Police and their Loyalty

The concept of police and their duties, presence, and compensation, are essentially seen in today's society as if this has always been the norm and always will be the norm, but that simply isn't the case whatsoever.  There wasa time, when police, especially in their everyday duties and expectations, didn't really exist, instead communities would handle their law enforcement needs typically through a less formal system, a far less invasive system, involving watchmen, offer voluntary or compulsory as a duty to the community, with a constable or sheriff in charge who answered to the civic leaders of a given community,  and the payment for these men was often based on tasks accomplished, such as the serving of writs, the collecting of taxes, and the apprehending of those accused of crimes.

The advantage of the previous form of policing was the fact that the crimes that the sheriff responded to typically dealt with robbery, property theft or damage, public drunkenness, public fighting, murder, and prostitution, in which often times, the watchmen responded to crimes as perceived by citizens that were directly affected by them.  This also meant that the sheriff would as a matter of course; respond to crimes taking into account the property ownership and social status of the citizen engaging with them. That is to say, sheriffs and their watchmen were in essence, primarily there to protect the status quo from theft, damage, harm, and public nuisances.

Today's police force has a chain of command, and that chain of command doesn't really take into account that the law should be equally and fairly applied, but to the contrary, that the law is purposely opaque, subject to all sorts of interpretation or misinterpretation, arbitrary, endless, contradictory, all for the given purpose so that the police as designated agents of the State, can without much meaningful controversy,  arrest and deal with the common man in a manner that quickly allows the State to keep order, so as to protect the vested interests of those that are important or have significant assets, from outside elements that would destroy wealth or the public order.

When the police designate on their government vehicles that they are here to "protect and serve", that motto isn't fundamentally meant for the people that own nothing, have no real opportunity, and are barely able to make ends meet, but instead all that protecting and serving is in reality designated for the privileged people of the community and really nobody else.

The foremost duty of the police in essence is to protect and to serve the status quo, at all times, for the very reason, that if they fail to do so, they will summarily be replaced by those that will not fail to do so. 

The police answer to their paymasters, and those paymasters are the leaders both civic and private of that community, to which, their primary desire of those leaders is not to have trouble, because trouble is bad for business, and bad business is bad for their pocketbook as well as being  inherently destabilizing, so that, the best way to take care of trouble is to use the domestic policing arm of the community to crush the bad elements, typically by demonstrating overwhelming force, and if necessary, by using that same force until the opposition is put to heel.

Shopping Malls and Curfews

There are two basic types of curfews: of which the most pertinent one is a curfew set for emergency reasons in regards to a real public safety issue because of a natural disaster or rioting or similar, than there is the other type of curfew which is at the convenience of the State, arbitrary, and basically takes those that are under eighteen and imposes a curfew upon them, which based on the day of the week, and the time of the actual curfew, may be perceived as reasonable or not.  The thing about curfews in general is that the Supreme Court had this to say:”the right to walk the streets, or to meet publicly with one's friends for a noble purpose or for no purpose at all—and to do so whenever one pleases—is an integral component of life in a free and ordered society."  However, when it comes to juveniles, the Supreme Court has permitted exceptions to this basic rule that the public is allowed to walk the streets freely, and then when it comes to private property, in particular, certain shopping malls, private property rights muddies the curfew waters even more.

You might think that shopping malls would be interested in as much foot traffic as possible in order to conduct their day-to-day business, but that isn't really true at all.  In fact, a significant amount of shopping malls are particular about who shops their malls, and whereas, you might suspect that the shopping mall philosophy would be that youth must be served, above all, that isn't the case in all shopping malls.  Instead, certain shopping malls have enacted specific rules mandating that juveniles must be escorted by a parental authority after 6PM, for instance, and that those that disobey such authority will be in violation of curfew, and subsequently it is within the rights of the mall to escort such juveniles off of the property.

There are many issues with this type of curfew, of which, one is the fact that juveniles, being juveniles, often wish to congregate amongst themselves, rather than being with their parents at all times, and parents as well, do not want to be with their children at all times.  An additional issue is that certain shopping malls have movie theatres and because the movie theatre is on mall premises, this means, that parents cannot drop their children off to the movie theatre, after 6PM or engage a showing which will end after 6PM, which is hardly beneficial for the movie theatre or for the biggest patrons of movies in general, which is young people.  Further, to the point, and in reality the elephant in the room, is the fact that despite the fact that the mall may already have certain dress codes, behavior codes, along with specific rules that deal with gang paraphernalia and gang colors, the mall, because of fear of lawsuits or whatever, theoretically groups all juveniles under one umbrella, rather than dealing with the element that they believe is disruptive and thereby bad for business.

As bad as that is for juveniles, incredibly, at the present time the Atlantic Station mall of Atlanta, GA, has an even more insidious and quite debatable further curfew for those that are under the age of twenty-one but at least eighteen years old, in which their curfew at the property is 11PM, even though restaurants and the movie theatre are all open later than 11PM.  The above, is a prime example of how someone that is legally an adult, is still treated as if they are something other than an adult, and is ultimately of dubious legality.

For those that believe that private establishments should be allowed to set the rules of their particular establishment and thereby to treat their patrons in the manner that they best see fit, this type of mindset, that the business owner can do whatever that he desires with his property, was essentially nullified by the civil rights legislation of the 1960s, so that private establishments could no longer discriminate against patrons on the basis of their race or similar.  Today, with these shopping mall rules,

juveniles as well as adults less than the age of twenty-one are discriminated against, to which, underneath the surface there is a more than a distinct feeling that these laws are primarily enacted to treat certain specified people, separately and unequally.

America wouldn't bat an eye to the Stamp Act today

In America, most people are rather indifferent to history, or rather poor at it, or don't really care about it, to which, none of this lack of knowledge counts to the credit of America as whole.  For most people, there is a general knowledge that we fought for our independence from Great Britain, however, a significant amount of people don't really know why, but figure it has something to do with us getting tired of being pushed around and shot at.  While the actual reasons for our fight for independence are myriad, certainly one of the most important ones came down to taxation, to which, unlike the present day, taxes were primarily seen as the intolerable confiscation of wealth, and in general frown upon, as the undue use of force against colonists.  So too, this meant, that the colonists when they had imposed upon them the notorious Stamp act, were vociferous in their protest of it.  The colonists were especially upset on two accounts, of which one being that they were being charged a direct or internal tax, without having representation in the British parliament, which they found to be especially insidious, as well as being compelled to pay that tax without legal recourse.

While there are a multitude of taxes that we deal with today, the colonists at that point in history, looked upon taxes as being in one of two categories, of which one was an external tax on for example imported goods, in which, because it is a tax based on consumption as to what one wished to purchase or not it seemed understandable and often without controversy, as the ultimate decision was left up to the consumer of such a good.  Then again, in situations in which the British government controlled the market by banning other competing imported goods, as well as there being little or no domestic industry in that commodity, boycotts and protests were vociferous.  As for an internal tax, in this case the Stamp Act, that was deliberately set as being a tax upon all official documents such as writs, deeds, wills, and contracts of all sorts, that without the purchase of State approved paper bearing the State stamp, would by definition, not be recognized as legal in a court of law.  This meant, that in order to conduct business in the course of events, you would as colonist, have to pay the Stamp Act tax.

Although it is true, that in America, as a sovereign nation, we do now have representation, it is problematic as to whether that representation actually represents the common man, whatsoever.  In any event, the amount of taxes that Americans deal with on a daily basis, would make our Founding Fathers' heads spin, because we pay taxes on so many levels, which are not fairly or equally applicable on or for: social security, Medicare, State income, Federal income, excise, fuel, corporate, hotel, airlines, sales, property, and so forth, to which the list goes on and on and on. 

If this government, was to pass a law, mandating that all legal contracts have a special Stamp seal associated to it, as a fee or form of taxation, there would probably not be much of a peep of a protest, because it would just be seen as just another tax, annoying or not, to go with all our other taxes, and the citizens of this country, would almost certainly just accept it.  In fact, this is pretty much how things are done in America, presently, in which a significant amount of taxation is hidden from the view of the consumer, by being priced into the product being purchased to begin with which is often regulated and controlled by Federal law. 

While it is true that the colonists won the Stamp Act battle, so too it is true, that ultimately they lost the tax battle war.

Medical Expenses and Bankruptcy

In 2015, over 800,000 people filed for bankruptcy in America, to which, previous studies indicated that a substantial reason behind such bankruptcies were unforeseen medical bills, along with the aftermath of this unpleasant event.  For instance, if you have been working and are injured, hurt, or become ill, all of the following may also occur, such as: medical issues preclude you from continuing to work, your home necessitates a second mortgage in order to pay medical bills, credit is damaged, overall income has been truncated or significantly reduced, transportation issues, piled up bills from other creditors, and so forth, of which the proximate cause of all of these issues coming to the fore, is the medical issue in the first place.

While the government likes to believe that the Affordable Care Act (ACA) has helped to ease some of these problems, that may be true to a point, but the monthly premiums for these medical plans are definitely high, the deductibles are burdensome, the out-of-pocket expenses are deliberately opaque, as well as these plans don't cover everything, and they certainly don't cover lost income and other assorted issues that a medical problem brings to a family dependent upon steady and reliable income.  In 2013, as reported by nerdwallet: "unpaid medical bills are expected to be the No.1 cause of bankruptcy filings…"  We shouldn't be surprised by such a statistic mainly because as reported by esquire.com: "56 percent of Americans said they have less than $1,000 in their checking and savings accounts combined," as well as reported by offthegridnews.com in 2015: "40 percent of consumers surveyed said they lived paycheck to paycheck."

All of the above indicates that an entire families' infrastructure can easily come crashing down, when a given family suffers through unexpected medical bills.  It seems self-defeating in these types of situations for the government to offer little or no recourse for those burdened under heavy medical debt, except to file bankruptcy or to suffer through the consequences of falling further and further behind on monetary commitments with the inevitable consequences of damaged credit, late fees and penalties, along with higher associated interest rates, as well as the invariable harassing phone calls and mailed billing statements that reflect the certain fact that accumulating bills are significantly past due.

You might think that having unexpected health issues and medical expenses, would be suffering enough, without also taking away the very home and/or disrupting the lives of fellow Americans, yet, way too often that is the case.  While there might not be any easy solutions to this problem, the current version in which particular unfortunate individuals at their greatest time of need are basically pushed to the brink, and subsequently economically devastated for years to come, while also possibly suffering from what now is a long-term physical debility, is hardly becoming of a nation with the wealth and reputation that America represents.

The fact of the matter is that medical expenses are very high in America, with those same expenses rising at a rate far exceeding inflation over the last few decades, yet for many people their wages have barely, if even, kept up with inflation.  This would signify that when it comes to healthcare, more low-cost alternatives must become available to those most in need, in which, through technology, through screening, through efficiency, through algorithms, through more usage of generic drugs and long-standing medicines no longer under patent, through registered nurses and medical students taking more responsibility for patient care, cost savings can be generated and pass through to those most truly in need of a reliable hand and considerate care. 

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and 1984

As technology has gotten more ubiquitous, more powerful, and more pervasive, all of the average citizens civil rights have come under assault, all under the false flag of safety, security, and domestic tranquility.  While there are a significant amount of Americans that will eat the propaganda that this nation's leaders foist upon them, there are many people that recognize that the creation of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in 2002, was the day, that America, no longer represented life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness but instead degraded itself into believing that nothing was more important than citizen safety, compliance, and domestic non-confrontational interactions. 

While those that run our Para-military police departments, our armed forces, and our DHS, liked to profess that all good citizens have nothing to fear, the word "good" as used in this description, means, subservient in all ways to the State.  That type of obedience is consistent with the type of obedience that is expected by totalitarian regimes, which demand from its citizens, that they will behave in certain specific ways or suffer the consequences.

The Department of Homeland Security is the excuse for our government to have access to everything that we do and say, without limit, without proper supervision, without Constitutional authorization, and thereby to sacrifice our freedom, to sacrifice our conscience, all for the sake of safety.  While it is true that pigs in a pigpen are safe, it also true that they aren't free, and further to the point, it is true that one day they will be slaughtered for the role of a "good" pig is to be served on a plate to its ultimate master.

George Orwell's seminal book, 1984, was written as a warning that the State, far from being our benevolent friend, far from looking out for the common citizen's concerns, far from being both fair and impartial, had its own vested interest in how it would prefer society to be, and not too surprisingly a society in which the citizen serves the State, a society in which the State controls everything, including the past, the present, and the future, as well as the mind being itself controllable and manipulated by the State, presents the type of intrusive encroachment upon individuals and their will, that the end result, is compliance to the all powerful State.

The Department of Homeland Security is aptly named, and completely unnecessary in times of war, or for that matter, in times of peace.  The DHS aggrandizes unto the State, all power, all for the benefit for those that are the real power brokers of the State, so that each individual outside of this elite can be looked upon as having value only in the sense of the value that they can provide via labor or its equivalency to the State, and all others, that have little, no, or negative value, are treated in essence as enemies of the State, enemies of Homeland Security.

Homeland Security wants you to believe that there is an international bogeyman that is going to terrorize our citizens and only Homeland Security can stop it.  Homeland Security wants you to believe that we are always in danger and only Homeland Security can stop it.  Homeland Security wants you to believe that safety is only possible if we as citizens consent for everything about us to be monitored, processed, stored, and analyzed. 

In exchange for all our liberties and freedoms being sacrificed, Homeland Security promises that they will protect us, when in actuality, by so doing; they have dehumanized us, and successfully manipulated us into vacating our unalienable rights, and making a god instead of our masters of Homeland Security.

Dreams, Loved ones, and your Subconscious mind

There are plenty of things that we take for granted each and every day, mainly because they have become routine to us, but upon reflection, we should pay more attention to them.  For instance, each of us must have a proper amount of sleep which varies from person=to-person, but within sleep for all of us our conscious mind becomes quiescent and silent while our subconscious mind takes over.  In addition, for each of us, although again it differs person-to-person, we dream while we sleep, whether or not we can remember our dreams, how vivid our dreams are, and so forth, differs, but each of us dreams, during our periods of sleep. 

Our dreams through our subconscious mind are akin to our own private movies, in which, all sorts of activities and action takes place, all being accomplished while we lie somnolent in bed.  Because these dreams come forth from our own subconscious mind, they have importance primarily to the dreamer of that dream, as compared to being universal in its symbols and thereby applying to all, although there are dream motifs that are consistent within cultures and certain contexts.

To demonstrate one of the primary differences between our conscious and subconscious mind, we know that within our conscious mind whether we are courageous or not, whether we are a soldier or not, whether this person is still alive or not, and so forth, whereas in our subconscious mind facts that we take for granted, about who and what we are, are suspended in disbelief, so that in our dreams, we can be in an entirely different time zone, in an entirely different city, in an entirely different period of our life in regards to our age, have facts about our current life changed such as not being married, even though in reality we are, being with friends that we haven't seen in years, being at a former job that we haven't worked at in years, and poignantly engaging with loved ones from our past, that have physically left this world. 

There is something very special about having a dream with someone close to you that is no longer physically here, but within your dream, they are alive, and you and they are doing various activities together.  While these particular dreams can signify all sorts of things, the most obvious thing, that it signifies is that physical death is not the end of life, that although our precious loved ones from our life are no longer physically here, their soul, their spirit, exists, and subsequently their soul breaks through the dimension that traps our conscious mind so often into believing that we exist solely in time and space, whereas freed from such men-activated constraints, in our dream world, time and space are seen correctly as an illusion.

This means that in our dream world, we easily can gravitate to the past, to the future, to those alive, to those dead, and so forth, because our subconscious mind is not restrained by the "intelligence" of our conscious mind.  There are many, many things that happen to us in our lives that mean a lot to us, so to once again, be able to be with those that were part and parcel of our lives, is a welcomed relief.  It is a reminder that death is best seen as the release of our soul from the physical confines of the body, presenting an opportunity perchance to be again with those that we love most, and to interact with them in a dimension that limits not itself.

Healthcare and Inflation

According to cms.gov, "From 2000 to 2009, health-care spending grew by an average of 6.9 percent each year," whereas inflationdata.com indicates that for the decade of 2000 to 2009, that the average annual inflation was 2.54 percent per year, signifying a massive difference between these two numbers, and in this current decade of benign inflation, that gap has only continued to rise between healthcare and its associated costs including insurance premiums v. ordinary inflation for the mass of other consumer items that people deal with on a continuous basis.

The fact that more and more money for the average American is spent on healthcare as a percentage of one's income is great for those in the healthcare industry while adversely impacting the budget and ordinary needs of the American citizen.  Healthcare or the lack of fair pricing within healthcare is also one of those industries, more than any other that effectively is the cause of bankruptcy for a significant portion of our population in which huffingtonpost.com reports that: "A recent Harvard University study showed that medical expenses account for approximately 62 percent of personal bankruptcies in the US."

There are a lot of fundamental problems within healthcare in which two of the biggest are healthcare premiums and the other being the lack of transparency in regards to healthcare medical costs.  In regards to healthcare premiums, many consumers are rather clueless as to what they have or have not signed up for, and what their healthcare plan does or does not cover, and don't really address that issue until they try to utilize their healthcare plan only to find out that it doesn't cover them for some needed surgery or healthcare or the coverage percentage by the health insurer either maxes out at a too low level or the "sharing" of expenses is too high for the insured.  This would signify that healthcare policies that cost considerable amounts of money aren't really well understood by the consumers that buy them, and in addition, that often healthcare companies in order to maximize their profit make it their policy to deny legitimate claims or coverage, so as to take advantage of consumers that are unable to fight or figure out the system.  In addition, people that visit their medical doctor or are hospitalized seldom are shown exactly what they will or won't be paying for, specifically in regards to the medical cost, how long, how much, and so forth.  In fact, to a large extent once you are checked into a hospital, it is almost akin to having sacrificed your civil rights, and you are for better or for worse, a captive audience, subject to all sorts of procedures, necessary or not, that you literally have no say about, but are in conjunction with your healthcare policy, stuck paying for.

The fact of the matter is most of our everyday shopping is quite transparent in that there is a price, the store honors that price, and a decision to buy or not buy that item is left to our discretion.  When it comes to our health, though, most people are at a material disadvantage from the get-go in the sense that they aren't feeling well to begin with, which is the primary reason why they are seeking that healthcare, and there is in almost all cases no a la carte menu of medical expenses that they can choose from yet they are mandated to pay whatever that the ultimate cost will be.

In point of fact, healthcare will continue to far outpace inflation into the foreseeable future as long as the healthcare industry is allowed and permitted to conduct their business in their traditional opaque way, without full disclosure and without true authorized consent.  Too often the healthcare industry gets a free pass, and thereby too often fleeces the vulnerable consumer, whereas its primary purpose should not be selfish profit but instead to first, do no harm.

Fake Credit Cards for People with Really Bad Credit

According to mernalaw.com, in 2015 there were: "…819,240 bankruptcies filed nationally," and in each of the years 2010-2013 there were more than 1,000,000 bankruptcies filed each year.  This signifies that in America, that there are literally millions of people that have filed bankruptcy over the last decade, in which depending upon the bankruptcy filed; it takes seven to ten years for that bankruptcy to be fully discharged from your credit history.  What this means for those individuals, is that something that many people take for granted, such as an unsecured credit card, is simply not available or difficult to obtain as an option typically for these people, especially in regards to your basic MasterCard or Visa card. 

In the credit card world there are different tiers of credit cards available, based on your credit score and income, in which, the best credit card for most people is one that is both unsecured, that is you do not have to put up collateral such as money to obtain it as well as no annual fee, program rewards, as well as a low or reasonable interest rate.  Next, there are credit cards that are unsecured, but require an annual fee, or have a higher interest rate or both.  Then there are credit cards, that while still unsecured, have an initiation fee, and then a monthly credit card fee just for the pleasure of having the credit card, as well as a high interest rate, typically marketed to people with bad credit, but not considered to be hopeless.  For those with rather anemic credit, there are secured credit cards, in which the typical policy is for the consumer to set up a specific savings account which is used as collateral for the credit card, and depending upon that deposit and credit worthiness, a credit limit is established.  Finally, there are people in which because of bankruptcy they have not only terrible credit, but have demonstrated to credit card issuers that they are willing to go through bankruptcy to discharge such debt, not exactly the type of person that most credit card companies will welcome. 

Yet, for whatever reason, or however it occurred, people that declared bankruptcy, and/or have atrocious credit have a real interest in pursuing and receiving a credit card, for a lot of reasons, of which the primary one is simply, convenience.  We live in a world in which people need to buy food, need to purchase gas, need to purchase other assorted items, and so forth, in which, because most people are not paid daily, but rather are paid weekly, or bi-weekly, or monthly, don't have ready money, but in reality, do have money coming, or its equivalency, but often not enough money is available to them at their moments of need. Those people desire therefore a credit card to cover those expenses, but unfortunately, while doing their search online, for instance, are steered into what are in essence, fake credit cards, that rather than being universal and thereby a credit card that one can use at virtually any store for anything subject to the credit limit, find themselves, instead, being offered a "credit card" that is only good for one or perhaps a couple of specific online stores, and that's it.

 The rub for these fake credit cards lie in two distinct areas, in which, first of all, there are the fees, which might include all of the following: an initiation fee, a monthly fee, an application fee, a membership fee, and late fees, for that credit card.  In addition, the online store that they can shop at will for a certainty sell items at a significantly higher price point representing a premium to what the item would sell for at a regular website or a brick and mortar store.

In America, whether you want to commend it or disown it, entrepreneurs can make money all sorts of ways, including specifically marketing to the vulnerabilities of those with bad credit, by selling them the illusion that a particular credit card is going to help aid them in repairing their bad credit, or be of help to them during tight budgetary times, or whatever, when in reality, it is all about exploitation, and really nothing else.  The bottom line is that most people with bad credit and/or that have gone through bankruptcy have access to money through their job and possibly governmental benefits, and there are specifically companies whose business model is to get that money from those people, because they know that these people can be rather easily suckered.

Juveniles and inconsistent Justice

Most people along with the law for the most part, recognize that when a person turns eighteen, that they are no longer subject to juvenile jurisdictions but are now treated exactly the same as adults, with a few notable exceptions.  It is those exceptions which proves that the law is all over the place, because depending upon the city that you reside in, or the State, or what crime you are accused of, your justice will often noticeably vary. That is to say, sometimes the government treats a juvenile, that is someone under eighteen as an adult, and sometimes the government or private enterprise treats someone that is age eighteen to twenty, as if they were effectively neither a juvenile nor an adult.

This sort of inconsistency in regards to the law, almost always, is in the favor of the arbitrary State or its adjutants and almost always insufferable for those caught in its crosshairs.  Take for example, someone that simply wants to smoke a cigarette, whereas, for the most part previous to 1990, if you were sixteen, you could legally smoke, now depending upon the jurisdiction that you reside in, you have to be at a minimum eighteen, yet there are States, cities, and counties that have raised the age to twenty-one, with, of course, criminal penalties for those that fail to adhere to those guidelines.  So, for instance, if you reside in a community with the smoking age of twenty-one, yet you are only twenty when caught smoking, you will at a minimum be subjected to a fine, and possibly community service, for the possession and use of tobacco.  This effectively treats someone that is legally an adult, as something less than an adult.  Then, there is alcohol, in which in every State of the union, the legal drinking age was raised by 1986 to twenty-one, with significant penalties in most States, for being underage, and having consumed any alcohol at all, let alone enough alcohol that would typically trigger a DUI.  Again, this is a situation in which an adult is treated as something other than an adult.  So too, with private enterprise, in which most rental car companies insist that renters be at least twenty-five to rent a car, and some hotels insist that the lodger be at least twenty-one.  The one thing that surprisingly hasn't significantly changed over the last generation is the legal age of consent for sexual relations, which ranges from age sixteen to eighteen in all of our States.  So apparently, in America, the State cares more deeply as to whether you smoke cigarettes or drink alcohol, which are basically actions that affect your own body and your own consent, as compared to sexual relations which involves at a minimum, two persons, mutual consent, and the distinct possibility of conception. 

The above is demonstrated proof of the government treating adults of the ages eighteen through twenty as if they weren't adults, even though the penalties for their criminal actions of underage drinking or underage smoking are penalized as adults, which logically makes no sense.  Then, on the other hand, the government proving that it wants to lord it over and bully certain citizens, will take juveniles that are under the age of eighteen, and under certain circumstances, typically in regards to a serious criminal offense, but always at the discretion of the State, treat juveniles as if they were adults, and thereby try these juveniles in adult court.  That is hardly fair, because if you read it through carefully, what the government is saying is that when it, the government, determines that it wishes to treat a juvenile as an adult it will do so, and when the government determines that if wants to take an adult of ages eighteen to twenty and treat them as essentially as if they were a juvenile, but punish them as if they were an adult, it does that.

All of this essentially means that the government can treat its citizens, in particular its younger citizens, any which way that they want to, especially because juveniles and young adults don't have any real power in America, and thereby can be successfully slapped, used, and kicked around by the State.  The State exists to protect the status quo and they aren't young, and these privileged elites have no real interest in seeing youth served whatsoever, in fact, that is why, in any war, the ground fighting is always done by the poor and young, who are just old enough to die for their country at eighteen, but are not old enough to have a drink, smoke a cigarette, or in the future, even have sex.

Do we still have a Government of the People?

Lincoln's Gettysburg Address is one of the most important historic moments in United States history, to which Lincoln resolved that the: "… government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."  The above quotation implies quite strongly that Lincoln, considered to be one of the clearest, thoughtful, and most honest politicians ever, believed that this was indeed a government of, by, and for the people, at least in 1863. However, today, looking around at the concentration of so many industries in too few hands, of mass media that at best represents two sides of the very side coin, clearly this seems to be a government that in effect is one that marches to the beat of the military-industrial complex, massive multi-national corporations, and special privileged elite people, all under the god of mammon and power. 

America is a nation of around 320 million peoples, of which, for most people, though not all, upon turning eighteen, one is eligible to vote in democratic elections.  That part seems to indicate positively that this really is a government of and by the people, but that unfortunately, doesn't reflect truly the present situation.  For instance, at the time of Lincoln's first presidential campaign, there were four major candidates that received electoral votes, of which Lincoln received the majority of those votes and was duly elected.  While America subsequently has had many third party candidates that have attempted to win the Presidential election, the reality is that since 1952, the only third party Presidential candidate to win any electoral votes at all was George Wallace in 1968, and that's it.

In order for the people to have choice, you need to have at least two choices, to which our present day Republicans v. Democrats, represent something erringly similar to Coca-Cola v. Pepsi Cola, Airbus v. Boeing, Bloomberg v. Reuters, Unilever v. Proctor & Gamble, and so forth, to which each of these mighty companies together, dominate their respective markets, and any other players are so small as to not being able to make a meaningful market impact or are simply seen as fringe players.   Although, ostensibly these companies are fierce competitors, they are as seen from a different and truer perspective, in the same sort of business, which is first of all protecting their own turf from any upstarts, along with monitoring regulations that would adversely impact them and conversely supporting legislation that protects them, as well as keeping on top of any and all activities that does not support the current status quo. 

When there are only two essential political choices, it is very easy for those choices to be marketed to the people in such a manner so as to sell the illusion that they are often at loggerheads, whereas, more realistically they simply take turns at helming the royal ocean liner that is America to the benefit of those that control or guide these parties and their actual policies behind the scenes..  Today's politicians are very good at promising all sorts of nonsense and coming up with catchy slogans such as: "change we can believe in," or "make America great again," but in actuality nothing ever changes, and nothing great ever comes forth.

The bottom line is that America isn't really a democracy, it isn't even a republic, it is controlled in actuality by privileged people, the military-industrial complex, and mega-corporations that want to maintain their power and riches at the expense of the people.  If this really was a government of the people, by the people, and for the people, than the government wouldn't treat the common man as someone that needs to be controlled, monitored, and sanctioned, but would instead see the common man as the salt of the earth, decent, filled with common sense, and good.

Rights of Englishmen and our Unalienable Rights

America was founded as a colony of Great Britain, to which, Great Britain provided military as well as material aid to the colonies which helped to sustain and strengthen the colonists.  Not too surprisingly, in return for such aid, logistics, troops, and whatnot, Great Britain came to the point in which it demanded the payment of certain specific taxes from the colonists, in which the colonists were resentful of such taxes being imposed upon them, especially in consideration that they had no representation in Parliament.  Neither did the colonists appreciate the Quartering Act, which allowed standing armies to be quartered in barracks or public housing and for the colonists to thereby support by taxation these troops, ostensibly stationed in America, so as to protect and defend its borders.

The colonists considered themselves to be part and parcel of the British empire, and thereby saw themselves as having the "Rights of Englishmen", to which, although, Great Britain has no written Bill of Rights, they have through the Magna Carta and their traditions stretching over centuries established laws that impressed upon British subjects the rights and protections of English citizenship.   It was this belief that permitted the colonists to appeal to both parliament and King George III in regards to their disputes on taxation, representation, and standing armies.

Unfortunately, the colonist's appeals to parliament and especially to King George III were effectively of no avail, forcing the colonists to abandon any hopes that their rights of Englishmen meant effectively anything in regards to them, and thereby setting the stage to make their appeal to a higher power, our Creator Himself.  The colonists, reasoned that by depending upon power that originated in the hands of parliament and of the king, this would always mean, that they would be servants of or subservient to the State, to which, by being so, they would or would not receive in return the liberties that they felt that they were due by their humanity.

Therefore the Declaration of Independence, did two very clever things when it was written by Thomas Jefferson, in which, one of these was to declare that governments are instituted amongst men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, and when such a government becomes destructive of those ends it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and that the facts of such a claim should be declared to the world as proof that such a government has lost its legitimacy and has become in its object, tyrannical.    Additionally, our Declaration, went above the hands of man, went above human laws, by declaring that each one of us is born with unalienable rights endowed by our Creator, amongst which consist of but are not limited to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and in order to secure these unalienable rights governments are instituted amongst men.

The above changed the dynamic of our government into one that believed that the true function of government was to secure these unalienable rights amongst men, and that above all, this was its primary mission.  This meant in effect, that any government destructive of our unalienable rights was by definition, illegitimate, for trying to usurp or to suppress the unalienable rights that each of us has been gifted by our Creator.  These unalienable rights means in effect, that governments and the people that help run or run this government, are subservient themselves to these unalienable rights bestowed upon us by our Creator.

Without France there would be no independent America

The great founding fathers of our nation had the will, vision, and desire to declare their independence from Great Britain, demonstrating that they were courageous, visionary, and bold.  Yet, to declare something, even something of great value is not the same thing as achieving it, something, that when the first shots of our war of Independence were fired, this nation would soon find out.

To fight a war against the greatest military and world power which was Great Britain, would entail not just uncommon valor, but soldiers, personnel, food, equipment, training, logistics, money, and outside aid.    The fact of the matter is that America knew that it needed the assistance and aid from other countries in regards to military equipment, ships, arms, personnel, experience, and diplomatic recognition in order to achieve victory, because without such, they could not successfully defeat the British.  At best, America could take advantage of the fact that its people knew the lay of the land, and thereby would utilize this superior knowledge to hit and run, so as to strategically live to fight another day with the hope that America could wear away the British resolve to fight over an extended period of time and expense.

At the time of our declaration, France was a country that was Great Britain's bitter rival, and would like nothing better than to see Great Britain weakened by the upstart Americans, but for France backing a losing horse was not something that was worth their time or expense.  However, when America demonstrated in the battle of Saratoga of September-October, 1777, that they had the fight in them to take it to the overconfident and reckless British general Burgoyne and thereby defeated and forced his surrender, France, within a couple of months, recognized the United States of America.

It was upon this formal recognition that brought to the United States of America, the French commitment to aid our young nation with military personnel, monetary credit, weapons, ammunition, and the vital French navy.  The critical fact that the French brought their navy to American shores, made it problematic that Great Britain could successfully embargo or blockade our ports so as to successfully affect economic ruin upon America.  So too, this meant that Great Britain would now be fighting a war that had taken on global proportions so as to therefore necessitate Great Britain to defend the English Channel as well as their interests in the West Indies, effectively stretching their resources and personnel worldwide.

Ultimately, it was the French navy led by Admiral De Grasse that blockaded the Chesapeake bay and in conjunction with Washington's land forces essentially trapped General Cornwallis' troops at Yorktown, Virginia, which was the decisive military battle, that led to Great Britain's decision to end the war and to seek a peaceful resolution which resulted in the truly independent United States of America.

In actuality, there was little chance that a young and budding America could actually defeat Great Britain, and it could not have done so without France and to a lesser extent Spain's material assistance.  It was France, above all other nations that provided the funds and its formidable navy that materially assisted in the fruition of this great nation, to their everlasting credit

Frequency of Pay

Back in the day, we were instructed: "You shall give him his wages on his day before the sun sets…" (Deuteronomy 24:15).  Nowadays, only those that are in cash businesses, such as tipped employees in the restaurant business, or laborers in the agricultural fields of America, do these employees typically receive their wages on the day that they perform their work, and everyone else is stuck getting paid per the conditions of their particular employer and although the prevailing government authority is the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), the FLSA provides a few generic rules, with State authorities having the option of imposing their own rules in a given State, so that depending upon the State, pay may be mandated at a minimum of at least two pay periods per month, or in some, as infrequently as once per month.  In addition, to pay periods which are typically going to be weekly, bi-weekly, semi-monthly, or monthly, States have a further requirement of timing in regards to the end of the pay period and the lag time for employees to get paid, in which, this too varies from State-to-State, of which, some have lag times of up to eighteen days, whereas others are only eight days.

In an era in which so many employees struggle paycheck to paycheck, the frequency of pay along with the lag time between pay periods and the actual payment of wages due, should in all fairness, be accommodating to the employees who are performing the work.  The fact that companies in certain States, can pay employees on a frequency basis of just once per month, while also having a lag time of making that payment of up to fifteen days, such as in Idaho, means, in effect, that it's legal for someone who has worked the entire month of March, not to be paid until April 15th, which seems both ridiculous as well as an unnecessary burden upon the employees.

In point of fact, the FLSA should be updated to mandate that at least two paychecks are issued to employees each month, unless a collective bargaining agreement provides otherwise, for two very important reasons, of which one is that the budgeting of money for payment of bills for a significant amount of people is quite problematic with just one pay period per month, as well as the fact that in our capitalistic society, businesses are created and businesses fail each and every day, to which, the employee should not be vulnerable to losing up to six weeks of salary (one month accrued plus two weeks current) when certain businesses close their doors, as the labor portion of any business is almost always a significant expense.

The fairest way to pay employees is actually to pay their wage at the completion of a given day, but for most industries this isn't going to be the norm, anytime soon.  In point of fact, frequency of pay, along with minimum lag times in regards to that pay should be a top consideration for any business, especially businesses in which a significant portion of their employees literally live paycheck to paycheck.   In practicality, grace periods for payment of rent are typically around three calendar days, and most credit card payments offer only a grace period without having to pay monetary interest, only if the balance due is paid no later than by the due date, whereas employers in certain States have grace periods of up to eighteen days, to pay wages that are due and payable to their employees, hardly a fair deal.

Finding Truth

In this fallen world, people like to play all sorts of mind games, such as asking "what is truth?"  The foregoing was rhetorically asked by Pilate to Jesus the Christ, to which Jesus had already stated that he "…came into the world to testify to the truth…."  The fact that Jesus came into this world to testify to the truth, would indicate, that our judicial standard of testimony to which we swear or affirm that what we testify to:  " will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth," confirms the absolute importance of truth in conjunction with justice.  This also makes the important point that there is just one truth, so that therefore truth is objective, not subjective, as truth is forever unchanging and immutable, and that those that testify to truth, that live their lives in truth, are those that have clarity of both mind and spirit, and are the true adherents of good.

However, there are many people that believe that truth depends upon one's perspective or is socially conditioned, or is dependent upon all sorts of factors that differ from person to person, so that truth, in actuality or practicality can be different from person to person, as in the example, of the six blind men and the elephant, to which each person, touches upon the elephant at a different part of the elephant and thereby believes that the elephant to have a particular quality, which while truthful, isn't the entire truth, so that if it ended just there, this would imply that truth is indeed in the eye of the beholder. But remember, each of these men are blind, and further each of these blind men have only touched one particular part of the elephant, so in fact, they haven't had the opportunity to discover the whole truth, and therein lies the rub.

The fact that Jesus proclaimed that He was here to testify to the truth, should be a signal to each of us, that within our mission and purpose of life, we should have foremost in our minds, that we wish to discover the truth about life, about the meaning of life, about how we got here, why we are here, and the purpose of us being here.  If we do not search for those very things, it seems problematic, at best, that we will ever be able to utilize our time and resources in the most correct manner, because without a clear-headed goal, we will be unable to consistently walk forward nor will we ever discover, net alone walk the straight and narrow path.

The truth that we seek, is awaiting our discovery of it, this truth, does not change, and remains the same from age to age, from people to people, from civilization to civilization, because it is universal.  The fact that truth is universal and thereby available to all signifies that we can find truth, from wherever we are currently at, if only we sincerely desire to do so.  Truth is our master, and we are its disciples, and to be a good disciple we need to adhere to the principles of right living, which begins with the knowledge that a wrong cannot be the basis for a right, nor an untruth the basis for truth, but instead that there is One light, that illuminates all, and it is this Light that we must seek and by doing so we will become more loving, as well as kinder, peaceful, joyful, faithful, and yes, truthful.

Dual Incomes and Housing

In 1974 the Equal Credit Opportunity act (ECOA) was signed into law, and while there are many good points to this legislation, it also created a legacy of unintended consequences.  For instance, on the good side it eliminated taking into account your race, religion, national origin, sex, marital status or whether or not you get public assistance in regards to your application for credit.  In addition, the lender could not speculate as to what your plans were in regards to having or raising children, and thereby for dual-income couples had to accept each person's salary as a true reflection of the earnings of that couple, without availing themselves of the option of discounting a woman's salary or speculating that at some point, one or both of them, might be out of work, for some period of time. 

This meant, in practicality, that the housing lender would now take a snapshot of your current combined salary, and from there, would be able to offer a suitable mortgage package and loan for a house.  Not too surprisingly, as this is America, the more money that you made, the more house that you could afford, so that in 1974 as noted by census.gov the average price of a home in America was $38,900, whereas in 2010 it was $272,900, and if we were to re-price the home taking into account the devaluation of the dollar, the average price in 2010 should have been $172,056, while the actual difference between those prices is $100,000, which represents a real increase in 2010 dollars of 58.6%, which is substantial.

In fairness to the builders that sell homes, modern-day homes do have more amenities than homes of 1974, to which, though, the most telling difference between homes of today as compared to 1974, is as noted by aei.org that:  "Over the last 40 years, the average home has increased in size by more than 1,000 square feet," which would certainly account for a lot of the reason why housing pricing has increased so much over the last forty years.  The strange thing is that the overall family size has decreased from about 3 per household back in 1974, to just over 2.5 people per household today, so that the increase in home sizing has little to do with families getting larger, because they haven't.

All of the above, would imply strongly, that the purveyors of housing, saw the fact that since dual income wages were no longer being discounted by the mortgage lenders, that this meant, for a certainty, that they now could sell homes that were bigger, better, and more expensive, since more verifiable income having been approved equated to more house that could be bought.  After all, the home builders have a vested interest in selling bigger homes that retail for more money because these homes are more profitable that your traditional smaller starter homes, often, substantially so.

You know that it is a sad state of affairs, that mathematics are not a particular strong suit of a significant amount of Americans, and therefore thirty years to pay off a loan, allows a lender to take a relatively large number, and break it down into something that looks manageable, and probably is manageable, if you make certain positive assumptions about employment and salary, and don't take into account that most families have family responsibilities and obligations that cost both money as well as time, as well as health issues, and that unanticipated events do happen.

The thing about dual incomes is that if you are already earning at full capacity that means that you do not have any room for error or safety margin, should things not work out as desired.  The purchasing of a house is for virtually everyone, the biggest voluntary debt that they will take on in their entire life, to which, the better part of valor, is to be more practical and budget savvy.

Federally Guaranteed Mortgages encourage an Endless Cycle of Defaults, Cheating, and Scandals

It is the American dream for most families to own a house, to which, the government has clearly put its money where its mouth is, by setting up several agencies that their most notable purpose is to essentially federally guarantee mortgages, with agencies such as Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, the Federal Housing Administration (FHA), and the Veterans’ Administration (VA).  To help define exactly what these agencies do, they essentially buy up mortgages from credit unions, banks, and other financial institutions in bundles of mortgage loans from those entities, in which these bundled loans conform to the rules, goals, and mandates given to these Government Sponsored Enterprises (GSEs) so that if the government desires that Freddie Mac should purchase mortgage loans on behalf of affordable housing requirements as imposed by the Housing and Urban Development (HUD), they will do so.

What this means is that if the government is willing to subsidize housing purchases in which any of the following are permitted as part and parcel of the purchase, such as poor credit history, low down payment, high ratio of mortgage amount vs. percentage of take home pay, than this is what the bundled loans will more frequently consist of, because the nature of loans for any of the various banking institutions, is that the more that you can loan in aggregate, the greater the amount of fees, points, and interest that you will make over the term of the loan, and if the banking institutions, can offload their risk onto governmental or GSEs they will have essentially increased their market share and profitability without infringing upon their own risk.

This signifies that the actual effect of GSEs purchasing bundles of mortgage loans, especially when combined with an overarching desire to see more mortgage loans originating to more people, that the qualification standards of those receiving such loans, will degenerate.  Even more to the point, if banking institutions can offload their risk to GSEs, they have every incentive to issue as many loans as possible that while ostensibly staying within the bounds of governmental policies, are clearly loans in which the default rate will be substantially higher, in fact, so high, that is a certainty that a significant amount of these loans will at some point come into default.

If, this government aids and abets the purchasing of bundles of mortgage loans, to which the qualifications to have such a loan issued, have been reduced significantly this will subsequently increase the risky nature of these loan packages, substantially, so that this government will have far more loans issued of a questionable nature.  This then equates inevitably into a cycle of more mortgage defaults, more liar loans in order to scam the system, and more overall cheating in order for banks to make, maintain, or to increase their profits, to which all of these things are passed off to where the buck does stop, the Federal government and its agencies, but unfortunately, for the American public at large, the blowback is, that the failures of government in keeping its fiscal house in order, mean invariably that the taxpaying citizens of this country have to make good on these loans that should have never been made in the first place, while also compensating banking institutions that "gamed" the system in order to enrich themselves.

Food, Alcohol, and Stadiums

The cost of attending sporting events have skyrocketed over the years, so that for the most part, attending sporting events for those that make a modest income or less, is something that for professional sports has either been eliminated entirely, or curtailed significantly, except if attending as a guest or on those infrequent nights when special pricing is in effect or no-interest has been generated in which case, list ticket prices are discounted significantly.  

One of the peripheral things adding to the expense of seeing live sporting events is that all stadiums with slight variations in their rules, want to be the master of what you eat or drink once you enter within the stadium.  That is to say, extra income is generated for sport franchises, from the buying of food items, refreshments, and alcoholic beverages, and the stadium obviously prefers not to have to compete with outside elements.

In actual fact, although not well advertised because they have no interest in cannibalizing their own sales, most stadiums allow patrons to bring in plastic bottles of water or plastic bottles of non-alcoholic beverages, as well as most stadiums do allow you to bring in outside food, as long as it is contained within a visible plastic bag or a soft-sided bag that conforms to the size limitations of a given stadium.

On the other hand, no stadium legally allows its patrons to bring in alcohol of any type, yet, without exception, all stadiums sell alcoholic beverages as long as you are not obviously intoxicated.  This would indicate a general hypocrisy in the sense that alcohol is permitted within the stadium, as long as you buy the alcohol from stadium vendors, but you cannot bring in from outside your own alcohol, which means, basically, the stadium policy against outside alcohol, is essentially to compel its patrons to buy their alcohol from designated stadium sellers.  I supposed, to a great extent, this makes sense, especially since you are allowed to fill up on your own alcoholic beverages in the parking lot before entering the game, still, for people on a tight budget, this might encourage them to drink more than they would prefer in the parking lot, as opposed to a more consistent and reasonable pace if they were allowed to bring in one or two alcoholic beverages contained within a sealed plastic container.

That said, the biggest boon to stadiums and their concessions has got to be airport security which has pretty much trained people that you can't bring any liquids successfully pass security and that food items are also pretty problematic, even though you are allowed to bring in snack items, or even sandwiches or burgers if they are wrapped in a container or sealed in a clear plastic bag through airport security.

Quite obviously, stadiums don't make it a policy to explicitly advertise or encourage you as to what you can take into a stadium, and pretty much prefer that you assume that the correct answer is no liquids and no food items.  However, to their credit, and especially to their credit on behalf of families, their policies are reasonable and will thereby allow a family of four to attend a sporting event, without having to unnecessarily worry that they must also eat or drink only stadium provided foods, therefore most definitely saving that family some meaningful money, and making it more probable that the tradition of attending sporting events can successfully transition from one generation to the next.

Manufacturing and Banking

Ultimately, the things that we buy on any given day are manufactured, to which, to a large extent, many of the goods that we once purchased in America, were actually primarily made in America, by American workers.  The advantage of using American workers in America to manufacture goods is manifold, to which, the most important advantage is that the money is kept re-cycling in the community at large, which aids and abets employment, and the infrastructure of cities that depend upon its citizens having and maintaining gainful employment. 

In today's global economy, the competition in the manufacturing of goods is intensive, so that, not too surprisingly, when looking to save money, manufacturers of goods gravitate to places in the world in which the labor rates are significantly cheaper than the USA, while also having less onerous laws in regards to work space, work hours, work safety, work pollution and so forth.  This has been translated as reported by cnn.com into the percentage of workers employed in manufacturing in America declining from 24% as of 1960, to the present day total of just 8%, with projections that this decline will continue into the foreseeable future.  While the decline in manufacturing is directly bad for our lower middle class blue collar working force, it at least provides a benefit for other Americans in the sense that because the manufacturing of goods overseas makes for cheaper products, this means that basic items such as textiles, machines, electronic equipment, and vehicles are cheaper to Americans, so that there is a net benefit for Americans not associated with the manufacturing sector. 

While, America's manufacturing sector has been eviscerated, banking, on the other hand, led by the "too big to fail" philosophy of the Federal government, continues to expand, grow, and consolidate in America.  While there are a lot of differences between manufacturing and banking, the primary difference is in the product that they sell, whereas manufacturing actually sells tangible goods, banking basically sells the access to money,  There are a lot of ways that banks make money, but in essence, the formula for banking success, is to loan out money, or invest money, or create money, in which, the cost of that money to the bank is significantly lower than the cost in interest and/or fees to the consumer, or to the industry, or to the government, that borrows it.

Not only does the interest spread of the cost of the loan to the bank as compared to the rate of interest that must be paid by the consumer to the bank, create a nice profit for the bank, but so too, does the banking rules that allow banks to leverage up their loans, so that rather than loaning out money on a 1:1 ratio, in which for every dollar deposited to the bank, only one dollar can be loaned, in actuality, depending upon a few other factors, banks are typically allowed to loan out money at a ratio of 20:1, which translates into for every dollar deposited, that they can loan out twenty dollars, and that increased leverage equates to extra profits for the bank and with a federal policy that some banks are considered to be too big to fail, means that they have implicit carte blanche to do whatever that they desire to increase their profit potential.

So too do banks subdivide how they treat the people and companies that come to them for loans, so that those with the best credit are considered to be prime customers, and those with the worst credit to be subprime, to which the essential difference between these customers being the rate of interest and terms charged.  On the surface, that might seem fair but in actuality its straight exploitation, because the very people, countries, and companies that can least afford to pay higher interest rates are charged higher interest rates and thereby become overly burdened which essentially creates a negative feedback loop in which default is often inevitable, leading to the takeover of companies, sovereign nations, and people by banking interests and their cohorts. 

In essence, those that control the money, control the world, because access to capital is essential for any country, any business, and private individuals, so that, unlike manufacturing, it's a zero-sum game, in which those that win do it on the backs of those that lose, who play in a game in which the odds favor heavily the house, and as Proverbs 22:7 states: "The rich ruleth over the poor, and the borrower is servant to the lender."  

All Human Life has Intrinsic Value

In an era in which so many wonder what can this or that particular person ultimately do for them, to which they therefore believe that this then determines a given person's worth, this ultimately translates into the belief that people only have value from the standpoint of their capacity to do something of value for someone else.  In other words, if you are so old and debilitated so that you apparently cannot do anything constructive, than your life has no purpose.  If you are severely handicap, so that it would appear that for your entire life, you will need constant aid, than your life is not worth helping.  If you become impregnated, the choice as to whether that child is born or aborted, should be the mother's choice alone, because it is her body, and thereby her choice, and therefore that particular child's life has no value. 

The above seem to be the arguments of the present day as to the basic reasoning behind abortion, euthanasia, and the like, to which all of this comes down to the basic premise that if you are a burden or significant inconvenience upon society, that the family or the State should have the right to preclude or to terminate such a life.  This type of mindset, in which certain members of society are considered to be of more value than others, flies in the face, that all are entitled equal protection under man's law, and that all are made in the image of God.

If, it is the principle of any country that members of its society are valued only by virtue of what they can provide to society at large, rather than seeing all of human life as of intrinsic value, made of the same substance by our Creator, with the attendant unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, you have replaced this instead with the viewpoint that not all human life is equal, and once that has been decided and adjudicated, those that make those decisions, are affordeda privileged position in society, giving them the decisive voice as to who shall live and who shall die.

Perhaps a medical doctor can make a compelling case in regards to a particular person that their life has no hope, is painful, and pathetic, and in conclusion that such a life should be discharged from this material world.  The decision to do that means inevitably that the future targets of who shall live and who shall die will migrate very quickly from the weakest and the least powerful, to the systematic killing of those that have no champions to their cause or are an inconvenience to the State.  If,  then, the force of law and the force of the State, work together to effect this change than it will be they, this privileged bureaucracy, that will become the gods of life or death.

In point of fact, once you permit government agents the power of life and death over its citizens, that they profess to serve, than the country no longer has life, liberty, or is it pursuing happiness, rather its citizens have effectively no rights, because if there is no true sanctity of human life than all other rights, no matter how flowerer the prose, are like clay in the hands of absolute tyranny.

The First Amendment precludes a National Religion

At the time of our Declaration of Independence, King George III was not only the King of England but also the Supreme Governor of the Church of England, also known as, the Anglican Church.  At one time, England was indeed a true Catholic nation, subservient to the Pope, but because King Henry VIII was adamant that he would divorce his present wife so as to marry another woman and thereby to have a male heir, he was excommunicated by the Catholic church, and subsequently King George III created the separated Church of England with himself as the head of that church.

As a colony of England, America recognized that any governmental authority in which the head of it, was both the religious as well as the political leader, had both the ultimate authority over secular as well as religious faith, which was in point of fact a clear and present danger to the unalienable rights that each of us has had gifted to us by our Creator.  This meant, that as part of the formation of our Constitution, America, in its First Amendment, made it clear that the Federal Government would not be permitted to establish a national religion, because by so doing this would compel its citizens to worship in a certain, specific way, under Federal aegis and approval, whereas we are created with the unalienable right to worship God in any way that we find pleasing to ourselves and our conscience.

The worship of our Creator, or non-worship, for that matter, is in America an individual choice.  That is why there is no religious test ingrained in our Constitution, because the Founders of this great nation believed that each individual was entitled to their own freedom of conscience, rather than being compelled to believe in only one particular sect or in one particular faith.  This means, in effect, that America is a country founded upon true religious liberty, something almost completely unheard of in the annals of history, and seldom truly practiced or adhered to.

Under our Constitution, ingrained within American law, is our freedom to worship God as we so desire, compelled not by Federal government authority to worship only the favored religion of the State, nor are we precluded from worshiping as per our conscience and our proclivity by Federal laws.  This is the way that it should be, as our God, does not compel anyone to bend their knees to Him, and never will.

Not only do we have true freedom of religious worship and conscience in America, but unlike certain countries, that favor one religion specifically and hold all others as blasphemy or similar, this Federal government cannot favor one religion over all others, instead it is a level playing field, allowing each individual to find God in his own way, on his own terms, without Federal interference.

There are few things as important as our relationship to God as we see Him, and no country should have the implicit right to compel its citizens to respect that only this particular way is the way, instead each of us should be permitted to find our way to He who is the One who has disposed upon us free will and free conscience, in the hope that one day, we will live our lives in a manner that reflects that He is true love, true liberty, and true freedom.