Response to Collegue's Work #2

In response to Jr_Lara's blog “Change”Is all I Have Left, I agree with him that our national debt is one of our biggest problems. We are injecting most of our money in areas that we not need. It is true that while government spending helps shift our aggregate demand to the right making it better, but the government is spending the money in the wrong place. This in turn causes cuts in jobs in sectors that we desperately need such as education and its related programs. Schools and teachers across the nation are getting sacked because we think we need big and better guns. Apparently, the government thinks that the future education of our younger generations is not important enough to even think about. I guess it is alright in the future for the military to have dumb people with big guns instead of smart people who can work things out properly. I know I have mention about guns and education numerous times if you read my blog, but I am seriously trying to pound this into your heads. We do not need that much military spending..This kind of abusive spending resulting from our paranoia really boils my blood.

In 2009, the U.S military budget accounts for about 40% of the global arms spending and it is over six times larger than the military budget of China. Our total military expenditure from 2004-2007 peaked at 419.3 billion while China's, with the world largest military was ranged anywhere from 29.9 billion to 130 billion. The huge gap in numbers is because our think tanks can't get the proper intelligence to get the numbers right. However, that number is still way less than our spending. Why do they spend less but yet have more assets? That question has many answers, some are logical and others not so much. The United States and China is currently spending about 4-6% of GDP on military spending. The former Soviet Union is sitting about 3-4%. This is a lot of money going towards fueling our paranoia and please don't get me wrong; I am all about protecting our servicemen and women, but this spending is ridiculous.

I also agree that there are way too many people with money that have no idea how to properly use that money to help out our decaying economy. I see too many people spending way too much for items and services that, in my humble opinion have very little purpose to them. For instance, I work with a bunch of people who would go out to get the latest Iphones and Ipads just because they are “new”. The funny thing is that most of them have no clue how to properly operate the devices. They just want to have it so that they could say “I have this and that”. To me, that is totally an utter waste of money. If I were to buy something expensive, it needs to be purposeful to the extent of the cost and you must be able to use it 100%. Then again, consumer spending does help our economy but the point I'm trying to lay is that, most people who have money are clueless morons. The small percentage that are not clueless are too insignificant to have an impact.

Our current president is trying very hard to get us out of this hole, but here is the thing; being president to very HARD. Contrary to popular belief, being president doesn't mean you get a fancy jet and get to be lazy in the white house smoking Cuban cigars... Mr. Obama is trying his best to get out of this hole but you can't simply conjure up 15 trillion dollars and plus many people think he was born in Kenya..While we are on the that subject, let me say that I do not believe he is truly doing this to split the Republican side; rather I think it is a side effect..a good side effect. Let us be serious, you can't be president if you aren't born in the United States. Last time I checked, Hawaii was considered a state of the United States..I could be wrong...but I know for sure Panama isn't. This was where John McCain was born, but do we talk about him? I do not believe that slapping a United States property sign around a plot of land in another country should be considered being born on “American soil”..Why isn't this all over the news...because McCain is white and the rumors started on the Republican side. Anyways, it appears that I am slightly off course. One last thing though, we can't simply just “pull out” of the Middle East..it will create a huge power vacuum and we like to play bodyguard with our big guns.

TSA: Thugs Sexually Assaulting

Ever since 9/11, this country has been in inflamed in a new wave of paranoia. There are people and governmental bodies who are becoming increasingly suspicious of foreigners, especially ones who were from the Middle East. Even people that aren't from the middle but look like one were given "the eye". New government agencies were formed and people in security were trained better in ways of looking out for danger. There have been already two other waves of paranoia prior to this recent one and they were back in the 1950's. That is when everyone in the United States were afraid of the "red scare". The raising power of communism freaked people out like no other because they were so paranoid and misinformed. Also back then, our CIA agents were trained better to look for suspicious activities relating to communism and probably new government bodies were created to look into that matter. The main point I will try to get at in this blog is that, this country will go to great lengths to try control the situation even if people's basic civil liberties get in the way. In this blog, I will highlight the situations where the TSA (Transportation Security Administration) would use such outrageous tactics to basically bully people in the name of safety.

 

First of all, lets look into the statistics regarding TSA's new procedures and devices for "safety". Over 64 percent of Americans say they approve of the new body scanners and 32 percent said they opposed. They polled only 514 people and they seem to have a saying for the rest of us. I, myself, highly disapprove of such a device, not only due to health reasons and also for your basic privacy reasons. "Experts" say that the amount of radiation from those body scanners are well within normal limits and the radiation that you are exposed to are equivalent to that of flying in an airplane. Wait a darn minute, if I'm already been exposed to radiation while flying why would I want more radiation as an appetizer prior to fly??? Do those experts even know what they are talking about? Radiation causes mutations which can cause cancer and last time I checked, there isn't a cure for cancer yet. Please, I must insist on passing on the radiation appetizer prior to receiving more radiation. You can say that I am scared of radiation and I stress the issue too much, but let us be serious, do you honestly want to be exposed to more radiation? I think not and until they can provide with much safe alternatives to X-rays, I will always will be in opposition. Also, the thought of some random person seeing your privates is so awkward and wrong.

Alright, lets move right along to the second part of the poll conducted about the new tactics that the TSA is using. About 48 percent of Americans (by Americans, they mean 514 people) thought the pat downs are justified and 50 percent thought it gone too far. These are close numbers but I think it does put into perspective that most Americans are more or less against the new pat down procedures. I would be riding shotgun with the ones that are against of course. Many people say that the pat downs aren't too bad and if you want to fly, quit your whining. I would say to those people, please get your head screwed on straight and it is very sad that you don't even recognize when your basic civil liberties are being infringed upon. Other people will say, it is for safety. What is it that we are trying to be safe from? Are we anymore safe from terrorists than before we had these new devices and procedures? The only thing that these new additions are doing is fueling our paranoia of everyone inside and outside of America. The terrorists are probably watching our news and laughing out loud in their caves right now and having a good life watching us act so ridiculous against our own people. My family and I don't fly as much, maybe every 5-7 years but even that is enough to oppose such an abusive piece of work. I can't imagine for the people who have to fly everyday and even though they might not have to be pat down each time, it can still be very frustrating and awkward for someone you don't know to keep groping you day in and out.

The intrusive nature of the pat downs needs to stop and better ways of scanning needs to be develop so this matter can be put to rest. It also doesn't hurt to give the TSA "thugs" as many would like to call them, sensitivity training. The video above is among many of videos that will demonstrate my point exactly. That poor girl had a concussion, her arms were twisted so far behind her back that they nearly popped off, and also not to the mention the psychological damage she will have to endure for a while. Instead of introducing a new technology such as the body scanner, maybe we can focus more on the betterment of the metal detectors. Perhaps we can make them much more sensitive to detect various elements are needed to make an explosive device. In conclusion, what have we learned? We do not need to be exposed to anymore radiation than we already are exposed to on a daily basis so that we can fly. This is not the Fallout World and gaining radiation does not give anyone any special abilities like glowing in the dark. Another thing that we can learn from this is, is that the TSA needs to stop hiring random thugs off the streets or straight from out of prison to be agents. Please don't get me wrong, I'm all for rehabilitating criminals so they can be reintroduced into society but this is too much of kick to start them out with.  I know this thugs and criminals things has been used to death but I think it is still the best reference to use when watching TSA agents work.

Critique of Classmate's Blog

My response to Marisa Contreras's Blog Education for Everyone.

I've read your post and agree with you 100% about how everyone should get a chance at education no matter how they have entered the country. I believe this also allows those people to get a bigger jump start in life so that they will not turn to the life of crime. Education is very important and this country does not care enough about education, instead we care more about buy more and more big guns that are protecting us from some “paranoia” monster. The amount of money spent on our military could probably be used to revamp our education system twice over and more. Instead, we choose to keep cutting back on education, cutting teacher salaries, and close schools, so that we can spend more on guns.

One of the biggest steps in giving a chance of education to everyone is the introduction of the “Dream Act”. This act would allow illegal immigrants to gain citizenship through a serious of steps and becoming a citizen would allow those people to gain federal grants which will in turn help them them get more education. This act has been turn down several times due to Senate Filibusters and has been reintroduced over and over. Each time, tougher restrictions are placed on illegal immigrants and therefore makes it so much harder for those people to try to apply. The amount of restrictions placed in newer versions of the act is so outrageous that I wonder why this didn't pass so Congress could say “Hey, we passed this, but it's not our problem they're aren't talking advantage of it”.

In the end, it is our responsible as citizens to voice our opinions to the government. If there aren't enough of us on board, then there isn't much to do. Some believe that citizens should get the first chance but I believe everyone should get this chance at the same time. I considered myself lucky to be able to attain grants and loans to go to college and start a better life. This in turn also encourages me to try to seek out ways to get people off of the streets and into schools so they can help us make this nation a better place for everyone. The only way to do that is to be educated so politicians can't look down on them with their fancy Harvard degrees and say “Look at those people, they don't deserve to be in this country”

The Land of the Braves and Ignorants?

Why can't we all be friends? This is an excellent question in respect to that it is very broad. Of course, we can narrow that down into many subcategories. This time, I will be focusing on the subject of Muslims in America and how local policies and actions are trying to uproot them from our society. I will also be reinforcing this post with videos from a recent CNN show called "Unwelcome: The Muslims Next Door"However, I will not be analyzing the videos, that is something for you to do. Some say this show was biased because they were only interviewing opponents on the shallow end of the gene pool but that is not the point I was referring to. The point is that a lot of people are having opinions on things which they have no knowledge of. This will in turn migrate them further into that shallower end. If you think about it, pretty much every problem in this country can be related to people having opinions on things that they don't understand; immigration, health care, Muslims, and etc...

First of all, lets get something straight, Muslims is spelled " M U S L I M S" and not " M O S L I M S". This has got to be one of the most annoying things I have ever faced. I do not know if the people that spell it wrong with the O are really that dumb or if they are trolling. I guess there isn't really a difference. What I need for people to understand is that the people who attacked us on 9/11 ARE NOT the same as the rest of the Muslims. Those people not only hijacked those planes but also hijacked the religion of Islam. Yes, contrary to popular belief, Islam is a major religion. What a shocker right? Automatically, after 9/11 we began this notion of associating that all Muslims were terrorists and they sought to blow us all up. We also began to think that Islam is a very violent religion, but this is not true, Islam is one of the most peaceful religions out there. I think that we shouldn't automatically give judgment to an entire group of people just because some individuals decide to do something awful. However, we are doing this anyways because we don't understand.

The saying that the founding fathers found this country under the one true god is really a joke. It is true that America was intended to be a religious haven for Christians fleeing from other Christians, but still this idea is really one big joke today. In the modern age, the founding father excuse is old and dead and cannot be used. Look around you, what type of people do you see? Do you see all white people who wear crosses and practicing Christianity? No, we do not see this; instead we see all types of people of all races and religion living together. Albeit, this cannot go without saying that there were a lot hardships to jump through in order for us to be where we are today. We are a unique nation because we are a melting pot of different people and if the the founding fathers intended for only white Christian people to come and live here, then probably America would not exist to this extent today. We needed people to come to this country so we could expand westward and this nation would probably not get as much if we filtered out everyone else besides white Christians. Things are always changing and we cannot let 350 year old ideas govern us. The founding fathers are not in office and cannot see the change of today, therefore, most of their ideas are best kept to more of a guideline, rather than actually implementing them directly.

Click for Part 3
(Sorry, the "add video" feature is semi-fail and most of the videos had their embedded links disabled)

 I realize that there are aren't any major policies that specifically target Muslims, but I can tell you about one that really "looks in the Muslims general direction" The law is known as the Patriot Act, of course you know about this and how the government tap any person's phone line if that person is suspected of involvement in some illegal action would damage this country. Well that is pretty much the main idea of that act. This can probably be misused if not already misused by those individuals who are not fully competent on the subject matter. We just don't know about it. If we can illegally torture Muslims, why not right? What about the local government level, what is being done to bar Muslims from the community? Well in the videos, the opponents protested and went to community hearings to speak up against the Islamic Community Center, but after failing many times, they decided to start a lawsuit on the grounds that the Islamic Center did not have a permit to be built. However, under Tennessee law, religious buildings didn't require a permit. Once again the opponents argued that Islam was not a religion. (I really dislike hilly billy lawyers with fail bow ties). The final blow struck down the opposition when people from the US Attorney's Office arrived in person, which is quite rare, to deliver a paper saying that "Islam is a religion". When they showed that letter, I just laughed so hard. Anyway, I said would not analyze the video, but I had to use it as an example on how at the local levels, opposition to Muslims are trying ridiculous ways to get officials on board.

                      

The idea of building mosques in America means that the Muslims are claiming victory really boggles my mind. Sure, looking at history, this might be true but this is not true at all in America. In fact, it is the opposite, the Muslims are trying to connect with the rest of us and are not trying to assimilate us into their culture. People think that Muslims are trying to impose Sharia Laws on the US. Does anyone even know that this cannot be done in this country due to the Constitution? We probably end up nuking ourselves if we had to give up the Constitution. Just because Sharia Law is bad in one country doesn't mean its the same thing in another country. Some Sharia Laws even promote the progression of women.  Another thing I must emphasize on is that culture is not religion, sure religion is part of culture but they are both entirely different things. One cannot judge the culture of a country and automatically tie it to the religion of that country and then assume that they are all bad. One final thing is that, I don't understand why people think that women are being oppress because they wear the hijab and or the niqab. The Muslim women I seen so far believe that this grants them more freedom? I mean, isn't that enough or do we have to assimilate everyone to make them wear blue jeans and a t- shirt everywhere. In fact, in some EU countries, they have banned several Islamic clothing which takes away their freedom even further...I'm not even gonna bother trying to analyze or else the universe will implode. Final word is that, why can't we educate ourselves, become a Muslim for a day and learn about them...Oh I know why because are ignorant and stuck up and believe our way of live is always the right way.

The United States of Old People Running the Show

When the Puritans landed in America and began to colonize New England, they started a government that is relatively simple. They have town meetings on which they would decide on important political and economic matters. This was a primitive form of direct democracy and although it was very simple in nature and things would easily get passed or denied, it had a lot of flaws. One of the flaws is which everyone could see who voted on what and who did not vote. Another is that you have to be a member of the church in order to participate or even live in their society. I will explain on how these two flaws are tied into this post later in this posting. Keep in mind that this is one of many threats to our humble democracy.

According to that post written by Project Vote, an anonymous blogger on the blog site http://mydd.com/, he and I'm going on a limb to assume that he is a he, discusses how Republicans in New Hampshire are trying to put through a bill that will limit the voter turnout rate for young people. One of the bills, HB 176, will only allow students to vote in their college towns if their parents had previously established a permanent residency there. The other is to eliminate voting day registration which help to increase voter turnout rate which fuels our humble democracy. This means in order to students to vote they have to register to vote earlier and either go to colleges that are next to home or have their parents move to the student's college town with the student. Let's face it, students want to try to pick a far away college that they like to get away from their parents and some parents understand that and would welcome it. These parents are not going to simply drop everything and move to a college town in order for their kids to vote because of a ridiculous law. I know what you are going to say next, "Well these parents are hurting our democracy because they aren't allowing their kids to vote". You will probably say something close to that nature and my response to you is that, it is not the fault of the parents, blame it on the Republicans that came up with such a ridiculous law.

This is related to the many flaws of the Puritans system of government. By only allowing church members to participate, they limit the government with only a certain group. Given that back then, there were mostly Puritans living in that area, but there were other groups as well. The other groups were barred from participating the government and even caste out because they did not follow the Puritans' religious ideas. What is even more depressing is that men were only allow to participate thus further enable men to hold more power. Therefore power is held by a group of men and since everyone can see each other vote, when an opposition arises, the opponents are either coerced into the powerful circle of men or crushed. This is what exactly Republicans are trying to do. Since there are already limits on the voters, they want to expand the limits so that essentially this country will be ruled by powerful men of the circle. Since our young population can't be kicked out or crushed yet, placing more restrictive measures will be their key to power. The ones that are left to vote will be a closed group and therefore any resistance can be dealt with through coercion or other means.

One of the reason that the Republicans are trying to push this through is because they claim that "young people are foolish, lack life experience, vote on their feelings, and vote as liberals". I'll show them a lack of life experience; furthermore, I can say the same thing to many adults and we see this everyday. I absolutely agree with the author in that this is really just a scheme for politicians to hold power. Older people tend to hold on to their ideologies and when young people come around, they tend to "skew" the trend. They are using reasons such as widespread vote fraud in order to get the bills to pass, however there is absolutely no evidence to support voter fraud and once again we're back to the power grab. The author explains that the real problem is that only 71% of eligible votes are registered to vote and politicians fear that if more people are allowed to vote, this will disenfranchise them. By limiting voter turnout this will only hurt our humble democracy and make a pathway to allow a certain group of powerful people to rule.

True Lies About Immigration

 Ever since the state of Arizona passed its ridiculous immigration law, I've been wondering to myself if that law was just a scapegoat for lawmakers to be racist so that they could attain power or is it a law that would help immigration reform? Also do lawmakers honestly know how hard it is for a person of Hispanic origins to attain legal status in this country? Perhaps they do know; but in order for them to get votes from people who have no understandings of this subject matter, they must not care. So we're back to cynical politicians using scapegoat tactics to attain power, if you ask me I would rather have a monkey running for power.

According to this post written by Rubben Navarrette, Special to CNN, Mr. Navarrette expresses his opinions about Janet Napolitano's speech about immigration and border security in El Paso, Texas. He praised her for pointing out how the Republicans are using scapegoat tactics and overstating the facts in order for them to gain "political points". Well I guess this is true, how else could have Jan Brewer become governor? Surely she didn't win the election because she wants to honestly serve the people. If she wants to truthfully serve the people then she wouldn't approve of such a one sided piece of legislation. These tactics aren't just for politicians to gain power but also to get support for restrictive immigration policies intended to provide an image to Americans of what it was like in the "good old days". The "good old days" where kids would do their chores and teenagers would get after school jobs. Mr. Navarrette suggests that nowadays, kids are lazy and instead of searching for jobs, they are playing video games and posting on Facebook.

Therefore, the vacuum of vacant jobs are being filled by illegal immigrations. I really recent that statement, I may play video games but I don't post on Facebook a lot and I'm trying my best to find a job. I know a lot of people who either have a job or honestly trying to find one. I believe the real reason is that many of us think that a lot of the jobs we can attain at our education level are beneath us. Jobs such as flipping burgers, washing cars, or dish washing, are jobs many teenagers avoid because of the social impact it could have. However, these jobs have to be filled or else there will no burgers to eat, no clean cars, and no clean dishes at your local favorite restaurant. So that is probably why, many employers will look for employees elsewhere. More than likely, most of the employees that occupy these jobs will probably be illegal immigrants. People that don't care how socially negative the job is, as long as they can feed their kids and have a little spending money, they simply do not care. Then we go back and say "those darn Mexicans are taking our jobs". I wonder do we even know the definition of the word "irony"?

Lastly, I wanted to point at something Mr. Navarrette pointed out about Janet Napolitano's speech. At first, during her speech, she criticizes people for playing politics with immigration and border security, then later in the speech; what does she do? She plays politics with immigration. I guess this is when a lot of the people would call her a "hypocrite". Remember in the beginning when I told you that this speech was in El Paso, Texas? I would imagine El Paso, being a border town and all would have a huge Hispanic population. Yet, when accuse of her department not doing their jobs properly, Janet Napolitano overcompensate by bragging about how in the last two years, her department has deported more than 779,000 illegal immigrants. At this point, I would have ran for the hills if I was foolish enough to say something like that in front of such a crowd.  Bottom line is that, I don't think there will be a day when such a hot topic such as immigration will be finally put to rest. Especially when politicians are using such deplorable tactics and people having such one sided opinions.

Stupidity at Its Finest

Click Me For Laughs

This article isn't really about how we can change things or laws affecting us, but really it is about how STUPID people are in the right wing nutcase asylum. The laws that are presented in this article are one big joke and I really laughed at most of the aspects that were presented. Most of us are going have to endure this kind of stupidity for 4 years; I don't think I can handle it. I think I will have to move to the Bahamas if any of these ridiculous laws are passed and stay passed.

As an example, a Georgian lawmaker wants to ban driver licenses because they are unconstitutional.....This guy believes that having them is oppressive and he believes everyone has the inalienable right to drive cars on public roads. Is he freaking blind? Does he not see how bad some American drivers are? They shouldn't have a license in the first place, let alone giving them the right to drive without one. Here is another classic one; "Forcing science teachers to question Evolution"..Ugh, where do I begin with this one? Oh right, the fact that we have tons of information about evolution probably was too great for their minds to comprehend. Instead, they simply say to themselves, " Jesus made Everything"; these three words are so simply that it must be true right??? It's so simple just to comprehend these words that it spreads like wildfire to people who lack the capacity to open their minds.

Lets see here, this one is got to be the winner; .... "Lets use government funds to fuel a militia that oppose the government". Well, I believe this one is our winner, folks..I think I will leave that there because obviously you can figure why this is so retarded that there are no words to describe it. If people were to support then obviously all sanity is lost and truthfully, America has indeed fallen into oblivion..Anyhow, there are many more laughs where that came from, but I refrain from expressing my opinions and let you read it.