The Death Sentence

Let me tell you a story.

Johnny plots the murder of his girlfriend after he finds out she’s cheating on him and carries it out with perfect success. He gets caught, convicted, and sent to prison for life with parole available in five years. While in prison he gets beaten and raped on a regular basis by the other inmates, and eventually joins a gang for protection. This gang teaches Johnny better ways to kill and how to avoid getting caught. He puts his training into practice by getting away with murdering two of the men who raped and beat him.

Johnny gets paroled after nine years in prison. His experience has made him bitter against the system that sent him to such a hellish place when he was totally justified in killing that cheating whore. His prison contacts have hooked him up with a drug kingpin who needs enforcers. Johnny readily accepts the job and begins to make his living beating drug addicts, threatening witnesses, and even killing the occasional threat to his boss or person who cheated his boss.

One day the police raid a drug warehouse Johnny is assigned to protect. A gunfight ensues between Johnny’s men and the police. Most of Johnny’s men die, and five policemen are killed, two of them by Johnny himself.

Johnny is convicted of drug charges and two counts of murdering a police officer. He is sentenced to life in prison without parole.

Johnny gets to prison where he is immediately placed in a powerful position within a gang controlled by his drug lord. His job becomes to manage the drug trafficking within the prison, and to recruit new people into the gang to be prepared for gainful employment in his drug lord’s cartel when they are released.

Okay, this obviously isn’t the path that every convicted killer follows. The problem is that many of them follow similar paths. That’s how we get “repeat offenders”. So how do we prevent such scenarios in our home?

I have already spoken about corporal punishment in another essay, now I want to talk about capital punishment.

The death penalty is a legitimate and necessary punishment for the worst criminal offenders. I am speaking about murderers, rapists, and child molesters, but drug traffickers are a more controversial group that I feel need to die as badly as a child molester.

These people are monsters who are simply unfit for integration into any sane society. This is why so many of them never get out of prison. But prison just breeds better crooks, especially with people like these in there to recruit and train less violent criminals. Do we really want to pay tens of thousands of dollars every year to let these people spend up to eighty years hurting prisoners and making better criminals? That’s just how I want my paycheck spent. “I’ll have one rapist with attempted on the side please, hold the justice.”

We know these people can never be safely put back into society, so why do we suffer them to live? Killing them not only guarantees they will never kill or rape anyone again, it also frees up a lot of space in our prisons for people who just might be able to be rehabilitated if given the right opportunities. It’s better for honest folks and criminals alike. Not only that, but it will eliminate this little line “I killed five men and two women. It was easy, just two shots to the back of the head. Pop! Pop! The time was easy, now I run this gang.” from the streets of America. These people will not be released. They will be dead.

The guarantee of death upon a murder, rape, child or child molestation conviction will reduce the number of such crimes two ways. First, no one will get the chance to do it again when convicted. Second, some people who might have done one of these awful crimes will be deterred from them. Fear of death is a powerful tool.

What about the falsely convicted? No problem! With genetic evidence and other modern forensic evidence we can usually establish who killed or raped someone with almost no margin of error. It’s foolish to think that no innocent person will ever be convicted, but I for one can’t help but think that more innocent lives will be saved by killing people convicted of these crimes than are saved by simply imprisoning them

That’s what this is all about really, saving innocent lives from the predators who would seek to end them. Murder is simple, the life ends utterly. Rape is far more complex, but the innocent life ends just the same.

I have had the misfortune of knowing several women who were raped as adults or as children. A few of them I even knew before they were raped, and I can tell you that their lives ended that day. They lost all self respect, many of them, thinking they deserved it quit protecting their bodies entirely and became the most promiscuous people I ever met, and suffered the physical consequences. Others lost all drive and will to succeed in life and wound up homeless on the streets without an education, an opportunity, or any hope at all. Others became drug addicts, and some of them may have died of it by now. All of them lost their ability to have rewarding, healthy relationships with men, sentencing them to a life of emotional solitude and mistrust. I can think of noting sadder than watching a vibrant life full of promise ended by a rape, and being unable to stop the downward spiral as it happens right in front of you.

Yes, rapists are murderers, but of a far worse kind than regular murder. A rapist sentences his victims to a living death, literally hell on Earth. Therefore, rapists must die like any other murderer.

I know that the death penalty sounds harsh. And I would be heartless to claim it’s about justice. Justice is getting what we deserve, and thankfully very few of us get that. It’s about mercy. Mercy for society as a whole, but more importantly, mercy for the victims, and mercy for the victims who would have been had these monsters not been killed.

My First Campaign

I am currently testing out the waters, politically, by working on my first political campaign, well actually, it's someone else's campaign. I just work and learn.

Be aware that due to my lingering status as a US soldier I must remain in only a limited role on any political campaign so as not to violate current military law. The fact that I can do anything at all is something I actually have to thank Bill Clinton for since it was him who made the change allowing military personnel to do any political work at all. I am working 100% within the current legal restrictions.

My volunteer work is for a man by the name of Jack Frost (yes that's his real name, laugh it up) who is running for Mayor of Anchorage. He is a Republican with a sharp, independent mind, and sound conservative principles. He has 30 years of community involvement, and is a local conservative radio commentator and advertiser. So he seems like the best man for me to back this election.

As my regular readers know, I have political aspirations, and a man has to start somewhere. This is where I am learning about political campaigns and expanding my knowledge about issues that matter to Alaskans.

It's a bit of a crash course though since the Gubbernatorial campaign starts very soon. I need to find out if it's feasable to run this year at all.

Frank Murkowski, our current corrupt governor has not announced whether or not he will run for reelection this year. There are 3 people vying for the Republican nomination, all of whom have vowed to back out if Frank Murkowski decides to run. People like Frank Murkowski do not give up power willingly. He will run for reelection. I want to challenge him. I will not back down and just hand him the nomination so he can lose in general election to the spendthrift frontrunner the Democrats are putting forth.

So my involvement, in what limited capacity it can be, has started. I am learning much and making a few connections. It seems like a good start.

America’s Taking Over the World?

While I lived in South Korea I made friends with many English speaking Koreans. I spoke to them a great deal about Korean society, history, and views and attitudes. One thing that was of particular interest to me was how they perceived America and why. Here is what I was told.

Many Koreans viewed America as an overly powerful nation with an attitude problem. They were of the opinion that their country was just as great as the US, and that the US did not recognize it. In my opinion, Korea is actually greater than the US in some ways, and lesser than the US in other ways. I will not go into why I say that here because that is not the topic of this post.

What this is about was the way they said the US was taking over the world, and their justification for saying it. This will surprise most liberals, but it has nothing at all to do with our military.

They said the US was conquering the world through commerce.

They outlined for me how every country in the world relied on either American imports (like food in particular) or on American money through their own exports. In this way the entire world is heavily reliant on the US for it’s prosperity, making the US a nation that is resented because it is indispensable.

They spoke about how English is becoming the international language of trade and commerce. Any business that wants to do business on a global scale MUST have English speaking executives or interpreters. It doesn’t matter which country they do business with, if they have English capability they can communicate with any other global business, and many smaller local ones due to the necessity of knowing at least some rudimentary English in order to accommodate tourists.

The US is also exporting a portion of its culture through Hollywood. Our movies go everywhere in the world, and they bring with them Hollywood’s ideas of what the US should be. People worldwide watch this stuff and get the impression that that is how the US is, and more than a few people start emulating it. The same goes for our music, but to a lesser degree since local tastes in music vary more widely than the taste in movies seems to. Actually, there was a lot of truly excellent music in Korea from around the globe that I wish we got here in the US. A lot was much better than the repetitious fare we are being fed by the record companies today.

As they received an ever increasing amount of American influence, their valued traditions began to erode. For example, many Koreans in particular HATE the fact that some of their women are adopting American sexual attitudes. They want their women to be sexually pure before they marry them, and many men have an attitude of no woman who has sex before marriage is fit to marry. It is one reason why a Korean woman who has a relationship with an American man is almost relegated to the status of untouchable. It is assumed that the American man would not have stuck with her at all if he wasn’t having sex with her. There are stories of Korean women committing suicide after their American refused to marry her and left the country because she was counting on him to marry her because no Korean ever would after her relationship with him. And there are further stories of women being disowned by their families for getting involved with an American. All over sex.

So it would seem we are exporting Hollywood culture all around the world, much to the chagrin of many people in many nations who blame it for what they perceive as negative changes in their society. It seems they resent needing to learn English to do business because most Americans are “too proud” to learn the languages of our business partners around the world. And the world is uncomfortably dependent of doing business with the US just to survive.

So, in a way, I can see how many people might perceive the US as taking over the world through culture and commerce. And I definitely see why many Koreans, at least, resent the US for it.

My Vision for America

Due to popular demand I have decided to outline my vision of what America should be.

1. Our energy policy is sadly inadequate. I want an America that invests heavily in alternative energy and energy transmission technology so we can wean ourselves off of fossil fuels and, hopefully, into clean and renewable energy sources. That way we have enough clean, cheap energy to meet our needs.

2. America has the best and most accessible medical care in the world. The only problem is that it is also the most expensive. To bring the cost of medical care down without socializing it is a big challenge that must be looked into for a comprehensive solution. Two good starting points are medical practitioner shield laws that protect doctors from frivolous and expensive lawsuits, and regulating insurance costs involved in malpractice, unemployment, and worker’s compensation, all of which gouge medical practitioners, and the last two gouge every other employer in America. There is more to be done, much more actually, but the best way to make the right things happen will need the study and involvement of experts on the industry, which I am not. And I will never support socialized medicine.

3. American agriculture practices are becoming more environmentally friendly without sacrificing production. We should encourage and speed this process.

4. Crime needs to be better controlled. In previous posts I have outlined ideas and suggestions on what we could do to make crime as unattractive as possible without overburdening the prison system. It includes mandatory execution for all murderers, rapists, and terrorists. Criminalizing membership in a gang or Mafia. Corporal punishment for petty crime. Choking off the drug trade by executing all drug dealers and aggressively attacking foreign drug lords with military operations aimed at assassinating them and all of their support personnel they happen to have with them at the moment. Sentencing drug users to rehab rather than prison. And I am open to any other ideas that stand any chance of working to try to get the crime problem under control.

5. The best communities are close-knit ones where the people all take an interest in each other’s well-being. There is reduced crime, delinquency, teenage parenthood, drug use, divorce, and single parenthood in such communities across the economic spectrum. I want to see this become the way of life for all American communities.

6. I would more responsibility and less personal bias in the press. It won’t ever happen since it has become such an ideological industry, but I would like to see it.

7. There are situations where scientific education has been stifled by ideology. This is wrong regardless of the science or the ideology. Ideology has no place in science. Unfortunately, part of the problem is the grant system that basically pays people to find a predetermined outcome to a scientific question or problem. I have no idea how to fix this mess, but I would like to see it fixed.

8. We are steadily becoming more regulated as a nation. On this issue I tend to side with the Libertarians on a less is more philosophy. I love my freedom, and I would not see it restricted just because some special interest has an axe to grind. The prohibition of alcohol was a mistake caused by one such group. Nuisance laws are a modern trend where our freedoms are being restricted because some people happen to find certain behaviors annoying. On top of that, if you were to look at any locality’s lawbook you would find multiple laws covering the same behavior but under different titles and names. This is silly and unnecessary. I would see the legal streamlined.

9. Taxes. Cut ‘em and quit spending so damn much money.

10. Speaking of taxes, a simplified, more equitable tax code would be fantastic.

11. I want to see our education system overhauled. This means firing incompetent teachers even if they do have tenure, in fact, eliminating teacher tenure altogether would be a very good start. Graduation exams for students to pass from grade to grade are being implemented, and I approve. But what we teach and how we teach it needs to be changed too. There is a small school district in New York (or was it Massachusetts?) that changed its entire curriculum to focus on racism in all aspects of education, and not just in history, but science, math, English, EVERYTHING! Civics has all but vanished. Classes on the Constitution are rare outside of the universities. Kids are graduating high school who cannot read or even do basic math! This is unacceptable.

12. I would see a more restrained court system where the judges quit inserting their personal views, ideas, and biases into the Constitution so they can justify any predetermined ruling they want to issue. The role of the courts is to enforce the rule of law, and ensure that laws that are passed do not directly violate the Constitution, the words of which are plain, but also has the full spirit and intent of it outlined in the Federalist Papers. Nowhere in any of these documents does it say that the responsibility of the courts is to protect the minority from the majority. Any serious study of the Constitution and the Federalists Papers, which were written by the same men who wrote the Constitution, will show that his idea is in direct opposition to the very concept of democracy.

13. Religious freedom is very dear to me. I value my freedom to worship my God as I see fit. I also value the freedom of others to worship their God as they see fit, as well as the freedom we have to not worship any God if we choose not to. What I do not approve of is people stripping away this freedom by perverting the Constitution. If there is a display of a religious nature on public land it should be left to the local voters to decide if it stays or goes. If they want it gone they can not only vote it away, they can also vote every representative involved in erecting the display right out of office. This is part of the freedom that democracy is intended to allow. Freedom of religion does NOT mandate stripping religion from sight and hiding it away in the dark corners of our country as some zealots are currently attempting to do.

14. I do not approve of providing free money, power, food, and medicine to countries who have declared themselves to be our sworn enemies either by official decree or by repeated malicious misdeeds. This appeasement has been tried and has been one continuous failure. I say we cut those countries off and use the savings to build up America or cut taxes.

15. Boot the UN out of America. I’m not saying that we absolutely must leave the UN ourselves, although I would like to see that happen, but we really don’t need an organization that has demonstrated a general hostility to the US while bungling almost everything it is supposed to do for the good of the world AND sticking the US with an overabundance of foreign spies and misbehaving diplomats who abuse diplomatic immunity based out of the US. Let them build themselves a new headquarters in Europe or some other more welcoming country that is willing to put up with that mess. On top of that, I am not convinced that the UN is really a force good in this world. There are too many problems with things like having the worst human right abusers in the world on the human rights committee, and that is just one example of how ludicrous and ineffective the UN really is.

16. I am a very traditional guy. So when I see good traditions under attack by small special interests who just want to have their will imposed on an unwilling supermajority I get rather outraged. One example of this is the way the homosexual activist movement, a movement comprised of some 2% of the total population and only a bare majority of homosexuals, if that much, has been using the courts to bypass the will of what has been shown in recent elections of at least 60% of the general population even in the most liberal states regarding marriage. People just don’t give up or change good traditions just because a puny group of people, no matter how loud and annoying, want that tradition altered or eliminated. I only used the homosexual activists as an example because I have been blasting them on a rather regular basis on this blog, and it is a familiar subject as a result. I also take issue with groups of people who promote hatred of anyone, wish to eliminate hunting and fishing, ban guns, promote single parent lifestyles, support abortion on demand, ban the military, and a myriad of other very bad ideas. On top of that, if it aint broke I see no reason to fix it, if it’s a bit creaky though, I will be happy to oil it.

In short, want a clean, safe, secure, prosperous, free America that upholds tradition and the Constitution. Anyone got a problem with that?

The Environment

I can tell you honestly that the environment has a friend in me.

This isn’t to say that environmental activists have friend in me, because they just plain don’t. Not that I don’t believe that they want a good thing, because it is. Who in their right mind wouldn’t want a cleaner, healthier environment? I just disagree with they way they want to do it.

What most environmental activists don’t know is that they are being duped by people whose agenda really has nothing to do whatsoever with cleaning up the environment. Just listen to the rhetoric. BIG BUSINESS is cutting down our forests. BIG BUSINESS is destroying the rainforests. BIG BUSINESS is polluting our waterways. Big business this, big business that, it’s just not as true as most environmentalists believe.

Big businesses are doing very little to harm the rainforests. It’s small farmers and ranchers trying desperately to feed their families who are clear cutting it all. These people are hardly big businesses at all, just small enterprises and personal use farms. You could eradicate every big business in the world and it would have little to no effect on the rain forests.

Big business is cutting down our forests, and it isn’t. Yes certain forested areas are open to logging, and some of those areas do get clear cut. But clear cut does not mean stripped of all life. Even in a clear cut some trees are typically left behind to act as old growth and seed trees. Also, there is a practice called restore and replant that is mandatory in most logging zones, and voluntarily done in most of the logging zones where it’s not mandatory. Trees are a renewable resource, meaning you can generate at least as many as you use and in time it will be as though no trees were ever cut. Loggers realize that in order to have a business at all they must renew the resource they are using. So when trees are cut in the thousands, they planted in even greater numbers than they were cut. The damaged soil is also restored, and if erosion is your worry you can relax. It is illegal to clear cut within a certain distance of running waters. Admittedly there are some very irresponsible loggers out there. My own Grandfather has been selling the wood on his land to one such creep for years. He has violated the law by clear cutting clean up to the river, and left the land I was later willed so rutted that it became a swamp. Men like that need to be run out of business. Fortunately, such men are few and far between.

Big business has the potential to put some seriously nasty stuff in our waters. Fortunately, thanks to existing laws, they generally don’t, and most of what they do put in is the result of an accident. Truthfully, the vast majority of water pollution in America is caused by ordinary folks going about our daily business of washing, cleaning, and eliminating waste. Human waste puts so much filth in the water that treatment facilities go to extremes to kill off the bacteria, and remove the sludge from the water. But the sludge can’t be all bad. Farmers buy it and use it as fertilizer, and sewage sludge is supposed to be just about the best fertilizer around. Apparently it’s loaded with trace elements that plants need to be their healthiest, real healthy stuff like copper, molybdenum, and barium. Toxic to most life in excess, but essential to health in trace amounts.

Sewage treatment’s most important function is removing the excess nutrients from the waste water to prevent nutrient loading in the ecosystem and causing damaging algal blooms. Unfortunately, runoff from farms puts a lot of fertilizer into the waterways, and can cause damaging algal blooms. Organic farms appear to cause far less of this than chemical farms. Understand though, that it would be silly to try to force all farms to go organic. There is a strong movement among the farmers already to engage in conservation farming, which includes many organic techniques that prevent soil erosion and therefore water pollution. On top of that, our farmers are the backbone of America. Without them we will fall, as will many other countries worldwide. America feeds the world.

So, I think I have established that big business is not the primary enemy to the environment. By far the worst damage I see is done by private parties. Irresponsible individuals who fail to realize the impact of the individual on the environment. Litterbugs, wasters of water, people who let their cars warm up for half hour every morning in the winter, and people who keep their houses heated and cooled to extremes. Don’t believe me? Go to the aftermath of an environmental rally. The tremendous volume of pollution (litter) left behind will blow your mind.

My Proposal for a Litigation Law

1. Any lawsuit challenging a law passed in legislature must be challenged on Constitutional grounds by the specific section of the Constitution is allegedly violates. Before the court may hear the case it must be decided that said portion of the Constitution directly affects the law that is challenged. Only the letter of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights may be used as qualifying criteria.


This law should stifle frivolous and expensive lawsuits challenging laws restricting behavior that has no specific protection as named under the Constitution of the United States, and any state Constitution as well.
This law would be a stealth killer of any litigation seeking to legalize such behaviors as unlimited abortion on demand, gay marriage, pedophilia, and uncounted other people with plenty of money for a lawyer or team of lawyers who want to reshape America in the image of Sodom and Gomorrah, or ancient Rome. It would also squash every “separation of church and state” argument since this phrasing appears nowhere at all in our founding documents.

Cool huh?

Club Gitmo Oh So Special

In this environment of people seeking to forcibly rip all religion out of all government entities there is one shining beacon of . . . bigotry.

In Guantanamo Bay Cuba, the place where numerous terrorists are currently being held in detainment, the government is going to great lengths to accommodate Islam. At taxpayer expense these vile swine are each given their own personal copies of the Koran, prayer rugs, beads, and clothing that fits in with Islamic law. On the surface this is nothing more than the humane, respectful treatment these people don’t deserve, but are being given anyway.

Under the surface is a different story entirely.

In US prisons inmates are not given religious articles at taxpayer expense. Christians are not given individual government issue Bibles and Crucifixes, and Jews do not get individual government issue Torahs, Talmuds, and prayer caps.

In Schools Teachers are being prevented from displaying anything that demonstrates Christianity, like wearing cross pendants, but Muslim religious symbol go unbothered. There are numerous cases where the Bible has been removed from school libraries, but the Koran was left alone. We cannot teach Christianity, but schools are allowed to have their students role play as Muslims. All of this is done under the watchful eye of the ACLU and Americans United for the Separation of Church and State.

This bespeaks of a specific anti-Christian bias among the “anti-establishment crowd” that is actually quite disturbing. It would not be so disturbing if all religions were treated equally, and with equal attempts at suppression. However, for some reason Christianity is being specifically targeted for the most virulent acts of hatred and suppression.

In my debates with Atheists the common reason given for this is that Christianity is the most common Religion in America, and, as such, deserves the most attention. Okay, but Islam is getting no attention at all that I know of, and it is Muslims, not Christians who are busy murdering people in the name of God. Based on this alone it would seem that Atheists, many of whom claim that religion is itself an evil thing, would be especially attentive to the open government promotion of the single most violent religion in the world today. They are not.

So, if wiping out the “evil” of religion is such a motivator, why is the one religion that is doing the most evil in the world being catered to this way?

I cannot answer this question. It makes no sense and holds no logic that this should be so.

I say we treat Islam just like every other religion. Ban it from the classroom. Force Muslim prisoners to get their religious accoutrements from private donors or purchase them on their own. Provide one or two copies of the Koran in the prison library, and none in school libraries. Assault Ramadan and its symbols the way Christmas is assaulted. Be equal. Don’t cater to terrorists and islamofascists.

Perhaps Atheists are afraid of Muslims. They have seen the way those who oppose Islam are murdered without regard worldwide and are afraid. Perhaps they target Christianity more out of cowardice, knowing they are safe from both persecution and murder by doing so while ignoring Islam.

This speaks worlds of the love, patience, and tolerance of Christians, and also of the violence and hatred of Muslims.

Bill Cosby

This article is an essay I wrote back during the Bill Cosby uproar, prior to this blog's creation. I post it for you today for your enjoyment.

I turned my television to C-Span today and finally got to witness an event that made the news. Bill Cosby and Jesse Jackson were addressing the audience at a Rainbow/Push conference about education and parenting. It is important to note that this was a repeat of a conference that had been held before all the news and controversy surrounded it.

I listened intently to what was, knowing that there was outrage in some circles at the remarks that were made, and I noticed something remarkable. Bill Cosby was saying the exact same things I have been saying for years, only he was speaking specifically to and about the black community, while I have been spouting off about America in general. He did not sugarcoat the facts, and they were disturbing. Illiteracy and dropout rates among the black community going as high as 67% in some cities. 60% of all black men in prison being illiterate. 70% of all black teenage pregnancies being from illiterate young women. These numbers are alarming, and they are disgusting.

How can we as a people let any group of Americans suffer such neglect? It’s an outrage!

There is a problem, and Bill Cosby hit it dead on when he said that the problem begins at home. Education begins at home. Values begin at home. Behavior begins at home. Parenting is a massive responsibility, and it must be undertaken with the understanding that you, as a parent have the ability to enhance or destroy the life of that young person in your house by what you say, do, and allow in the home. Bill Cosby was talking about the black community, and God bless him for it, but this principle is true for every family in the world!

Given the truth of his statements I have a hard time understanding why so many of the very people he is trying to educate and assist are up in arms about it. What’s more I don’t understand why he is the only one under such an attack when the Reverend Jesse Jackson was sitting right next to him agreeing with every single statement he made. Maybe it’s because Bill Cosby’s plain spoken manner is easier to understand than Jesse Jackson’s more serpentine and poetic manner of speech.

Outrage doesn’t change the truth, even if it’s a hard truth to bear. The truth is that parents need to be aware of how what they say and do affects their children, and how what they don’t say and do affects their children. Color makes no difference here, this truth is universal. I blame the lessons of the “Me generation” for this deficit in our society. The selfishness and self absorption that a whole generation embraced and taught to their children is now coming to light in the neglect of our children’s social and moral upbringing.

I also had the opportunity to see one of the debates sparked by the statements or Mr. Cosby. It was the debate on parenting in Philadelphia. There were seven panelists, all black, all very distinguished, some of whom were very impressive, and others who were pathetic.

The ones who impressed me were Jordan Harris, student and president of Youth Action. Carlton Payne, the first black prison psychologist in Pennsylvania. Christopher Sample, lawyer. And, Cheryl Ann Wadrington, I forget her occupation. The thing that impressed me about all of these people was that while some had their differences with the Statements of Bill Cosby, they all acknowledged the validity of hiss assertion that the black community needs to focus on education and good parenting. They talked about the need to understand what is driving these children to not succeed. They spoke of how children were not being given any sense of true identity, either individual or social. They talked about parental and community influence. They spoke in no uncertain terms, and they accepted responsibility for these problems.

The ones who I thought were pathetic on this matter were Toni Blackman, hip-hop ambassador, and sadly out of touch with reality. Unfortunately this is what I have come to expect of actors and musicians, wrapped up in their microcosm of art and unable to see the truth around them. Bilal Aayyum, founder of Men for a Better Philadelphia, who has been a part of doing good, and is a very capable and competent man, but also cam across as nothing than the stereotypical “angry black man” who has great passion, but is misdirected. Finally there was Lucile Ijoy, a family and marriage therapist whose clients I pity. Every comment she made was old ideas from the soft love period, all of which have been proven ineffective and false without the use of tough love to back them up, which she vehemently opposed. This woman and the ideas she teaches are part of the root of the problem the black community, and America as a whole are facing today.

Let me contrast the viewpoint represented by Mrs. Ijoy and those represented by Mr. Cosby. Mr. Cosby states that eight and nine year old children have no business having sex. That they are not mentally or emotionally ready for that intimate act. Mrs. Ijoy states that we just have to accept that children want sex earlier now than they once did and parents just need to understand that and support it. Bill Cosby states that a firm hand is needed to correct a child who is doing wrong. Mrs. Ijoy says that anything other than positive reinforcement hurts a child’s self esteem and will cause that child to be failure. I’m not going to bother contrasting Bill Cosby and Lucille Ijoy any further. I’ll just say that it’s no surprise people like her are outraged at Mr. Cosby’s statements . . . especially since those statements are true to the core and decimate Mrs. Ijoys small minded, failed way of thinking.

In short, having heard both sides of the issue and evaluating the arguments proposed each way, I am with Bill Cosby. I’m not one for letting Hollywood speak for me or influence me in any way, but it just so happens that Bill Cosby is right, and the sooner we all, not just the black community take what he has said to heart, the sooner America will become a better, more prosperous, more educated, more well-bahaved nation.

Crime and Punishment

The U.S. Constitution guarantees American citizens Protection from cruel and unusual punishment. The question then becomes “What is cruel and unusual punishment?”

The courts have increasingly ruled that physical punishment is cruel and unusual until now it is difficult to execute even the most deranged criminals like people who rape babies and mass murderers.

Don’t worry, this isn’t about capital punishment, it’s actually about corporal punishment.

Sending convicted criminals to a holding facility where they will be rehabilitated and retrained to become functional, contributing members of society is a wonderful idea, and it needed to be tried. We would have been remiss in our duties as a conscientious people not to. But the experiment has failed. All it has given us is a massive drain on the taxpayer and a facility where hardened criminals can become better criminals while getting stronger and more confident on the side. I don’t know about the rest of you, but the idea of a training ground for strong, confident, highly skilled felons is a frightening thought for me, and I fail to see how that rehabilitates people.

The prisoners become more hardened criminals in prison because they need to just to survive. A serial shoplifter is sent to prison for two years. He/she spends that entire time fighting some of the meanest, most violent people in America just to survive. After two years this shoplifter graduates from prison and becomes a mugger. Eventually a mugging goes bad and someone gets hurt, maybe even killed. All this at a cost of over $35,000 per criminal per year. Boy is that ever money well spent! NOT!

See the problem lies in the fact that prisons themselves are cruel. We take people with problems and put them in a place where they get victimized on a daily basis. How can this possibly happen you ask? How can it not? If you send a few thousand people to a special colony just for deranged and dangerous people it won’t take long for even the kindest and gentlest of souls to become deranged and dangerous. Sure there a few success stories, but these are fewer than the failures.

So what alternatives do we have? Corporal punishment of course!

I’m not talking about torture, or keelhauling, or crazy punishments like that. Such things are just sick and are rightly condemned by all people of good conscience. However, giving a thief twenty lashes with a bullwhip, or whacking the feet of a vandal ten or twelve times with hollow piece of bamboo is hardly torture, and many people convicted of such crimes would actually prefer this to being sent to prison.

But let’s have the punishment fit the crime. Kill murderers, castrate or kill rapists, seize a thief’s property, beat a wife beater, and so on. Not only are these punishments cheaper than long prison terms, they are quicker, easy to carry out, and have a long history of deterring people from performing such crimes. At the very least these people won’t become a tax burden for a few years then get out and become a worse menace to society than ever before, only to go back to prison and become a tax burden again.

I hope I have established that corporal punishment is no more cruel than prison is. I hope also that it is obvious that the cost of corporal punishment is far lower than prison as well. The question to deal with then is “Is corporal punishment unusual?”

Let’s define unusual as something that is rare, unheard of even on a global scale and throughout history. First, history reads like one long execution list when it comes to violent criminals, and like a heck of a beating for lesser criminals. Even prison was usually a death sentence by starvation and disease. Therefore, in a historical sense, corporal punishment is not unusual in the least, even in America. The modern world then becomes the next standard to look to for what is unusual. Okay, so many European countries and the US don’t use corporal or capitol punishment. Pretty much the rest of the world does though, with a few exceptions here and there. By that standard corporal punishment is quite normal even in today’s world. Therefore, corporal punishment is not unusual in the least.

So if corporal punishment is not really cruel and unusual why don’t we use it? Mostly because the courts are still convinced that prisons are actually more humane and productive than corporal punishment. Nothing could be further from the truth.

I propose an experiment. Let’s give convicted criminals a choice at sentencing. They can either take a severe form of corporal punishment, lashing, caning, and the like, or the normal prison sentence for their crimes. Those who choose prison will have the option of taking the full corporal punishment in exchange for an immediate release. Rapists and murderers just need to be executed. Let’s see what the criminals choose, and let’s see if crime goes up, down, or stays the same. Then let’s look at the costs involved and see if it doesn’t save the taxpayers their valuable money. If criminals are choosing the corporal punishments, crime doesn’t go up, and costs do go down, then we can eliminate prison and jail sentences for many crimes in America and replace them with various forms of beatings, fines, and community service. Some crimes are so severe that they may require several beatings with time to heal in between in combination with fines and service. Let’s let the criminals decide. They are the ones who get the punishments after all.

What’s Your Sign?

News flash! Your horoscope may be horribly, fatally flawed! Your sign may not be your sign at all!

Astrology is like the mad mother of a wise daughter (astronomy). It is taking a perfectly good science and assigning a silly metaphysical pseudoscience to muck it up and convince people that we are one with the cosmos. You might think that astrologers, who claim to be wise to the mysteries of the universe, would know their stuff pretty well and keep on top of their field. They aren’t.

We are all familiar with the first 12 signs of the Zodiac. What very few people know is that there is a 13th sign that joined the mix hundreds of years ago, and the Zodiac has yet to be updated.

The zodiac is determined by what constellation rises along the ecliptic, the path of the sun through the sky, on a given date. The first incarnation of the Zodiac, around 500 BC if I’m not mistaken, contained only four signs. As time went on more signs were added as people paid closer attention to what constellations rose along the ecliptic and when until we got the 12 familiar signs of the Zodiac. Then it all just stopped.

In all likelihood astrologers stopped updating the Zodiac at 12 signs because it conveniently coincides with the twelve months of the year. However, doing so has done them a great disservice since they are now almost hopelessly out of date and nearly every sign is wrong either because it is new, or it no longer rises along the ecliptic when it once did.

The following is the Zodiac as it now stands.

Astronomical Constellations of the Ecliptic Constellation Dates

Sagittarius Dec 18 Jan 18, 32 days on the ecliptic.

Capricorn Jan 19 Feb 15, 28 days on the ecliptic.

Aquarius Feb 16 Mar 11, 24 days on the ecliptic.

Pisces Mar 12 Apr 18, 38 days on the ecliptic

Aries Apr 19 May 13, 25 days on the ecliptic

Taurus May 14 Jun 19, 37 days on the ecliptic

Gemini Jun 20 Jul 20, 31 days on the ecliptic

Cancer Jul 21 Aug 9, 20 days on the ecliptic

Leo Aug 10 Sep 15, 37 days on the ecliptic

Virgo Sep 16 Oct 30, 45 days on the ecliptic

Libra Oct 31 Nov 22, 23 days on the ecliptic

Scorpio Nov 23 Nov 29, 7 days on the ecliptic

Ophiuchus Nov 30 Dec 17, 18 days on the ecliptic

As you can see this bears little resemblance to the Zodiac that your horoscope is based off of.

This is absolute proof that astrologers are either deluded, or con-artists. How can they read the stars when their primary tool (the Zodiac) is fatally flawed due to their own refusal to keep it current? It is ASTRONOMERS who have revealed this flaw in the Zodiac, you know, real scientists.

In all fairness, astronomy would not be what it is today without astrology. It was astrology that motivated people to study the cosmos from the earliest days, until sometime in the last 200 years when astronomy became a science for the sake of science rather than for aiding in fortune telling and portents. Had people never believed we could learn the future by studying the stars it is likely that much of the knowledge we take for granted today would be undiscovered. It is probable that we would still believe that the Earth is at the physical center of the universe and that the sun travels around it rather than the other way around. We might not know about galaxies or the composition of stars. There is much that would remain a mystery to us if astrology had not motivated people to delve into the scientific working of the universe.

So, back to the original question; what’s your sign? Mine is Ophiuchus (December 16th). For those of you who are unfamiliar with this constellation, according to Greek myth, Ophiuchus was the first doctor. He learned medicine from snakes and was so good he could even raise the dead. His practice of bringing the dead back to life angered Hades, the god of the underworld because he was robbing him of souls. So the gods killed him and took the secret of raising the dead away from mankind. The staff of Ophiuchus, a winged staff with two snakes wrapped around it is the symbol for medicine to this day.

Humane Treatment, Muslim Style

It is commonly pointed out that Islam teaches that any atrocity is fine as long as it is perpetrated on “infidels”, that is, non-Muslims. What we rarely see is true to life examples of this in action. Therefore, for you enlightenment, I have a true story from Syria as told by a Syrian friend of my Wife.

This friend comes from a Christian family, and Christians are a small minority in Syria who are regularly persecuted and treated like tenth-class citizens. Among the various stories of church bombings, random beatings and rapes of Christians by Muslims that the government not only refuses to do anything about, but is often involved in the abuse and persecution, I have this story to tell.

Military service is compulsory for men in Syria, as it is in many countries. Every man must serve at least one term in the service. While this is no more brutal or inconvenient for the Muslims than it is in most countries, there is a special kind of hardship that Christians must endure.

Christians spend their entire time in the service getting abused by their fellow soldiers, with the tacit approval of their commanding officers and NCO’s. This results in many beatings, as well as various forms of torture performed on Christians. All the while the Muslim tormentors tell the Christians that if they reject Jesus Christ and convert to Islam the beatings and torture will end. To be honest, it really does end if a Christian succumbs to the torment and converts.

However, many Christians value our God far more than our own lives and comfort, so many do not convert, and the torture and beatings continue unabated, sometime resulting death, disfigurement, or just mental and emotional scarring from having lived through Hell on Earth.

One such disfigurement happened to this friend’s uncle.

His Muslim squadmates castrated him for refusing to convert to Islam.

It shocked me when I first heard this. Castration is supposedly against the teachings of the Koran, but, do remember, every evil imaginable is sanctified to Muslims as long as it is perpetrated against non-Muslims. Before anyone tries to make some lame excuse about this being a natural result of the war in Iraq I want to point something out: This happened over 15 years ago, and has been happening for centuries, and continues to this day. It is NOT related to US activity in the region in any way.

It is for this reason that Christian families in Syria scrimp, save, and make great sacrifices to send their sons to America. They want their boys to live, and to do so whole and unharmed.

Naturally, our liberal media has NEVER bothered to report on the human rights atrocities committed against non-Muslims in Muslim countries. It might actually erode US support for Muslims and boost sympathy for Christians and Jews worldwide if they did such a thing, and they just can’t have that; now can they?

Gotta Love That Islam

Islam is rearing its ugly, violent head once again. This time it is in response to some Danish cartoons that are a satire of the violent self martyrdom common to Islam.

Considering how sympathetic liberals are to Islam, and how opposed many liberals are to Christianity, and how opposed the rest of the liberals are to conservative Christianity, I thought I would draw a few comparisons.

1: When people insult Mohammad, legions of Muslims rise up to riot, pillage, and murder.

When People insult Jesus, Christians generally take it in stride, partly because Jesus preached a great deal about love and peace, and partly because Jesus warned us that the world would hate Him, and hate us for following Him.

2: We are now in the 15th century of Muslim Jihad.

The Crusades ended over 600 years ago, and were initiated as a response to the Muslim Jihad in the first place.

3: When Muslims want to enact political change violence tends to follow.

When Christians want to enact political change we speak out peacefully and vote.

4: Mohammad preached a convert or die message.

Jesus preached a love thy neighbors and thy enemies message.

5: Islam oppresses women.

Women are free in Christian nations.

6: The only government-sponsored sexual slavery of women and young girls is in the world is in Muslim nations.

Christians are currently fighting to end the aforementioned slavery.

7: Osama Bin-Laden kills people in the name of his God.

Jerry Falwell, Billy Graham, and the rest of US Christian leadership has not killed anyone, and only 1 time has it been suggested that it would be in our nation’s (not our religion’s) best interests to kill anyone.

8: Muslims generally support terrorists and terrorism.

Christians generally oppose the KKK, Skinheads, Neo-Nazis, and every other hate group in existence, as well opposing terrorists.

9: There is no free speech in any Muslim country in the world today, or historically.

America is 80-90% Christian. We have, and universally value free speech.

I could go on for days about the stark contrasts between Christianity and Islam, but I will stop here.

Considering the actions of these two religions, it is incomprehensible that Liberals, who spend so much time talking about peace, equality, and freedom of speech would be so friendly to Islam while bashing Christianity at the same time.

It seems to me that liberals assault Christianity because we value ALL human life, including the unborn and the disabled whom many liberals would just as soon kill (abortion and euthanasia), and stand by traditional Biblical morals that they want done away with in favor of a humanistic, liberalized society.

What I don’t get is why so many liberals love Islam when Islam is the antithesis to everything liberals say they stand for. Islam has no respect for life. Islam has no respect for human rights. Islam does not allow free speech, and even calls for the death of any who “insult the Prophet”. Islam abuses the death penalty to a frightening extreme. Islam engages in a great deal of inhumane behavior. Liberals want free love and open sexuality, but Islam calls for the death of all women (not men) who have sex outside of marriage (it’s always the woman’s fault, even if she was raped according to Islam).

So why do so many Liberals love Islam? It can’t be because it is aligned with their stated values. It should be impossible to be a liberal and be sympathetic to Islam, and yet it is the conservatives who are the ones standing against this violent and oppressive religion.

Want more? In the last year there have been two major incidences of Muslim riots in Europe, where Muslims flow unchecked into the population. Name just one Christian riot in the US in the last 50, then 100, then 150, then 200 years. Can you even name one riot that was motivated purely by Christian outrage?

Open your eyes people. Christianity is not the enemy. Islam however . . .

Taking the Name

I remember the first woman I ever met who didn’t take her husband’s name upon marriage. I knew it happened, but I had never seen it before. Turns out she refused to take his name because he was an abusive piece of (expletive deleted) who I would have been happy to beat up for her. She said the only reason she married him was because she was afraid that if she left him he would kill her. For this I would have been more than happy to lie in wait for him with a shotgun so I could shoot him the instant he tried to harm her. This was a really good reason for her to keep her own name.

However, further life experience has shown me a few things.

With very rare exception, American women who refuse to take their husband’s name do so for the following reasons: 1- She expects to divorce him anyway. 2- She is more concerned with her unmarried identity than with generations of tradition. 3- She is a rabid, man-hating feminazi who actually got married for some incomprehensible reason. 4- She doesn’t like her husband’s last name for one reason or another. 5- She wears the pants in that household, and he will never be allowed to forget it.

Let’s address these reason one at a time, shall we?

1- If she expects to divorce him anyway then why on Earth would she marry the guy? This is a relative recent trend in America, no more than 25 years old, where people just seem to get married for the heck of it as a way to pass a few years before moving on to a new unmarried life, or into a life married to someone they would have preferred anyway. Maybe it’s just the way my mind works, but I will never be able to understand the idea of entering into a purposely temporary marriage.

2- Traditions have been challenged in America for a long time. Most remain dominant, some fade away. This is good when good traditions are kept, and even better when really bad traditions, like slavery and segregation, are removed entirely. But it’s also bad when good traditions, like prayer in public schools, are removed. To me the tradition of a woman taking her husband’s name when she gets married is one of love and respect. That means it should be kept.

3- What man would have such a woman anyway? What man would such a woman have in the first place?

4- There are some seriously funky last names out there and some unpronounceable ones as well. So while I understand the temptation for a woman to not take the name we are driven right back to the issue of love and respect.

5- Okay. If a man is such a submissive or weak character that he cannot be the leader of his household I can understand that there might be a certain lack of respect on the woman’s part that would motivate her to not take his name. (No I am not advocating male dominance, just the purpose of traditional roles in a family. I will blog about that some other time.)

There is one final reason that women don’t take their husband’s name that I have saved for just this moment. HE TAKES HER NAME!

I have only met one man who did such a thing, and it was purely because of his hatred for his birth name. He was born Michael Myers. That’s right, like the actor who played Austin Powers and the murderous psychopath from the Halloween movies. He had been made fun of so much for his name that he decided he would rather take his wife’s last name than have her take his.

This brings us to the final, male reason why some women don’t take their husband’s last name; he won’t let her.

In this situation is it usually the man who suffers from an utter lack of respect for his wife, and also a distinct lack of love for her. It is a symptom of an unhealthy relationship where he probably dominates his wife with an iron fist.

These guys suck.

Needless to say, I was very happy that my wife took my name when were married. We share a wonderful marriage that I greatly appreciate. She is a fantastic woman whom I deeply love. It makes me happy for us to be called “Mr. and Mrs. Levesque”.

Apology

I owe my readers an apology. I have made repeated references to a series on evolution, and it has not come. The reason is that some of my reference materials have been lost in my recent move and I am still looking for them. If I cannot find them soon I will have to buy them again.

Sorry for the delay. I had truly intended to have it started by now.

Judge Alito Confirmed!

Sam Alito has been confirmed to the Supreme Court of the United States, and I couldn’t be happier.

Allow me to list a few of the reasons why I am happy that this man is now on the Supreme Court.

1- Every religious freedom case where Sandra Day O’Connor was the deciding vote on the wrong side would have been a victory with Sam Alito sitting in her stead. We can expect much better decisions in this arena now.

2- Sandra Day O’Connor was the deciding vote on many cases where the right to life was supremely violated. We can expect this to change.

3- Sandra Day O’Connor was the deciding vote on many cases where parental rights were horribly violated. We can expect this to change as well.

Now for a few reasons for Liberals to be happy with the Alito confirmation:

1- He is not the deciding vote to overturn Roe V. Wade. While I. and others like me wish he was, he just isn’t. Get us one more judge like him though . . .

2- He will be far more popular than Sandra Day O’Connor ever was. Sure she got a lot of praise by liberals when she announced her retirement, but that’s just because liberals prefer a swing vote to a reliable conservative vote. Prior to this she was generally disliked by both sides as being no more reliable than a coin flip. To be fair, had a liberal been President it would have been the conservatives her praises instead. At least with Justice Alito we know what’s coming for the most part.

3- You can rest assured that he will never vote to restrict any liberty that is genuinely discernable from reading the Constitution. Wait. That will probably piss you off if you are in favor of restricting religious rights, gun rights, and the right to life. It will also probably piss you off to know that your cherished imagined rights that have no Constitutional foundation are now at risk.

The liberals are also veritably fuming over the failed attempt to filibuster Justice Alito. How quaint and oddly satisfying.

Welcome Associate Justice Alito! We really need you right where you are.