Defeat can lead to Victory

In sports, the greatest accomplish is to go an entire season without ever experiencing defeat, becoming both unvanquished as well as the champion.  Of course, this doesn't happen often, and if was to be a routine occurrence for a particular team, viewership would actually go down, because if a particular team always wins, there just isn't much drama in that.  So too, in life, it is important to remember that if everything that you do comes rather easily for you, if everything always goes your way, and if the whole world seems to revolve around you, then you are either imagining these things or you have got to get yourself up and actually find some challenges that involve real struggle and real effort.

In point of fact, the people that always win, and that always get their way, aren't going to be especially empathetic to people that aren't winning, and aren't getting their way, because they will be at a lost as to how to identify with that.  Everybody needs some load or burden to carry, because only by actually knowing what it feels like to lose, or to get knocked down, or to not have the right answer, will you have the opportunity to appreciate the value of humility and the value of struggle.  It is in the losing and wanting to better yourself that allows a person to ultimately overcome defeat, and thereby attain victory.

So too, there definitely is value in being on the receiving end of disappointment, especially if in this disappointment there is created a fire in your belly, and thereby a vigor to do better so as to achieve more.  Many people do not know how much talent and strength that they have, until they are placed into a position in which they must assert themselves, or suffer dire consequences for not successfully doing so. 

In order to really appreciate health, you need to suffer poor health,  at least on occasion, so that you will take recognition that good health should not be seen as a given, but something to be appreciated, to be valued and to be grateful for.  You need to suffer sometimes, not so much because suffering builds character, but rather to better empathize with others going through similar situations, so that your strength and your experience will help to prop up another, who needs that helping hand.

Also, it is important to see physical life lost, so that you will better understand, that life not only has many stages, but that physical life on this earth can end suddenly and unexpectedly, therefore allowing you to appreciate more that time allocated to you and hence understand more completely that time has value, and it is up to you, to maximize it, not only for your own benefit, but for the benefit of others.

Your life matters, not only to yourself but especially to family and friends, and your experiences matter, because those experiences, either becomes stumbling blocks or building blocks, depending upon how you manage them.  In life, the objective is not to get a perfect score, the objective is to try and try again to overcome the things that prevent you from being the best that you can be, and your obligation to society is to lend a helping hand to others so that they can do the same

America: Overmedicated and Overprescribed

There isn't a country in the world that comes close to the amount of medications and pharmaceuticals consumed by Americans on a per capita basis.  It would be one thing if all this medication actually was a net benefit for the patient by improving the quality of one's life, or reducing the pain thereof, or for just making for a more humane and more considerate experience when dealing with medical issues, but in actuality, that often isn't the case, while medical doctors, medicine, and pharmaceuticals can most definitely improve the lot for certain diseases and ills, it can also create new problems, mask the real problem, and actually do material harm to the patient.

The day that America decided that it was okay to market pharmaceuticals to Americans via print media, advertising on television and radio, and now advertising on the internet, is the day that the growth rate of the usage of pharmaceuticals within this country began to achieve a much more pronounced trajectory.  The bottom line is that on any given day, you may experience a headache, a stomach ache, general aches and pains, not sleeping well, anxiety, or all sorts of things, which typically come and typically go in your life.  It use to be, if these things did not become chronic, or of a real hindrance, that people would just go about their business, but nowadays these advertisements are so ubiquitous and cover so many "conditions" and sell the promise that they provide what appears to be instant relief, that Americans are sucked into believing the hype.

It's bad enough that American adults take or are prescribed way too much medication for things that don't really need medication, but it is an entirely different thing for children, to be prescribed medication for being overactive, hyper, lacking in attention skills, or need an antihistamine, or need to relieve asthma, and so forth, in which these young children really don’t have much of a say on the matter, as they assume that their parents as well as their pediatrician know what is best for them, but alas this isn't always so.  So too, children that are prescribed drugs for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), may easily start a process that never ends, that is to say, they are on ADHD medication all of their life, which doesn't seem like a good solution in the first place, or if a possible solution, should not be the first one to engage in.

While there are most definitely people that do require medication, and while there are situations in which medication is very effective as a remedy, it is also important to recognize that the body, is a well constructed and a well constituted machine, that incredibly can and will, under the right circumstances in many instances, heal itself, if only given enough time to do so.   There are times when urgency requires urgent responses, so too, there are numerous times, when patience and attentiveness in all of its many forms, is by far the best response, and the best thing for a person.  The bottom line is that even in the best of cases pills are two-edge swords which is why pharmaceuticals have their attendant disclaimers written in very small print that simply go on and on and on.

If you don't make war, hell, you will just get a lot more of it

It's been said that "war is hell" and certainly for those suffering through the consequences, hurt, and destruction of war, this is definitely true.  However, when wars are fought in which one nation has far superior weapons, far superior technology, far superior infrastructure, and far superior trained personnel, the whole war is hell scenario, is more properly seen as war being hell for the side and the people that aren't able to properly defend themselves, at the same time being hellish for those conducting such a war with their boots on the ground, but for those supporting those boots on the ground, war often isn't all that bad.

In point of fact, for every soldier on the field of action, who is actuality really risking his body, and his life, it is estimated that there are seven soldiers behind him, that are relatively free of any reasonable concern that their livesare in any sort of danger or even concerned about suffering privations. Never, has the support troops to American soldiers on the field, had it so good.  Nowadays, everything that an American support soldier needs in regards to health, food, sanitation, internet access, and social activities, is readily available for our troops, signifying that while war is most definitely brutal, cold, and lethal for those being assaulted by such,  it's like a completely different world for those ensconced in safety zones.

While it certainly makes sense that America wants to take good care of its soldiers, there is a downside of making soldiers so comfortable away from home, so safe from danger, that they don't really truly comprehend the savagery of real war.  Most definitely, those soldiers with boots on the ground are very cognizant of the brutality of war, the unfairness of it all, and the suffering that is created for the civilians who are in the wrong place at the wrong time, even though the place they are in, is, in fact, their native land. 

The thing is, the superiority of American firepower and logistics is so significant, that the kill ratios, that is to say the amount of enemy combatants as well as collateral damage killed by American soldiers as compared to those American soldiers killed by the enemy is estimated by the independent.co.uk as: "US-to-Isis "kill ratio" 15,000-to-one."   In general, the kill ratios in any of America's undeclared modern wars are at such staggering ratios in favor to America, that it seems both inexplicable and insane why any nation or organization would even consider going to war against America.

For those on the receiving end of the massive indomitable power and lethal destructiveness of American might, war, for those peoples is most definitely a living hell.  On the other hand, the American soldiers giving the fight are, with the exception of those truly in the line of fire and in real danger, relatively speaking, a bit of a burden, an inconvenience, but not much more.  This means, the masterminds of all of American skirmishes and wars, have created a playbook which pretty much reads as follows: keep our casualties down to an absolute minimum, treat our own personnel very, very well, and wreak as much havoc and destruction as we desire on our enemies, till world's end.

Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) and Big Brother

Technology, is most definitely a two-edge sword, it offers some incredible savings and efficiencies for consumers as well as businesses that we take advantage of each and every day. Take, for instance, radio frequency identification (RFID) tags which are becoming more and more ubiquitous for just about any item that you might purchase because it is so tiny, (Hitachi has developed a RFID which is just .15mm x.15mm and just 7.5 micrometers thick) which can be utilized for a variety of products, or on the other hand it is flexible enough that it can be embedded under an animal's skin, such as for cattle tracking and identification, as well as doing the same thing for humans.  

At the present time, there isn't any uniform standard of marking and the placing of RFID devices on products that consumers purchase, so that consumers don't have the right or the ability to properly "opt out" of purchasing or deactivating an item with a RFID device, but in fairness, they should. This is unfortunate, as it is one thing for RFID devices to be on products for inventory control and such for businesses and an entirely different thing if in the purchase of an RFID encoded product the business can correlate exactly who purchased the product through your smart phone or some other device, thereby identifying you as a consumer to specifically monitor and market items to.

The above are basic issues about RFID, of which some people might be annoyed, some not, some not really caring, and a few might find it to be "really cool".  The most significant issue about RFID devices is that if and when it become mandated for convicts or students or immigrants that they must have a RFID device implanted upon their body, the pendulum will have swung completely over to the side of state authorized authority which would mean that citizens at a minimum in the public square, could be easily tracked by state agencies, and effectively all of their motions and activities, stored and analyzed for whatever reasons, good or bad, that the state would have an interest in.

The fact that state-issued identification now have RFID technology embedded within these identification cards, as well as credit cards from banking companies, also having RFID embedded within their credit cards, would seem to imply that the game is already over, and that perhaps it isn't really necessary to embed a RFID device underneath someone's skin.  However, not everyone carries a credit card, and not everyone carries state-sponsored identification that has RFID, so that, it could be said, the very people that the government most wants to track, don't typically carry a RFID activated device, therefore the government would like to see that everybody has some sort of RFID attached to them, pretty much making everyone under their surveillance, all of the time.

So too, there is an important issue, which is, when the policing agencies make it a matter of routine course to scan people for RFID devices, this could easily be set as a specific quid pro quo, that those people that cannot be read, will be subject to being stopped and frisked, because those not voluntarily providing clear and actionable information to state authorities that positively identifies them, will be considered to be enemies of the state, until they are properly vetted by Big Brother. 

Immigration Judges are Not Judicially Independent

Justice is supposed to be impartial, but it is not possible for immigration judges to truly be impartial, when rather than being independent judges, serving on the court as long as they exhibit "good behavior" they are, rather, instead, employees of the Department of Justice (DOJ), which means that they are employed by the same prosecutorial element that instigates immigration cases.  This would strongly imply, in actuality, more than imply, that judges that are employees of the Department of Justice, will judge cases in the manner, more often than not, that upholds Department of Justice's goals in mind.  That is not only inherently unfair to the immigrants that are being prosecuted in court, it in actuality, makes these courts appear to be nothing more than presenting a semblance of real justice.

Further to the point, this would indicate that it is basic federal policy to put forth that immigrants, by definition, do not have Constitutional rights, in particular, that the 14th Amendment, which states that no law shall "…deprive any person of life, liberty or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws," that this appears to be the mindset of the DOJ, signifying that justice will not and cannot be served.

The Attorney General of the United States is responsible for the appointment of Immigration judges, so it goes without saying, that the judges so appointed, are going to be in lockstep with DOJ desires, and if they are not, they will be replaced as necessary, because they are not independent, thereby their continued employment is at the discretion of the DOJ.

The United States likes to proclaim that it is a nation of laws, but when those laws are adjudicated in a court of law, in which one element, in this case, the prosecutorial element, has the judge in their pocket, than there will not be justice.  Instead, what we receive in return, is whatever the current desires are of the DOJ, and the only thing preventing these policies from being enacted with no dissent, is the valiant defense made by immigration attorneys that at least make it difficult to enact Administration preferred immigration policies that often do not take into account the rule of law, nor due process of the law, nor equal protection of the law, but rather serve to circumvent such.

It is to the DOJ's convenience, to simply paint immigrants that do not appear to be legally within our country, as illegal, and thereby subject to deportation, without appropriate judicial review.  The United States response to its current immigrant crisis, is basically an end around Constitutional law, which essentially allows the DOJ and its immigrant judges to determine whatever that they desire to determine in regards to immigrants, and further this purposeful and targeted discrimination, enables such immigrants to be more easily exploited by employers and other people in America, because those that have no rights, or limited rights, have little effective recourse when they are preyed upon, essentially creating a form of servitude and punishment without having been duly convicted, and thereby manufacturing in practice, a modern new form of subservience.

The Maximum Federal Income Tax Rate should be 50% and Indexed against the Median Income

Nobody really likes to pay taxes but taxes are necessary in order for governments to function, and those that have the highest incomes, are well positioned to pay their fair share.  In point of fact, which is unfortunate for the general public, is that the more money that you make, the better lawyers that you can engage, as well as the better lobbyists that can be bought by you and others of your ilk, and the more that you and your cohorts can bend the ears of legislators in this country.  The upshot of all this, is an extremely complicated tax code, made specifically that way so as to allow those in the know to pay considerably less in taxes, unfairly burdening those that do not have such a luxury.

The maximum top marginal rate has not been not been higher than 50% since 1981, with the years from 1932-1986 being at a minimum at least 50% as the top rate, with some years, having that top rate at a staggering 94%.  Even those that believe that the rich should be soaked probably don't believe that 94% could ever be a fair rate, and no doubt, it is rates such as these, that helped to create the tax dodges that we deal with in the present day.

A far fairer policy would be to not only simplify the tax code so that those that are the richest of the rich, pay their fair share back to society, as not only can they well afford it, it would also serve to reduce considerably the new monetary aristocracy from overturning the democratic roots of America.  Further to the point, from a fairness perspective, a maximum rate in which the taxpayer must pay on a 1:1 ratio taxes towards the government seems to be not only inherently fair, but something also that would be hard to argue against, as pundits like to rail against insanely high taxes as being de-motivating to working, whereas $1 for me, $1 for the tax authorities, seems reasonably fair for the most successful of them all, for those making that coin at extremely high levels.

Not only should the Federal Income maximum tax rate be fixed at 50%, this 50% rate should be indexed to ten times the current median income in America, which at the present time, is about $51,500, so that those earning above $515,000 would pay federal income taxes at 50%, and since some States also have high State income taxes, there should be a provision that in aggregate of State, local, and Federal taxes, the petitioner will not pay more than 50% towards those authorities of their income. 

In addition, all the sophisticated write-offs, charitable donations, and tricks of the trade that takes a given person's income and thereby creates an adjusted gross income that has been reduced to absurdly low levels so that thereby the person appears to not have much of an income at all, should be phased out so that once your gross income exceeds $515,000 as indexedyearly against the median income, no more deductions or credits to your tax liabilities will be permitted, which would essentially be a reconfiguration of the alternative minimum tax program. 

The bottom line is that the superrich have the capacity to pay their fair share of taxes, and 50% is a fair enough trade to make, in order to live and to enjoy life and all its attendant benefits within the confines of the greatest nation in the world.

Warning: Using Social Media sites can kill you

The government requires all sorts of warning labels for all sorts of things that people utilize or take on a daily basis: such as certain machine tools, prescribed pharmaceutical drugs, and cigarettes.  Whether these warning labels actually work, is debatable, but they are required by government law, or it not, recommended by respected legal advisors.  It is somewhat surprising, that social media sites are not compelled by law or encouraged by legal advisors to provide a similar warning, either voluntarily, or mandated by law, by virtue of the fact, that the usage of social media has led to murders, stalking, assaults, and other crimes of one person against the other.

The most basic thing that at its core is wrong about so many social media sites is the fact that the users of such, often aren't really aware of how invasive and how actionable the information that is presented on their site is engaged by other people, of which some of these people, do not have the best interests of the social media poster in the first place.  Those that use social media to post exactly where they are located at the present time, exactly who they are or are not currently dating, exactly how they feel about people that use to be close to them, and displays essentially all of this information in a public forum, easily creates a situation in which, because other people have been publicly shamed, or are jealous minded, or other negative emotions, will react in ways that could be catastrophic for all.

Those that use social media sites the most are often young, along with many being impulsive, lacking in maturity, lacking in good judgment, and exceedingly sensitive to how they are portrayed and what they believe should or should not be permitted in a forum which in many respects is very public.  Additionally, just the way that social media sites are constructed and utilized, what one person sees as teasing or being playful, another person may interpret it as being taunting and provocative, which can lead to rather dire consequences.

While there are certain people that deliberately make posts on social media sites, trying to incite a reaction for whatever reason, on the other hand, most people making posts are not looking for real trouble, yet, they may indeed have to confront trouble from making a post that in their intention, wasn't even supposed to have been seen by certain people, but when social media accounts, have hundreds of even thousands of friends, you, really don't know who is looking at your posts, nor do you know what they actually feel about them.

The owners of social media have a vested interest in people having lots of "likes" or friends, or connections, or followers, and so on, but individuals on a very real level, simply don't have that many people that they really have that sort of connection with, and in actuality, would be far better served to be far more discreet, far more cognizant of the fact that not everybody has your best interests in mind, and that social media is a very poor way to deal with conflict, meaning that in certain situations very bad things can happen, because perceptions of public shame or public bickering, can easily lead to bodily harm, including even death.

Finding Faults in Others but less so in Ourselves

Most people are very good at discovering character flaws and faults in others; in fact, it seems to come naturally, whereas, for ourselves, significantly too often, we give ourselves either a free pass or the benefit of the doubt.  This type of inconsistency, in which we are quick to see that others have feet of clay but we, ourselves, are relatively speaking, just made of more integrity, is good for assuaging our own ego, but of little merit in the real world.

It has been said, that in order to really understand another person, you need to walk a mile in their shoes, which is absolutely true, but rather difficult to accomplish.  In actual fact, we often don't know where people really come from, what they have had to deal with, what they are really trying to accomplish, and who they really are, so being quick to criticize anybody without knowing their circumstances and their story, is probably the wrong attitude to take under most circumstances as criticism rather than being something that betters the other party, is often taken as a reprimand that they are inferior, and in particular, inferior to you.

A far more effective attitude to take, is one of helpfulness to others, so that, if in your perception you ascertain that someone is doing something wrong or inefficiently, show them considerately the error of their ways, or at least the possibility that they could look at things differently or do things differently, that perhaps has not previously occurred to them, that is to say, try to be of help, rather than an overbearing annoyance.

So too, people need to the best of their ability, step outside of themselves, and recognize, that if they don't particularly care to be criticized, especially by those that they believe really don't know what they are talking about, or by those that may indeed have a valid point, but make sure that their criticism is especially deep and cutting, need to recognize that if the heat in the kitchen is too much for them, than they should not want to treat others in the same manner.

We are all imperfect human beings, all in need of character improvement, personality improvement, and the like, so that, many are quite forgiving or forgetful of their own faults, but take a certain kind of perverse pleasure in pointing out the errors of other people's faults, perhaps in the mistaken belief, that they are being helpful in such criticism, but often this is done with selfish motives akin to the supposition that by lowering another person's image or self esteem, thereby means, that you have, subsequently risen above them.

We can all do much better, by first of all thinking about what we are saying and the real purpose behind it, before we actually say it, as well as taking into account, what is it that we are really trying to achieve, for if our purpose is to essentially knock down a person, that isn't really very constructive, for we have an inherent obligation, rather, to do good unto others, and certainly to live our lives in all aspects that reflect this in practice, by doing the very things that we desire to see done by others.

Savers and Debtors

The United States is in aggregate the largest debtor nation in the world, while it can be said that America also has the world's largest economy, this does not take away from the immensity of its debt, which as estimated by usgovernmentdebt.us America's current debt is nearly $20 trillion dollars and growing, which equates to a staggering amount of $60,974 per person.  Further adding to America's long term problem is that its GDP growth has slowed considerably since the beginning of the 21st century, so that the most recent year that real GDP growth was able to cross even 3% was 2005, so that any realistic hope of America being able to grow itself out of debt appears quite futile.

In cases in which countries or any debtor for that matter, has enormous debts, these debtors if they cannot successfully discharge such debt through default or through a structured discount to such debt, have only one other alternative which is to debase the currency of that debt, which just so happens to be the American playbook.  This is why, America's government is constantly trying to encourage inflation, which actually is somewhat difficult to accomplish, because as America has both modernized in the sense of having more and more computing power, robotics, machines, analytics, and so forth, to become more efficient, this has acted to actually reduce the material cost of doing business, additionally, with the rapid decline and irrelevancy of labor unions in the private sector, labor costs are consistently quiescent, so that these things combined help to accomplish both better products that are also cheaper to produce in form and function, as well as often being  less expensive in cost.

Nevertheless, inflation is part and parcel of the American milieu, for there are many sectors of the economy, such as governmental spending in all of its myriad forms, as well as healthcare, which are both inefficient, or have infrastructure that do not lend themselves to competitive influences which would tend to mitigate pricing increases.  This inflation, is of critical importance to the ruling elite, for from the debasement of currency, subtle and not so subtle shifts in power and monetary strength are enabled, and those that are unable to play the game, or to even understand the game, correctly, are the losers to it.

For instance, anytime that inflation exceeds the amount of money being paid as interest to savers, then savers are the losers, for their currency value while increasing nominally, is decreasing in worth because of taxation of false asset appreciation, as well as the corresponding loss in purchasing power.  On the other hand, debtors, that are paying back money in depreciated dollars, are gaining, for they have borrowed money at one value, and correspondingly paid it back with its attendant interest that in aggregate is of a lesser value, which is a formula, that done again and again, with very large numbers, effectively transfers wealth from savers to debtors, so that borrowers of money, can in essence, siphon wealth from productive members of society to themselves.

While, in general, debtors should be subservient to their creditors, if the debtor is large enough, powerful enough, and can control the rules of the game, that irresponsible debtor becomes enabled to funnel real money and real productivity from those that have created it to finance the things that the debtor so desires, to the world's end.

So You Think Banks are Safe

United States currency is very important to just about everyone, primarily because it is used as the coin of the realm for America in virtually all transactions that are done in person, electronically, or via exchange.  Additionally, America has not always had a national currency since at the time of its inception, the individual States, were pretty much sovereign unto themselves, it was only much later through fits and starts that the States ceded control of their local currencies, so as to create a national currency of the same value for all of the States of the Union, which is our present day system.

It would be one thing if today's currency was actually backed by something, for instance, silver or gold, or even oil, but America's currency rather than being backed by something tangible or meaningful, is instead backed by the "full faith and credit of the United States government", which either means a lot, or on the contrary, means virtually nothing.  In actuality, despite all the protests governmental and banking officials might make, and all the various semantics that governments and banking officials might construct, the currency that we take for granted, is fiat currency, which is currency that is the legal tender of our country, but backed, in essence, by nothing.

If you don't believe any of the foregoing, recognize this, whenever you read a book or an article that are utilizing monetary values of the day and age of a period, perhaps a century earlier than the present time, you are no doubt astonished at the prices of things, things that we still consume and purchase today.  For instance at usnews.com, the average annual salary of a male in 1915 was $687, and the average home sold for $3,200.  This signifies that money that isn't backed by anything, and is essentially created out of thin air, devalues itself through inflation, because the more money that is created to paper over whatever you want to paper over, will over the course of time, deflate the currency, and thereby inflate prices, because the overall value of that money has decreased so that one needs more of it just to stay in place to where they were.

People might think that banks are fairly straightforward and simple places in which real deposits are made by customers of all sorts, and then the banks issues currency on a 1:1 basis for loans to people, while keeping a relatively small supply of ready cash available.  If this was true, banks probably would be fairly stable, because they would be conservatively run, but we live in a game of greed with all its attendant illusions, so that banks actually run on the fractional reserve/money multiplier system, which means in effect, that for every deposit made into a bank, that the deposit so made creates new money, that simply didn't exist previously, and further at a multiplier significantly higher than a 1:1 ratio, such as 4:1 or much more, creating more money into existence, which invariably leads to inflation.

This means, to a large extent, that the monetary system that we currently trust and utilize is really just an elaborate shell game, and all games have a beginning and so too they have an ending.  While this monetary game that we play can end in a variety of ways, including the dollar being re-pegged to a commodity or something similar, it can also end up with monetary chaos and tribulations, signified by the structured closing of banks, so that instead of depositors getting back their currency at its historic worth and norm, they receive instead a new currency which is severely devalued with absolutely no recourse to what once was, or, a combination of new currency along with mandated banking stock so that the depositors have a vested interest or a compulsion to keep their money within the same institution, till things normalize.

To Make a Saint

Saints don't simply happen as they are instead people that have actively applied themselves consistently over time to the purification of their soul through their actions and by their thoughts of behalf of the people by rightful actions and their righteous response to the needs of the day.  While there is a lot to be said, for those that sanctify themselves, by quiet and careful contemplation, far away from the troubles and tribulations of the world, whether formally through, for instance, a convent, that is set aside from the world, or through their own individual adjustments to stand apart from worldly things, these while most definitely having their place, as communion with God, is a calling, most demanding, and most obedient, there are literally millions and millions of God's good flock, that require guidance and administering to from those that have the capacity to do so.

A great saint is a great person, not because they think they are great, but because, nothing gets in the way of their service to others--not governments, not principalities, not even the barrel of a gun, because true saints answer only to He who answers to none.  The courage that a saintly person has comes from drawing upon the knowledge and power from the purest Spirit of them all, which, will not bend to mere mortals, and will never waver, no matter, the consequences.  People, always gravitate to those uncommon men and women, that have a divine mission, that focuses them so completely, that they do not see themselves as man sees them, but instead, believe and behave wholly as true messengers from the heart of God.

You can never be a saint, when you say one thing, but do another, as this does nothing more that sow confusion and disorder.  For a saint to be a saint they must be in lockstep with God, Himself, and that connection, is the source of all knowledge and fortitude.  Those that are not saintly, see themselves as physical, living and breathing human beings, and believe that what they see is what they are, whereas, a saint sees only the cloaking of a physical body, if even that, while intuitively knowing the essence of a given man or woman that is their true identity. 

A saint recognizes that to go out into the world, that they first must prepare themselves properly so as to shield themselves from the slings and arrows of an outrageous world, capable of just about anything.  This means, that you cannot know what exactly to expect, but you certainly can be centered within yourself, in harmony with God, and prepared to do spiritual battle, if it comes to that, against those that represent and perform evil.  Saints cannot and will not allow evil to run amok, as this runs counter to the clock of God's wisdom, for to not call something evil for what it is, is to a certain extent, encouraging to evil, and subsequently diminishes good, so saints, stand, where those that tremble fear to do likewise.

The power of one is significant, the power of two, even more so, as saints represent in living action the backbone that so many lack, because they are too caught up in the day-to-day affairs of life along with survival, and thereby forgot the very first thing, which is to seek God with all of your heart and all of your understanding, which is the very first step to becoming a saint.

Money and Debt

Most people, really don't have any idea how money is created, but probably believe that money in some form or function, is generated from created goods or other things of substance, which would imply, that the more things that are made and sold, the more tasks that are done and accomplished, the more money that is generated for the wealth of people and the wealth of a nation.  People would be surprised to find out, that in actuality, most money is literally created at banks, out of nothing, except as an accounting entry on the financial books of such banks.  In other words, the money that we put so much value upon is created by the money masters out of thin air.  Sure, banks do have real deposits from real people and real institutions, that they can then utilize to loan out money from in our fractional reserve system, which basically means, for instance, that for every $1 deposited within a bank, the bank can leverage dollars that will be loan from such a deposit at ratios of 10:1, so that a $1 deposit, creates $10 to loan.  But, further to the point, banks are licensed to simply loan out money to whomever they desire to loan the money to, creating both a debt and a credit on their accounting sheets, with obviously, the caveat, that banks, must in whole, make sure that the money being created from such loans, is actually going to be paid back, or sold to another banking-type institution that takes over the responsibilities of the loan.

All of the above, basically works, when the financial markets are running smoothly, but in any system, in which both money is highly leveraged, as well as money being created to make loans to different parties of different merits, it only continues to work, if the debtors pay their debts in a basic timely manner.  When that is done, or at least papered over so that it appears that it is being done, than that is why some of the richest institutions in the world are banks and banking establishments, and when that isn't being done, or when that isn't working well, then financial institutions along with virtually every corporate or personal entity, are in danger, of a monetary meltdown.  This would indicate, that financial banking institutions, above all, care that the game continues in which loans are generated, and they, the bankers book profits, and thereby make fat salaries, because when the game ends, it ends very badly for society as a whole.

The problem with loaning out money, isn't that people and corporations don't need or desire the money, because they do, but the fact that not everybody can successfully pay the money back with its attendant interest, sometimes, it is a given, that the loans won't be paid back, which banks are okay with, as long as they have taken the steps to securitized, and neatly packaged these loans by selling them to some other institution and thereby washing their hands of it, but when banks are holding the bag themselves, and must thereby suffer the consequences of a series of bad or defaulted loans, this creates a potentially massive and cascading problem.  However, these loans are just numbers, and those numbers typically won't take down a bank, if they can be successfully papered over by issuing more loans to the same or different institutions by creating more money and thereby keeping the game going.

This means, exactly what it purports to mean, which is banks create money out of thin air, sometimes with the necessity and purpose to cover over debt that won't ever be paid back, unless massively discounted, which would  then have catastrophic consequences to the loan issuer and those investors backing those banks, therefore the banks issue even more loans in order to kick the can further down the road, yet, eventually that road dead ends,  and that money, the money that you, as an individual count on to have value, vanishes, as if it never existed.

To believe by the sword

People come to faith, or not, by many means, of which while there are many that are wholly acceptable, such as through family members, religious institutions, being proselytized to, being ministered to, through media, through books, through the internet, through one's own mediation and contemplation, and so forth, and it must be said that each of these ways has their place.  Then there are those that must submit not out of obedience to a higher and justified power, but literally to the sword, that they must believe, or profess to believe in a particular doctrine or faith, or instead suffer the catastrophic consequences for their unbelief, failure to believe, or apostasy.

Not too surprisingly, when you force someone to believe what you desire them to believe, this is in a most fundamental way, is an assertion that your viewpoint, your faith, supersedes another person's free will, and freedom of their exercise of religious faith, or non-desire, if that be their wont.  No doubt, when a given person is up against death, torture, second-class citizenship, slavery, lost of employment, lost of their home, they may well gravitate to accepting a faith that is not theirs, and even possibly, over a period of time, become a believer, and certainly, given enough time, if not them in particular, it is highly possible that future generations of theirs may well become true believers.  In any event, forcing this type of submission from conquered peoples, or defenseless peoples, perhaps from a quota perspective, if nothing else, may work in the short term, and it very well might work in the long term, so a possible conclusion could be that forcing people to believe does actually accomplish something.

The problem, though, with this type of bullying, is that any person, any organization, anyone, that professes to be the agent of the one God, has best have the true attributes of such a prophet, or they are an imposter and a bastardization of what our God actually represents.  For instance, a careful reading of the new covenant, the New Testament, indicates that our Messiah forced none to follow Him, forced none to even believe Him, in fact, Jesus didn't come to start a new religion, or even a new faith, but came as fulfillment to God's promised covenant with his people, in which this new covenant was meant to embrace everyone, and to thereby embrace all as equally chosen and called by God to be His flock. 

Our Messiah most definitely desired you to fight, but not to draw the sword and to strike others, even in a justified defense of an unjustified arrest, but to fight against your own sin, to fight against your own selfishness, to fight against your own pride, to fight against your own lust, to fight against your own money, so that you, finally could see that all that you had previously believed in, was the deceit of a man as if blind.  Our Lord desired all to wake up, and recognize as if for the first time, that this world full of trials and tribulations, has these problems, because man's heart has turned away from the goodness of God, in the false belief that man knows all, because he can think and do.  It is man's selfishness that makes him to believe that he is right, that those that don't believe the same way are wrong, and thereby, because one side is physically stronger than the other, it has the right to strike the other side down. 

A house divided against itself cannot stand, as there is only one true God, He is the same God for all, and this God most surely does not need anyone, to take His name in vain, and thereby dictate to others, as if they speak for Him.  God is unerring, man is not, so put down the sword, for the pathway to God is not drawn by the sword, it is, instead, drawn only by the fact that all rivers, no matter their meandering ways, ultimately will lead to just one body of water.

What is a man without trials?

We find this to be true especially in America, that there are many, many people that just want to live the good life, without ever applying themselves, sacrificing themselves, or really accomplishing anything of real merit for themselves or for others.  While it might be okay to kind of desire these things, it is no credit to a man, that lives a life in which he has made no imprint upon this earth to better it, although, doing no harm, has its place. 

Then there are those that insist that they are made of the right stuff, that nothing will ever get them down, which, is rather easy to assert, if everything has pretty much always gone your way, and even in those inevitable times of trouble, you were fortunate enough to have friends, family, and associates that have rushed to your behalf.  However, again, handling things when the weather is always or nearly always balmy and calm, may too have its place, but without trials and tests, do you really know the character of a given man?

A man must have trials, must have stumbling blocks, and must have troubles, because the growth in anyone does not come about while lounging about, but comes from asserting yourself against the injustices of life, against the unfairness of things, against tribulations that rattle the cage of even the most composed.  There must be things that matter in life, things that you vividly care about, and are willing to risk something to gain something in order to achieve good.

Therefore, in the skeins of time, you must have your days when you are spat upon, knocked down, done wrongly by, not necessarily because you deserve to have these things done to you, but in order to reflect your true character, and the true grit of who you really are underneath the exterior of what people see from the outside.  Your best days are not, and have never been, days in which everything goes your way, but, in fact, surprisingly, are the days, when you were challenged to your very core, when those closest to you, deserted you or undercut you, and despite this, you soldiered on, believing that if you didn't give up, if you dusted yourself off, and applied yourself to the tasks at hand, that things would turn in your favor, perhaps slowly, but nevertheless, inevitably.  So that, when you have stumbled and gotten back up, when you have been wronged, but then responded with empathy and justice, you have become a stronger force, a better person, a more complete person, because what was meant for your harm, has been turned to your overall good.

There are many people that give off the appearance of being good men, and when things are going their way, many actually are good people.  However, test a man to his very core, take away ever leg of the table that he leans upon, and then take the measure of that same man.  Some will crumble to the floor, never to be the same, because behind their façade they are actually weak and weak-minded.  Then there are others that will adjust, but still remain shaken and still somewhat unsure, having lost confidence with themselves and even with their God.  Finally, there are those that have steel in their persona, they will get up under their own power, they will rebuild the table and tableau of their life, and they won't stop there, because that isn't enough, for these men are the men that bend back the injustices of life into the straight beam of justice for all.

Open trade v. warfare

Wars are caused and created by a lot of things such as: a call to arms by their god, the taking of other country's property or territory, the need for certain material assets such as oil, racial, creed, or tribal hatred, the desire to enslaved defeated nations, and occasionally to satisfy the military desires of one's own armed forces.  There are a lot of reasons for war, just as there are a lot of reasons for arguments, some justified, some not, but war is seldom a very good answer, and subsequently, war should not be called upon unless as a true necessity, and specifically in ordinary circumstances for the defense of the state.

In today's world, borders have never been more opened, as well as the fact that the largest corporations aren't domestic and thereby just transacting businesses within their own borders, but are truly international, in which there are many such international corporations, that actually make more profits and conduct more business outside of their own nation than they conduct within it.  All of this makes sense, because the world is a very big place, even if your country is in aggregate one of the richest, it's aggregate riches are still significantly short of what the rest of the world has to offer up on their plate.  In addition, seeking growth from countries outside your domestic borders is a proven way to increase both sales and profits.

The fact that trade borders have more and more been torn down or modified so as to reasonably accept and trade goods country to country, basically benefits all involved, for the basic reason that if a given country can produce a given product at a lower price point, even with the transportation and insurance costs taken into account, than those consumers of such products are benefiting, and monies that would have been spent at a higher price point, have been saved for either investment or other purchases.  That said, domestic industries do matter, so that it is reasonable to have trade agreements that reflect that a reasonable accommodation must be made for domestic industry, which is reflected in tariffs, temporary or not, sliding scale or not, and in general trade agreements that try to smooth out import and export amounts between countries.

Those countries that fairly trade with one another, are consequently, far less inclined, to desire to go to war, because fair trading between nations, allows each to benefit in turn, and a rising boat of prosperity not only is beneficial to the people, but almost always results in less domestic unrest, as when the people are well sheltered, fed, and have decent healthcare, they are far less restless, than when there is nothing but the general lack of these things. 

However, as in all things, there are a couple of important caveats, of which one, is that not every country engages in open trade, in addition to the fact, developing countries, may be unfairly and in actuality exploited for their natural resources or similar, by more developed nations, so that the greatest benefit of infrastructure and resource development within those nations, occurs not to the indigenous people, but to those that have structured business and trade deals that benefit them to an unfair degree, leading to legitimate resentment, especially so when the biggest beneficiaries in a target nation, are the elite of that country, with the people barely benefiting whatsoever.

In all, though, trade between nations is primarily good, especially so when that trading does not allow one nation to hoodwink another, such as when precious metals are exchanged for mere trinkets and mirrors, for as long as trade truly benefits each country, wars, will as a matter of course, simply fade away.

The rich and their hypocritical bleeding hearts

The rich are different than you and I, and the very rich are strikingly different from everyone else.  For instance, those that are extremely wealthy, live lives that most of us are unable to comprehend or even really fathom, be it, the size of their toys, the size of their houses, the fact, that they actually have a winter home or a summer getaway, how they travel, where they eat, the organizations and institutions that they belong to, the schools that they and their children attend, the labor help that they utilized, the people that they congregate with, and so on and so forth.

Be that as it may, it isn't any real surprise that the rich are different, however, it is most unfortunate, that the rich champion causes that in their effect and in their principles, they well know that their personal risk is minuscule because these causes will never actually impact their lives in any meaningful way, form, or function.  For example, there are those that pound the table for equality for all, for affirmative action, for equal justice and equal accommodation, civil rights, fair taxation, and all sorts of things that sound very liberal minded and actually are.  The problem is, that these super rich elites demanding change and fairness, recognize, that whatever comes what may, sure in heck, isn't going to affect them in where and how they conduct their own personal lives.

That is to say, when you live in a gated community in which there are cameras and security to track everyone coming and going within that neighborhood, you certainly aren't going to get much property crime, whatsoever.   When you are part of a particular social milieu, you aren't ever going to be stopped and frisked, and you know it.  Further, if the police ever do stop you, after verifying your identity, they will apologize for the inconvenience, and pertinently, those very rich elites can certainly count on police officers and justice in particular, no matter what the law says, serving and protecting them.

Further, the schools that your children attend are schools that only accept children of like circumstances and consequently there will never be any trouble at these schools, in fact, these schools will reap the benefits of special privileges.  The restaurants that you frequent, and social events that you attend, while ostensibly being open to the public, are, in fact, really open only to those that have the monetary or historical invitation to actually attend.

All of the above, would indicate, that when the rich advocate for the poor and disadvantaged, the rich know that on any given day, they won't be inconvenienced whatsoever by whatever policies are passed, or put into place, because those unfortunate people simply don't exist in the orbits of the very rich.  The rich are all for helping the oppressed, preferably with the other people's or the government's money, with the implicit understanding that all is well, just as long as the masses do not infringe upon their social spaces.

The bottom line is that equality, equality of opportunity, color and creed blindness, and things of that sort, are all championed by the very rich, because they know that "those people" will never tread upon them, and well, it sounds good, and makes the very rich feel good for having said it.

Cookie-Cutter Men

The more modern that society gets, the more that governments and institutions take away and encroach upon our inalienable self-will and self-determination, and replace these most fundamental things with all sorts of meandering laws, rules, and regulations, so that society and economies can be managed, as if those that come up with these things, are wizards that know what is best for all, or at least act the part as if they know.

The problem with governments attempting to manage and to solve the individual puzzles of life, is that it then follows that governments and institutions thereby believe that if only the people cede their individual inclinations and desires into the "greater good" of the whole, than all will be happier and much more satisfied, but that theory holds no water in actuality.  Even worse, in practicality, people more and more aren't even given the option to opt-in or opt-out, as the poorest and most vulnerable in societies are now being managed as if they were mere cattle, so that as long as they fill out all these various forms correctly, keep out of the way of the law, do take these legally prescribed state-controlled medications, but not these other non-state sanctified drugs, while also allowing all of their private business to be managed, smoothed, and manipulated by state agencies, than they will be "given" food, shelter, and healthcare

.

Governmental agencies refuse to believe that societies can run themselves without their overriding and overbearing "assistance", signifying that the government and its affiliated institutions know best what you should or shouldn't be doing, and thereby whole edifices are created and affected amongst the people to demonstrate this mistaken fact.  In actuality, the best government is not only the one that governs least, but the one that makes it its point of purpose, to take the playing field of life, and level it in a way, that all are given a fair opportunity to be the best that they can be, rather than the law and its affiliated institutions favoring a few against the many.

There are plenty of governments that are bad for the people, to wit, most of those very bad governments recognize it implicitly and eventually collapse because those running such governments don’t have enough "true" believers to keep it running in perpetuity.  Then there are the governments and institutions of the western world, today, in which they believe that because they are so much smarter, so much more sophisticated than all that has existed in the past, utilizing their tools which have the most up-to-date analytics, and all their brilliance, that in short order, all will work well like a well-oiled machine.  These "true" believers are the absolute worse, because they believe implicitly in their own hype, and thereby when their planning and micro-management fails again and again, they attribute it to the machine that just needs another little tweak here or there, never once recognizing that no matter how much planning and arranging and re-arranging that they do, it will never work, and it will never be fair to the people.

Governments that insist that they know the song within each person's heart, have it totally wrong.  The person that knows their song within their heart is that individual, himself, and legitimate governments are instituted amongst men, so as to best give the opportunity for people, to develop and to sing their own song, so that together, there will be created the greatest harmony ever known to mankind.

War and Economic War

Every since civilization began, there has been wars between neighboring communities, wars between neighboring nations, wars between nations that wish to conquer other nations, and everything else in-between.  These wars for the most part, have always been physical wars, and obviously physical wars have enormous costs associated to society, to mankind, to trade, to life itself, and so forth. 

In today's interconnected world, there has evolved a new type of war, that involves significantly less bloodshed and significantly less physical destruction, and that type of war, rather than relying on machines and soldiers, is economic war.  After all, if the objective of today's wars and conflicts is to bring your enemy to heel, than a given nation, has an obligation to look and pursue all reasonable avenues that will allow them to achieve that goal, and one of those options is to take away the capacity and wherewithal for a country's capacity to live to fight.

The infrastructure of just about any nation, depends upon the reliable and continuous supply of food as well as clean water in order to feed their population, along with basic infrastructure needs such as shelter, good hygiene, electrical power, fuel supplies, transportation, roads, and typically some form of monetary base that will allow businesses to conduct their day-to-day activities in a manner in which it is conducive to trade and to exchange goods.  When any country has these things disrupted for any length of time, and longer that this is, the impact will be felt almost immediately, and the more things that countries literally depend upon on a day-do-day basis that are disrupted, the more that country has been weaken.

It doesn't matter much how large, or even how powerful your armed forces are, if that infrastructure has been compromised so that the air force, the navy, and the support behind those soldiers, no longer has the means to effectively operate their machinery and to deploy.  Even more to the point, if your armed forces are relatively paltry to begin with, to lose the little that you have, means that it is absolutely futile to even consider putting up a defense, as you are instead, in a position, in which, you must, if there is any sanity, negotiate the best deal that you can, and possibly appeal to the world for the rights of any nation to have its own sovereignty not infringed upon.

Most forms of money and capital in today's world, is not physical currency, which is defined as coins and paper money, but instead is money that is held in various stock markets, bonds, banks, and other forms of capital that have been deposited within what are essentially electronic accounts.  If, access to that money, is disrupted, prevented, or precluded for any length of time, basic societal things that need to be accomplished, have been effectively stopped or damaged to such a degree that very poor substitutes must be created immediately, in which these substitutes will not be able to perform at even close to the capacity needed to keep things running in a competent motion.

Physical war is very cruel, as it kills and hurts both soldiers as well as civilians, whereas economic war, dependent upon the length of time and how effective it is, is while still cruel, or even inhumane, at least keeps the door open, that if a nation that has few options, submits, that things can be restored to a "new normal" in a relatively short period of time with minimal long-term depredations.

This would signify that when contemplating war against a given nation, that taking away the basic oxygen that is necessary for life, can win the battle without a shot ever being fired.

"A man has a property in his opinions and the free communication of them"

The above quotation comes forth from the father of our Constitution, and the fourth President of the United States of America, James Madison.  One suspects that most people are not only completely unfamiliar of this quotation from the papers of James Madison, but are also confused or befuddled by what it is saying, since most people as a matter of course, do not see opinions as property.  However, if are not able to freely communicate your opinions in public, subject only to basic sensible restrictions regarding credible violent threats, extortion, defamation, and other things of this ilk, than your freedom of opinion, has been truncated, and thereby your conscience has been violated, and when a man's conscience is no longer his own or has been restricted by governmental agents or other institutions, than your freedom has been compromised.

A vibrant society is a society that isn't necessarily comfortable for all people all of the time, because everyone is actually entitled inalienably to their own opinions, their own goals, their own desires, and so forth, so that, in an ideal world, government's position on this type of interplay is a position of hands off, unless one's opinions become actions that are actually crimes against another individual or the state; in the vast majority of situations, though, for most opinions, whether elegant or hateful, all should be allowed in the marketplace of ideas.

When, instead, some given person, some given court, some given institution, or some given government, determines that they are the absolute arbiters of what is or isn't allowed to be spoken, or what is or isn't allowed to be written, or what is or isn't allowed to be thought, than freedom, and in particular that property which is specifically your opinion is no longer free but restrained and thereby imprisoned. 

In point of fact, governments are instituted amongst the consent of the governed, specifically to protect and to uphold impartially the property rights of the individual, of which, your opinions, your thoughts, and your speech, are your own property and should never be violated, without proper due process of law.

Too many present day policies are policies that impinge upon the rights of the people to simply express themselves, so as to thereby narrow viewpoints expressed more and more in the public square, to a place in which a restriction has been made that the only legitimate opinions that people are permitted to have are ones that are in lockstep with the current flavor of the day, and thereby all other opinions are therefore illegitimate and not permitted.  This type of thinking, especially when backed by dubious laws, rules, and regulations, is not only unconstitutional but an illegitimate taking of the property of all people which have been precluded from expressing their opinion in an open and free manner.

In an dictatorial society, first they take away all of your physical property so that you own nothing in your own name, than they control and monitor all of your expressed ideas and actions to conform to state control, and finally, through the diabolical usage of today's and tomorrow's technology, the very last piece is put into place, which is that even your unexpressed thoughts and opinions which are not state sanctified are eradicated, making you effectively just one more cog in the machine.

Cops, Chaos, and Strikes

Most police officers in this country are subject to specific labor law, which precludes police officers from striking.  Offhand, you wouldn't think that a municipality would even need a law like this on the books, because if police office believe that their self-interest is greater than the community's self-interest, one could very well question their loyalty to their given community to begin with, as after all, for instance, uniformed soldiers, do not have the option of only obeying and doing the things that they so desire, and cannot thereby ignorerules or commands that don't suit them, or if they do, the consequences of such an action are rather tragic.

Nevertheless, from time-to-time, police officers have gone on strike, or, have played a game of massive call-ins of sickness, or the reluctance to perform their given, daily duties, all to assert pressure on communities, to give in to their demands, legitimate or not.  These types of behaviors by the officers, themselves, are seldom justified, no matter the circumstances, because all officers have a duty to uphold the legitimacy of the state, and to thereby taking "the law" into their own hands is a definite dereliction of duty.

That said, since there have been strikes of police officers in municipalities as well as sick-ins, one might wonder as to whether or not, communities quickly degenerate into total chaos and anarchy when the "cat is away".  The quick answer is no, for a lot of reasons, of which one of them is, that the citizens of America are capable in extreme situations of policing themselves, fairly effectively, as not only do they have the desire to do so, they also have the wherewithal to do so, as no nation has more citizens that are armed.  In practicality, though, communities that are suffering from a police strike or strike-like actions, are quick to call upon State militia, militia in general, the National guard, Federal troops, and so forth, so as to make clear to the criminal elements throughout a community, that though the "first team", may not be in action, that the backup is quite capable of doing what is necessary to maintain order.

In point of fact, in an era in which many police officers don't know their communities or have little interest in doing so, that police officers have, in essence, marginalized themselves, because if policing is done more and more, by computer processing power and analytics, and less and less by engaging with the people in a mission to actually protect and serve, than a "cookie cutter" replacement, specifically, those that are active duty servicemen and servicewomen, could, in a time of crisis, probably fulfill the duties of policing activity in communities rather well.

When agents of the state, aggrandize unto themselves, that they are bigger or a more important part of the state, the state, will, always, crush that incipient revolt, sometimes with a velvet glove, or sometimes with an iron fist, but make no mistake, those police officers that believe that without their patrolling and police duty work, that communities would unravel into complete chaos in a short period of time, are badly mistaken, which is a significant reason why there are so few strikes.