CENTRAL ASIAN RELIGION

(The following is an e-mail reply to a reproach to consider the impact of Islam in central Asia:)

"Religion" is a totally man-made creation (vs. faith), so the subjective "religion" prevailing in central Asia indeed contributes to what is going on.

BUT, I don't let the humans off the hook who thus interpret their "religion" in hostile, violent fashion, nor do I subscribe to the view that, somehow, Islam is more inherently violent than any other absolutist fairy-tale belief structure.  In the end, it is HUMAN BEINGS who decide what "must" be done to enforce their subjective opinions about what is expected of others.  That is all religion really is anyway, a means of adversely judging the behavior of others and dominating them in the name of "God-given" authority!  Any other lip service to the contrary is usually delusional nonsense!  There are exceptions, but they are few and far between!

Any gringo who claims to know what is in the Koran when he or she cannot read Arabic is just full of it, for there ARE differing translations to English, and the present-day Arabic sources have been copied and re-copied over the years by multiple scribes who are BOUND to have injected their own "interpretations" of what they have written.

I have studied three separate "foreign" languages and was pretty fluent in German at one time, so I know what the drill is about translations.  Even Muslims cannot agree on what is written in the Koran, so how can gringos possibly know?  As with most religions, there are at least 2 factions of Islam (Sunni vs. Shiite), so how can we possibly think they are in agreement on ANYTHING?  Jews will argue to death over what the Old Testament "really" means!  Most "holy writs" are pure hearsay and are, therefore, utterly UNRELIABLE!  In my view, Christianity is no more valid or credible than Islam or Judaism!  It really cracks me up to hear self-described "good Christians" denigrating Muslims' belief in "Allah"!  That foolishness happens ALL THE TIME!  It's perfectly understandable for a woman to cover her head in church, but we will kill, or at least sneer at Hindu Sikhs for wearing a turban!  Most Americans are just dumber than Hell and brimming with self-pity!!

We are fatuous in our assumptions about the various "holy writs"!  In the end, we should examine what each INDIVIDUAL believes and expresses about the claimed religion.  To attempt to draw blanket conclusions about what INDIVIDUALS may believe on the basis of what we THINK is the meaning of whatever is total nonsense.  Group-think is ALWAYS invalid.  It is ALWAYS the essence of bigotry.

We are up against "it" in central Asia, and we have no business being there.  We cannot begin to understand the bizarre dynamics there!  Most of our "experts" don't even try!  Crazy people are DEFINITELY in charge!

RELIGIOUS TESTS

Regardless of how "devout" a given public figure is, his or her "faith" or religion has no place being discussed in the public square.  Article VI of the US Constitution explicitly provides that government (at any level) shall not impose a religious test for holding public office.  Obviously, this does not empower a "gag order" for people nor publications, yet it does present a good idea, and private individuals and journalists and publications would do well to heed the principle, that no one's religion or "faith" is any business but his or her own.  One's religious beliefs or practices, per se, are not "news items."

This unwritten rule also applies to candidates, who have no business injecting their religious beliefs or practices into the public square, thus implicitly validating the notion that there SHOULD be a religious test for public office!  Regardless of his many obvious shortcomings, Mitt Romney did try to minimize public discussion of his personal religion last year, as well he should have.  Too bad that Barack Obama won't follow suit, desperate he seems to prove, over and over, that he's not a Muslim (as if it was some dead animal) but is a Christian!

HOOTERS

I went to "Hooters" for the first (& only) time about a year ago with a bus-load of Lions.  We went there for dinner, then a minor-league baseball game at the ballpark nearby.

The food was OK--not spectacular, not bad.  However, I felt really self-conscious with the waitresses all running around in heavy makeup and skimpy attire.  I felt as if I had gotten stuck on the set of a really stupid porn movie!

It reminded me of the one (and only) time I went to a "strip" bar in Austin, Texas for a "bachelor party."  I decided to pay for a "lap dance," given that the fellow sitting next to me had this nubile thing writhing all over his lap!  I wanted to see what it was all about!

I realized, as it was happening, that there was no mutual attraction AT ALL!  Like the "Hooters" waitresses, the gal sitting on my lap was just there for money!  Neither she nor they were interested in me personally!  It was a rude revelation!  I knew this to be so, so I had to keep my hands to myself, or "Brutus" would come over and snatch me up like a dishrag and toss me out in the street!  In "Hooters," it was roughly the same: the waitresses would sashay by and twitch their body parts accordingly, but it was all "show" and no "go"!

Pointless, on both counts.

I HAD to find all that out for myself, but I won't ever bother with either form of punishing "entertainment" again.

SALVATION

Statist "conservatives" want to misuse the power of govt. to save society from we, the people, whereas statist "liberals" want to misuse the power of govt. to save we, the people from ourselves!

RECENT MASS KILLINGS

[Comment posted on The New York Times Website 9/24/13:]

I have yet to hear anyone propose a likely solution to the problem of mass killings.  I listened to President Obama's agonized paw-wringing on September 23, but I didn't hear him propose any likely solutions.  Obama's speech was just a reproach of our culture's apparent disregard for violence.  Moralistic, holier-than-thou reproach is not going to fix the problem!  Telling us how much he UNDERSTANDS the problem is not a solution.

How do we ensure that someone with access to guns will not go off his/her rocker?  How do we predict IN ADVANCE which persons those will be?  It is not enough to ban those with certain mental diagnoses, even if it were legal, which I question.  Many of those who have committed these horrible acts were utterly "below the radar"!  I don't have any ready answers, either.

President Obama said Americans are not any more violent than other cultures.  I beg to differ.  I think one of the main reasons there is so much violence (not just with guns) among us is precisely because American culture IS excessively violent, and it has been thus for a very long time.

Gun-purchase limits, magazine-capacity limits and background checks are all reasonable.  We can and should implement those now.  The Second Amendment OBVIOUSLY protects an individual RIGHT to "keep and bear" arms, but not to "buy or sell" them, so commercial restraints are surely legal.

I doubt that any of that will prevent future mass killings, though.

(I AM now skeptical about “background checks.”  I think that concept is too vague to be properly enforceable for a host of reasons.  What, exactly, are we looking FOR?  Who gets notice that their “background” does not “check.” and what is their remedy, if any?  Does it not matter if it’s WRONG?)

LEGALIZED EXTORTIONS

[The following was posted 9/20/13 on the "Free Enterprise Forum" Website, Charlottesville, Va.]

Proffers are legalized extortion.  The fiction that they are "voluntary" demonstrates the extent to which we lie to ourselves to justify the unjustifiable.  The General Assembly should quickly move to revoke the proffer system statewide.

Proffers were smugly dreamed up as a "punishment" on "greedy developers," but developers don't pay those proffers!  They are passed through by developers to the individual purchasers of the properties subject to the proffers.  They also amount to an (intentional) "entry fee" to discourage newcomers from moving into a subject area, and that is downright un-American!

Most of us living in established homes did not have to pay extra for the roads, schools or sewers we use nor for any other "public" amenity built with revenues from prior taxpayers.  That so many "public" amenities have now been conditioned upon the payment of "user fees" is ludicrous.  Such amenities are supposed to be "public" for a reason, that government SHOULD furnish some things to everyone via taxation.  Taxation is the price we pay for a civilized society.

So, let's get civilized and get rid of proffers!

Dulce Et Decorum Est #2

(The following was a comment posted to the NY Times in an article about the award of the Congressional Medal of Honor to Sgt. Ty Carter, who survived not only combat but also PTSD.)


The NY Times should not promote the Big Lie that "Mr. Obama, ... pulled the last American troops out of Iraq...." There are plenty of US troops STILL in Iraq, for a very long time to come.

I also seriously doubt that the "war" (utterly undeclared by Congress) "is winding down ... in Afghanistan." Central Asia has been a bone of contention and a hotbed of conflict for hundreds, if not thousands, of years. US bases are in central Asia to stay, thanks to us taxpayers, most of whom (not I) vote to continue this nonsense.

A major problem with the blatantly militaristic foreign policy of the US is that the Supreme Court AND the Congress allow the Executive Branch to unilaterally and unconstitutionally conduct offensive offshore military operations at will, so that we Americans can pretend there is really no war so long as the Congress does not declare one, and we can all go about our business basically ignoring the thing UNLESS a President gets desperate and starts drafting people. We are still obliged to be witless "patriotic" supporters, however.

The alternative, of course, is to keep recycling the same "volunteers" (like Sgt. Carter) over and over through the killing fields and burning them out, if they dare survive. Contrast our Vietnam idiocy with our central Asia foolishness.

"Dulce et decorum est...." No one in the US should be obliged to die for one's country unless Congress has the guts to declare war.

AL QAIDA?

(Sent as an e-mail 8/5/13.)

Does anybody besides me wonder about the rather strong "coincidence" between all the recent NSA data-gathering, CIA drone-bombing, e-mail reading, possible phone-tapping, etc., the reported activities of Bradley Manning and Edward Snowden, vs. the VERY suddenly reported increased activity supposedly by Al-Qaida, resulting in the closing of many embassies over the past weekend?

It may be wrong to be so skeptical and negative, but I am just not persuaded (yet) that the reported overseas emergency and heightened "terrorist chatter" is real or reasonable.  After all, we have no independent means of testing the veracity or accuracy of the reports EVEN IF the "chatter" was, in fact, overheard by our various security forces.  I could be wrong, of course.

Also recently reported is the quiet development of SWAT-like quasi-police forces within federal agencies not likely to have violence-prone security problems, like the Social Security Administration.  What is with the recent development of all this swaggering, "manly" security in so many normally quiet agencies?  For whose benefit were those tax dollars spent?  "Uppity" citizens like me?

Now, I understand there are a lot of people quite willing to surrender most constitutional restraints on the federal govt. for perceived safety.  Freedom is OK, but life is better, so it goes, and the prevailing argument also holds that we'd better let the govt. get somewhat intrusive to keep us all safe.

Would that it were so.

Unfortunately, the govt. (being nothing more than mere human beings with coercive power over others) is prone to mis-use that lack of constitutional restraint in ways utterly unrelated to true national security.  We KNOW this to be so.  Warrants issued by the FISA secret court in the past several years have been used almost exclusively for conventional criminal investigations and little or nothing for alleged "terrorist" activities.  The massive data sweeps being conducted by various secret federal agencies involve a lot of ordinary US citizens suspected of NOTHING!  The gathering of various news reporters' phone logs will show who is calling those news reporters.  Is that a proper function of our government?

Whatever one may think of the admitted actions of Bradley Manning (I am not defending what he admitted doing), he DID disclose certain unprosecuted apparent war crimes committed by US forces in central Asia: wanton homicide and suppression of news gathering.  Regardless of who declares what areas in other lands as "war zones," there is no congressional declaration of war pending, and the US Constitution does NOT authorize the conduct of offensive military operations by the President, acting alone, regardless of how good an idea it might seem to some, regardless of what is considered focused on "terrorism."  The Constitution certainly does not authorize wanton homicides unilaterally declared to be acts of "war," nor does it authorize screening of news reporters' phone logs!

I am skeptical.  I no longer give the US govt. the benefit of my doubts.  I think the burden of proving propriety has now shifted to the govt.  Otherwise, we must just passively accept the summary revocation of our fundamental rights, INCLUDING an overarching right to privacy, and we must permanently accept a self-actuated government with virtually unlimited powers, including the power to kill people who get in the way, every time there is a conveniently reported increase in "terrorist" activity.  Many are willing to entrust the incumbent President with such powers, but what if John McCain had won in 2008 then died of a heart attack shortly afterward?  Would you trust a "President Sarah Palin" to judiciously exercise such powers?

PS--In case you receive this e-mail late and/or redacted (blacked out), please look for me in Abu Ghraib or Gitmo, UNLESS somebody has already broken me out of there!

SMALL STANDING

(From an e-mail exchange, July 2, 2013.)

Obama may have SAID he "won't scramble jets to get Snowden," but he''ll surely use drone bombs or agents to kill him if he can.  Same with Assange.  Obama is an established murderer (bin Laden).

The man won a Nobel Pruze!!

I can't bring myself to type it.

That would be the Nobel PEACE (piece? peas?  piss? pizza?) Prize!

... to the first Negro-in-Chief, for his outstanding work toward World Piss!

Certainly defines the validity and worthiness thereof!

It's a damned shame that the spineless pseudo-journalists out there won't unanimously boycott any further reporting of the now-utterly-discredited Peace Prize, given that Obama has shamed and degraded the thing so blatantly, almost DARING "the press" to hold him fully accountable for his absurd actions to the contrary! Snowden and Assange best stay out of sight and out of reach.  Of course, they would get a "fair trial" (as defined by The Security State) before they are strung up like Xmas decorations!

The mostly-hermaphrodite chickenshit White House Press Corps couldn't hold their own dicks "accountable"!  Where is Helen Thomas when we REALLY need her?  She had more "balls" (ovaries?) than all the pussy male correspondents put together!

I ALWAYS try to listen for what the subject is NOT saying!  "Scrambling jets" is the least of my worries!

It's like Obama's repeated assurances that they are not listening to our phone calls, etc.  OF COURSE NOT!  They don't care about the substance of the messages. They just want to know who in govt. is calling the AP, etc., and they want the potential whistle-blowers to know that is EXACTLY what they are looking at so they will stay quiet and let the massive bipartisan presidential cover-up continue!

Watch the birdie!

Can you say, "Guantanamo"?  I knew you could!

THE Flag

(From an e-mail to a friend, 6/24/13)

I no longer fly the American flag nor recite the Pledge of Allegiance.  I even refuse to stand while it is being recited.  (I get a lot of hateful glares!)  Given the essence of Article VI, my sole allegiance is to the Constitution of the United States, as amended, as I swore some 40 years ago (October 6, 1973, Va. Supreme Court).  That is the only general oath or "pledge" I shall ever take.

The flag is a mere "graven image" that means whatever the particular displayer wishes it to mean, or it means whatever those who have been crushed by it take it to mean, e.g., all the hapless dead folks at Ngo Gun Ri, Wounded Knee, My Lai, Iraq, etc., and like the Japanese-Americans who were summarily stripped of their property and herded into concentration camps during WWII.

It is well to note that Robert E. Lee, "Stonewall" Jackson, Jefferson Davis, et als, were all graduates of West Point and had sworn as incoming cadets and as US military officers to "defend the United States from all enemies, foreign and domestic...."  I recognize their right to resign their US military commissions rather than to take up arms against their states, but I do not understand their further taking up of arms AGAINST the US, they supposedly being men of honor.  There were ONLY two days between Robert E. Lee resigning his US military commission and his acceptance of command of the Army of Northern Virginia!  Many assert that his US oaths died when he resigned his US commission, but I believe that oaths stick with one for life, which is why they should not be taken lightly or carelessly.  I think every rebel who was once a former US military officer was a traitor!  However, I think it was wise of Grant and Lincoln to not punish them as such.

I am obliged to acknowledge and defend the rights of those who wish to display the flag (ANY flag, including the Nazi flag!), but for myself I swear my loyalties to IDEAS, not "things."  I find it interesting that so many armchair patriots want to punish those who would burn the flag in a spirit of protest but who would honor those who would burn the flag to "properly" dispose of it!  The irony that the same identical act is differentiated ONLY by the mere internal intent of the person performing the act is lost on most.  That amounts to punishment of a "thought" crime in my view, which is why I am opposed to codifying or differentiating criminal offenses based solely on the perp's internal state of mind, like "hate" crimes.  Are not all crimes "hate" crimes?  Is beating a black person or homosexual or Jew any worse, really, than beating a hetero "WASP"?  (I remember a deceased friend who used to assert that "WASP" was redundant, since there are no Anglo-Saxons who are not "white," so they really should be identified instead by the most suitable acronym of "ASP"!)

I also remember that some time ago, some folks tried to get people in downtown Richmond to sign a short-form expression of the Bill of Rights manifest as a petition, and they could not get any signatures!  It is really sad how so few people are cognizant of the Constitution and Bill of Rights, but they would readily beat the shit out of anyone who would "de-sacrate" THE flag!  Would throwing away or burning envelopes with canceled flag stamps constitute "desecration"?  What constitutes a "flag" to be protected by law?    What about modifying a digital photo of the flag with offensive graphics, or even deleting it?  Would printing it out make a difference?  What if it was attached to an e-mail and sent to a recipient who became offended?  The Supremes were divided 5-4 to strike down the law providing criminal punishment for "desecration"!  ONE vote would have changed the course of history!  Two of the four dissenters are STILL on the Court, Scalia and Thomas as I recall.

Many years ago I decided to instead fly the "Gadsden Flag" (the yellow "Don't Tread On Me" rattlesnake flag) from time to time.  It has since been taken up by the "tea-baggers," so now I can't stand to fly that flag anymore!  I was proud of that flag.  Several years ago I carried it to the "March on Washington" in support of women's "right to choose" their own birth control methods, and even wound up on national TV! 

I think it is telling that the Founders did not include a flag pledge (there was no flag to pledge to at the time, the "Betsy Ross" legend being but apocryphal), but they presciently provided in Article VI that all public-office-holders need pledge only to "support" the Constitution, much as Moses clarified that Yahweh was not to be shackled or confined as a "thing" (graven image) by the mere imagination of mankind.  Thus, the Constitution is THE supreme law of the land, and so it should be.  You will note that there is no empowerment of the Executive Branch in Article II to keep secrets from the citizens under criminal penalty of law, and no provision in Article III allowing the government to direct that courts refuse to hear actions where the interest of "national security" is merely invoked.  But, the Supremes have utterly fabricated such empowerments, and they get the last word.  But for the unlawful imperialistic machinations over the years by those in the Executive Branch, most such secrets would not really be necessary!

If someone (like myself) were suddenly "rendered" to some secret base in Romania, who would possibly know the whereabouts?  How do we know such stuff is NOT going on?  Whom should we trust?

Remember General Westmoreland's inflated Viet Cong body counts?  "The Trickster's" many denials during Watergate?

I have totally lost trust in our govt.  I now refuse to believe ANYTHING said about such matters!  THAT is sad!

Yet, I will NEVER abandon my oath to support the US Constitution and its guarantee of fundamental liberties!  Even if I wind up living in another country!

WRONG? (Joke)

There was an article in the newspaper recently about the advertising and marketing world finally realizing that the gay community has a lot of money, so they decided to develop ads and commercials that might appeal to gay couples.

So, I got to thinking about this.  Consider, for example, a TV commercial promoting some consumer product and presenting two married gay guys discussing the product.  One may determine who the "husband" is in the couple because he is always WRONG!

OR:

If two gay guys get married, they both usually refer to each other as "husband."  Therefore, are they both WRONG at the same time?

KEEPING & BEARING (ONLY)

(The following appeared as a Letter to the Editor of the Richmond  [VA] Times-Dispatch on Monday, May 6, 2013.)

Donald W. Bartlett of New Kent (April 29) takes President Obama and Virginia Senators Mark Warner and Tim Kaine to task for their support of the gun-control bill that failed to proceed because of a failed cloture vote (not "filibuster").  In his letter, Mr. Bartlett declares that they have failed to honor their oaths to "uphold and defend" the Second Amendment to the Constitution, which declares that "the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."

Mr. Bartlett further states that the Constitution prohibits interference with one's "right to own whatever arms they see fit to protect themselves...."

I have never read the bill that failed to pass, but I assumed it dealt with regulation of gun sales and purchases only.  The Second Amendment does not protect any right to "buy" or "sell" arms.  No such right exists.  The word "own" does not appear in the Second Amendment either.  It only protects a right to "keep and bear arms" already owned.  There is nothing in the US Constitution that prohibits the Congress or the states from regulating the purchase or sale of arms and ammunition as desired, or even banning the same altogether.

Both proponents and opponents of "gun control" have ignored this distinction.

NEVER SAY "DIE"!

I have had some issues with the death penalty recently.  I am opposed to the death penalty, but not for moral reasons.  I think a lot of folks deserve to die, horrible deaths actually, but since my list (of those who should die) is not the "official" list, I must oppose all other such lists since my name may be on one of them!

I also don't like "the state" (any government) having the power of life or death over anyone.  An imposed penalty of death is irreversible, and government makes mistakes, so anything less than perfect should NOT be allowed with regard to imposing the death penalty.

So, my concerns are purely practical, not moral.  For example:

Most folks adhere to the biblical injunction about "an eye for an eye."  That is really stupid and counter-productive, because it obscures the VERY REAL deserving nature of those who SHOULD die so they cannot contaminate the gene pool. Consider those who shamelessly use the following words and phrases, to-wit:

"irregardless"
Those who use this (non-)word are just stupid beyond belief.  There is no such word as "irregardless."  It is a thoughtless merger of "irrespective" and "regardless," both of which imply valid alternatives.  So, "irregardless" becomes sort of a double-negative, validating the very thing that the speaker is seeking to invalidate!  I think ANYONE who uses this (non-) word is a prime candidate for the death penalty and should be taken out of the gene pool BEFORE (s)he can breed and replicate his/her OBVIOUSLY broken DNA!

"reform"
Obviously, anyone who dares to suggest they favor "reform" is a lying scum-sucker, intending to employ the police state into enforcing anything that does not resemble the "reforms" demanded!  No one is safe from the indiscriminate use of this word, including anyone who sincerely wishes to "reform" whatever and thereby reduce government intrusion, as the enforcement thereof would certainly require MORE government intrusion!

"bipartisan"
This is a dead giveaway.  There is no such thing as "bipartisanship," it being the lousiest ship that ever sailed the seas (to paraphrase the father of a college classmate).  P. J. O'Rourke, a "conservative" humorist (that is NOT an oxymoron) said that was the most dangerous word in the English language, and I agree!  Anyone promising "bipartisanship" is certainly not to be trusted!

"for the children"
This predicate is one of the most dangerous concepts in the mind of man!  It presupposes that anything done "for the children" can be excused if otherwise unacceptable for adults.  This sort of illogic should not be allowed to go unchallenged.  Of course, it is very risky to be seen as opposing ANYTHING "for the children," but the "children" mostly don't give a damn, and those who utter the phrase are quite aware that what they are about to propose is so manifestly unacceptable they are hopeful they can sell that nonsense by invoking "the children."  It is a dead giveaway and should set off alarm bells very quickly!  Children are much more sophisticated than the minds of mere adults can conceive, so they deserve to be given the same respect as adults.  Such people should, by all means, be given a sentence of death!

There are so many more evil words that merit the death penalty for the users:  "preservation," "taxpayer," God," "trust," "America(n)," "enlightenment," "benefit," "assistance," "help," "challenge," "truth," "message," patriot"!

How can ANYONE be against those pious concepts?  Well, I can!  Because, I know them to be false gods!  Too many half-wits worship at the altar of such foolishness!  They should be put to death, too, lest they contaminate the gene pool, too!

The utterance of any of those words should be an alarm bell to put the listener on guard!  Anyone who invokes those concepts should AT LEAST be avoided like the plague, if not put to death!

The short rule is that ANYTHING uttered that makes one feel "good" or feel satisfied is NOT to be trusted!  Talk is cheap!  Action is everything!  Do not be deceived, and focus your support of the death penalty where it is so richly deserved!

FINALLY, allow me to also include for the ultimate sanction those folks (including many women, unfortunately) who persistently hang in the left lane of the interstate while talking on their mobile phones without using cruise control (which their expensive cars and SUV's obviously have) such that their speed varies up and down, yet they are oblivious to the traffic desperate to get around them.  Must society continue to tolerate these extremely selfish people?  I think not!  I would also like to put to death anyone who has not voted in at least three of the last five elections!

Yes, the death penalty is a terrible sanction for society to tolerate, and mere government cannot be trusted to employ it correctly.  However, I remain ever hopeful that my list shall become the list to use!