How bad is the Terrorism?

There is a bit of an ongoing argument that terrorism is at incredibly high levels and the media and the public is not aware of how bad it is.

Now clearly terrorism is a dangerous thing, people kill themselves and others in a sign of protest, and it occasionally rises to truly deadly levels, such as 9/11.  However, the odds of dying from a terrorist attack are pretty low, way below many other activities that we do routinely, such as driving.

So is the current emphasis or attempts to limit immigration so vital to our safety?

It certainly doesn't seem like it considering that the people allowed into this country have almost no history of committing acts of terror here.

Of course there are some exceptions, but most terror here is home grown.

That is radicalized people either born here or raised here who for whatever reason decide that we are not a just society.

It isn't even necessarily politically motivated.

To jump to the conclusion that terrorism is primarily a problem with certain Muslims is not supported by the facts.

Most mass violence here is done by non-Muslims.  Now of course I am including any act of public violence in my definition of terrorism while excluding individual homicides. 

Ignoring some of the terrorism, which might simply be the result of a deranged mind or teenage angst is to ignore much of the danger.

Sort of like saying dark skinned drunk drivers are a danger while ignoring all other drunk drivers.

If we want to prevent terrorism we probably need to reduce the easy path, i.e. guns, but that is not "politically correct" in this administration.

Still the number of people who are killed or injured by terrorism in this country is hardly a significant statistic, although even one is too many.  Of course that is true for all human life that is lost.

Super Bowl

Congrats to the Patriots, they didn't give up hope and eventually prevailed.  I guess Atlanta has to deal with the fact that they set records for blowing such a big lead but they got the big lead in the first place and they just had their defense on the field way too long.

Great half time show from Lady Gaga also although the commercials didn't thrill me.  Maybe the expectations for them is too high.

So many Americans watch the super bowl that it is a cultural event now.

The game seemed to be over and then it wasn't, which is a reminder that Football scores are a bit deceptive since you can get eight at a time.

I can remember games I played (of course on a much lower level) where we lost momentum.  Its an odd thing that you feel like you can't be beat and do well, then something happens and you start to think you might blow it.  It can be self fulfilling and you go from being loose to being tight.

Of course the players on New England had the opposite emotion, feeling in the fourth quarter they could do not wrong.

You can point to a couple of plays that allowed the comeback to happen but it started to seem inevitable and when the Patriots won the overtime coin toss, I think everybody knew it was over.

Congrats again to the Patriots!

Disregard for the Truth

Sometimes politicians are accused of being too cautious, careful about what they say and often not getting to the point.

They do this because what they said had consequences and could be used against them.

They also realized that they had some responsibility to not mislead people and get them to act based on incorrect information.

Of course that was the old way of doing things.

Now we have entered the age of the alternate facts, better know as lies.

This isn't the first time, the NAZIs and Communists engaged in Propaganda (also know as alternate facts and lies) to sway public opinion.  It actually goes further back than that, but that was sort of the golden age of the practice from my point of view.

After the war we seemed to become a bit more restrained and the fact that we had an independent press in most countries that hesitated to print blatant falsehoods (with some exceptions) kept politicians fairly honest.

Oh we accused them of lying, but the lies were at least circumspect.

Some places like North Korea and other dictatorships maintained the old lying culture but we, despite certain conspiracy theorists, were a little more truthful.

Of course we now have a donnybrook of lies since the advent of social media, the proliferation of alternate fact (news) sites and outside intervention.

The lying has gotten so prevalent the truth seems like just another lie.

Now people who accept anything they read or see on the Internet need to take some responsibility for being deceived, but we also see a president who lies consistently about almost everything.

Of course its not him, its everyone else who is lying.  His administration isn't any better and the taint of what they are doing isn't going away anytime soon.

See, the truth will eventually prevail.  Lies have a problem in that the real world contradicts them.

Its just a matter of time.

Another Saturday

Well its the beginning of February and a couple of weeks into the new administration. Normally the period called the honeymoon period although in this one, the married couple are not so fond of each other.

For someone so fond of ratings, the low approval ratings should really be an issue, he might be doing even worse than Arnold, although a different scale.

The problem is sort of like the dog that caught the car, what now?

Ignoring for now the way our system has been perverted to create a Republican government, they are mostly used to complaining about, well pretty much everything.

Its easy to complain, but not so easy to actually do something.

It also seems that the only two people who believed Trump meant the things he was saying was Trump and Bannon.

Most of us have a bit of a rebellious streak and when you don't get everything you want, or feel in a certain mood, you express your rebellion.  I think we saw a lot of votes cast for the winning candidate as a symbol of rebellion by people who didn't think it would matter.  Well, surprise, it did.

There is  a lot of cynicism out there, it seems like a lot more than it use to be, because every wacko can state an opinion, including me.

So since it is easiest to tear people down, that's what happens the most, so no one is worthy, no system is honest, no one can be trusted.

Also, the news reports the bad things that happen to the point where it seems like nothing bu bad things are happening, when generally for most people life goes on pretty routinely.

Terrorism is much less of a danger than driving your car, yet we are terrified of it and not afraid of out cars.

There are many more drunk drivers out there than terrorists.  I'm not seeing any executive orders about that.

You are also more likely to be a victim of a mass shooting by a crazy person than the victim of a terrorist, but we want to make sure the crazies can own guns.

People say to support the new president, but he needs to do something that is supportable.  Handcuffing 5 year olds isn't it.

Think the new show needs to make some changes if it wants ratings to improve, maybe add a few likeable supporting Latinos.  Include a few women in group pictures too, I would support that.

What does it mean that a women should dress like a women anyways?  Think that dress code could be improved.

Religious Discrimination

For much of history and continuing today the state and Church have been closely connected. 

Most ancient kingdoms and empires treated their ruler as a God or high priest who supported and received support from the religion of the state.

It was rarer for the two to be separated as they are in this country, although even here there were abundant references to God in our founding documents.

As a country that was formed out of colonies, some of which were the homes of religious dissidents, it was agreed that there would be no establishment of a State religion or prohibitions on religion.

Of course the founders were predominantly Christians but they did prescribe Christianity any special place.

There are many people in this country who want to ignore that and restore our Christian values, if in fact they are gone.

The problem with that, besides insisting everyone follow Christian values, is that there isn't agreement on what they are.

Some things considered sinful by one sect is considered fine by another. 

Of course when you consider other religions the whole thing really falls apart.

Now to allow a person dealing with the public to discriminate because a patron doesn't share their sense of morality is a slippery slope indeed.

First what business is that of theirs?

The idea that one person finds another person's legal actions so distasteful that they won't sell to them or provide a commercial service to them is actually not very Christian at all.

I think that if the Government allows such behavior, real Christians and everyone else should stop patronizing such a hateful place.

Love thy neighbor is a very Christian value.

Solving Problems

In order to solve a problem you first have to have a problem.

This may seem pretty obvious, but there is a lot of time wasted trying to solve things which aren't actually problems.

Take voter fraud.

There is no real evidence that it is a problem.

In fact the studies all show pretty conclusively that it isn't.  There is evidence that some registrations are incorrect which are easily explained by three things, people die, they move and ID theft.

However dead people, people registered in multiple states and people who are stealing identities are not voting.  It is simply the fact that this is done by states and we don't have a simple way to update deaths and people moving.

Its popular because it allows certain laws that suppress certain legal voters.

Another non-problem is the erosion of white privilege.  First, there is no actual right to white privilege and second its not being eroded because other people are gaining rights.

You see people using other phony issue, such as having to select English as your language when you call a help center.  How is that a problem?  It helps some people get help.

Other phony problems include thing like disrespect o the flag or not saying the pledge of allegiance in schools or even the fact that the newest generation is not doing what they should (a very ancient complaint (btw).  These are not real problems.

Real problems do exist but they can't be solved if not understood.

Poverty in the world is a problem.  Violence in the streets is a problem.  Failure to provide our citizens good health care or education is a problem.  The number of people we incarcerate is a problem.

There are of course more problems that need to understood and solved.  Time spent chasing illusionary ones helps no one.

A More Dangerous World

In all honesty the possibility that the United States and Russia would square off in a war is fairly remote.  I think enough people on both sides realize who destructive such a war would be likely ending in nuclear disaster.

What we saw in the Bush years, aggressive misguided notions of what we can get other people to do leading to deadly regional conflicts that get Americans killed, encourage terrorism, and make the world a more dangerous place.

It seems like the middle east is still the most dangerous area as a naive belief that Jihadists can be defeated by strong arm tactics seems prevalent at the White House again.

This was the mistake that the Bush administration made when it believed that we could impose Western thoughts on Muslim Countries.

It led to bloody wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and recruited thousands of recruits to terrorists organizations.

Now this wasn't solved under the Obama administration, but it didn't get worse.  We saw dictatorships fall in many countries and while ISIS was able to surge it is now being defeated on the ground by Arab troops, not Americans.

We do provide support, mostly air attacks and some on the ground support, but the "skin" in the game is a lot less.

Now, the idea that sending in American troops to quickly put an end to ISIS is misguided since the root issues will still exist and an American presence will surely spur resentment anger and recruitment for terrorists organizations.

The idea that we can effectively colonize a country and take their oil, while militarily possible would lead to nothing but greater danger here as anger would boil over.

The more we provide the terrorists with recruitment materials the more dangerous the world becomes. 

It is also important to note that Americans have no special rights when it comes to being a citizen of the world.  We also face the danger of being arrogant and stupid in a world where every person is equal.

There is a long history of colonial powers trying to dominate the world, it ultimately fails on every level. 

Lets not repeat it.