means to sell the illusion of fairness and justice to the American Indians and to a lesser extent the American public, while in actuality, the purpose was to marginalize and to neutralize the American Indian in such a manner, that it looked somewhat civil in its effects, while being incredibly devastating and potent in its design.

While the American government can be proud of its conquering and the submission of the American Indian, it did so in the most underhanded and deceitful way possible.  There is no honor in unilaterally violating a treaty made in good faith, nor is there any honor in not keeping your word.

Air Rights and Privacy in the Era of Drones

The owning of property by the common man is something that many people aspire to have, as the old maxim states, "a man's home is his castle".  The general thought before the age of technology, was that property ownership meant in effect, that the owner owned not only the soil to which his home rest upon, but the sky above.  However, in the advent of the aviation, the air rights above was further defined by court law, so that heights of 500 feet and above, were considered to be "….  a public highway and part of the public domain."  Nowadays, air rights in conjunction with the ready availability and low price-points of drones have changed the game again, and many States are in the process of creating and legislating appropriate rules and regulations for drones, which in the end may ultimately be mandated by the Federal Government, itself.

While it is one thing for a drone to simply be traveling from point A to point B, in which during this travel, it flies over your property but does not create a noise issue or any conceivable nuisance issue, nor does the drone take any video or still photography; it is entirely a different matter, however, if a drone flying over your property has camera resolution so precise that it can see and record everything of substance on your property grounds, including but not limited to discovering illegal plants upon your property which would not be discoverable except from an aerial vantage point.

It has been said, that "good fences make good neighbors," but in this era of one-upmanship, any neighbor with a few dollars in his pocket can now see exactly what is going on in regards to his neighbor's property through the eyes of a drone.  Further to this point, not only can a drone easily see what is out in the open on your property, but depending upon the sophistication of the camera of the drone, whether windows are open or shut, thermal reading capabilities, night-vision capabilities, and depending upon lighting conditions both internal as well as external, a drone can easily record very intrusive information from inside a home.

While for the most part, the worry of one neighbor intruding through the use of a drone of another neighbor is fairly minimal, since in so doing, the risk to reward ratio is rather weak, this mindset does not hold when it comes to the government, and government proxies.  A sophisticated drone, in the hands of the military, paramilitary, or police forces can easily obtain information that is actionable against property owners and will in conjunction with the already impressive arsenal of surveillance tools at their disposal, find great fruition. Those then that are targeted will be at the mercy of agencies that in aggregate will hear everything and see anything, to which there will be no sanctuary.

Those that venture out into public space understand that there are rules and regulations that govern that space.  Once the walls of privacy have been successfully breached inside private space, your decisions, your behavior, your rules, your life, have been compromised and are no longer in your control.

Wards of the State

The amount of Americans that receive government benefits continues to increase at such an astonishing rate, that soon, if not already now, more than 50% of all Americans will receive at least one government benefit.  The wsj.com reports that: “The 49.1% of the population in a household that gets benefits is up from 30% in the early 1980s and 44.4% as recently as the third quarter of 2008.” This effectively means that a significant portion of Americans have abandoned or don’t consciously recognize our Puritan work ethic heritage, but instead have replaced this mindset with an “entitlement” mentality and an innate dependency upon the generosity of the State.

The fact that such a huge percentage of our population is dependent in one form or another upon their Government to sustain their way of living creates an incredible amount of problems.  For instance, once any person is dependent upon another, or is counting upon another to continue to do things that they have been doing for them, especially have done so for a long period of time, the taking away of such will have enormous consequences, especially if this aid is taken away in a blink of an eye.  That is to say, if you have not taught a man how to fish, and you thereby take away his daily supply of fish, you have created a monstrous type of problem, because when people are in a situation to which the answer is to sink or to swim, most of them ultimately will do what they need to do in order to survive.

This means, in effect, what our government has done in creating such a huge underclass which is so dependent upon receiving the same benefits that they have been receiving, day by day, and year by year, is that this dependency cycle cannot be suddenly stopped for any reason, for absolute chaos, civil unrest, and all other attendant problems would for a certainty rear its ugly head.  On the other hand, as a greater and greater percentage of Americans become wards of the State, the good American ship, is in danger itself, of not being able to steer itself into safer harbors.

While the government, has its reasons, both good and bad, for allowing or having such a high percentage of people that are dependent upon the liberal hand of Government, Government itself, must take or tax or steal or rob social welfare from its productive citizens in order to accomplish this re-distribution of income and property.  Additionally and very importantly if government does not compel its citizens to earn their own keep through their own labor, except in cases of infirmity or other debilitating diseases or circumstances, but instead misguidedly eases certain classes and categories of citizens into states of indolence and slothfulness, than that potential and that labor from these people is lost forever, and the government is an accessory to this malfeasance to its own people.

While it is one thing to be charitable to those that are less fortunate than ourselves, it is another thing entirely to encourage one’s own citizens that a life of ease is what we are entitled to upon our birth.  In Proverbs 22:6, we read: “Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.”  America must ask itself, what indeed, have they wrought when asking so little from its citizens, and should not be surprised, when they find out, as they will, that dependency breeds contempt, and instead of love and admiration directed towards our government, there will be hatred and much bloodshed.

There is no such thing as the Independent Party

America has two big political party choices, Democratic or Republican, and beyond those massive establishment parties there is a multitude of minor political parties that any registered voter can affiliate themselves with.  However, voters are also given the option when registering to vote to choose the "non-enrolled" box or "no party affiliation" although there are some voters who get confused and select the American independent Party, believing that represents the non-existent Independent Party, when in fact, the American Independent Party, is in actuality a paleo-conservative party and most definitely is its own political party.  This means that when we hear the term, "Independents", on newscast and similar media outlets, we need to understand that what the pundits are referring to are people who are registered to vote without any particular party affiliation, hence Independent, and/or referring to people that claim that in principle they don't relate to either the Democratic or Republican parties and "self-identify" themselves as Independents.

If we look at the Congressional makeup, there are two Senators and no members of the House of Representatives that claim to be "Independents", and when they ran for election they did so without direct affiliation with the Democratic or Republican parties, but in fact, if we look at the two Independents in the Senate, we have Bernie Sanders of Vermont, who when he ran for the Senate was endorsed by the Chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, and at the present time, is running for the nomination of the Democratic party for the Presidency of the United States, so clearly Sanders is a Democrat, despite his self-professed Independent designation.  The other Senator, who is also an Independent, is Angus King of Maine, who basically made a deal with the Democrats during his election run, and has consistently caucused with the Democrats since he was elected.

While the forgoing might imply that the Independent designation appears to be in reality a proxy for the Democratic Party, that isn't necessarily true, or even the point.  The point is that those that run without party affiliation, sell the illusion that they are truly independent, whereas they aren't independent at all, they will, in essence, break bread with one of the major parties in order to be effective in their elected role, and therefore independents as a political choice, is really just a shell game, in which, those elected under such a label, aren't independent at all.

This means that those voters that self-identify themselves as Independents, are really showing their distaste or disgust or disagreement with both of the major parties, but their so-called independent stance, resolves actually none of their disagreements, because in one form or another, the person being elected will almost for a certainty be either a Democrat or a Republican or someone that will be one of those in all but name. 

So the bottom line for Independents is that you don't actually have an Independent party in America, and your non-affiliation with any party major or not, simply means you haven't taken the time to figure out what it is that you want from your government representatives or perhaps you don't really care. 

The Rise of Soccer in America is Inevitable

America offers four professional sports leagues that make up what is known as the Big Four, which are the NFL, NBA, MLB, and the NHL.  When it comes to Forbes annual rating of sports franchises globally, out of the top 50, the NFL has the most franchises listed at 20, the MLB has 12, and the NBA has 10 franchises, whereas the NHL has none.  Also, within that global list there are seven soccer franchises that make the list, of which three out of the top five in franchise valuations in the entire world are, in fact, soccer franchises, with Real Madrid leading the way as the most valuable sports team in the world.

Currently, the most value team in America’s own soccer league, the MLS, is the Seattle Sounders at $245 million as estimated by Forbes, whereas the least valuable hockey team in America is the Florida Panthers at $190 million.  While the NHL franchises in aggregate are much more valuable by a considerable margin over the MLS franchises, the most valuable NFL franchises are Canadian and not American, in addition the NHL is a league that has been around for generations whereas the MLS was created in 1993.  Yet, on every single metric that measures the popularity of sports and value, the NHL will be trumped by the MLS probably within the next generation.

While the NFL is the most popular and most valuable sport in America, the NFL for many reasons, such as violence and physical size, will never be able to be translated into a sport that will be played throughout the world.  It may be watched in many countries outside of America, and popular within those countries, but it is seen primarily as a unique sport peculiar to America.  The most popular sport in the world, played in virtually every country in the world, is soccer, and this popularity is unassailable.  The reason why three out of the top five sports franchises in the world are soccer franchises, is because soccer is truly a global sport which has branded its biggest teams and names throughout the world quite successfully, and although soccer is still a relative minnow within America, the forces behind soccer and its success, desperately want to add America as its crown jewel, and it is only a matter of time before this happens.

The major businesses, advertisers, media outlets, and sports owners, are always looking for a way to increase popularity and value of the overall sports world and the fact that soccer, as well as specifically the MLS, have built a solid foundation within America, is exactly what everybody involved desires.  This means that the people that finance and support the sport of soccer in America, are seriously motivated to see that soccer becomes a secure fixture within the American sports world, which it has already essentially become. The true test will come, though, when franchise values of MLS teams reach and break through themagical $1 billion mark, an absolute certainty, by 2050, if not earlier.

The Man in the Mirror

Are we Spirit or are we our body or are we an amalgamation of both?  Most people for obvious reasons strongly identify with their body, but our body, which we assume is the same each and every day, is in fact, constantly changing itself, because millions of our cells out of the 50-odd trillion that we have that makeup our body are dying and regenerating themselves each and every day.  Additionally, although on a day-to-day basis it is difficult for us to recognize any cognizant changes to our body and our look, over time, clearly our body and our look do change.

Most people, even people that are very spiritual in nature, closely identify with their body.  The reason that we know this intuitively is that if we were to one day wake up, and look at a mirror and see that the face and body that is reflected back to us is not our face and body, that clearly we were indeed looking at someone that physically appeared not to be us, most people would find it difficult, to maintain equilibrium under such conditions because we truly believe that our physical presence is ourselves, when in fact, our true essence is not our finite body, but our ethereal nature and our spirit.

This then leads us back to the question, as to who we really are.  If we trap ourselves into believing that we are only our physical presence, we have encased ourselves into a finite existence that can only have one possible ending.  However, if we recognize that the truth is that our physical body merely encases our soul, than we will perhaps spend less of our time in things of the material plane and more of it engaged on things that are more eternal in nature.  In Romans 8:6 we read: “For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace.”

This means that the change that we are looking for is at the very core of our being.  That is to say most of the time, money, and energy that is spent on our physical self, will, in the end, profit us little, although there is good profit in taking good and proper care of our physical self, but far less in making it fundamentally the master of our lives as many of us are prone and have the tendency to do.

Those that wrap too much of their identification into their physical presence, will spend an inordinate amount of time and effort in holding back the sands of time, an effort that will at some point end in defeat, as there is only so many fingers that can cover up the holes in the dike.  If, in fact, we lived in a world in which our physical presence was far more transitory, and far more ephemeral, we would concentrate far less on our physical form and far more on our spiritual, because we would recognize the illusion of the physical form.

Remember this well that should there come a time when you look at the mirror and the picture that reflects back is not you, your reaction to such, will be the very definition of who you really are.

The Demonization of the Opium Poppy

The Opium poppy (papaver somniferum) has been around since millennia, to which its beneficial properties of its highly effective pain relief, tranquility, as well as being a sleep aid, have been of a great welfare for mankind.  In today's society the opium poppy has been demonized to which the American government has spent billions of dollars attempting to eradicate and/or control opium production to absolute abject failure as well as on the other hand, promoting and acceding to pharmaceutical demands that opium derived drugs such as heroin, morphine, codeine, oxycontin, and vicodin, are medically prescribed to the general public for pain relief.

In addition, to the legal prevention of opium poppy direct usage by the general population, as well as severe penalties for the usage of such and/or distribution of such by those without expressed written permission by the United States governmental authorities, opiates are still "abused" by the public each and every day.  In absence of having a legal prescription to opiates and/or a legal access to opium, Americans will get their opiates from either the "street" or through third parties that specialize in providing a product for those that are in need, with all the obvious attendant problems that doing something like this presents, such as crime and lack of quality control.  Not too surprisingly, people die from the over-dosage of bad or contaminated product; lose their livelihood from the abuse of such, and commit crimes in order to feed this particular addiction or habit.

America is living in world of complete opium poppy hypocrisy, to which on the one hand, any and everybody that abuses the product in a way not legally permitted by the United States justice authorities are severely punished, regardless of whether the crime has no victim, other than the person using the opium in an unauthorized way.  On the other hand, however, America allows, permits, and even encourages pharmaceutical agencies to prescribe and promote all conceivable forms of substitutionary opiates to the general public that cost the Americans and medical insurance companies billions upon billions of dollars. 

This means, in effect, that all America has really done over recent years is taken the permission of the opium poppy from being used by the common man, and through their legal and policing authority, replaced it so that the pharmaceutical companies directly benefit from the prescription and control of product, while the public has to pay billions of dollars in order to access the beneficial properties of the opium poppy. 

If the opium poppy is evil, in and of itself, and if the opium poppy is nefarious, malicious, addictive, and destructive, than all derivatives of opium, without exception, should also be illegal to prescribe, procure, or create within America, but this clearly is not the case.    This means, that the America public has been duped, that in fact, the beneficial properties of opium and control of such have been transferred to pharmaceutical companies so that they can directly profit upon man's pain and misery, whereas, mankind would be far better served if it had legal access to the opium poppy itself with minimal governmental intrusion.

Rental Application Fees

Fees for residential applicants are fairly common in most States, with some States having mandated rules about how a fee should or should not be applied, should or should not be refunded, and should and should not be disclosed, whereas other States pretty much leave the rules of the road up to the Landlord.  The basic premise behind a rental application fee is that the management of the dwelling unit wants to get reimbursed their expenses for the payment of receiving a current credit report as well as being compensated for the labor expense in so doing. 

There are, however, some very basic issues with rental application fees in the first place.  For instance, it should be fully disclosed to the rental applicant from the get-go as to how much the fee will be, what the fee does or does not cover, and options should be given to the applicant to mitigate the fee.  That is to say, it's unfair to the potential renter to go from place-to-place and have to suffer the expense of rental application fees again and again, especially if the applicant can simply provide the necessary information to the Landlord that will satisfy the background check that they are initiating.  Given that the general point of the fee is simply for the property management to get reimbursed for their actual expenses incurred plus a modest amount for "time spent" in doing so, and that the fees are not suppose to be a profit center for the Landlord, you would think that most Landlords would be delighted to display clearly the roadway that the proposed tenant needs to take in order to alleviate the time and expense of running a background report when the applicant is willing to provide such timely information themselves.

However, it seems to be in practical terms, that many Landlords purposely obfuscate the rental application process in such a manner that they actually do desire the rental application fee from prospective tenants because although they protest that it isn't something that they make money from, they do indeed, profit from these applications.  First off, they profit from any difference in what they are charged from a credit bureau as compared to what they charge the tenant; further they profit from whatever they charge from a necessary expense for time spent doing so, in the obvious manner that these house employees are typically paid by the hour, so whether they handle zero or ten applicants on a given day, won't affect the amount of money that they are paid, although it might well affect how their time is allocated on a given day, meaning that from a bottom line basis, it is the owner/upper management from said company that will primarily benefit from these fees.

The fact of the matter is that most people applying for rental property don't have an excessive amount of extra money just laying about, that they can readily afford to spend in simply applying for tenancy.  This means that in fairness to tenants, clearly display within all rental offices, should be the steps/documents that are required in order to successfully fulfill the tenant obligations so that, if desired, the tenant upon meeting these conditions, will not need to pay a fee.   Not only does that seem more than fair, as well as being far more efficient, it will remove the temptation from Landlords to wring from the hands of potential tenants, money that would be far better applied to actually tenancy of property rather than subsidizing the profit and overhead departments of Landlords.

Outsourcing and the lure of Money, money, money

In comparison to most of the world, the cost of labor is considerably more expensive in America than it is in most countries, especially in countries that are in their developmental phase.  Additionally, although labor unions have been in freefall in America for a number of years, there is still within America, some negotiation strength from unions as well as in general, the American worker has on the whole, more rights in the marketplace, in comparison to most of other workers around the world.  Although the International Monetary Fund ranks the United States as only the tenth highest in the world on a per capita basis, if you were to combine the population of all the countries that sit above the United States in per capita income, their population in aggregate would not even match the United States, meaning that America is in reality, the richest meaningful nation in the world.  Additionally, and most importantly, more than 2/3rd of the countries in the world do not have a per capita income of even half of the United States and many countries are considerably below that number.  This means, in short, that the United States labor costs, by definition, must be and are considerably higher than the majority of the countries in the world.

Although, CEOs and CFOs, directors and the like, want to desperately believe that they are the smartest guys in the room, any person with even an elementary level education, can easily tell the difference between a higher number and a lower one.  The fact of the matter is, that labor is a huge component, in most every business in America, and that the reduction of such, especially the reduction of such with little or no lost in skill-set or productivity, is something that most high executives desire.  The reason that high executives desire to put a lid on labor costs is quite obviously so that they will either directly or indirectly benefit when it comes to making budget, competition, quarterly stock numbers, bonuses, options, and salaries.

This means that when America makes it a policy not to punish or tax or prevent the outsourcing of jobs from America to foreign countries, you will get exactly the type of benign neglect policy that you might expect, which is that thousands upon thousands of jobs each and every year, are taken from American workers that are qualified and willing to do the work, and instead outsourced to countries that also have workers that are qualified and willing to do the work, with the fundamental difference between them being that the foreign workers are paid considerably less than domestic workers and that the foreign workers get the outsourced work.

I suppose those that believe in the invisible hand of entrepreneurship would applaud such a development as being a boon for America and its constituents, but in fact, the basic problem with this type of thinking is that it is more of a case of American companies exploiting cheap labor overseas, while eviscerating domestic labor at home, leaving those that formerly were employed, having to be taken care of by charitable as well as governmental organizations, while the bigwigs at these multi-national corporations reap the lion-share of these additional profits for their own aggrandizement while dragging the flag of our country into the mud of material greed no matter the true cost to its citizens.

Out-of-State Arrest Warrants

They do call this country, the United States of America, for a reason, and that reason is that the United States of America is a confederation of fifty separate States.  Although, over the years, the Federal power and might has continue to increase often at the expense of specific State rights, there are many instances to which State rights and laws are the meaningful sovereign power within that particular State.    For instance, bench warrants for arrests are issued all the time, typically for things such as missing a court-mandated appearance or for failure to comply with court-mandated orders, or such similar things, to which the charge must be answered within that particular States' borders and court system. 

However, like many things, there are exceptions to the general warrant for your arrest rule, and the very basic exception to the rule, is that an arrest warrant issue by one State judicial system must be executed within that State.  This does not mean that the arrest warrant is invalidated by simply moving from one State to another, but it does mean, that for the most part, should you have an arrest warrant, for example in Florida, but you currently are residing in Texas, that unless that warrant is for a specific crime that piques the interest of Texas authorities, they probably will not take any action against you in the State of Texas in regards to the particulars of your Florida arrest warrant.

It isn't that an out-of-state arrest warrant can't be acted upon outside the State it occurred in, because legally it can, what it does mean often though is that it won't be.  Basically, an out-of-state warrant can result in your being arrested and place in jail, pending rendition to the State that has issued the warrant, but in most situations this won't actually be done.  So whether you are unaware of an out-of-state arrest warrant or are quite aware of the warrant, the moving of your person from one State to another State, will, often in effect, preclude you from having to appear in court to answer said warrant.

Of course, having a warrant for your arrest, is definitely a problem that should be addressed, and the removal of your person from one State to another, does not actually take care of the problem, it merely, sidesteps it.  So that, all things being equal, once you become cognizant of the arrest warrant, legal counsel should be engaged so as to rectify the situation in a manner that is most favorable to you, or at a minimum, to at least get a better understanding of what you are up against and the ramifications of it.

Most people are unaware of how bad missing a mandated court appearance or failing to adhere to court mandated terms can be to an individual, as often, the judicial response to these sort of matters, is to issue an arrest warrant, maybe not so much as to punish you, but in effect, to compel you to answer in a court of law to the charges that have previously been addressed against you.   The fact that the arrest warrant has been issued in a different State will often give you breathing room, but will not negate the warrant itself or its validity.

GPS and its Mighty Power

It use to be back in the day that when you wanted to get about from one place to another to which you might not be too familiar with the route to go, you would need to either consult a map or consult a friend beforehand, or God forbid, ask for directions at a gas station or similar when lost.  Nowadays, those types of things are best handled by GPS (Global Positioning Satellite) service which is remarkably accurate and a great assistance in finding your way from one unfamiliar destination to another.  A person can access GPS via his cell phone, a dedicated GPS device from Garmin or similar, or through an integrated device such as OnStar or similar.  All of these devices work quite well and their accuracy in dealing with a moving vehicle in real-time is absolutely astonishing.  That is to say, when you are driving your vehicle down a road, the typical GPS knows your location within thirty to fifty feet of your actual location, it also knows the speed of your vehicle in real-time with an accuracy which is quite impressive because it is constantly calculating the distance traveled by time spent traveling that distance.  This means, that the GPS is extremely accurate in knowing your position and therefore gives you adequate time to respond to its verbal directions when it comes to making a turn, in fact, some GPS systems, will actually emit a beep-beep sound when your designated turn is almost upon you, as well as if you miss your turn, the GPS within just a few moments will recognize this and will thereby re-route you.

All of this is to the good, and the fact that GPS devices are pretty much universal and affordable makes it even better.  In fact, GPS is so powerful, that if your car should breakdown in an unfamiliar area, or because of your panicked emotional condition, you aren't able to readily figure out exactly where you are, a call to a towing service with the appropriate GPS monitoring equipment will allow them to track your position by utilizing the GPS positioning of your cell phone.  While on the one hand that sounds phenomenal and a welcomed relief, on the other hand, that might raise a few questions as to how many other people or organizations have the same power to track exactly where you are at a given time on a given day. In this hi-technology age, this means that not too surprisingly, there are devices and application software readily available that can track your exact location through the GPS on your smart-phone.  The ability to do so comes down to having the right equipment and/or as simple as putting application software onto the subject smart-phone. This means, in effect, if you are a juvenile and you have a smart-phone that your parents or guardians may have applied this application to the smart-phone that you are using, without notification to yourself.  This means too if as part of your employment, your company provides you with a smart-phone that buried deep within the terms and conditions of such, and while using semantics that obfuscate the reality of it, your company may have granted themselves permission to monitor where you are at, at all times.  Further to all this, this means that if your significant other buys you a smart-phone, he might very well decide that as part of the gift of this phone to you, he might believe that he is entitled to apply an application onto the phone that will enable him to track you at all times.

In situations in which you are lost, or in unfamiliar territory, or your car breaks down, you will be grateful for the power of your GPS.  However, when you are being monitored through your GPS by a person or entity that has taken upon themselves, God-like powers, you will rue that a power such as this is in the hands of the unprincipled, rather than just in the hands of God Himself.

European Immigration to America: 1841-1860

In 1790, the state in America with the highest population by far was the southern State of Virginia.  However, by 1860, Virginia was surpassed in population by Illinois, Indiana, Massachusetts, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and by New York, in which New York had more than three times the population of Virginia by that time.   Further to the point, in 1840 the southern States that would eventually make up the Confederacy in comparison to the Northern States (while also including Border States that did not secede to the southern cause) showed that in 1840 those southern States were approximately 31.81% of the American population.  In 1860, when secession was first declared by South Carolina in December of 1860, these same southern States were approximately just 27.75% of the United States population.

While there are a lot of reasons why the southern States grew at a far lesser percentage than the northern States, one of the primary reasons, if not the primary one, was the massive immigration of Europeans into America from 1841-1860, in which approximately 4,311,465 Europeans came to our shores, at a time in which the population for the entire United States in 1840 was only 17,063,353 and primarily those Europeans immigrated in massive numbers to the northern States and not to the south.  In the coming civil war, those numbers would give the industrial north an impressive additional advantage over the south, an advantage that the north was able to successfully use to defeat the rebellion.

Although there are many logical reasons why Europeans migrated to the north as compared to the south, such as the fact that they often first arrived in more northern ports, most of the time, such as New York, the most basic reason that the north was the chosen destination over the south, has everything to do with the better economic opportunities that the north provided to these immigrants.  That is to say, in the north, land was both abundant, available, and cheap, in addition there were plenty of jobs at ports, in manufacturing, factories, mining, as well as the cities of the north having an infrastructure that was more adept at accommodating and sustaining these immigrants.

The fundamental problem that the south had in attracting immigrants was that the south was a society built upon slave labor and not free labor.  Further to this point, it was a society to which large landholders in the southern agrarian economy, had the vast majority of political as well as economic power, in which sharing such power and/or making it a policy to accommodate immigrants were not part and parcel of the southern way.  

People that voluntarily take the massive risk to come to a land over vast distances do not do so without having the internal fortitude to place themselves into a position to which they can achieve things that were not considered possible in their former homelands.  All things being equal, people vote with their feet, and those new immigrants that came here, came with a purpose and a deep desire to achieve great things by hard work and effort not only for themselves, but also to set the table for the advancement of their progeny and further it was these immigrants specific belief that the States of the north offered the better avenue as well as providing more freedom to do so.

Whatever Happened to Domestic Servants?

I suppose it's a basic mistake to try to get our history from British TV programs such as Upstairs, Downstairs, Gosford Park, or Downton Abbey, but within these programs there are some basic truths and one of them is that for a certainty there was a time when domestic servants were part and parcel of the privileged class in the United Kingdom.  So too, in a country that was once ruled by Britannica, the gilded age of America, had its domestic servants to attend to the upper class and their stately mansions.  As we look around today, domestic servants are still in existence in the States, but more on the basis of performing a specific job for a specific period of time, such as cleaning the house on every Tuesday, or basic gardening needs, or perhaps catering a specific affair.  It seems that in the present day, with the exception of households in which there is a large contingent of children, and therefore may have a live-in maid, that also doubles as providing childcare, and perhaps cooking, that live-in domestic servants have all but disappeared.

Perhaps that was the way it would always be in a country to which all are entitled to education and equal opportunity, but probably, it has much more to do with the fact that a lot of what domestic servants use to do has been replaced by technology or technological substitutes over the last few generations.  For instance, you hardly need livery stable help, to provide care and service for horses, if you no longer have any horses.  So too you don't need a full-time cook to provide meals for the household, if you have things such as freezers and refrigerators, stoves, ovens, and microwaves, nearby grocery stores, and convenient takeout or restaurants, that all make the reliability and flexibility of getting a good meal, something that is considered to be fairly routine.  In addition, indoor plumbing and hot water has replaced the need for servants to bath you, do your laundry by hand, or to replace your chamber pots as necessary.  Also, we find that modern electricity negates the necessity of having someone light the lamps or taper them as necessary, or provide us with personal fanning services during those hot summertime afternoons.  The bottom line is that while some of the things that domestic servants once did, are still desired, they aren't going to be often needed on a 24/7 basis, all because of the convenience and reliability of modern appliances in so many areas of our life that we now take for granted.

Most people probably don't think much about domestic servants, one way or another, that was then and this is now, but the closing of the door on the need for domestic servants for the very rich and privileged is also the closing of the door of a true ground floor insider gaining knowledge of how the superrich live, think, and conduct their affairs.  The rich are different, and somebody trusted, perhaps considered to be part of the family, needs to keep a check on them, because power unchecked is a threat to the people.

The U.S. 10-Year Treasury Yield

Governments need money in order to conduct their business affairs, and therefore bonds are issued to the general public as well as being available to other sovereign nations for investment. These individuals, investors, bond funds, and nations purchase these bonds based on their perceptions as to their overall value and their worth, and because the US Treasury market is open, liquid, and actively traded, the corresponding bond yields are reflective of the true perception by the public of its actual worth.   At the current time, the 10-year treasury yield for United States bonds is approximately 2.25%, which is, and has been, at generational lows for the past few years, in fact, you would have to go way back to 1947 to see rates that are comparable to what we have at the present day.

The fact that rates are low may be good, or it may be bad, depending upon which side of the fence that you are sitting on.  From a borrower perspective, low treasury yields, equate to significantly lower borrowing costs for the US government, which means that the US government payments to service this debt, has been reduced over recent years by billions upon billions of dollars and that as part of our national debt, the interest payments as a percentage of that debt, have fallen substantially.  Again, that is quite beneficial for the US government as it has consistently run up massive deficits over the last fifteen years, however, the counterpoint to this is that those entities that have previously relied on US Treasuries for their sustenance via treasury bonds, or money market funds, or savings account, have seen their yields been decimated, meaning that this investment vehicle is not providing the steady income stream that had once been so reliable.

There are many factors that influence the US Treasury rate, of which, the two most important ones are inflation and economic growth.  While the United States publishes all sorts of figures in regards to inflation and to its economic growth, regretfully, governments have a way of putting forth the numbers that favor the perception that they are trying to sell.  However, those that are in the know, vote by their actions and their investments as to whether they believe these "official" government numbers, and by virtue of the US 10-year Treasury yield being so low, clearly, those investors believe that inflation and economic growth for America are considerably lower, than a country pretending that we are in our sixth year of economic expansion.

Another point about 10-year treasury yields is that this is a world that is international in nature, so that, if yields are low in America, they may well be higher in other countries, which, in fact is the case.  For instance, Mexico's 10-year yield is at 6.07%, and Brazil's rate is at 13.65%, which appear to be rates that would entice the uninitiated, but both of these countries have real reasons for these rates, so that the net real gain for investing in these bonds may be ephemeral.  On the other hand, mature and stable countries, such as Japan and Germany, have 10-year yields that are at less than 1%, which makes the US Treasury rate look almost frothy in comparison and there lies the rub.  Almost a day doesn't go by, without some pundit pontificating about how the Fed is going to raise its target rate, and therefore US Treasury yields will rise, but in fact, even if this was to occur in the near future, US Treasury yields, would hardly budge, or if they did, it would only be transitory, because the truth of the matter is that the US economic conditions have much more in common with countries such as Germany and Japan than they do with Mexico or Brazil. 

The US economy suffers from both anemic growth as well as persistent deflationary pressures, both of which will keep US Treasury yields from liftoff in the short-term foreseeable future.

The Middle Class and the Rich

As reported by forbes.com: "In the four decades since 1971 the share of the U.S. population earning between two-thirds and twice the national median income has dropped from 61% to 51%."  That decline is staggering, especially so in a country that is neither a monarchy nor has hereditary titles, with ostensibly democratic institutions, independent judiciary, and still prides itself on being the land of equal opportunity.  According to theguardian.com: "Wealth inequality in the US is at near record levels according to a new study by academics. Over the past three decades, the share of household wealth owned by the top 0.1% has increased from 7% to 22%."  This would seem to imply strongly that there is a correlation that as the richest of the rich become wealthier, it has impacted the middle class so that this class is now shrinking at an alarming pace.

There has been a lot of changes in America since 1971, to which some of the most significant, is the rise of technology and robotics, and so too the successful scaling up of so many businesses into truly massive international global enterprises, as well as the unholy alliance that we see so frequently between industry and government, that effectively crowds out other sources and companies that are not part of the privileged set.  All of the above, has trickle down effects so that the necessity of your 9-5 worker, has become more interchangeable, than ever before, because as the world has gotten smaller and has reduced or eliminated tariff and trade restrictions, so too job security within industries has definitely gotten more and more problematic.

The biggest corporations in the world are not really interested in employing the most people in the world, gainfully or not, they are far more interested in seeing that they meet or exceed their quarterly numbers, and if in order to do so, this necessitates the removal, dismissal, or replacement of workers, so it will be.  To the rich the middle class is like a gigantic mine to be mined until it is depleted and used up, and when finished, they will have the lion's share of the profits and the benefits. 

The rich use the middle class in two basic ways.  The first is as their beasts of burden, to ride them as long as they have usage for them, and to discard them when their economic utility is less than their output, so as to be displaced with either younger workers at a cheaper wage or even better, with machines.  The second way the middle class is used, is to sell them the illusion, that if only if they work a little harder, get their stock options at the right time and price, make the right moves in the right way, that they too can climb up into the rarified airs of staggering wealth.  It helps that for the most part, the middle class believes it, but like that carrot on the stick in front of the horse, that keeps the horse going ever forward, the middle class has found over the last few decades, that the brass ring is a game that is often rigged from the outset.

A thing in motion has a tendency to stay in motion, so the rich will continue to get richer, and the middle class will continue to crumble.  The rich are not fools, they make sure to provide all the necessary toys and distractions to keep the middle class basically satiated and passive, along with championing any of those few that make the jump into the elite, but no make no mistake about it, the rich only tolerate the middle class because at this time it is more profitable for them to do so.  However, their long term interests are direct and to the point, the middle class of America must be eradicated, so that there will simply be those that are privileged, and the balance of the population will be there to serve and to protect their masters from any harm.

The Crime of Being Poor

America in its institutions and in its judicial system, clearly believes in the old adage, "out of sight, out of mind", as it imprisons day after day, thousands of civilians, for simply being poor.  Not too surprisingly, dong so for these unfortunates rapidly creates a downward spiral because once any individual is taken before the criminal justice system, he is no longer free, no longer able to meet family, school, or job commitments, as well as not being able to pay bills or other debt obligations, and ultimately will have placed upon his person, either the conviction of a criminal infraction, which will effectively marginalize him from gainful employment, or will at a minimum, have suffered massive inconvenience and have an arrest record attached to his name.

It should not be a crime to simply be poor in America, yet the indigent that have the audacity to be out on the public streets, are often treated as criminals, and have pressed upon them by legal authorities, the crime of loitering, or vagrancy, or panhandling, or any other crime that the municipality police can foist upon them.  It isn't necessarily that the police are the bad guys, although often they are, and it isn't necessarily that the justice system is corrupt, uncaring, and discriminatory, although often it is; it boils down more to the fundamental practice that "undesirables" are okay and fine, as long as they are not out in the public and thereby making certain businesses, families, and other folks, nervous.

The thing about loitering, vagrancy, panhandling, littering, outstanding warrants, an inability to pay traffic fines or other monetary or similar violations, is that placing a person behind bars and making them be a cog within our justice system, does not in most instances, provide true justice to the person being held, nor does it provide a real service to the community at large.  The poor in our streets are all our brothers, and deserve better than being essentially branded for life as incorrigible, unstable, unworthy, and dismissed as if they are vermin.

If a person with some money or someone having access to money, is picked up on one of these minor offenses which necessitates an arraignment and the posting of bail, he will after some major inconvenience in dealing with the criminal justice system, and having his freedom taken away from him, be released back out into the public, if it is a non-weekend in probably less than twenty-four hours, through making bail, or through his own recognizance, or perhaps even have the charges dropped, but in the meanwhile, during those twenty-four hours, he hasn't been able to take care of obligations at home, or go to work, to which his unexcused absence may necessitate termination, but at least upon release he is now back on the outside which enables him to have more options to rectify things.  A poor man, on the other hand, that cannot make his bail, or isn't issued freedom on his own recognizance, will be stuck in jail, for perhaps a considerable period of time, for some minor offense, that should never have necessitated jail time to begin with.

The criminal code book is endlessly long with so many tributaries, twists and turns that just about anything that certain designated undesirables do can be construed as being some sort of crime.  What this really amounts to is that if you are poor and are engaged by the police, your freedom and your choices will often be left in the hands of the police officer that is dealing with you.  Often times, police agencies have cute little sayings, such as "to protect and to serve"; recognize this reality, that the police most times when they deal with the poor aren't there to protect you, nor will they gladly serve you; in reality the police will often do exactly what the powers-to-be have told them to do to people like you.

MADD – Misguided Mission

MADD stands for (Mothers Against Drunk Driving) which was started back in 1980, after a mother lost her daughter to a driver with repeated drunk driving violations.  While the incident certainly qualifies as tragic, and perhaps justice at that time was too lenient in regards to punishment and penalties for those that drove while obviously impaired, the pendulum has swung far to the other side in the present day.  First off, “drunk” drivers are an obvious target to attack, since there are reliable scientific means to measure the blood alcohol content of a driver, however, just because a scientific instrument measures the blood alcohol content of an individual at .04% or .06% or .10% does not mean that the driver is actually impaired, even though the supporters of such a system want to sell you the illusion that this is true.  While there does come the point when a person’s blood alcohol level is so high, that there is a fair “presumption” that that driver is impaired, that number will vary considerably from person-to-person, based on a number of factors such as: their age, their psyche, their fatigue, their driving skills, and the time period of the test in relation to when the drinks were consumed.  In addition, there are a multitude of other reasons why some people could be impaired while driving far exceeding someone who is legally labeled as a DUI by State authorities, such as: medication, illegal drugs, temper, bad peripheral vision, bad depth perception, faulty side mirrors, fundamentally bad driving habits, cell phones, texting, radio, DVD, children, eating, applying makeup, fatigue, distraction, and just about anything else one can think up that would take away good concentration while driving. 

The main problem with organizations such as MADD is that rather than going after specifically people that are truly a menace to others out on the open road and that should have their driver privileges revoked, they instead focus their attention on people that for the most part, are no danger and no menace whatsoever.  This means that thousands of good citizens have their lives and their financial affairs negatively impacted each and every year, because the empowerment of MADD in conjunction with State authorities have set up a symbiotic industry that benefits State budgets, State courts, police organizations, attorneys, and other interested parties, on the backs of good taxpaying citizens, all under the guise of performing a proper civic duty.  The money that comes from these drivers that have for the most part, not been in an accident, nor harmed anyone or anything, but simply been cited for having an arbitrary amount of blood alcohol in their bloodstream is a bonanza for those that receive it, but for those that are compelled to pay into it, it is often a real misery, which, in some cases, means termination of employment, restrictions of employment opportunities, and often times in essence the equivalence of carrying the scarlet letter “D” for the balance of their lives.

MADD isn’t really about going after the few drivers that are habitual offenders of driving while under the influence, but instead is more about empowering the State to have more control over the people, to let them know that the State has little or no interest in justice or fairness, but wants to impress upon its citizens the command, that they were born into this country not to be free, but to obey.

Halfway Houses: A Better Alternative

Halfway houses have been given that moniker because they are seen as the halfway point from incarceration to being released back into public society, and as such are an opportunity for prisoners to re-adapt themselves to functioning well in society.  The basic hope and reason for being for these community correction centers is to cut down on recidivism and to also save the community coffers some money from the cost of incarceration of these criminals.  Halfway houses are often run by non-profits, but they also may be run by Federal, State, or local authorities, and even by large and small private corporations specifically dedicated to this particular industry.   Consequently, because there are so many different entities involved in halfway houses, the quality, safety, usefulness, and expense of halfway houses will vary considerably from community to community.  However, the overall concept of halfway houses in a country to which way too many people are incarcerated for way too much public monies spentand for way too many crimes that do not necessitate incarceration in the first place is sound, the execution behind it, may not be.

When it comes to our criminal justice system, the United States should be ashamedof itself that it locks-up such a high percentage of their population, often for "crimes" that are either non-violent, or substance abuse, with non-victims, and for nothing more than overall poor decisions, that should not necessitate the penalty of incarceration.  Often the point of sentencing criminals to prison is punishment, as well as to simply get these certain people off the street, but in neither case, has appropriate justice been served.   The concept of halfway houses is to provide an alternative that is far less disruptive to the criminal himself, but also less damaging to society as a whole.

A halfway house should be seen as an opportunity for someone that has made what society has deemed to have been a poor decision, and to help correct the situation in such a way, that both the public as well as the offender, benefit.  This means, that rather than the halfway house being the stopping point between prison and freedom, it should instead, be the starting point for certain individuals that qualify, as an alternative to incarceration in the first place.  That is to say, for example, if a person is convicted of a victimless crime, but is either current employed, or has had a history of steady employment, that it would serve the public more good to see that person continue with this employment, than to wrest that away from him, by making him serve his time in prison. 

There should be in this country, far more alternatives to being locked up from the get-go, especially considering that the cost of monitoring an individual in a halfway house or similar, is relatively inexpensive, and because too, technology has never been better to track someone through monitoring devices such as ankle bracelets and the like.   The United States has increased the percentage of the amount of its citizens incarcerated at a staggering rate over the last few decades; it is time, to look for something more becoming of a nation that claims to be the beacon of freedom and justice.

Drug Testing for Employment

A basic tenet of freedom is whether your body and your mind is your own, or whether indeed it is the government's or your employer or anyone else's that believes that they are the masters of your domain.  In order to survive in this material world, there is a necessity to work, and whereas at one time, generations ago, this was an agricultural nation, filled with family farms, sole proprietors, and the like, in the modern age, most people that are employed, are employed by a company that they are not owners or principles of and therein lies the rub.

If we were to presuppose that all drug usage, specifically illicit drug usage, was always pernicious, dangerous, debilitating, and with no redeeming value whatsoever, it certainly would make sense for corporations and government agencies to act as "our brother's keeper" in wanting to see that we did not fall upon evil ways but in fact, that supposition, in of itself, is deeply flawed.  However, leaving that aside, if we were to presuppose that illicit drug usage, by its very nature, upon detection of such, means always and without exception that you are either mentally and/or bodily impaired to such a degree at that present time that the performance of your dutiful work would always be negatively impacted and would be in fact, damaging to others within the corporation or would have material adverse effects upon the byproducts of the corporation, that also would be something clearly to avoid, but here too there is an assumption made which is false in its very premises.

The fact of the matter is, your drug usage, may or may not be debilitating to the company, depending upon a multitude of circumstances, to which it can be succinctly stated that rather than drug testing being a means to provide a safety umbrella for the company, its products, and its customers, it is reallya means to discriminate specifically against certain members of the public at large, so as to encourage the employment of certain preferred members of society vis-a-vis other members of society, nothing more, and nothing less.

One of the most common drug test usages, is testing applicants before they are employed or as a condition of being offered a job for employment at a given company.  This, on the surface, makes no logical sense, as the person being tested, cannot possibly be able to adversely affect anyone or anything within the company, as they currently are not even employed by said company.  This pre-screening, however, does what it is intended to do, which is to chase out those that do not fit the culture of said company. 

Then there are companies that reserve the right to drug test employees for reasonable suspicion, which adheres onto these companies police-like powers in which they are, suppose to objectively observe as to who isn't and who is subject to such a reasonable suspicion.  What this means in reality, is that the company now has given themselves the power to specifically target employees that are considered to be undesirable, and to use the mechanism of drug testing to either terminate them if they fail, or to serve as a fair warning that they are being watched.

In summary, drug testing is really a means to separate the sheep from the goats, to reward those that adhere to some arbitrary State standard, and to punish those that either are not cognizant of the rules, unable to game the system, or in general, lead a life that is consistent with believing that their body is their own.

Compulsory National Service

John F. Kennedy ranks as one of our favorite presidents, especially of the modern era, who stated in his 1961 inaugural address, "My fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country."  This quote states that each of us, has an obligation to perform some duty or some sacrifice on behalf of our country, which considering the virtues that America represents to its citizens, doesn't seem to be an unreasonable thing to require from its people.  To date, there is no compulsory national servicer required in the United States, but in an era, to which there is an elite in this country, who may not ever put their hand to the plow but still are able to live high on the hog, as well as their being an underclass in this country that may not ever be gainfully employed, it might well be the most democratic thing to see that these peoples, as well as all others, can meet at the common ground of national service to their country.

The length of time for community service, could be set at six months, which in length of time, hardly seems a great burden, and this service would be compulsory to be served between the ages of eighteen to twenty-nine, with the flexibility to divide the time served into two separate equal sessions, so as to perform such a duty, if desired, during the summertime, between the conclusion of one year of college, and before the beginning of the next year, or similar.  Even though the obligation to all citizens would be a national requirement, in fact, it would be best to have the flexibility of that service to be accomplished either through national, State, local, non-profit, or religious organizations in its aspects.  That is to say, the point is for each citizen to serve their nation, to which, they can do this in a manner that is most acceptable to themselves and their particular inclinations.  This means that the service provided can be as simple as being directly related to the community at large, or be something that is international in nature, and all things in-between.

People love to talk and admire how free our country is, but freedom, comes with a price attached to it.  The freedom that too many of us take for granted, cost this country, blood, sweat, tears, and sacrifice, and this freedom would not have happened without those noble men and women that performed their duties on behalf of not only their generation but for generations to come.  The obligation that today's generation has to the past as well as to future generations, is to do and perform the duties and the obligations that one citizen has to its country and to its people.  While words may have their place, it is actions that move the world, and a six month obligation to this country, would not only benefit our country and its communities, but will do more to build character, devotion, and appreciation in its citizens, than anything else you might learn in your high school classroom.