Religious Wars

"Wisdom is realizing one's former truths were lies." Charles Tolleson, Skeptic

The Sunnis and Shias have long been arguing and killing each other over who should be Caliph of the Muslim world, a descendant of Muhammad or some other qualified person.

Islam.about.com-- "The Shia Muslims believe that following the Prophet Muhammad's death, leadership should have passed directly to his cousin/son-in-law, Ali. Throughout history, Shia Muslims have not recognized the authority of elected Muslim leaders, choosing instead to follow a line of Imams which they believe have been appointed by the Prophet Muhammad or God Himself. Sunni Muslims agree with the position taken by many of the Prophet's companions, that the new leader should be elected from among those capable of the job Sunni Muslims agree with the position taken by many of the Prophet's companions, that the new leader should be elected from among those capable of the job"

The Sunnis and Shias will continue to give the reason for killing each other as religious. The reason is over political power. This is what happened in the late 1500s between Protestants and Catholics as they killed each other. http://www.lepg.org/wars.htm History has shown the Protestant and Catholics were fighting over their beliefs, but the leaders inspired the fighting, over power and politics.

Like the Catholics and Protestants, when the Sunnis and Shias get tired of the blood letting, the leaders will have to compromise. Then Islam may be a stronger threat to the west, but by then, ipods and technology will have turned the Muslim leaders into an anachronism. They will become politicians of the secular state, like other states. Many Muslims prefer a secular state over a religious state, as Turkey citizens recently showed by marching and protesting against an Islamic state. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/30/world/europe/30turkey.html?hp

When India was partitioned and Pakistan created in August 1947, there were hundreds of thousands of Muslims, Hindus and Sikhs slaughtered. All because of power, politics and beliefs.

The First Council of Nicaea, held in Turkey in 325 by Roman Emperor Constantine, was to attain a consensus on some Christian doctrines and practices. Constantine avoided a fissure in Christendom at that time, and probably avoided much bloodshed. It's too bad for all religions they do not have a modern Constantine today.

Charles Tolleson

Economics

"I give up my vote by voting Libertarian, but so do half the people who vote. All the people who voted for a candidate that lost gave up their vote." Charles Tolleson, Libertarian

My friend Denis and I were discussing the Federal Reserve and inflation caused by printing money.

Denis; "If you think about it, we are still printing money, but the population that uses that money has increased from 200 to 300 million people in this county alone."

I have thought about this and I tried to imagine a fixed amount of dollars in circulation. Those who save a hundred dollars would see their purchasing power increase as the population grew and the demand for dollars increased. With dollars becoming more valuable a barrel of oil might cost 2 dollars instead of 60.

The lack of dollars might hurt the economy because banks, and the big boys like Goldman Sachs would not have as much to lend and start new businesses. But, again, if the dollar is strong one would need fewer dollars to start a new business. These big banks borrow the new printed dollars from the Federal Reserve and pays them back with cheaper dollars, just like the government. I always knew it was advantageous for a consumer to buy a house with a big mortgage. As inflation creeps up, the borrower ends up paying off the mortgage with cheaper dollars.

Currencies are just commodities. If they became too expensive, they would be replaced with another commodity to use as barter. Maybe peanuts! If oil becomes too expensive, in a free market it will be replaced with something else. The late Julian Simon wrote and excellent book about the scarcity or resources, "The Ultimate Resource II". http://www.juliansimon.com/writings/Ultimate_Resource/

Denis; "Another thing to consider is that the U.S. Dollar is now the currency of roughly half the world, whether in their black markets or as a formal CURRENCY system."

Yes, but mostly because of our political and economic stability and super power status, as you point out. Also OPEC had a rule that they must sell oil in dollars. This rule may be threatened as Saddam was just starting to sell in Euros, and now Iran is trying to sell its oil in Euros. http://english.pravda.ru/world/asia/14-05-2006/80261-iran_oil-0 Could this be a reason for our invasion of Iraq??? With globalism, the Euro is fast becoming a stable currency. As the European Union becomes a superpower with political and economic stability, the Euro will compete with the dollar.

Now that international trade is common, it seems most industrialized countries want a weak currency so they can export their goods and services. Japan does not want to see a weak dollar because it means their manufactured goods are more expensive, and when they convert their collected dollars to their local currency, yen, they lose in the transaction.

Denis; "This dilutes the inflation we pay by adding that population, and explains, I think, why you and I don't feel the real decline in the value of the dollar."

One reason I don't feel the decline in the dollar is my spending habits are less than when I was young. Now I do not spend money on women!

In 1979 I was a making around $30K as I recall. I barely could afford a $50K townhouse. Today that townhouse is around $450-500K. Today one probably has to make $100K to buy the $500k townhouse.

Today my son is making about the same as I made in 1985. With the dollar's decline, it would seem my son needs more dollars to live as well as I did in 1985, yet he seems to live as well or better than I did in 1985. This leads us to increased productivity. If it were not for increased efficiency in productivity, my son would really have lost to inflation.

In 1988 I paid around $2000 dollars for a basic DOS computer with a 20 mb hard drive and a 14 inch monochrome monitor. Today $2000 dollars will buy a top of the line computer, with a big flat panel color monitor. The ubiquitous desktop computer today that cost $2000 dollars buys the computing power that only big institutions had in 1988 at a cost of hundreds of thousands of dollars. What brought about this value to millions of consumers? Greed, self interest, and profits.

Many years ago one man used horses and a plow to farm 40 acres. Today one man with modern equipment can farm 400 acres! This increased productivity has allowed the devalued dollar to purchase more.

Imagine what it would cost if automobile miles per gallon had not improved. The devalued dollar would not buy as much fuel, therefore costing more to drive a car.

Airlines used to fly a four engine DC-8 jet from San Francisco to Honolulu using a pilot, co-pilot, flight engineer, and navigator to haul 120 passengers. Today an airline will fly a two engine airplane with only two pilots to carry 200 passengers from San Francisco to Honolulu. This increased productivity has made it possible for the consumer to buy more air miles of travel with a devalued dollar.

We older people may not feel the decline of the dollar because we fight to make a little more on our investments than is eaten away by taxes and inflation. I have some high dividend REITs in my IRA which help beat inflation, but my CDs, even at 5% yield with inflation and taxed as ordinary income, are barely keeping me even in purchasing power. I count on the increases in production efficiency to help me buy things. Cars are more efficient. Computers are more efficient. Medical surgeries are more efficient. A gall bladder removal used to require several days in the hospital. Now it is an outpatient procedure. The increase in cost in health care is caused by all the new offerings in drugs, MRIs, and advanced surgeries that were not available in the past; open heart surgery, artificial hips, etc.

My son started a lawn care business. At the beginning he was doing the lawns by walking. He soon improved his efficiency by buying a motorized spreader. It was about profits, and how to make more profit, which is in his self interest. Without profits and competition there would be no increase in productivity. Many societies that did not allow private property and profits, had no increase in productivity, and no improvement in the societies. The native Americans lived here for thousands of years, but they did not even have the wheel.

The ancient Jewish tribes would settle land and divide parcels among individuals. The individual owners could profit from their parcel of land. This is a contributing reason why the Jewish people have been so successful in science, art, and commerce. With private ownership of land the Jewish people could concentrate on self improvement. Like my son, the Jewish people with private ownership, would look for a more efficient way to do production.

Denis: "Also, if Growth can keep up with the inflation of the money supply, there isn't any real pain felt. The People need all that paper"!

Overall that is correct. It just makes savings unpopular. People who want to save and put their money in a safe place will lose value. The marketing from Wall Street now is even old people should invest some in the market to beat inflation.

Denis: "Incidentally, I don't think it was planned that way, just dumb luck and the result of a relatively stable economy and Government; the super-power status also adds confidence in a currency."

I agree with that! The government likes to say it is their policies that allows the economy to grow. The economy grows because of profits and self interest. The economy grows in spite of government policies! The government rules and taxation are just enough to leave the patient alive and kicking. Too many more rules and taxation and the patient will die.

Charles Tolleson

Book Review, The Lucifer Effect

There was another experiment besides the one at Stanford, (below), that showed the evil of humans and how power can corrupt a caring soul. It was done by Stanley Milgram at Yale in 1961. http://www.new-life.net/milgram.htm

Many years ago I saw on PBS the original black and white movies of both the Stanford Prison Experiment and Milgram's Yale experiment on obedience to authority.

The founders and Lord Acton knew power corrupts. They did not need any social experiments to tell them. They read and observed history. Despite this knowledge, people will wistfully give power to some leader who promises security and happiness. Power voluntarily given away is hard to regain.

How would I act if I had enough power to destroy the social and moral restraints I have been taught? I would not become evil. But, that's what many of the subjects in the experiments said about themselves.

Charles Tolleson
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From the Los Angeles Times
BOOK REVIEW'The Lucifer Effect' by Philip ZimbardoWhere does evil come from? Look in the mirror, the author says.By Alan ZaremboAlan Zarembo is a Times staff writer.
April 22, 2007

DURING the Rwandan genocide, the level of participation by ordinary, normally peaceful citizens was greater than the world had ever seen. I spent time there as a reporter in the mid-1990s, just after the slaughter of 800,000 members of the Tutsi minority, largely by their Hutu neighbors. I tried to imagine how I would have acted if I had been born a Hutu in Rwanda and had grown up in a culture that put a high value on pleasing authority, demonizing Tutsis and planning their extermination.

What would I have done? Maybe I would have been a killer too.

This is the kind of admission that Philip Zimbardo, a longtime psychology professor at Stanford University, wants all of us to make. In "The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil," he styles himself a tour guide of the dark side. The book is built on his well-known Stanford Prison Experiment, which is a standard lesson in many Psych 101 courses. Full disclosure: I have written about the study for the Los Angeles Times; Zimbardo references my article in his notes.

In the summer of 1971, Zimbardo placed a want ad in local newspapers seeking test subjects for a two-week study. Offering $15 a day, he sought psychologically stable young men to be randomly selected to serve as inmates or guards in a mock prison set up in the basement of the Stanford psychology department building. Six days into the study, the professor called it off, because some of the guards had become mildly sadistic, forcing prisoners to embrace each other, play leapfrog, defecate in buckets and do push-ups as punishment for defying orders.

Three decades later, that project stands as one of the seminal studies on the nature of evil. Its lesson is that, in the wrong situation, seemingly good people can turn bad. Zimbardo is not talking about individuals with pathologies who unravel in fits of psychotic rage (as appears to be the case with the shooter in last week's tragedy at Virginia Tech), but of rational, stable people. Some of the study's acclaim has to do with Zimbardo's relentless self-promotion. When the project was barely underway, he convinced Palo Alto police to stage the "arrests" of the students and then called in a San Francisco TV station to tape them for the evening news. The public relations push has rarely let up over the years.

So what else is there to say about the study now? For Zimbardo, a lot. Even the first 250 pages of "The Lucifer Effect" are not enough; he often refers readers to his various websites to read more details about those six days in the basement. The book jacket promises the "full story" for "the first time and in vivid detail," but too often this amounts to giving readers large blocks of transcribed interviews and diaries.

The occasion for this latest revival of the famous study is Abu Ghraib. After the scandal broke in 2004, Zimbardo made the interview rounds as a talking head. He has also served as an expert witness in the legal defense of Ivan "Chip" Frederick, an Army reservist who worked at Abu Ghraib. Zimbardo repeatedly highlights the parallels between his study and the abuses of Abu Ghraib: that much of the mistreatment was sexual in nature, that the worst abuses happened on the night shift and that most of the guards were untrained. But the real-life details of Frederick's story - how a flag-flying, churchgoing husband from small-town Maryland wound up attaching an electrode to the hand of a hooded prisoner standing on a box, and then had the now-infamous photo taken as a souvenir - is more powerful evidence of the Stanford Prison Experiment's conclusions than what happened in the actual study.

The chapters on Abu Ghraib are the most compelling part of "The Lucifer Effect": Zimbardo builds a persuasive case for why the prison had all the ingredients necessary to bring out the worst in humans. Guards, who covered their name tags for anonymity, were unsupervised. The rising American death toll outside the prison helped feed an atmosphere in which the prisoners came to be viewed as less than human. The prisoners became mere playthings for the guards. It was as if the guards didn't realize they were doing wrong.

The Stanford Prison Experiment is really misnamed. "Demonstration" seems an appropriate description - or perhaps even television-reality-show precursor, since Zimbardo and his assistants filmed and recorded much of it through hidden cameras and microphones. Originally, the researchers were curious about how the prisoners would adapt to a state of powerlessness. In a meeting with the guards before the prisoners arrived, Zimbardo told them: "We cannot physically abuse or torture them. We can create boredom. We can create a sense of frustration. We can create fear in them, to some degree.. We're going to take away their individuality in various ways." With so many variables and no control group, it is hard to know exactly what was being measured. Obedience? A desire to please authority? The BBC later tried to concoct its own version of the study, with entirely different results: The guards and prisoners formed a peaceful commune. Zimbardo dismissively calls theirs a "pseudoexperiment."

This doesn't mean that the lessons Zimbardo derives from his study are wrong. Throughout history, philosophy and literature, there is ample evidence that he is right. On a hopeful note, though, Zimbardo coins a new phrase - "the banality of heroism" - because ordinary people are capable of great acts. Veering into the self-help genre, he also develops a "10-step program" for resisting the power of situations. Even the Stanford Prison Experiment had a hero: Christina Maslach, who had recently received her doctorate under Zimbardo and was dating him (today they are married; Zimbardo dedicates "The Lucifer Effect" to her), witnessed the guards' behavior and urged him to end the study.

At Abu Ghraib, there was Joe Darby, a young Army reservist who blew the whistle on the abuses. Was there something about his inner core that inclined him to risk his military standing and arguably his life? Zimbardo doesn't think so: He argues that there was little in his background or psychological makeup to distinguish him from Frederick and the other abusers.

The defense of Frederick failed and he pleaded guilty and was sentenced to eight years in prison. Zimbardo does not argue that he did not deserve to be punished but asserts that situational factors should have mitigated his sentence. He extends blame up the chain of command to President Bush and key Bush administration officials for creating "the System" that facilitated the abuses. An obsession with national security, Zimbardo explains, created an "administrative evil."

"This ideological foundation," he writes, "has been used by virtually all nations as a device for gaining popularity and military support for aggression, as well as repression."

This begs a question that goes largely unanswered in the book. Does Zimbardo's thesis - that evil is a product of circumstance rather than character - also apply to those at the highest ranks of power?

Histronics and Fear

"It's probably a good rule to do the opposite of anything the Iranian theocracy wants. Apparently, this government is now doing its darnedest to be bombed. So, for the time being, we should not grant them this wish." April 9, 2007, Please Bomb Me! by Victor Davis Hanson, Tribune Media Services

I agree with Mr. Hanson. However, human behavior is ruled more by passion than reason. I've thought most of the histrionics from President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad were to garner support from his own people, not to threaten the West.

Most leaders always need a bogey man, or bogey woman, to instill fear among their followers. The church created Satan to instill fear. Labor leaders instill fear of the power of big business. Tribal leaders throughout history have sold fear in order to obtain loyalty.

Fear is a primordial instinct. Without it we and other animals would not survive from predators and natural dangers. This fear can be rational and irrational. Both can impair good decision making.

From primitive creatures to modern man, fear has cause and affect. Humans' fear caused them to seek protection in groups, which later became States. These States have different kinds of governments, from authoritarian governments, to some modern liberal democratic governments.

If some people in the group are strong and swift, the slow and weak will fear their weakness. This fear makes many people desire an egalitarian society. An egalitarian society means there are no strong and weak, so no one has to fear another. This silent freedom from fear is what makes socialism and communism so alluring to the human mind.

In a socialist or communist society one can be free from fears created in a free market society of competition, luck, and merit. A free market society with competition and merit performance soon separates the slow and weak from the swift and the strong. The slow and the weak are exposed. The exposure creates enormous fear, creating a socialist society where the swift and the strong, (the leaders) ironically, exploit the fears of the slow and weak.

Bilbo Baggins

Gender Pay Gap

The gender pay gap made the news, again. The Marxist never give up trying to manage people's lives.

The American Association of University Women, AAUW, http://www.aauw.org/index.cfm has been a socialist organization for a long time. They lobby for more money to promote their political agenda of "empowering women". At least they admit it, they love power. There are more women, 57%, in college than men. http://tinyurl.com/acxkn Why is there no American Association of University Men?

The AAUW wants legislation, The Paycheck Fairness Act. http://tinyurl.com/2tdetl This act will be a dream for the American Bar Association. The Paycheck Fairness Act will encumber American business with more paperwork and lawsuits. It is filled with Marxist double Speak. If Hillary takes the White House and Barbara Boxer remains Speaker of the House, expect the Paycheck Fairness Act to become law. With the lobbying efforts of the ABA, AARP (more women members than men) and other feminist organizations, the American Chamber of Commerce will loose, and America will become more socialist.

The AAUW report refuses to acknowledge Warren Farrell's excellent book, "Why Men Earn More". Farrell gives data to show why men earn more. http://www.warrenfarrell.com/

The pay gap referred to by the AAUW fails to include alimony.

All news stories fail to mention that women may earn less, but they spend more, or more money is spent on them by men.

I hope women start earning more than men. Then they can pay the taxes that they consume, more than men. More taxes are spent on women through Medicare, social security and other government programs because women live longer than men. Women visit doctors more often than men.

I hope women start earning more than men. Then they can pay alimony and child support.

Bilbo Baggins

By ELLEN SIMON, AP Business Writer Mon Apr 23, 10:05 AM ET
Women make only 80 percent of the salaries their male peers do one year after college; after 10 years in the work force, the gap between their pay widens further, according to a study released Monday.

The study, by the American Association of University Women Educational Foundation, found that 10 years after college, women earn only 69 percent of what men earn.

Even after controlling for hours, occupation, parenthood, and other factors known to affect earnings, the study found that one-quarter of the pay gap remains unexplained. The group said that portion of the gap is "likely due to sex discrimination."

"Over time, the unexplained portion of the pay gap grows," the group said in a news release.
Catherine Hill, the organization's director of research, said: "Part of the wage difference is a result of people's choices, another part is employer's assumptions of what people's choices will be. ... Employers assume that young women are going to leave the work force when they have children, and, therefore, don't promote them."
The organization found that women's scholastic performance was not reflected in their compensation. Women have slightly higher grade point averages than men in every major, including science and math. But women who attend highly selective colleges earn the same as men who attend minimally selective colleges, according to the study.

"The pay gap is not going to disappear just through educational achievements," Hill said. (Meaning-pass more laws)

Mary Winkler, Husband Killer

Mary Winkler shot her husband in the back on March 22, 2006 in Tennessee. He was still alive when she put here three children in the car and drove to Alabama where she was apprehended and arrested.

From Wikipedia- (According to the statement, she and her husband had been arguing throughout the evening about many things, including family finances. She admitted some of the problems were "her fault." Furthermore, she said, "He had really been on me lately criticizing me for things — the way I walk, I eat, everything. It was just building up to a point. I was tired of it. I guess I got to a point and snapped."

Authorities believe that Mary Winkler had been a victim of a financial scam. She had deposited checks totaling $17,500 in bank accounts from unidentified sources in Canada and Nigeria in what agents described as a check kiting scam, also known as an 419 scam.)

So Mary was angry. Wrath took over and she exacted her revenge.

Mary Winkler went to trial in April 2007, charged with first degree murder. She took the stand and said her husband was abusive. There was no evidence to support her claim. During her ten year marriage she had never told anyone her husband was abusive.

Mary Winkler was convicted of voluntary manslaughter, “The unlawful killing of a human being, without malice, which is done intentionally upon a sudden quarrel or in the heat of passion. Also a killing committed without lawful justification, wherein the defendant acted under a sudden and intense passion resulting from adequate provocation” Her punishment will be a few months in prison, or probation. (Update 6/8/2007 AP. Winkler was sentenced Friday to three years in prison, but she may end up serving only 60 days in a mental hospital. Mary Winkler must serve 210 days, or about seven months, of her sentence before she can be released on probation, but she gets credit for the five months she has already spent in jail, Judge Weber McCraw said. That leaves only two months, and McCraw said up to 60 days of the sentence could be served in a facility where she could receive mental health treatment. That means Winkler may not serve any significant time in prison.)

I wonder if her deceased husband, Matthew Winkler, had killed his wife Mary in a similar fit of passion because she had verbally abused and criticized him for ten years, if he could have gotten such a verdict? I doubt it. In this society we demonize men and analyze women. We deify women. We never believe they would lie.

This verdict sends a message to any wife who wants revenge. All she has to do in tell a few friends that her husband is abusive, and then blow her husband's brain out, and all she will get is a slap on the wrist.

American men are like some males of insect species where the male is devoured by the female during the mating ritual. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/library/01/6/l_016_05.html American men cannot help themselves because males are handicapped with the natural urge to mate. American males will continue to be demonized, and sacrificed.

Update June 21, 2007
SELMER, Tenn.
A woman convicted in the shooting death of her preacher husband was moved from a county jail to a mental health facility, officials said Thursday.

The judge approved the move for Mary Winkler on Wednesday, said Sue Allison, spokeswoman for the Tennessee Administrative Office of the Courts. The name and location of the facility were not disclosed.

Winkler was convicted of voluntary manslaughter in the 2006 shooting death of her Church of Christ minister husband, Matthew, in the Selmer parsonage where the family lived.

She was sentenced June 8 to three years, but she will be eligible for probation after serving 210 days and got credit for the 143 days she already spent in jail. That left 67 days and the judge ruled that 60 of those days could be served in a facility where she could receive mental health treatment.

Officials did not say why she required mental health treatment. At trial, Winkler testified that she had been physically and emotionally abused by her husband.
Copyright 2007 by the Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.

Forgotten Men

"When life demands more of people than they demand of life- as is ordinarily the case- what results is a resentment of life almost as deep-seated as the fear of death." Tom Robbins

Everyone has a reason for the violence in schools of the United States, so I will give my reasons. Revenge and publicity.

We should try to see what is different in today's society from societies past. Guns come to mind, but guns were more common in the past than are now. Every household used to have a gun. Now only about 35% of households have guns.

In rural America all households use to have guns, and dogs for warnings. Farmers did not lock their doors, but burglaries were rare. If a burglar came around the dogs would bark and the farmer would get his gun. Therefore fewer burglaries happened.

In the past the divorce rate was very low. Very few boys were raised alone by their single mother. Bastard children were shunned. Women who had children out of wedlock were disgraced. Families were larger. Aunts and Uncles were around to help analyze bad behavior.

Boys of the past were treated with respect. In today's feminized society, boys are demonized and ridiculed. Many boys do not have a male role model around to tell them their masculinity is normal. Instead the female authorities are telling the boys their behavior is abnormal.

The desire to mainstream all personalities as normal has made it difficult to restrain some abnormal behavior. With more divorces and increased population it only stands to reason there will be more disturbed children, therefore more events of violence, though the rate of violence may not change. In fact, the rate has declined during the past decade.

Every man wants to be remembered after they are dead. Only a few will be remembered past their grandchildren. Most men are forgotten. The creators and tyrants are remembered.

Violent acts of revenge towards mankind used to be localized. With the mass media of today, misanthropic acts can be shown to the whole world.

With video technology of today, it is easy for one to become famous and remembered if they resort to violence. Just look at how a loser at the latest school shooting, (I will not give his name so he will not be recognized, which is what he wanted) got to make a rambling speech to the whole world through his self generated video. It is only a matter of time when another loser will use the same technique to avoid being forgotten in history. In order to be remembered the violent act must be grander than the previous acts.

World leaders act the same as school shooters. The ones who start and engage in wars are remembered. Those who bring peace and prosperity are forgotten.

Bilbo Baggins

Democrats and Republicans

After the Civil War in the United States most of the southern part of the country became democrats, especially after the New Deal of the FDR administration. Those democrats were also fundamental Christians.

Today the fundamental Christian children and grandchildren of the previous generation of democrats have become Republicans. The current republicans pray like their democratic ancestors used to pray. I am sure both generations will meet in heaven some day. I just wonder, will democrats and republicans get along in heaven, or will they continue to slander each other and compete for power? Will the benevolent dictator, God, make all his children get along? Will God take away their free speech?

Bilbo Baggins

Fewer blacks in baseball

"Politics, as a practise, whatever its professions, has always been the systematic organization of hatreds." Henry Brooks Adams

It was 60 years ago that Jackie Robinson became the first black player in the major league baseball.

Now less than 9 percent of major league baseball players are black, though over 40 percent are from minority groups. This small percentage of blacks playing major league baseball has caused some news stories that decry this lack of black participation in baseball. They say something must be done!

These do good Samaritans are never satisfied. They fail to point out that since Jackie Robinson entered baseball, blacks have made enormous strides in basketball and football, where they are now around 85% of the players! Why is no one lamenting the decline of white player participation in basketball and football?

Bilbo Baggins

Looking Backward, by Edward Bellamy

In the past I received books I subscribed to from the Easton Press. Most of the books would be in a group of; The Harvard Classics, The One Hundred Greatest Books, Great Biographies, etc. One book from one group arrived that I had never heard of. It was "Looking Backward, From 2000 to 1887" by Edward Bellamy.

Looking Backward was written in 1887. It was about a man who fell asleep in 1887 and awoke in 2000 to a utopian world where everything was run by the government. All food was distributed by the government. All clothing was bought at a government clothing store.

Can you imagine the inefficiency in a government super store compared to the efficiency of a WalMart or Costco super store? Have you seen the inefficiency of the government Department of Motor Vehicles or the city Parks and Recreation employees standing around instead of working? You won't see WalMart or Costco employees standing around, nor will they retire young with a fat pension like government employees retire.

Bellamy's book was very popular in its day because people were offered and idea that would eliminate pain and suffering, the great lure of socialism. Edward Bellamy was a socialist who was enamored with Karl Marx. His cousin, Francis Bellamy, another socialist, wrote The Pledge of Allegiance in 1892, which was designed to help centralize power in the federal government and reduce States rights.

During the later parts of the nineteenth century, life was hard and sometimes brutal. The industrial revolution caused many deaths in factories and coal mines. These deaths were mostly men. Men of the twenty first century still suffer the occupational highest fatality rate because they perform the most dangerous occupations.

Capitalism and free markets cause pain and suffering. People see socialism as a way to eliminate this pain and suffering. Socialism promises one a way to have all their basic needs met without having to get out of bed on a cold Monday morning and put up with traffic, disgruntled employers, fellow workers, and customers. If socialism worked we would all be living under socialsim.

Capitalism moves a society forward with inventions that eliminate pain and suffering. Socialism destroys a society as it invents nothing but government edicts.

Below is a review of "Looking Backward".

Charles Tolleson

http://tinyurl.com/2vk6gy The world through rose-colored glasses, January 19, 2007 Reviewer:Bomojaz (South Central PA, USA) Julian West is put to sleep by a mesmerizer (a quack) in 1887 and wakes up again in the year 2000. He encounters a Dr. Leete who explains to him in great detail how the world has changed - mainly how it has been transformed into a magnificent socialistic Utopia where everyone is the same. There is no war, no competition, and everyone lives in peace and harmony. Bellamy was a true believer in Marx and his theories and he wrote this book as a pleasing presentation of Socialism and, to him, its saving graces. When the government controlled everything and everyone, he believed everyone would be treated the same and there would be no class/economic differences and struggles. It's kind of laughable, in a way, because it depicts people in a way that seems contrary to human behavior. Bellamy also didn't have the benefit of the 20th century and the horrors inflicted by Stalin, Mao and others in the name of Marx to temper his overly optimistic views. It's a classic, though, of Utopian literature; one might even imagine it the last of its kind, but Utopia will always beckon a fevered imagination that sees great unhappiness in the world.

Using the "Democracy" word

I found these quotes at; http://www.democracyisnotfreedom.com/

We all know our form of government is a Republic. For too long our government has been described as a democracy. Our politicians really like to espouse the wonders of democracy.

Here are what some politicians of the past 100 years said about democracy.

"Democracy is ... the only path to national success and dignity." -George W. Bush

"We must revitalize our democracy." -Bill Clinton

"The world must be made safe for democracy." -Woodrow Wilson

But here is what the founders had to say about democracy.

"The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not." -Thomas Jefferson

"Democracy is the most vile form of government... democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention... incompatible with personal security or the rights of property." -James Madison

"Democracy...wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There is never a democracy that did not commit suicide." -John Adams

"A democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where fifty-one percent of the people may take away the rights of the other forty nine." -Thomas Jefferson

Bilbo Baggins

Terrorists, then and now

"If they turn on the radars we're going to blow up their goddamn SAMs (surface-to-air missiles). They know we own their country. We own their airspace... We dictate the way they live and talk. And that's what's great about America right now. It's a good thing, especially when there's a lot of oil out there we need." - U.S. Brig. General William Looney, Washington Post, August 30, 1999


http://www.forgotten-ny.com/STREET%20SCENES/morgan/morgan.html "On September 16, 1920, person or persons unknown exploded a bomb in front of 23 Wall Street, then as now the offices of J.P. Morgan Inc., causing 400 injuries, some of them horrific, and 33 deaths.

A single warning had come in the form of a note placed in a mailbox at Cedar Street and Broadway just before the blast, "Remember we will not tolerate any longer. Free the political prisoners or it will be sure death for all of you. American Anarchists Fighters."

Investigations centered on known Sicilian, Romanian and Russian terrorist groups. But no sure leads developed and the FBI dropped the case in 1940. Whoever was responsible for this crime is almost surely dead by now.

It is widely surmised that the blast was done by anarchic terrorists bent on destroying a building symbolic of American capitalism. The Bolsheviks had taken Russia by force some three years earlier.

From Slate.com, June 6, 2003. "In the middle of the night on Feb. 28, 1971, a blast tore apart a ground-floor bathroom (In the U.S. Capitol). The bomb harmed no one, but it struck fear in Washington and around the country, triggering calls for tighter security and a swift crackdown on anti-war radicals. This was a period when bombs and bomb scares were a daily part of American life and when President Nixon and White House aides exchanged memos warning of the onset of anarchy in the United States.

The Capitol bombers belonged to the militant left-wing organization known as the Weather Underground, who at the time enjoyed a certain mystique for their bravado and their willingness to test the limits of revolutionary ideology."

The two terrorist attacks described above had a different agenda than the radical Muslim attacks of today, but it only took a handful of criminals to strike terror into the minds of millions.

Were their agendas much different from today's terrorists? The motive for the attack against J.P. Morgan is unknown, but it was probably against capitalism. The Weather Underground attack at the U.S. Capitol was against our foreign policy in Vietnam. The radical Muslims say their attacks are because of our foreign policy involvement in the middle east, and capitalism (secularism), which will destroy their culture.

These terrorists attacks were not from radical Muslims. Yet it did not prevent the State from exploiting the fears of the group. The group wants protection, and the State is willing to be the mob enforcers, for a fee, and control over the mob.

To label terrorist acts something to declare war on is a simple way for the government to grow and gain power. Just look at how the size of the U. S. government has grown since 9/11. To declare war on; poverty, drugs, pollution, global warming or anything else is in the government employees' benefit. They gain in power, pay and benefits.

Bilbo Baggins

Don Imus and "Hos"

A government that is big enough to give you all you want is big enough to take it all away. Barry Goldwater

Many words have been written and spoken about radio and televison host Don Imus calling the Rutgers basketball team "hos". The team's players are black women. Imus used a word that was created by black men. The word has the same meaning if used by a black man as a white man. No one complained about black men using the word, so why such a frenzied attack against a white man who uses a word that has long been used in the black community?

The answer may be that everyone likes to be a victim. But to be a victim one needs a perpetrator. The perpetrators can be big business, the rich, the famous, or some institution. The majority of the population, whites, have been silenced with guilt about saying anything negative about a minority group. The only ethnic and gender group left to attack is the white male. The white male is the only group that can be denigrated on TV. White men are demonized, women and other minorities are diagnosed.

Envy is another cause for pretending to be a victim. Many women and minorities have often perceived men as having power, especially white men. They saw white men in successful and powerful roles. White men; the great explorers, artists, and scientists, were displayed in American culture as powerful. Seen by American women and minorities, this image of power has created envy. The women and minorities fail to see the culture they live in is better off because of white males of the past. Many black Africans wish their ancestors were slaves brought to the United States because life in America, even for a black, is better than a miserable life in Africa. Yet the envy persists. Envy does not go quietly.

Playing the victim status is a simply way to excuse one for their own failures. When one gains victim status it is only a matter of time until the blackmail begins. Welfare and grants for women and minorities voters are a form of blackmail.

In years past in totalitarian governments and primitive tribes, victims had very little power. In a democracy the victims can vote and gain benefits. This system rewards those in a democracy who claim to be victims. The result is more victims and more political power. Everyone in America is allowed to be a victim, everyone that is, except white males.

Today, April 13, is Thomas Jefferson's birthday. Not one word in the media have I seen about the birthday of the man who wrote one of the greatest documents in history. I guess now he is, in this political correct society, just another DWM (Dead White Male).

Bilbo Baggins

Campaign Financing

"Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa, who holds a safe seat, has garnered campaign contributions from defense contractors, including $10,000 in the 2006 campaign from General Dynamics, the parent company of Electric Boat. Murtha shared his largesse with Democratic House candidates, including Democrat Rep. Joe Courtney, to whose campaign he donated $4,000." http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17986643

Campaign finance laws allow members of congress to give money they have left over from campaign contributions to other people. There is no limit on how much they can give to their party's candidates.

"The role of incumbents as campaign contributors is constrained by the broader campaign finance environment. Members of Congress face contribution rules that are similar to those that apply to other contributors. Members can give $1,000 per election to other candidates from their principal campaign account (PCC) and $5,000 per election to other candidates from a leadership PAC (LPAC). But incumbents enjoy one substantial advantage that other contributors lack. Federal Election Commission (FEC) regulations permit a federal candidate's PCC to transfer unlimited sums of unobligated hard money to any national party committee (11 CFR 113.2). In the most recent election cycles, numerous House and Senate incumbents have taken advantage of this rule and transferred six- and even seven-figure sums to the congressional campaign committees." http://www.uakron.edu/bliss/docs/Heberlig.Larson.pdf

The private citizen can only give $2300 per election cycle to a candidate. When the citizen gives money to a candidate, that citizen may be thinking the money will go to that particular candidate. Little do some contributors realize that some, or all, of their contribution may go to candidates they do not want elected.

Members of congress pontificate about morality as they participate in a slight of hand fraud. The secure incumbents like Rep. John Murtha will campaign and solicit contributions, more than they need, and funnel the excess contributions to candidates in their party who are in close elections.

The desire for one political party to win the majority in congress must be strong. The majority party gets the best offices and chairs important committees. The minority party sits by as observers. It must be humiliating to be in the minority in congress.

"Each major political party may receive public funds to pay for its national Presidential nominating convention. The statute sets the base amount of the grant at $4 million for each party, and that amount is adjusted for inflation each Presidential election year. In 2004, the major parties each received $14.592 million. Other parties may also be eligible for partial public financing of their nominating conventions, provided that their nominees received at least five percent of the vote in the previous Presidential election." http://www.fec.gov/pages/brochures/fecfeca.shtml

It is very difficult for a third party to get 5% of the vote. The two major parties have all the power. If there is a third party, the power will be divided by three, instead of two. No wonder they can agree on legislation that makes it hard for third party candidates. The big contributors and PACs only have to buy off two parties instead of three.

Charles Tolleson

Grand Strategies

(Boston Globe Feb 8 2004, http://tinyurl.com/2ldq3jLaura Secor said of , "Surprise, Security, and the American Experience" by John Lewis Gaddis, the Robert A. Lovett professor of military and naval history at Yale University, that Mr. Gaddis believes President George Bush will be remembered like other great presidents. "Who, then, have been the great grand strategists among American statesmen? According to a slim forthcoming volume by John Lewis Gaddis, the Yale historian whom many describe as the dean of Cold War studies and one of the nation's most eminent diplomatic historians, they are John Quincy Adams, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and George W. Bush.")

Professor Gaddis' book "Surprise, Security, and the American Experience", was published in March 2004, one year after the Iraq invasion. In a column in the January/February 2005 of Foreign Affairs, http://tinyurl.com/yok52x titled "Reconsiderations", Professor Gaddis was more critical of President Bush. I wonder what his views are now of President Bush's grand strategy, four years after the invasion of Iraq.

Laura Secor's Boston Globe article continues, "The Bush doctrine is more serious and sophisticated than its critics acknowledge -- but it is also less novel, Gaddis maintains. Three of its core principles -- preemptive war, unilateralism, and American hegemony -- actually hark back to the early 19th century, to the time of John Quincy Adams."

Then in 2006 Professor Gaddis has a new book that is critiqued here. http://www.boston.com/ae/books/articles/2006/01/22/a_world_divided/ (By Michael C. Boyer, Associate Editor of Foreign Policy magazine- So it comes as no surprise that, in his previous writings, Gaddis has shown a reverence for bold foreign policies and powerful personalities. He has closely allied himself with the theory that, as Thomas Carlyle wrote in 1840, ''the history of the world is but the biography of great men." And in ''The Cold War," an entire, requisite chapter is dedicated to what he calls ''actors," with particular deference paid to Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher, and Pope John Paul II. In recent years, Gaddis has put President George W. Bush under his great-man umbrella, calling Bush's vision of democratizing the Middle East ''right on target."That's why ''The Cold War" is perplexing. It departs from the great-man perspective of history. In fact, it reads like a shot across the bow of elitists who would export democracy in a managed and manipulated fashion.

The number of democracies in the world quintupled during the last half of the 20th century, Gaddis says, thanks to increasing levels of education, the spread of ''transparency" via the information revolution, and, most important, ''because they generally outperformed autocracies in raising living standards." Did Reagan help? Certainly. Was Mikhail Gorbachev a catalyst for change? Without question.

But, Gaddis says, it is ''ordinary people" who make democracy happen. Who ended the Cold War? ''The Hungarians who declared their barbed wire obsolete and then flocked to a funeral for a man who had been dead thirty-one years; the Poles who surprised Solidarity by sweeping it into office; the East Germans who . . . climbed embassy fences in Prague, humiliated [Erich] Honecker at his own parade, persuaded the police not to fire in Leipzig, and ultimately opened a gate that took down a wall and reunited a country."

It has become de rigueur in some circles to tout China and other semi-authoritarian regimes as an example of how to cultivate democracy by elite decree. Fareed Zakaria's much-heralded 2003 book, ''The Future of Freedom," laid out just such an argument at length.
With democracy now dawning in some of the most benighted corners of the globe, ''The Cold War" offers a reminder that ordinary people have a way of leaving world leaders, in Gaddis's words, ''astonished, horrified, exhilarated, emboldened, at a loss, without a clue." It's a lesson that elites in China and the Middle East would do well to remember.Michael C. Boyer is associate editor of Foreign Policy magazine. )

A grand strategy sounds noble and sophisticated when done by a head of state. When a couple of bank robbers like Bonnie and Clyde have a grand strategy, it becomes laughable.

The late Sam Walton had a grand strategy when he started Wal-Mart in 1962. Some people who hate big business would say his grand strategy was evil. His grand strategy created jobs for thousands of people and low prices for millions of low income consumers. Sam Walton did all of this using free market capitalism, where millions of voluntary transactions are done each day between buyers and sellers. Ordinary people, as Gaddis referred to in "Cold War", carried out Walton's grand strategy.

Contrast Sam Walton's kind of grand strategy to that of state leaders, and bank robbers Bonnie and Clyde, who use force and aggression to carry out their grand strategies. I suspect there are more voluntary transaction at Wal-Mart each day than there are in all of Iraq. When leaders with grand egos have grand power at their disposal, millions will be trampled and killed. Grand power with grand egos soon become grand delusions.

World history is filled with egoists who had grand strategies. Their paths across the earth are littered with the bones of their victims, and still we praise, admire and critize them, but we never forget them, which is what they wanted in the first place.

Bilbo Baggins

Dissenters

"Without debate, without criticism, no administration and no country can succeed -- and no republic can survive". John F. Kennedy

War lovers say we should not complain about the war in Iraq. To dissent means we are not supporting the troops. The war lovers say we should be quiet and compliant.

Each day of school for 12 years I was required to recite the Lord's prayer and the Pledge of Allegiance. I was a good follower for years. I never dissented.

When I went to work for UA I thought I had a great job. I did not like to hear the veterans complaining. I started to realize the veterans, by dissenting, were the ones who got me a grievance procedure, private hotel rooms, etc.

During the first days of our strike I attended a union meeting of Council 34. There were about 200 members presents. One member made a motion to post the names of the scabs immediately. There was enthusiastic rah, rah, yelling and approval. During the discussion one "dissenter" stood up and advocated against the motion and gave his reasons. After further discussion the maker of the motion stood and said, "I withdraw my motion".

We know of aircraft accidents that could have been avoided if a follower had been a dissenter. Patients have died because doctors did not allow dissent. Napoleon should have allowed dissent before invading Russia. I suspect King George's followers told the rebel colonists to shut up and be good followers.

One can critique a dissenter. One cannot critique the opinions of silence.

Long live the dissenters! Now if we could just get the liberal and moderate Muslims to dissent. Ah heck. They've probably been told to keep quiet.

Bilbo Baggins

Changing Opinions

"What about the future assessment concerning that fateful moment in 1991? It is conceivable that should Iraq’s present democracy stabilize, American casualties cease, and reform spread to the wider Middle East, public opinion will shift once more. Then the second war of 2003 will be once again seen as the proper closure for the flawed end of the first on February 28, 1991." ©2007 Victor Davis Hanson

Mr. Hanson is correct. It would be wonderful if the Middle East would become democratic and peaceful. And yes, we do change our opinions.

When I was a kid attending Southern Baptist tent revival meetings I formed opinions about preachers and whores. A few years later those opinions were changed when in the arms of Asians whores in some far off land, I was comforted from homesickness and other tribulations of a young man. If I live as long as Methuselah did I suspect my opinions will change many more times.

I believe Mr. Hanson advocates a more forceful policy in Iraq, similar to the force used against Germany and Japan. I think there are some differences in the war in Iraq and the war with Japan and Germany.

Both Japan and Germany had been at war for many years. Their bloodletting had claimed a generation of young men. There was no one left to carry on the fighting. Both countries had a homogenous race and religion. All their assets had been destroyed so there was nothing left to fight for, like trillions of dollars in oil! Japan's Emperor told his people to cooperate so he would not be tried as a war criminal and hung. (Better to live in the splendor of the Imperial Palace than to be hung). What Iraq needs is an Emperor to tell the Sunnis and Shias to stop fighting and get along. They will, after they get tired of the bloodletting, just like the Catholics and Protestants who, after centuries of killing each other, decided to get along.

If after Japan and Germany surrendered, what would have happened if "insurgents" had continued to fight? What would have happened after the surrender of Appomattox if Robert E Lee had told his men to carry on a guerilla war instead of going home and stop fighting?

The only successful defeat of a military insurgency that I remember reading about is the Boer war. The Brits finally defeated the Boers but many Boers continued fighting using guerilla tactics. The Brits finally put the guerilla's support, women and children, into concentration camps that were inhumane. Today the world would label this genocide and inhumane. The men stopped fighting. http://www.boer.co.za/boerwar/hellkamp.htm

We could put all the Iraq women and children in one area of Iraq and the men in another area. The fighting would stop. A Greek comedy by Aristophanes, "Lysistrata", where the heroine leads a successful 'sex strike' forcing the men of Athens and Sparta to abandon a senseless war shows men fight for women. If in a bar fight where two men are fighting over a woman and the rules were that the loser gets the girl, the bar fight would be over before it started. "I give up. You win!"

If the Arab/Muslim world every united into one alliance instead of killing each other they could use their oil revenues to build a modern navy and air force. That would really be a threat to Israel and the west. As long as they are killing each other they are less of a threat to Israel and the West.

P. S.

"We're the Congress. Let's work together for the American people. Take a deep breath, Mr. President." Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the House. March 28, 2007

More women than one have said to me, "Bilbo, take a deep breath". It must be something in the female gene that makes them say this to men.

Bilbo Baggins