Charlie Wilson's War

A recent movie, "Charlie Wilson's War" is about former Congressman Charlie Wilson who personally led the fight to fund the Afghanistan "insurgents" against the "godless" Russian invaders of Afghanistan in the 1980s.

Charlie Wilson was furious that the Russians supported the "underdog" North Vietnamese in our Vietnam War, so Charlie wanted revenge against the Russians, one of our WW II allies.

Charlie Wilson wanted the U. S. to be the supporter of the "underdog" Mujahideen. He thinks it is noble for the U.S. to support an underdog against the Soviet Union, but thinks it is evil for the Soviet Union to support an underdog against the U. S. It is the oldest belief in the world, "my tribe is better than your tribe."

In her book, "God of the Machine", Isabel Paterson had a chapter titled, "The Humanitarian with the Guillotine". http://www.fee.org/publications/the-freeman/article.asp?aid=38 I think Charlie Wilson was a humanitarian with a Stinger Missile.

Maybe Charlie Wilson backed the wrong horse. We backed the Muslim extremists in Afghanistan, against the "godless" Russians. The Muslims then attacked us on 9/11. One of the men we backed was Osama Bin Laden. Later we had to attack Afghanistan. We are still looking for Bin Laden, I think.

We backed The Shah in Iran, now Iran is our enemy.

We backed Saddam Hussein, then attacked him.

We sided with Ho Chi Minh in WW II, then attacked him as an evil enemy a few years later, while we supported Ngo Dinh Diem, a Vietnamese Catholic, who we later helped overthrow. We forced our way into the affairs of Vietnam, at a terrible price. http://www.vvaw.org/about/warhistory.php

Now our guy in Pakistan is in trouble. What will we have to do when the Mullahs of Pakistan get control of the WMDs? Pakistan is 97% Sunni, with a low literacy rate. http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0004373.html Do we want to "spread democracy" to a nation that is 97% Sunni? Is "spreading democracy" an excuse to meddle in other countries' affairs? If the Mullahs get control of the WMDs they will not use them on the United States. They will use them on each other.

All the current Presidential candidates, except Ron Paul, have a plan to manage Pakistan. Ron Paul will not try to manage Pakistan.

Why should we do anything except defend ourselves? Why do we have to choose sides between one bad guy or a bad group? Why can't we remain neutral, like Switzerland, or Mexico? The Muslims have not threatened Mexico, a Christian nation. Why do we try to influence and manage all other countries except one small country in the Middle East? That small country is the only country that can influence our foreign policy?

Why do people want to manage a crisis in another country? It makes one feel important to manage others, or to inject themselves into the affairs of others. To feel important is to feel your life has meaning. Managing someone else is a luxury to our egos.

We have become a narcissistic nation. We are constantly telling ourselves how great we are. We are a narcissistic nation that ignores history and stays the course, to the next maelstrom, and then the next. Instead we should seek calm waters.

We have a need to tell others what to do. We continue enabling people who need to stand on their own. Our foreign policy is like authoritarian parents who continues to fund their child's wayward lifestyle. And we seem to enjoy helping other people kill other people.

The world is a complex place. We get bored if life is simple so we create a complex world. It is very difficult for humans to live in quiet repose. They crave excitement. What is more exciting than war?

For a peaceful world, the Charlie Wilson humanitarians should stay home and take up knitting.

Protect our troops, and protect the United States, and protect our economy. The cost of the Iraq war has just increased to $15 billion per month, as we are told the surge is working! Bring the troops home, all 550,000 U.S. military personnel that are in other countries. Bring them home to protect the U.S.

Charles Tolleson

Plan would let seniors work to pay taxes

The state is supposed to be compassionate and caring. They always promote their benevolence.

But this article, (below) about the city of Greenburgh, NY trying to "create" jobs to allow decrepit seniors to work, just to pay taxes, reinforces my belief that the government mob has no compassion, just greed.

This creation of jobs for seniors, by the central controllers, is a taste of what would happen when all the producers stop producing and everyone tries to live at the expense of everyone else. The central planners will then decide work for; who, what, why, when, where, and how.

Will the central planners offer the jobs first to those seniors who owe taxes and deny a job to a 20 year old who is trying to work his way through college?

I don't know which is worse? The central planners and enforcers who plunder, or those who submit. Of course it is difficult for a 76 year old woman who suffers from arthritis and sciatica, and needs a walker to get around, to resist the government goons.

Thank goodness Californians passed Prop 13 in 1978, limiting property tax increases. The California government mob was in turmoil then, thinking one of their favorite sources of plunder would be curtailed.

I suspect the city of Greenburgh would do just fine, just as they did 100 years ago before their hefty and obscene property taxes. Instead they just raised the property taxes for the unincorporated portions of town, which includes 40,000 inhabitants who do not live in Greenburgh’s constituent villages like Dobbs Ferry and Hastings, by 19.45 percent. The average homeowner pays $1,700 a year just in town taxes, that means a hefty $331 more.

Governments, like individuals, will gladly spend other people's money. Like individuals, governments will also spend on things they do not need, but on things they want. And like individuals, governments will spend more money than they have.  The difference in government and individuals, the governments use force to confiscate money.

Charles Tolleson

----------------------------------

Plan would let seniors work to pay taxesBy JIM FITZGERALD, Associated Press Writer Tue Dec 25

Audrey Davison lives alone, gets a $620 Social Security check each month and worries about the sharply rising taxes on her four-bedroom house. Davison, 76, raised her family there and after 43 years, she really doesn't want to leave Greenburgh.Greenburgh doesn't want her to leave, either. The town is pushing a program that would let seniors work part-time, for $7 an hour, to help pay off some of their property taxes."People shouldn't have to sell their house, move away to a place with less taxes, leave behind their family and friends," said Town Supervisor Paul Feiner.

He envisions retired doctors mentoring schoolchildren, retired accountants helping with the town's finances, retired lawyers offering their services for a discount. But there are plenty of less-skilled jobs that need doing, he said."It's not like we're going to see grandma running the snowplow," he said. "There are lots of things people can do for the town and it wouldn't cost us that much to pay them."

The proposal has caused a stir in Greenburgh, a town of 90,000 in Westchester County, which has the nation's third-highest homeowner property taxes. The plan would be unusual if not unique in New York, but similar programs are considered successes in Colorado, Massachusetts, South Carolina and elsewhere.

Davison, who suffers from arthritis and sciatica and needs a walker to get around on her bad days, said she pays about $12,000 a year in property taxes - perhaps $2,000 to the town - and has already taken out a reverse mortgage to pay her bills.Talking to Feiner last week at the town senior center, she said, "I would work as long as it was a job where I could sit.""You could be a receptionist!" Feiner said. "You could greet people right here, when they come in.""That I would love," Davison said.Scott Parkin, spokesman for the National Council on Aging, said the program sounded interesting, as long as it wasn't limited to menial work. "It's certainly in line with what we stand for, keeping seniors involved in work or volunteering as a part of healthy aging," he said.Boulder County, Colo., pioneered a tax workoff program in 1986 for residents over 60 and now has about 250 applicants for the fewer than 100 openings, said spokeswoman Barbara Halpin. The work done by the seniors includes landscaping, gathering climate data, clipping newspapers and staffing the courthouse information booth."Taxes aren't that high out here, so even at $7 an hour people can burn off their county taxes pretty quickly," Halpin said. She added that many stay in the program as volunteers after paying off their taxes.In Concord, Mass., Maria Casey of the personnel department said about 10 seniors get $8.50 an hour to work at research, data entry and groundskeeping. The program, started in 1999, "allows seniors to be able to work and be involved in the community, and the town benefits by their work," she said.Feiner is suggesting creating about 25 slots for seniors and letting them work off $500 or so a year. His proposal faces some obstacles. If the wages earned are to be tax-free and directly credited to the property tax bill, the state Legislature would have to approve. In addition, unions would have to be convinced that the program is no threat to their members' job security.Feiner is hoping for at least a pilot program next year.Eventually, he said, he would like to see the county and the local school districts adopt similar plans."If we got seniors working for the schools, there might be a more intergenerational feeling there," he said. "It might be easier to pass the school budgets."Janet Goodman, a retired teacher and travel agent who was leading a knitting class at a Greenburgh community center, said paying the bills at her town house in Hartsdale, one of Greenburgh's seven villages, is "a constant struggle." She said she would gladly take part in a tax workoff program "as long as the work is interesting.""You have to be creative," she said.

Newt Gingrich Speech, Nov 15, 2007

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich made a speech on Nov 15, 2007.
http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/terrorism.php?id=1385641

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich is the same kind of fear monger as was J Edgar Hoover, who had a plan in 1950 to arrest, without habeas corpus, 12,000 people who "might" be dangerous.

http://tinyurl.com/384lz7 (Hoover wanted President Harry S. Truman to proclaim the mass arrests necessary to "protect the country against treason, espionage and sabotage." The F.B.I would "apprehend all individuals potentially dangerous" to national security, Hoover's proposal said. The arrests would be carried out under "a master warrant attached to a list of names" provided by the bureau.)

Gingrich is also like the authoritarian Abraham Lincoln, who ordered American troops, yes, soldiers, the same kind of soldiers every country puts into a hero category, (Just following orders mamn!) into Maryland, arrested citizens without habeas corpus, to keep the Marylanders from deciding their own fate.

Here is another George Orwell quote I like. "All the war-propaganda, all the screaming and lies and hatred, comes invariably from people who are not fighting".

The other side has their Newts. The other side argues the Christians are going to take over the world. True or not, their speakers have plenty of evidence to incite their followers; The Christian USS Vincennes shoots down an unarmed Iranian airliner killing Iranian women and children. The Christian soldiers invade and occupy a small Muslim nation. Christian soldiers kill thousands of Muslims. Muslim men are humiliated by Christian women soldiers at Abu Grhaib. Christian missionaries are spreading all over the world and into the Muslim countries. It is easy to see why the Muslims would think Christians are trying to take over the world. With these policies it makes one wonder if they are intentionally done to get the angry Muslims to attack us, so we can have perpetual war for perpetual peace.

Newt Gingrich's popularity fell to 28%! His own Congressional republicans dumped him as their leader in 1997. Since 9/11 Gingrich has risen like a Phoenix, literally, from the ashes of the World Trade Center. He makes up to $50k per speech, giving about 60 per year, peddling his aphorisms. http://tinyurl.com/2rgg4s He has authored and co authored several books. Speaker Gingrich, like others before him, has gotten very rich by exploiting our fears. Fear sells better than telling people everything is fine.

Never having served in the military, Newt rides on the coat tails of his dad, who did serve, implying being an army brat is the same as serving. He thought his motivational speeches and serving as an army brat would actual propel him to the White House.

I agree with Newt that the world is in trouble. It seems like it was always so. From the time Adam and Eve tarnished the Garden of Eden, (they could not be content) the world has been in trouble.

Long after Adam and Eve left the Garden of Eden to start an empire, Peter the Hermit, a radical, started the crusades, and the world was still in trouble.

Since our country was founded there have been troubles brewing; sin from drinking led to prohibition, there were the blacks that were trouble, the "redskins", the Spaniards, the "Limeys".

The more modern troubles were the; "Huns", "Gooks", "Reds", and now the Islamist fascists.

I agree there are dangerous radicals afoot. I think there are many Muslims who would like one world of Islam. They will not succeed. How we deal with foreign threats from Muslims and others is open for debate.

I am not sympathetic to Muslim zealots. However, I believe there are more cost effective ways to deal with the threats. We certainly need to be cost effective to put some sound financial management back into our federal government.

Fortunately we can debate among ourselves about our policies. Those who are invaded and occupied probably do not want to debate us. Ask a young Muslim man to debate with his conqueror? Forget it. He would rather die an honorable death and get 72 virgins!

Another Orwell quote,- "Freedom is the right to tell people what they do not want to hear".

Islam will not take over the world. Women and their cats will rule the world.:-)

"Milad Majid" That's "Merry Christmas" in Arabic.:-)http://www.theholidayspot.com/christmas/worldxmas/manylanguages.htm

Bilbo Baggins

Magna Carta Sold

http://tinyurl.com/386coo
So, the Magna Carta, an animal skin with words on it, sold for $21M. What decides its value, the skin or the words?

"The document established the principle of habeas corpus, which protects people against unlawful imprisonment by ensuring such rights as trial by jury and freedom from unlawful arrest."

We all are very lucky to have habeas corpus in our lives. Let's keep it, and pass it on to the next generations. At least for another 710 years.

Actually, the first Magna Carta was signed in 1215, making it 792 years old.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magna_Carta
King John was forced by the Barons to sign the first Magna Carta. King John later reneged. The charter was resigned in 1297 by Edward I.

Anyway, the idea that man owned himself, instead of being owned by Kings or States, stayed alive. No matter how many revolutionaries are killed by the State, the idea that man owns himself will not perish.

I started my blog, Freedom for You (F4U), with the Magna Carta in my mind as a foundation for our individual freedoms.

Bilbo Baggins

Is the individual responsible for world peace?

"Freedom is the will to be responsible to ourselves" Friedrich Nietzsche

The late United Airlines pilot, Charles C. Dent, (d. 1994) discussed the individual and corporate responsible one has towards world peace.

I never met Captain Dent, nor do I know any specific details about his position, which later became a section of the United Nations, United Nations We Believe, UNWB, which became the Business Council for the United Nations (BCUN).

Who decides one's responsibility to a stranger in another country? Does someone have the right to decide I have a responsibility to people who are fighting in another country? How can I have any responsibility if I have no authority?

The advocates of this policy are trying to promote socialist policies and centralized planning. They are saying I should give my authority, my responsibility, to a committee, or some bureaucrat I have never met. They will be sure to carry out my responsibility, as long as I give them my authority (power).

Thank you, but no, I would rather keep my power, and my authority.

As to being responsible for someone else, I will decide if someone is worthy of my time and energy.

Isabel Paterson wrote "God Of The Machine".   One chapter is "The Humanitarian With The Guillotine" in which Paterson  shows that most of the harm in the world has been done by people with good intentions.   Power and the desire to control others corrupts.

Charles Tolleson
--------------------
"Mrs. Roosevelt was not the only one thinking about the UN and what it could mean for the American public after World War II. In 1956, in the cockpit of a United Airlines DC-6, Captain Charles C. Dent was expressing concern about world events to his co-pilot, Richard "Rip" Munger. In the dark days of the Cold War, nuclear devastation-and WWIII-seemed a very real possibility. In the months that followed, the two pilots realized that the UN might be an answer and decided to bring greater recognition of the organization's work to the business community. Along with friends Roger Enloe and Alfred Teichmeier, they ultimately founded what is now known as the Business Council for the United Nations (BCUN)". http://www.unausa.org/site/pp.asp?c=fvKRI8MPJpF&b=471517

1971 In the midst of a rash of hijackings, Charles Dent charters a Clipper 747 and flies the General Assembly to Montreal in its first airborne meeting.

"In 1956, during the Hungarian Revolution, Charlie and his co-pilot Richard Munger had long philosophic discussions on the responsibilities individuals and corporations have for the maintenance of world peace. The outcome of these discussions: the idea of founding UN WE BELIEVE to promote the principles of the UN Charter." http://groups.yahoo.com/group/retup/message/11654

More on the mortgage crisis

The government just cannot do enough! After legislation last week by congress to help out in the credit crisis, the Federal Reserve has now taken up the charge of doing good. The news story below blames it all on the lenders; lenders who made loans to borrowers without proof of income and charged higher interest rates to offset the risk.The headline to the news story, "Fed taking on abusive lending practices". Notice the word "abusive". The government is here to protect you from abuse.

No one mentions the fact that the bad loans the Federal Reserve is trying to eliminate has already been eliminated by the market, that magical phenomenon. No one will buy the bad loans anymore so the lenders have to protect their loans by making sure the borrower can repay the loan. Hence, no more bad loans. The Federal Reserve is wasting our time, and theirs.

Had real estate prices kept going up at 20% per annum we would not have heard about a credit crisis.

Why did the government not protect the borrowers before now? There are laws against fraud. When a borrower goes to a lender, they have been told the government has approved the lender by all kinds of licenses and regulations already in place. The borrower never learns to appraise risk on their own, or how to teach their children how to appraise risk. We have become a nation of children relying on our nanny government for protection. We don't even inspect the food we eat. We rely on the government meat inspectors to inspect 300 million servings of meat each day!

I have a friend who is in the mortgage brokerage business. He said there was fraud and non compliance on the part of lenders recently. I asked him why we have not seen one news story of prosecutions by the State for this banking fraud. The State is charged with protecting us from fraud. If fraud was committed then the State failed again to do its duty. It would be easy for the Federal Attorney Generals to get indictments on RICO charges for any banking fraud.

The State spends too much time and resources prosecuting victimless crimes, like using drugs and paying for sex. The government spends time holding hearings on steroid use by millionaire baseball players.

This from The Detroit News, Nov 28, 2007, "Attorney General Mike Cox, who has won nationwide notoriety for locking up parents behind in their child support payments, has yet to file a single criminal complaint against any mortgage broker or lending entity". http://tinyurl.com/26ymqk

And of course the state and local governments want their property taxes, so the Fed is going to require money set asides for property taxes on mortgage loans. The government mob looks out for each other.

One wonders how the United States prospered and grew so much before the FDR era of big government began.

The Fed wants to protect the borrowers. "We have an obligation to prevent fraud and abusive lending," the Fed chairman, Ben Bernanke,said earlier this year. No mention of the 12 years of "free"government education in the government schools. Didn't the government have an obligation to teach one how to read a contract?

I was a loan shark in my army days on Okinawa. I loaned money at high interest rates. Most people who borrow money at high rates do so for vices; liquor, drugs, gambling, and women. Those who want to prohibit vices think the desire for vices, and the vices, will go away if there are no funds available for the vices.
The money I loaned was between me and other young soldiers. They approached me for loans. I did not solicit their business. It was a voluntary verbal contract. I took the risk with the hope of a reward. The borrowers took the money in the hope of having more pleasure than pain. They spent the money on booze and whores. The money helped the local bar owners and whores. Some of the whores gave some of the money to their Papa Sans and Mama Sans. The interest I earned went towards my commercial pilot's license and a used car.

For some reason there are those who call me a predator and think I should be controlled. I was just a naive 18-19 year old who was trying to improve my life. Now I feel so guilty about being an "abusive" lender.

Charles Tolleson

-------------------------------------
Fed taking on abusive lending practices By JEANNINE AVERSA, AP Economics

People taking out home mortgages may gain new protections soon against shady lending practices as the Federal Reserve seeks to back even the riskiest borrowers, already hit hardest by the housing and credit crunches.
Rules expected to be proposed Tuesday would apply to loans made by all types of lenders, including banks and brokers. The plan from the Fed,which has regulatory powers over the nation's financial system, could be finalized next year. The effective date would be known then.
The Fed is considering:

_barring lenders from penalizing sub prime borrowers - those with spotty credit or low incomes - who pay their loans off early.

_forcing lenders to make sure that borrowers, especially subprime borrowers, set aside money to pay for taxes and insurance.

_restricting loans that do not require proof of a borrower's income.

_examining lenders' failure, in some cases, to consider a borrower's ability to repay a home loan.

_improving financial disclosure so people better understand the terms and conditions of their mortgages and get this information when it is most useful.
_curtailing abuses in mortgage advertising.

On the Net:
Federal Reserve: http://www.federalreserve.gov/

Mortgage and Credit Melt Down

I'm not sure about what is going on in the lending markets, but, from what I read some of the lending institutions loaned to people who did not qualify. After college in 1960 I worked for a short time as a loan officer in a Loan and Savings Association. We did not make any sub prime loans! Today, I believe the loan officer in some cases gets a commission.

The lending institutions today do not service the loans or take the loss in case of default because they sell the loans, to Freddie Mac or Fannie Mae, and others.

Fannie Mae, a private institution, created and charted by who else, your friendly government,http://www.fanniemae.com/faq/faq8.jhtml?p=FAQ in an attempt to do good, to help poor people buy houses, by doing what-- buying mortgages.

The attempt to do good never stops, no matter how much harm it does. Senator Boxer is cosponsoring more laws to interfere with the market place in regards to the mortgage crisis. http://boxer.senate.gov/features/mortgage/S%202452%20Summary.pdf Control freaks just cannot keep themselves from trying to interfere and micro manage other people's lives.

People borrowed more money than they could pay back because they thought real estate would keep appreciating at 20% per year! They took a risk. Now the caring government wants to take away the pain. "No gain, no pain", is the government's new motto.

This attempt to help the poor people, who did not lobby for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, was created by the banking, building, construction unions, Realtors, and anyone else who could make a buck from some government policy, no matter how bad the policy. The market to these people was common property, each trying to get more than they put in. See "Tragedy of the Commons" here -http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons(The metaphor illustrates how free access and unrestricted demand for a finite resource ultimately structurally dooms the resource through over-exploitation. This occurs because the benefits of exploitation accrue to individuals or groups, each of whom is motivated to maximize use of the resource to the point in which they become reliant on it,while the costs of the exploitation are distributed among all those to whom the resource is available (which may be a wider class of individuals than that which is exploiting it). This, in turn, causes demand for the resource to increase, which causes the problem to snowball to the point in which the resource is exhausted).

Suppose there was no Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac, both heavily regulated. (Five of the 18 directors of Freddie Mac are appointed by the President of the U.S. )http://www.freddiemac.com/corporate/company_profile/faqs/#BM5_ The lenders would be responsible for their loans if they had to service them and collect the monthly payments, therefore making better quality loans, which they would still be free to sell.

It is impossible to see the harm government does. Let's not even talk about the Federal Reserve. We only see what we hope is protection and comfort. We think any government action must be for our own safety. Why else would we tolerate so much regulation in our lives. We seem to think everyone else (in the private sector) is unethical and THEY all need to be regulated.

I was talking to a small business owner about ethics in business. He said there was very little ethics in business. The market will force a business to cut corners to exist. Businesses that bid on projects will win if they low ball the bid, so low it will not cover their cost, so they cheat on the specifications to make a profit. I asked him about a business that dominated the market and had high profit margins, could it not be ethical? Here is his reply, "Even the large corporations; however, when faced with the pressure of meeting the quarterly numbers to please the stock holders, will dismiss ethics privately, but never publicly".

Still, I say the market place works to the benefit of more people, consumers, better than a centralized planned market. Millions of decisions are made each hour in the market between buyers and sellers. The human society is simply too complex today to be centrally controlled. Government should be a traffic cop, not the back seat driver of every vehicle on the road. If an unethical business provides a bad product the market will replace it, with another yet more efficient, but still unethical business.

We need a government that protects private property and ourselves. Democracy with freedom will not happen without these simple rules. Neither will democracy with freedom happen when controllers are making all our decisions.

Bilbo Baggins

Facts against hyperbole

This is an interesting site for checking facts against the fictions of some organizations who give out wrong data in order to promote their cause. The last paragraph says a lot, "To complete the picture, there were 91,201 males murdered in the U.S. during the Vietnam war, about 3,500 of them by spouses or girlfriends".

Bilbo Baggins

http://www.responsibleopposing.com/facts/vietnam.html
"58,000 men were killed in Vietnam while more than that number of females were killed by spouses or boyfriends during the same time period in the US".

FALSE!

This "statistic" was recently posted to a mailing list of teachers and others interested in the subject of gender equity in education. A similar formulation appears on the web site of the Island County Community Health Advisory Board (Coupeville, Wahington) , where it is attributed to the American Medical Association. A somewhat less exaggerated version, which puts the number of "women and children killed in their own homes" at 21,000, appears on the web site of the Police Department in Kennebunk, Maine. In an editorial by Don Hunt the number of women killed in the U.S. during the war is said to have been 51,000.

As happens quite frequently with statistics offered by advocates in the domestic violence field, this statement appears to have been constructed for "sound bite" value without regard for whether it is true.

It is not true. It is not even remotely close to being true. President Lyndon Johnson sent the first combat troops to Viet Nam in 1965. The last were withdrawn in 1973. During that period, there were a total of 27,103 females of all ages murdered in the United States. Not by intimates -- from all causes. This number is taken from Table 3.141 of the Bureau of Justice Statistics publication Sourcebook of Criminal Justice Statistics, which is maintained on the World Wide Web by the University of Albany.

Obviously if there were 27,103 females murdered in total, it is impossible that more than 58,000 of them were murdered by spouses or boyfriends. The Sourcebook does not provide victim-offender relationships for murders in that era, but in recent years the proportion of female homicide victims who were killed by intimates has been around 30% of the total. If things were about the same in the 1960's -- and there is no reason to believe otherwise -- then the number of women killed by intimates during the eight years of the Viet Nam war was about 8,100. This is only one-seventh the number of men killed in the war.
It is an unfortunate fact that the sort of wild exaggeration made here is the rule rather than the exception when dealing with domestic violence advocates.

To complete the picture, there were 91,201 males murdered in the U.S. during the Viet Nam war, about 3,500 of them by spouses or girlfriends.

Ending war, women in the military to invade other countries

They wrote in the old days that it is sweet and fitting to die for one's country. But in modern war there is nothing sweet nor fitting in your dying. You will die like a dog for no good reason. ~Ernest Hemingway

War is a racket, wrote US Marine Corp Major General Smedley Butler. Butler's essay describes all the parties who profit from war. http://www.ratical.org/ratville/CAH/warisaracket.html

General Butler failed to mention the media profits from war. Death and destruction sells more to television advertising dollars than does peace and tranquility. How does a television company talk about peace and harmony for 24 hours each day. The bang, boom of war sells advertising and brings in the revenue. It also builds careers for journalists. The media are enablers of war.

Despite the horrors of war and all the exhortations of its evil, we are still attracted to the ultimate sport of killing. When wild animals kill each other we call it instinct. When we humans kill each other we call it patriotism and duty.

The only way to stop this madness it to have a modification to the Geneva Convention.

The modification would state that if one country invades or bombs another country it can only use female military personnel to carry out the invasion, bombing, or occupation. However, countries could use both male and female military personnel on their own soil, for defense, but only female military personnel on another country's soil.

This would stop old men from invading other countries on a pretext. Imagine President Harry S Truman sending only American women to defend South Korea from North Korea in 1950? President Truman would not have considered for one minute intervening in the Korean civil war if it meant the death of only American females. He would have noted the Korean Peninsula had been a country for a thousand years and let it go at that. The Korean war was unnecessary. Who would tolerate sending 38,000 American women to their deaths in an unnecessary war?

The same would have happened in the Vietnam War. President Kennedy and President Johnson would never have thought about sending 58,000 American women to die in the jungles of Vietnam in what was a civil war.

Of course it is unlikely that North Korea or North Vietnam would have invaded their southern neighbors if they could only use females against a defending army of males and females. This means most wars would never be initiated. Tyrannical egoist leaders would have to settle for their current country size, or work out peaceful mergers.

Neither would any American president send only women into the middle east to die in civil wars.

If only women were used to invade and occupy other countries wars would decrease. The basic reason for war, not excuses, is for men to kill off other men so they will have more women to mate with. Even old men will send their own young men into war knowing some will be killed, making it easier for the old men to find a mate. This happens even in the court system where male judges send males to prison for longer sentences than females. The male judges are simply removing the competition for mates.

We need our women for our own pleasure and as baby factories to reproduce. We need new babies as workers and providers. Sending only women into battle would risk the loss of the baby factories. This risk would bring the value of the war into focus. Is it worth the life of our women? The answer in the past would have often been, 'NO', this war has no value.

Charles Tolleson, male

Fifty dollars for a pack of cigarettes!

A thing is not necessarily true because a man dies for it. -Oscar Wilde, writer (1854-1900)

Fifty dollars for a pack of cigarettes! This shows the real market price of something if it is banned. What would be the price for a .38 S & W Special if it was banned? People would be building guns in their basements and selling them for thousands of dollars. Then we would have a "war against guns" like the war against prostitution, drugs, and other vices. Vices are not crimes.

Charles Tolleson
---------------------------------
Robb Phillips 33, of Cumberland, Maryland, a former corrections officer, has pleaded guilty to taking bribes from prisoners to smuggle cigarettes as well as other items into the Federal Correctional Institution in Cumberland, Maryland (FCI-C) and selling them for a large profit.

He was hired as a corrections office in July 20, 2000. In November of the next year, he started working as a teacher in the Education Department at FCI-C. Ever since April 15, 2006, cigarettes have been banned in federal prisons and were classified as contraband. Not too long after the ban had been put in place, one of the inmates asked Phillips to smuggle in cigarettes and he said he would pay Phillips $50 for each pack or $1000 for a carton. He also told Phillips that he would make arrangements so that Phillips could be paid outside of the prison. On or about July 2006, Phillips did bring five or six packs of cigarettes to the prison, gave them to the inmate, and was paid his $50 a pack.By the time the scheme came to an end, he was bringing in as many as 50 packs a week as well as other contraband such as snuff, for which he was paid $50 a can. All in all he received in excess of $14,000 in payments.When he is sentenced, he faces a maximum of 15 years in prison and three years of supervised release.

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/445060/former_federal_corrections_officer.htmlSource: U.S Attorneys Office http://www.usdoj.gov/

A Voluntary Government

"A democratic government is the only one in which those who vote for a tax can escape the obligation to pay it". Alexis de Tocqueville

Many people send voluntary contributions to support organizations like churches, the Red Cross, the Sierra Club, and many others.

Not everyone believes the Sierra Club is necessary, but most everyone believes the government is necessary, so why would they not voluntarily support the government with their contributions?

If people think saving trees are important they will contribute to the Sierra Club. If they think government programs are important they will contribute to the government.

One could contribute to the Defense Department, or to WIC (Women Infants, and Children) http://www.fns.usda.gov/wic/ If citizens think farm aid is important they can contribute to the Agriculture Department and pay farmers to not grow certain crops, thereby reducing the supply and making prices higher for the consumers who contribute.

If one thinks the Occupational Safety and Health Administration is important, they can contribute to OSHA.

If one thinks it is appropriate to send people like Martha Stewart to prison for selling her stock, then they can contribute to the Federal Prison System.

One could contribute to the White House to insure the President continues flying in a B-747. Or one could contribute to the legislative branch to insure the congress continues to have the excellent pay and perks they already have. After all, most people think these government agencies are important enough to allow the same government mob to confiscate part of their production in the form of taxes or fees.

People could donate to the Department of Education and have a third of their contributions used as expense money to run the department, then have the rest of their donations sent back to them for local education. They could continue to contribute and support education under the current conditions since millions of people already agree the government schools are important.

Imagine how campaigning would change. Candidates would not have to make promises they could not keep. Campaign contributions would dwindle. Campaign corruption and negative campaigning would diminish. Campaigns would be short. The media would have to find something else to talk about besides what candidates say for a whole year before an election.

The lobbyists would not be lobbying Congress because congress could not forcefully take your money and give it to the lobbyists' organization.
Congress members could finally speak the truth instead of what a lobbyists wants to hear.

You would see lobbyists running ads in the mainstream media asking you to contribute to their cause. It would be interesting to see the farmers' ads asking you to donate to the farm aid program.

You would see ads from AIPAC asking for contributions to Israel. Voluntary contributions to Israel would help reduce the hatred from Muslims towards Americans.

You might see ads from the AFGE http://www.afge.org/Index.cfm?Page=AboutAFGE lobbying you to contribute to their pensions so they could continue to retire younger than those in the private sector who pay their salary and perks.

Congress and the president would have less power. The political correspondents would not flock to the power base in order to be a part of the power. Therefore reporters on the political scene would be more willing to report objectively, like they report on the Red Cross or United Way.

The whole government mob, its enforcers and enablers, would lose power and control over the people. We would have a much more civil society. Conflict would be avoided because people would be voluntarily contributing to their programs. They would not be forced to contribute to a program they disagreed with.

As congress managed the donations to the government programs, they would soon realize they did not have as much money as they needed (wanted) for the government mob. To get more funds the rulers would start selling off government property. State, local and federal governments own over forty percent of the land in the U. S! The government mob would first start selling the 264 million acres of land under the Bureau of Land Management. http://www.blm.gov/wo/st/en.html Then they would sell the interstate highways. Then they would sell the national parks. Later they would sell the offshore mineral rights. The government mob rulers and enforcers would make sure their 401K pensions were well funded from the proceeds of these sells before they would fund any programs the people wanted.

Charles Tolleson