Free the Definition of Free Trade?

For what must be decades now we have been told that "Free Trade" takes few thousand page document, negotiates in secret over years to put together. It takes language so complex that no average person could comprehend what we're agreeing to in the (much touted) agreement. More jobs, more money, more security, better access to all the stuff we can't live without, that's what we're told. We should be thankful that our elected officials managed to put such a wondrous trade deal together for us. 

We should be...

Evaluated!
Medicated!
Institutionalized!
Re-Educated!

Or mybe we already are.

Free Trade means,

"I give you this and you give me that, do you agree?"

If yes, the deal is done. If no, the deal goes dead. It is a very simple convenience of exchange transaction.

This concludes all you will ever need to know, and all there is to know, about Free Trade.  It's just that simple. eBay is free trade.

Even a cave man could understand Free Trade!

We do not have a single Free Trade Agreement. Not a single one. We have managed trade, very managed, very specific legally managed trade with wording so complicated that we don't understand it. 

Why do you think that is? Moreover, why would we actually believe that these very lengthy documents¹ are what Free Trade looks like... 

• US - Australia FTA
• US - Bahrain FTA
• US - Chile FTA
• US - Colombia FTA
• DR-CAFTA: Includes US - Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, & Nicaragua
• US - Israel FTA
• US - Jordan FTA
• US - Korea FTA
• US - Morocco FTA
• NAFTA: Canada & Mexico
• US - Oman FTA
• US - Panama FTA
• US - Peru FTA
• US - Singapore FTA

Why would we be told that these are Free Trade when they are not? At the risk of sounding conspiratorial, because we are too dumb to know otherwise. It's a Repetition = Truth thing like suicide bombings. We hear something so often that we stop questioning the words. It's an established "fact", like...

1. Witches causing crop failure
2. Scurvy being caused by a virus
3. Bats are blind
4. Cutting to balance the humors
5. AIDS being caused by people in Africa having sex with monkeys

OK, the last one was a stretch, but if we hadn't been told otherwise by so many healthcare professionals, we would be believed that too. In the absence of facts, any fiction will due.

For instance, if the managed trade deal ends in disaster for one or both signatory nations, well hell, Blame Free Trade! Then, the people will demand Managed Trade, which is exactly what we have.

Take your pick Coke or Pepsi. Cast your vote, and I will wish you the very best (of what you're given).

We know the truth when we hear it, but if it is never spoken and never heard...

Any fiction will due.

Footnote:

1. Links to the specific trade agreemens can be found at Department of Commerce Free TradeAgreements ( www.trade.gov/fta/ )

Don't Do a Duopoly

Pay no attention to those two guys behind the curtain.











Keep in mind that the two choice system comes right out of the corporate world. Coke or Pepsi, McDonald's or Burger King, and when you say, "I don't want a cola and burger", you're assumed to be unstable and potentially a threat.

We've tried every combination, Republican President/ Democratic House, Republican Senate/ Democratic House, Democratic President/ Republican Legislature, and every other permutamtion and still it's been a straight line from prosperity and peace to what we have today, which is neither.

We've heard the same tired rhetoric about campaign finance reform since I was a twelve year-old thumbing my way through the Chicago Sun-Times before school. Has anything really happened to return the power to the People?

Look, there is a solution, and it is simple enough for me to write in three sentences...

1. Contributions from individual donors only
2. A maximum of $500.00 per individual.
3. All monies not spent on the current election campaign are turned over to Campaign Finance Enforcement for their funding.

Problem solved!

But this will never happen. We know the truth when we hear it, don't we?

Now, ask yourself, "Why won't it happen?"

 Is it not in the best interest of the People?

Think about it, those three sentences would return the power to the People because each person is only worth $500 of influence. The majority of people (the so called "99%") are a hell of a lot larger than the 1% which currently exercises much more influence on policy makers than the Welder from Ohio, the single mom from Albuquerque, or the Dentist from Seattle. One billionaire can quite nearly dictate his agenda to our Representatives, who in turn parrot it to us and the media, who in turn sing the tune we have come to know by heart.

It's a fictional little ditty, all (or most) of it lies. Some believe that the Coke part is true others are set like thousand year old concrete on Pepsi being legit. Meanwhile, whilst we shred each other to pieces over the cola we never wanted in the first place, guess who's vote is really being counted?

We know the truth when we hear (or read) it...

Don't we?

240 Candles

It's the fourth of July, 2016. The United States of America is 240 years old. That's about bar mitzvah age (12-years-old) for a nation when compared to the history of more distinguished European countries, and brit milah age (7-days-old) in respect to the world's most venerated nations. Yet, we've set the Stars and Stripes atop a Mount Everest sized summit of accomplishments for a country of such tender years. Just to name a few of these milestones,

• The American inventor Thomas Edison lit up the darkness for all mankind in 1879 with his efficient and affordable electric light bulb.

• In 1884, we lit the way to the future of cities when we built the first skyscraper in Chicago.

• An understudy of Mr. Edison, Nikola Tesla, left his mark upon the power grid in 1885 by developing the AC induction motor and championing  alternating current which electrifies our modern world.

• A couple of Midwestern brothers electrified the world by taking to the air for 59 seconds over the sands of Kitty Hawk, North Carolina just before the Christmas of 1903.

• The Panama Canal was first considered in 1513 by the explorer Vasco Balboa, but it took four centuries and American engineering to make that old Spaniard’s Christmas wish a reality exactly 400 years later in 1913.

• When the Japanese attacked our Pacific Fleet at anchor in Pearl Harbor, we shipped millions of tons in much needed munitions, material, and G.I.s through the Panama Canal in order to return that war to the Japanese who surrendered in 1945.

• At the same time Americans were building Liberty ships on an average of three a day, one in as little as 111 hours from keel to christening to keep England afloat long enough for American General Eisenhower to march the Allies from the beaches of Normandy to downtown Berlin.

• Although, America started out as the underdog in both these conflicts, we emerged from the ashes of world war reborn as a superpower in 1946.

• During the post-war years, we took on the peace in the same manner we had won the war by shipping millions of tons of American manufactured goods and American grown grain to every affected nation to rebuild the world which war had destroyed.

• We took America’s superpower status to new heights when  astronaut Neil Armstrong took one giant leap for mankind onto the surface of the moon. That was July 20,1969.

• In 1981, we lept into the personal computer age which made technology, well… personal.

• The demand for personal computer operating systems opened doors around the globe for Microsoft Corporation to open Windows 95 which opened My Documents on My Desktop of My Computer.

• As we moved into a new century we linked hundreds, thousands, and millions of those My Computers together and did a stellar job of turning the planet into MySpace.

Today, America faces stiff competition from a world market we helped to open by the creation of a global collaborative social network, workspace, and shopping mall. For the first time in our history, the human race  shares a common repository for all of our things, stuff, and magic built in a mystical/digital place we call “the Cloud”. Our American ingenuity has provided us with many advantages and the ability to build bridges to places our fathers couldn't imagine. This is where our focus and our target should be. However, we seem distracted by other matters.

We've passed some truly astounding milestones for a nation with only 240 candles on its birthday cake. When you consider that I’ve noted only a smattering of all the great works Americans have done over our nation's lifetime, it's really quite awe inspiring. We, Americans, often feel so high and mighty above the rest of the world it's like we're looking down from the Cloud...

or is it smoke reflected in mirrors? 
Do you smell something burning?

Looking back at our more recent history, it appears that we've been focused on targeting and destroying a lot more bridges than we've been building. While our infrastructure crumbles beneath our feet, we've been spending trillions of dollars bombing the infrastructure of other nations. It seems that we have been rushing headlong and blind into every hotspot, factional blaze, and tribal conflagration we could find or help kindle on the planet. Moreover, when we've done so, America is not winning wars or hearts or minds. We leave ashes and call it peace. We are using a baseball bat to put out fires.

Perhaps the most disturbing part of this new American trend (and certainly the most alarming part of this post) is that I didn't need to explain what I meant by that last sentence. We are all well aware of the folly of our foreign policy, and yet we are without any real political alternative to our current course of eternal international intervention.

Maybe that's one of the drawbacks of having only 240 candles on our birthday cake, we lack the perspective and the wisdom that comes with age. We think we're invincible. We believe we are ready to take on the world and that we cannot lose. We think we can solve all the world's problems because our ways are best. We believe that 240 candles is proof of our success.

However, I'd like to remind us all of another very innovative people, great civilizers, amazing administrators with remarkable acumen who came to rely primarily on their military prowess to expand their sphere of influence across the globe. A people we know as Romans who had over 500 candles on their birthday cake before some Visigoths and Vandals came to blow them out.

Then, the world went Dark.

Happy Birthday America!

Now, make a wish.

Jefferson was right!

Advertising VS. Application

Politics as Advertised:

Politics in Application:

Banking as Advertised:

 Banking in Application:

Islam as Advertised:

Islams in Application:

So, how about those Afghanis?

We're fifteen years into nation building (and probably narcotics trafficking) in the "Graveyard of Empires", and Afghanistan is still f#@$ed up. Not to worry, it was f#@$ed up long before we invaded after the 9/11 attacks. We demanded that the Taliban government turn over Osama bin Laden, and they had the nerve to ask us to provide evidence of his guilt prior to extradition. Being the "Rule of Law" nation that we are, we invaded Afghanistan pursuant to the Paperwork Reduction Act.


Nevertheless the invasion worked out fine. In a mere decade we nabbed Osama! Yup, we got 'em. Well, we sort of got 'em. We didn't actually grab or nab him prior to ventilating his face, neck, chest, remaining torso, and about everything else Osama owned with bullets. Then, we nabbed his body and gave it a burial at sea because that's a Muslim tradition.


It's not really a Muslim tradition according to Muslims, but Barack Obama said it was. Who cares, really, we KIA'd that bastard! (Osama, not Obama.) At least we're kinda sure that we killed him. He (Obama, not Osama) released the photo of Osama's corpse to the world. So, what if it was a fabricated photo? Obama is bringing a manufacturing job back to the USA!





I know, it all seems kinda sketchy, but what we can be certain of is that Osama was found shacked up in a windowless three-flat which reflected that all five of his wives shared a particular disdain for housework. That we are positive about. For sure, dirtbag, for sure.


Oh, yeah, and we are also damn sure that the unkempt dark hulk of a building in which Osama was ripped to shreds by flaming (Made in the USA) lead was located in Abbottabad, Pakistan. Which you will know, assuming that you're reasonably competent in geography, is not in Afghanistan.


Oops! We invaded the wrong country. Our bad, but we got the right guy, probably maybe, for sure!


Another thing we're pretty darn sure about is damn few Al Qaeda honchos were ever killed or captured in Afghanistan. It seems most of them had a Pakistan mailing address and Pakistan is one of our partners in the War on Terror. Weird, huh?


Maybe they're partners like Saudi Arabia is in the fight against ISIS? It sure seems like all our partners in the Middle East are inclined to work against our partnership's stated goals. That's weird, too. Oh, well.

So, we are still there (Afghanistan, not Pakistan) occupying the wrong country years later. We're fighting tooth and nail against the Taliban, who are not terrorists, so I'm not sure why we're fighting them, but we are. Oh, well. It seems that along the way to invading the wrong country and maybe bagging the potential mastermind of 9/11 we will have spent somewhere between $4 to $6 trillion dollars* on this imbroglio, but who is counting? That may seem an expensive entry fee for an ass kicking contest with the varsity team of Pakistani madrassas, but we're the away team and it's always pricey when you wander down the Silk Road to the "Graveyard of Empires". That works out to be about $40,983.61 per US taxpayer, but like I said who's counting?


Here's the bad news. It looks like the match is going to end up a draw. How unAmerican is that? Anything that can end in a tie is inherently against American principles. Draws are expensive in the global cops and robbers game. Thanks for playing! So, the reasonable and mature way to respond to this expensive disappointment is to affix blame. The problem is that there is so much to go around, yet predominantly it all has a mailing address in the United States with a 20500 ZIP code. They don't care. We don't care. It's a thing of ugly.


And now for the really bad news, the only time when a vastly superior force fights for this many years and the conflict ends in a tie is when that vastly superior force is fighting against (and been killing) the indigenous people (not insurgents). Oh, well. The shit we're blowing up looks great on the T.V.!


Current Conflict Status




Courtesy of Wikipedia

Areas in red are controlled by Afghan Army (United States armed and funded)
Areas in white are controlled by the Taliban (Probably Saudi funded, another one of our Middle East partners.)


* $4 to $6 trillion dollars includes total costs such as economic impact of wounded and lost life value. Like real costs, not just the costs we want to count to justify bullshit like this war.

Real Fair Trade

bu·reauc·ra·cy

bu·reauc·ra·cy /byo͝oˈräkrəsē/

noun

1. a system of government in which most of the important decisions are made by state officials rather than by elected representatives.
2. what the United States have become.

How to Argue like a Leftist

The Left uses a convenient method to prove a point. First, take the facts, then remove any data which contradicts your claim and provide what is "Left". Here are some examples of how this is done.

Example 1: Budget Spending

Leftist Premise: Defense spending is the biggest part of the Federal Budget.  

They will present a budget chart that looks like this to support their premise...

Leftist Conclusion: Clearly, Pentagon spending is more than half of our budget spending. Therefore my argument is valid and anything that follows it is also true, such as...

• That's too much to spend on defence
• Military contractors are overpaid
• We don't need a big military
• We are an unethical global hegemony
• We're racist

It's all perfectly logical, right?

No, it is built on a foundation of bull and the substance of their argument drops in quality from there on. Some of their conclusions may have merit, but by using deceptive evidence they errode the value of their own argument.

The graphic is not the "Federal Budget", it's only the "Discretionary Spending" portion of the Federal Budget. The full budget looks like this...

Defense spending drops to a distant third place at 16% of total spending after Social Security with 33% of total spending and running a close second is Medicare at 27% of total spending.

Consider for a moment what this means,

• 60% of all Federal spending does nothing except rob Peter to pay Paul. That is the vast majority of "work" that our Federal government does.

• This activity produces no real wealth it merely transfers ownership of wealth while taking a substantial cut for overhead costs.

• These programs have no actual accounts or deposits for the beneficiaries. They are both effectively Ponzi schemes.

• Neither Social Security or Medicare are mentioned in the Constitution, while a Common Defense (the military) is specifically mentioned.

So, the Constitutionally mandated military has taken a back seat to some creative financial products that are not mentioned in the Constitution. Weird, right?

It's not that I am against a social safety net or senior citizens. I realize they worked hard all their lives for their Social Security benefits. The problem is the architecture of the system. We pay it in reverse. We should be "investing" for the future, rather than paying off the past. This allows small sums regularly invested over a couple decades to grow into a sizable sum, and the investor can retire on the principle plus interest.

Social Security takes money from worker's checks and pays that money directly to beneficiaries. There is no "investment", nothing to grow, and no principle for interest to accrue upon, instead we are just performing account swaps. As long as the workforce is growing at a healthy pace, account swaps work fine. Unfortunately, we have a stagnant work force and a growing number of increasingly compensated beneficiaries. That is unsustainable.

I'm not for punishing grandma and grandpa. I'm against fraud, and that is what the Leftist Budget Spending argument is based upon. Any system that requires constant rescue is not financially sound. The Social Security architecture must be changed in a fundamental way to address its structural deficiency. Adjusting this requirement or tweaking that benefit only prolongs the systemic failure and allows the resulting damage to grow exponentially.

Example 2: The Clinton Budget Surplus

Leftist Premise: Bill Clinton produced a budget surplus.

Speaking of fraud, here is another accounting irregularity. How many times do you have to repeat a lie before it becomes true? Infinity + 1, but you can make a bunch of wishful thinking people believe it's true way before you reach that critical mass.

Simply follow this recipe...


First, propose that there is going to be a surplus

Second, repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat,  repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat,  repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat...

Third, claim there was a surplus. Even a decade later...

Repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat...Draw it in a chart! Or two, or three hundred...

As long as the chart includes a surplus, then there had to be one! Yes, sirree. There had to be a surplus. Liars can figure, but charts can't lie!

Repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat...

Leftist Conclusion: The "investments" (Pronounced: spending) and "cuts" (Pronounced: reduced increases) that Bill Clinton succeeded in placing in the budget did what no President had accomplished in decades.

In truth (the untarnished variety), a budget surplus" should (theoretically) produce a REDUCTION in national debt, just as the inverse a "budget deficit" produces an INCREASE in the national debt. This is fairly basic arithmetic. If the surplus fails to REDUCE the national debt, I argue that the surplus is imaginary, accounting hocus-pocus, or just damn good propaganda.

If we are shoveling more debt on our unborn children many generations hence, then a surplus is nothing to brag about and it certainly is not a surplus of anything but all-natural organic bovine produced fertilizer.

So, let's take a look at the effects of the Clinton Surplus....

Ta-Da! No budget surplus. None at all. The "surplus" is accounting flim+flam=fertilizer. For an explanation of how the equation worked out to be flim/flam= (half) truth, see Bill Clinton says his administration paid down the debt.

Example 3: Right Wingers are Sociopaths

Leftist Premise: Those espousing Right wing ideas are murderous neo-nazis, while the Left is the abode of loving, maternal farm folk and working class heroes. 

Look at the death toll results for Left wing dictatorships vs. Right wing dictatorships in the Western hemisphere the Left has a much lower body count. (Paraphrased)

- Claim made by Thom Hartmann on his RT show The Big Picture

Okay, Thom, you have me there! You are absolutely correct. No doubt about it, the facts are behind you on the claim that Leftist dictators have killed far less than Right wing dictators in the Western hemisphere. You win!

However, when we remove your "Western hemisphere" filter and look at THE REAL BIG PICTURE rather than what is left, you're full of all-natural organic bovine produced fertilizer...

When we look at the BIG PICTURE, Right wing dictators are monsters following in the footsteps of Elmo!

But now for the only question that I have LEFT, what kind of asshole justifies any dictators and calls himself a patriotic American, Tomm? 

Okay, she's acting like a dictator but that's as reprehensible as you playing apologist for one. You and Nancy Pelosi suck, Tomm, and here is why...

Left wing, Right wing, East wing, Wingding, or Chicken wing, we should tolerate no dictators! We're Americans, Tomm! We believe in Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness! Not the Nancy Pelosi Nanny State, Equality of Outcome, and Universal Healthcare. 

Oops! I forgot that this is How to Argue like a Lefty, not with a Lefty. Anyways, that's how you do both.

Next: How to Argue like a Right Winger

(Because they suck too!)

Politics Reflects Comedy

Now we have a choice!

Just Another Conspiracy Theory (JACT!)

.

Think it through 

My Idea of a Congressional Retirement Plan!

Truth in Advertising

On the Rights of Mankind

Our nation's Founders set down principles of the Rights of Mankind which they described as "self-evident" or as Merriam-Webster defines the term clearly true and requiring no proof or explanation. Yet, today we have a difficult time asserting a single principle of the Rights of Mankind which isn't quickly whittled away by well developed counterpoints, diluted by qualification or exception, or laughed off as antiquated. We are left bereft of self-evident principles regarding our Rights. This is exactly what the Framers and Founders feared. This is why they took so much time, risked much personal wealth, and their lives along with their families well-being. It seems a long time ago, and the patina of time adds a mythical color to our history. It seems more fable than fact. That allows us the opportunity to minimize the risks that were taken in order that we might fully possess those self-evident Rights which come directly from God without intermediary or interpreter.

God > People > Government

This was the flow chart for power, authority, and sovereignty which the Declaration of Independence, Constitution, and Bill of Rights lays out. In by much as God made people and holds sovereign power over them, so people made government and hold sovereign power over it. The Founders used the phrase, "That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,.."
Note that the Rights pre-exist the formation of government. The government is only a tool for securing, or making safe, these Rights.

Former First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt
with the UN Declaration of Human Rights

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted and proclaimed on 10 December 1948, by the General Assembly of the United Nations makes no claim to such a hierarchy of power. Instead, the flow chart of power, authority, and sovereignty looks like this...

Government > People > God

Article 8 states, "Everyone has the right to an effective remedy by the competent national tribunals for acts violating the fundamental rights granted him by the constitution or by law."

President Nixon said, "When the President does it , that means that it is not illegal." [1]

The monarch our nation's Founders rebelled against, King George III said, "I wish nothing but good; therefore, everyone who does not agree with me is a traitor and a scoundrel." [2]

Herein lays the problem with the type of "rights" stated in the The Universal Declaration of Human Rights. They are not Rights but privileges which originate from the government by Constitution or by law. One moment one may have a Right, and a stroke of the pen later they have it not.

Rather than a touchstone of inherent Rights bestowed by God as the Ultimate, Eternal, and Unchanging Law Giver upon individuals the Declaration constitutes a non-binding resolution of feel good language about privileges we may, or may not, be afforded to possess depending upon what manner of government holds sway over our heads.

We err in believing that governments are lasting institutions. The most fortunate government lasts but a few centuries before they collapse under their own bureaucratic weight or are swallowed by another government with an appetite control problem. What remains in the rubble are the people who imagined the fiction they called government to be a thing of permanence. If Rights are derived from government by law or constitution, then how can individuals posses them without government? Are we to assume that by the establishment of government we thereby create tangible Rights as a result of a new fiction or are the Rights of mankind endowed by a higher permanent Authority?

One of these paradigms anchors the Rights of mankind in a permanent and unchanging monolith, the other is built on ever shifting sand, ebbing and flowing with whatever winds prevail for the moment. One elevates humanity to the pinnacle of Creation and the other reduces human beings to the law of the jungle. One appoints us with onerous responsibility for each other and all else in Creation, the other only requires that we eat and propagate. One of these imparts that we are our brother's keeper, the other justifies that we may be our brother's murderer. One of these emulates the Nature of God, and the other represents the school of the Serpent and man. One walks in the Light of Truth, the other clings to shadow and deception.

Our nation signing this Declaration would indicate a paradigm shift away from the Natural Rights of God and the Sovereignty of God towards the synthetic privileges of tyrants and the rule of men. Subtle deceptions are the mark of the serpent and this is that. The document is pleasing to the eye, its text emits a fragrant aroma, but its taste is bitter and its succour is death.

This should never be in our future.

1.http://www.theguardian.com/theguardian/2007/sep/07/greatinterviews1

2. Saratoga: Turning Point of America's Revolutionary War. Henry Holt and Company, Inc. p. 65. ISBN 0-8050-4681-X.

A Desert of Extremes

Terrorism and Islamic extremists have become a staple in the nightly news, White House sound bites, and newspaper headlines. We always seem to be just about there with putting these handful of nutty Jihadis out of business permanently. Just about there. Any time now. Almost done, and then the lull.

Massive explosions shook downtown Someplace, Somewhere. The Allah Al-Akbar Waka-Muslim game starts all over again. New strategies, new weapons deals, and a new "moderate" Muslim ally we can count on to quell the oddly Al-Queda like junior varsity extremists cadre. It's Groundhog Day in or around the Fertile Crescent, the birthplace of our misguided perceptions.

America took up the banner of being the Arsenal of Democracy after World War II. In truth, we manufactured the banner, staff, and the occupation all on our own. However, we did not live up to our lofty job title because we sucked so bad at the mission statement. We jumped between the sheets with every two-bit thug with a national check book at his disposal. If there wasn't one, we'd depose the democraticly elected  LEFTIST government and install one we found to be more "democratic and freedom oriented", or whatever catch phrase covered our covert intentions.

We pay for the sins of our ancestors, sometimes immediate ancestors, or elected office predecessors. We don't always live up to our own expectations.

Moderate Islam is portrayed as a religion of peace, tolerance, and is accredited with giving us numerals we can easily multiply. Oprah gave it a thumbs up and so does every politician and U.S. Government, Corp. compensated public relations speaker. Yea Allah!

But don't you draw a cartoon of peace be upon him Muhammad or these peaceful, tolerant, numerate devotees will #%$ing kill you! Kill you at the market or car bomb you at the disco. Yea Allah!

The First Amendment to the Constitution guarantees:

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof..."

Does this Right cover any and all actions of Religion? No! For instance, some religions may call for human sacrifice and such exercise is not covered under the "free exercise thereof" clause. Yet, the faithful of Islam are called by their prophet, the Messenger of Allah, Muhammad, to do precisely this kind of exercise in the practice of Islam (Arabic for "submission").

Does this Right cover political action, sedition, and economic subversion? Obviously not. However, these things are part and parcel within the practice of Islam. The Islamic republic is the model of what Islam seeks to achieve world wide. It is called Dar al-Islam, and that is the intended goal of Muslims. The world in submission.

Individuals may disagree on how to implement and achieve Dar al-Islam, but make no mistake, this is the ultimate goal of a faithful Muslim. The wishy washy Muslims will simply sit by and let it happen.

Painting Islam as just another religion of peace is a disservice to understanding the threat that our Constitution, our nation, and our beliefs face. It's like fighting Communism while claiming Communism is great. Yea Communism!

There is apparently no shortage of " Islamic extremists", because Islam is extreme. While one hand calls for tolerance and peace the other supports Jihad, and we seek to support the "moderates" in this desert of the extreme. Islam in both theory and practice calls for the subjugation of all non-Muslim believers.This constitutes a call to arms among Muslims who practice what their prophet preached and their illah (god) commands. There is no middle ground for the moderates we hear so much about to occupy. The Koranic landscape allows for only dominance or submission.

The all-encompassing nature of Sharia law reveals the true nature of Islam as a political, judicial, and economic ideology wrapped in a viel (perhaps "burka, is a more appropriate analogy) of religion.

Are Muslims evil? No, they are being misled, kept ignorant of the caustic nature of Islam, and we should be reaching out to them. This is a difficult task since as a part of the Islamic ideology the adherent is warned never to question or examine their faith and conversion (apostasy) is punishable by death.

Yea Constitution!

Fuck it! I'm Going Shopping.

Chart includes all forms of suicide attacks

The reports of suicide bombers in the Middle East are inaccurate. Every one of these news stories is a bold-faced lie. They are fabricated to mislead and confuse, to present a fictional storyline based upon a false premise. There has not been a single intentional suicide bombing anywhere in the Middle East as a result of Islamic fundamentalists acting alone or in concert with others of like mind. Not one.

Suicide  noun /ˈsu·əˌsɑɪd/
the act or an instance of taking one's own life voluntarily and intentionally especially by a person of years of discretion and of sound mind. Merriam-Webster

The purpose and intent of suicide is to end one's own life, this DOES NOT include other unwilling participants to end their lives. As I said, There has not been a single intentional suicide bombing anywhere in the Middle East. Not one.

Murder noun  /ˈmər-dər/
the crime of unlawfully killing a person especially with malice aforethought  Merriam-Webster

Their intent is murder, cold blooded, unfeeling, inhuman murder. It is the premeditated murder of anyone and everyone regardless of age, political persuasion, religious beliefs, innocence, or saintly intentions, all die in a volcanic blast of shrapnel and fire. The victims of this ultimate form of violence one human can commit upon another are done no justice when they are reduced to a body count.

What we hear reported as news is,

"A suicide bomber attack in Rumalah today killed FOUR, the bomber is suspected to be affiliated with Islamic (whatever) and the suicide bombing came as a reprisal against (blah-blah-blah)". 

Nothing can possibility justify this insane murderer's action! No thing!

What should have been reported is,

"A mother and her two young children were murdered along with the father of two honor students by a psychopath who brought a bomb into a peaceful market in Rumalah and then murdered them as they shopped for their suppers. Our thoughts are with the families of the victims in this difficult time."

That is what matters, not what motivated the murderer or those who bear such contempt for human life or any life. If the murderer had walked into a zoo and took out a family of penguins there would be world-wide moral outrage. Instead, the story becomes a ten minute fluff piece on how to paint murder as "martyrdom".

Martyr noun /märdər/  

a person who is killed because of their religious or other beliefs (Merriam Webster)

The martyrs are the victims, NOT the perpetrators! Perhaps, we in the West are as morally wrong as the perpetrator when we so casually accept that wandering into a crowded venue with explosives strapped to one's chest and blowing to kingdom come as many human beings as you can conveniently fit into your blast radius as a suicide!

I posit if such a flagrant and blatant inaccuracy of fact goes unnoticed, unquestioned, and uncorrected for years in the reporting of news, then we cannot be informed, educated, or aware enough to run a republic. Not that we would be able to discern the specific nature of our deficit. We would remain blissfully unaware of the down-side of republic which imparts, "We have no one to blame but ourselves."

We might be inclined to settle for an exciting brawl in the (political) arena, the stuff of good politics a Roman plebeian would revel in. Distracted by bread and circuses, free health care, victories on distant battlefields, plentiful entertainment, and generationally deferred taxes life is good! The world is our empire and we are too big to fail or fall. With all this and anything else we desire why should we concern ourselves with the facts when we can't discern it from fiction.

On my way home this evening I'll be tossing a brick through a jewelry store window and taking what I please. This should be reported as, "shopping".