Category: Politics

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As we move into Day FIVE of protests in the Middle East

At the risk of further inflaming the Middle East….

I found myself wondering “Who is Muhammad?”

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Yeah, like most Americans I think of his as someone roughly equivalent to Jesus. A Prophet, a teacher. I think of him as a holy man who was enlightened… after all, thats the image you have of the founder of a worldwide religion right?

I was curious about why the Islamic world apparently loses their minds at the slightest insult to Muhammad, They don’t seem to react nearly a violently if you directly insult God.

Since most information these days is available via a simple Google search I started poking around… There is a lot of information about Muhammad.

Most scholars today accept that the historical accounts from early arabic historians are mostly accurate. The earliest biography was written in 767. The original work has been lost. But was quoted verbatim at great length by a later author so we have a good sense of the original work.

The earliest non-arabic sources of information appear to be Byzantine. These records indicate that the Jews and Christians of the time thought he was a false prophet and Muhammad is portrayed in a bad light.

He lived a long life by the standards of the time. c. 570 – 632 He was born in or around Mecca was orphaned young and raised by his Uncle.

He’s reported later to have been a merchant, and an honorable one. 

In 610 he received the first of a series of revelations. Three years after the event he started preaching. In the beginning,  the message isn’t a bad one.

He preached a complete surrender to God and a monotheistic religion.

The people of Mecca weren’t impressed and he had few followers.

The Meccan tribes began persecuting he and his followers primarily because he was preaching against the polytheistic beliefs of the Meccan Tribes. They eventually forced Muhammad and his followers to Medina.

The people of Mecca seized all the lands and possessions of Muhammads followers effectively leaving them destitute.

I wonder how much of this was punitive and how much was simple practicality. Medina is 200 miles from Mecca and realistically if land or possessions were abandoned by people who’d moved 200 miles away at the time, you didn’t expect the owners to come back.

From this point on Muhammad appears to become a brigand, and warrior

It’s shortly after the move to Medina that his people start raiding Meccan caravans. They’re acquiring wealth and power from the raids.

This leads inevitably to armed conflict with the Meccan tribes. At some point Muhammad leads his followers in a raid on a caravan but the caravan takes a different route.

A large force from Mecca had been sent to protect the caravan. They learned that the Muslim raid had failed and decided to confront the Muslims. This is referred to as the Battle of Badr.

The short story is that the Muslims prevailed even being out numbered 3 to 1. This resulted in the capture and subsequent ransoming of some 70 Meccan prisoners. (Sounds Familiar!)

The Quranic verses of the time deal with practical issues of government and distribution of spoils. (Distribution of Spoils? this is sounding more like Ali Baba)

And here is where the story gets interesting. While the victory strengthens his people faith that he is a prophet. He also starts becoming less tolerant of anyone that hasn’t converted.

Pagans are killed, the tribe of the Banu Qaynuqa, one of the three main Jewish tribes are expelled from Medina (THEIR HOME) without their possessions to Syria. Muhammad wanted them killed because they spoke out against him. (I ask, you punished the whole tribe for the outspoken comments of what was probably a few?)

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Mecca began to send ambush parties to Medina and Muhammad led raiding parties on Meccan caravans.

Conflict continues to build between the Muslims at Medina and the Meccans until after many many battle and sieges Muhammad takes the city of Mecca.

After taking Mecca, the enemies the Muslims had made in their rise to power began massing against them.

Muhammads forces defeated the forces of Hawazin in the Battle of Hunayn. 

Then the Muslims went on to destroy or convert opposition in the remainder of Arabia, In the process uniting the land.

If you’re interested do your own search and read the history about this guy.

What I took away from the historical accounts is this.

1) Muhammad started out as a decent guy. He was a family man, a merchant, honorable, and “Average Joe”

2) At some point in his 40s he starts having visions. (At first he’s sure he’s cracking up and it’s only after a long time that he decides he’s not crazy.)

3) His visions are sometimes accompanied by seizures. (This makes me wonder if he had a brain injury, but there have been many other historical “Game Changing” people throughout history who shared these characteristics so I’m willing to be flexible.)

4) He appears to start using “Visions” to justify his actions, and the actions of his followers. Even though they’re doing things that are expressly forbidden by the earlier 10 commandments which Islam is supposed to believe in.

5) He’s sanctioning raiding caravans, (Stealing) then making war on and later outright murder of  people that don’t believe as he and his followers do.

6) Ransoming prisoners is OK in his way of doing things.

So you think OK… this guy isn’t such a good person.

But then you look at the last of his sermons to the people. And he’s back to preaching things like equality for everyone regardless of race, abolishing old blood feuds. He says to treat women well. 

Then he has a fever, pains in his head and he dies.

I’m left feeling that it makes little sense. It’s like there are two distinct people here.

Was the “Warrior, Brigand” created because he wanted to return home? Once he returned home did he cast off that persona?

It’s almost as if the religion is a perfect reflection of the schism in the personality of Muhammad.

On the one hand you have people that are truly about peace and light.

On the other hand you have people that are all about the warrior brigand.

Muhammad was profoundly against Polytheistic beliefs and serious about eliminating his enemies, including those who were disrespectful towards him or his followers.

So I guess in this context the rioting and violence makes sense.

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Again???!

The news out of Benghazi is that yet another American has lost his life to ISLAM!

Yes, I fucking said it. 

ISLAM

I don’t care how “Peaceful” the educated followers of Islam claim their religion is. The actual man in the street practitioners of this “Peaceful” religion are anything but seekers of God, Wisdom, Understanding, or Peace.

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These “average people” are a rabble… a mob… whose so called “Peaceful” beliefs are tossed to the wind for any perceived slight.

In this case a movie called “The Innocence of Muslims” that was perceived as (and frankly is), an overt insult to Islam.

There’s no way around it, the clips on YouTube are really bad, if you’re interested go take a look. This is however an expression of Freedom of speech no matter how bad the acting or the content.

Sadly this movie has been blamed for the burning of an Embassy, the murder of an Ambassador and 3 other staff members… Violence in Egypt, OH and by the way a declaration of war on the United States.

Yeah, In Old School terms… the murder of any countries Ambassador was considered a declaration of war against that country.

As it turns out, reports from other sources are saying that the protests and violence were days in the making and the movie angle is nothing more than an excuse to go do shit that true believers in God know better than to do.

So I assume this means a state of war exists between Libya and the United States. Regardless of our current diplomatic ties? It this why the current president of Libya is shitting himself trying to round up the perpetrators?

Or more properly does a state of war exist between Islam and the United States?

If that’s the case then I suppose it’s time to deport every single follower of Islam, or we could fire up Manzinar again, just interring the Islam folks until the end of hostilities. Or we could simply start killing the warriors of Islam wherever and whenever we find them. If that means firebombing entire cities and villages so be it. These people only seem to understand terrorism… Lets show them terrorism done right!

God! That’s not at all a nice picture is it? It’s sure as hell not something I’m comfortable with.

I should point out many of the followers of Islam would think this would be a great fucking idea if they could do it to the infidel Western Countries.

So what’s the alternative?

Sanctions? Don’t fucking work.

Condemnation? The mob doesn’t give a shit. These people blow themselves up to prove a point.

War? Wouldn’t work, also that option would probably end up in genocide and none of the civilized world wants that.

Education? Nope, the funds just get channeled into a madras that preaches radical Islam with a side order of terrorism against the West.

Aid? Nope, the money goes to a madras, and the food gets sent only to the males in the madrases or the army so that essentially we’re feeding our enemies and making them stronger to attack us.

How about this?

Terminate all relations, No aid, No Embassies, No Visas, No Students, No immigrants, No purchases, No Anything.

We currently don’t import that much Libyan oil (at least as of 2010). So while there’s no denying it would hurt us a bit… We could do without them.

We would be harder pressed to ween ourselves off the rest of our dependance on the Islamic Middle East.

Although, according to the US Energy Information Administration we’re only importing 14% of our crude oil from Saudi Arabia. Overall in 2011 we imported approximately 22% of our crude from the Persian Gulf.

Most of our oil comes from the Western Hemisphere. (52%) We do have the natty little problem of the 20% comes from Africa which is becoming more Islamic all the time. 

My point is that if we decided not to deal with Islamic nations and I mean any Islamic nations we would also demonstrate that we’re not interested in their politics or anything else, other than them and their religion leaving us the hell alone.

Granted the Chinese and EU will easily make up the difference in oil consumption so the financial impact of the US positioning itself to do without Middle Eastern oil would be negligible, but then it’s the Chinese and the EUs responsibility to stabilize the region NOT US.

Fighting Islam is a no-win proposition. The only choice that seems remotely viable is to remove ourselves from the equation.

Imagine the savings. No more military spending to stabilize some shit hole country that hates us anyway. No more food shipments, we turn that excess corn into methanol. No more money wasted educating the next generations of terrorists.

I’ve said this before. Personally I’d be a lot happier if our technology wasn’t being shared via higher education with every hostile foreign nations children. That’s a mistake we have historical precedence to avoid. (See Arminius, or the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest. )

It’s pretty accepted that Arminius was educated in Rome, become a Roman commander and citizen and then used his knowledge of Roman tactics against ROME. It’s a pity we so often refuse to learn from history.

In my opinion, educating the children of your enemies is planting seeds to your own destruction.

If we as a country plowed all that saved cash and resource back into our own educational system and really concentrated on our own people we could probably come up with a safe alternate energy technology in short order, so that we wouldn’t need crude oil for fuel. (I think we’ll likely be using oil for plastics and lubricants well into the foreseeable future.)

That would be the best way to win the battle. Render Islamic voices irrelevant by utterly destroying their economic hold on the world.

It’s time for us to stop trying to reason with Islamic nations. We shouldn’t be trying to bring them into the 21st century and we sure as hell shouldn’t be supporting them in any way. We should leave them all to their 15th century beliefs and leave them to live or die as they wish… 

…By the will of Allah.

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While I’m not meaning to defend the wealthy… I have to ask.

Lately, there have been tonFeng shui wealths of politicians and Über Liberals doing a lot of talking about the Wealthy.

I really don’t get it on a number of levels.

1) Why is it wrong to single out certain Other groups for special treatment or discussion but not the wealthy?

2) Why do politicians or the general populace think it’s OK to levy higher taxes on this small group?  (Sounds like discrimination to me. You’d never get away with it if instead of wealthy you said Muslims, or Mexicans. )

3) What happened to that concept of “Equally distributing the burden“? Why is it apparently OK to force the wealthy to pay more?

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Don’t get me wrong, the wealthy have done nothing to warrant my love or concern. Like most Americans I’ve suffered, and continue to suffer at their hands.

Here are some examples the Politicians and Occupy Whatever cite. You’ll get no argument from me about the abuses. Although most politicians avoid the H1B1 issue. Democratic politicians usually won’t comment on Offshoring but some Republicans and the Teaparty will.

Offshoring / Downsizing / H1B1 Abuses (It’s bullshit to import someone from India or offshore when you’ve got unemployed American workers with the same training and who speak, read, write the language well & who understand the culture. The ONLY difference between the H1B1 Visa worker / Offshore workers, and the American worker is that the H1B1 worker will work like a slave, kiss ass, suck cock, and generally do ANYTHING to bolster his bosses ego to stay in this country or keep their jobs. Including but not limited to implementing “Solutions” that are wrong on their face, just because they’re too scared of deportation or being fired to point out that the proposed “Solution” isn’t going to work. I can’t count how many millions I’ve personally seen wasted this way)

Oil prices (Lets be real here… The wind blowing from the West doesn’t justify a speculative panic that drives up crude prices.)

Banking abuses / Bad Mortgages / Housing implosion

Pension / 401k devaluation

However, as abusive of the system and people as the wealthy are, (THIS INCLUDES HOLLYWOOD ACTORS AND The KARDASHIANS), it’s still no reason to single them out for special taxation.

Let’s look at the pure math of the situation.

If I make $95,000 and I pay 20% in taxes then I pay $19,000

If a wealthy person makes $250,000 and pays 20% in taxes they pay $50,000 

SO obviously the wealthy are already paying more into the system.

Isn’t it unfair to say the wealthy have to pay 40%? Isn’t that just pure greed on the part of the politicians?

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I know that the poor would pitch a bitch fit if THEY were called upon to pay higher taxes. This would be especially true if someone constructed a case that went something like this.

The poor are more of a burden on the society. They require more government services, offices, and assistance. The poor also require a disproportionate level of emergency medical care per capita. Therefore the tax on all people below the poverty line will be 25% in an effort to cover their disproportionate burden on the society at large.

Of course you could make the same case for the elderly paying higher taxes too.

Can you even imagine? There’d be riots in the streets. The elderly from the old folks homes would be tossing molotov cocktails from their motorized chairs and golf carts.

“Harold… Harold… stop the cart! I just tossed my catheter bag at that Bentley! We’ve got to go back those things are $15 a piece.”

“Aww screw it Betty just hang the hose at the side of the cart, you can piss on Beverly Hills as we head back to the home! Now throw the burning bottle at the Kardashian house!”

We see the obvious wrongness of disproportionately taxing the poor or the elderly.

Why is it that we choose not to see that same unfairness in disproportionately taxing the wealthy? (I could however get behind a “SPECIAL” tax on the big mouths in the entertainment industry.)

There are those that would rightly point out, the wealthy often use all kinds of tricks to avoid paying their full measure of taxes.

While this is entirely true, I have to ask how many of us look for those same exact loopholes and deductions? The difference is the wealthy simply have better accountants and lawyers.

I’ve long wanted a simple flat tax. I think that would stop the wealthy, politicians, industry, & everyone else from playing games.

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Here’s my wish list for tax reform.

15% flat tax across the board right off the top for everyone! No exceptions!

No more IRS filing, No more April 15th, No more IRS at all.

I’ve thought that if we eliminated the IRS and stopped changing tax laws yearly the country could save a fortune in office supplies alone. We’d also save money because Congress wouldn’t be debating new tax codes and would get on with other business.

There would of course be corporations who might require additional assistance calculating their tax burden but I suspect that the Government Accounting Office could handle those audits.

If you’re unemployed, you get to raid your 401k or pension with NO penalties and tax free. Raiding your retirement is NEVER a good idea, but if it keeps you from becoming a burden or loosing your house you shouldn’t be penalized for doing it.

We should make sure that our Government felt the pinch of a poor economy just as keenly as the people.

Since the politicians salaries are funded from tax dollars, their salaries should be indexed to the GDP, Government Debt, and Stock Market.

As it is now, they get paid either way. Why not change their pay structure to give them some incentive?

Make it something like As the GDP and stock markets fall, and Debt increases the salaries for our politicians decline proportionately. Hopefully something like that would focus our politicians attention on actually tending to the country instead of grandstanding and not working together.

If you wrote the equation as simply as possible you could have the politicians seeing their salaries increase and decrease directly coupled to the financial heartbeat of the country.

It’s possible that the politicians could even see negative cash-flow, meaning that in addition to the FLAT tax they and everyone else pay, politicians could conceivably have to write a check and pay for the privilege of really crappy governance.

I bet, we’d see fewer dishonest politicians and more that were genuinely interested in the country doing well under this kind of pay schedule.

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I know that my wish list will never be fulfilled. I also realize that some of my ideas aren’t possible and are too simplistic.

I do think that every single one of us, rich, poor, or middle class realizes it’s time for some serious changes to the way our government collects and uses money.

I don’t think that setting a special tax rate for a specific group of people is the right or fair way to go.

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Again, the Sacramento politicians use “The Children” as Pawns

No on Prop 30 California 2012

Here we are again.

Proposition 30 in California is nothing  short of yet another tax hike designed to close a budget shortfall caused by the incredible mis-spending in Sacramento.

One of the talking points of this proposition is 

Preventing Deep School Cuts,

However, the very first line on their web site says “After Years of cuts, California’s Schools, Universities, and local public safety services are at the breaking point.”

So which is it?

Are they saying that they’ve been cutting from the schools to fund other programs for years and have depleted the funds and NOW they need to raise taxes to cover the shortfall that they created?

Is it just me or does this make no damn sense?

The Sacramento Politicians want to raise the sales tax and… wait for it… Impose more taxes on the rich.

You know the rich… those evil bastards!

The ones who have been taking money from the schools (not), the wealthy who’ve not been paying their share of taxes.

Those successful motherfuckers who’ve made all that money and who are making donations to charities or starting charities that support research or the arts, or the environment.

The bastards that are building new larger buildings for their filthy money making companies. So that they can employ yet MORE filthy workers and keep the construction businesses busy.

YEAH! Those rancid thundercunt FUCKS!!!

When you think about it that way… raising taxes on just the wealthy starts to seem a little stupid.

I’m not saying that all business people or wealthy people are saints… in fact a lot of them are cut throat bastards. BUT you really have to remember that without them we’re all pushing tacos at the local taco stand for 1.98 an hour.

I’ve said it before, the wealthy have the means to bail out.

They can leave this state and this country any time they want to.

What will Sacramento do if the wealthy leave California and take their businesses with them?

How long would it be before someone puts a proposition together to authorize a sign saying “Will the last educated person please shutdown San Onofre before you leave?”

And this isn’t even the worst of it…

The politicians are going to THE CHILDREN Again. Essentially, they’re attempting to hold every single child in the state hostage to force the people of California to vote to raise taxes instead of responsibly spending the money California currently receives in revenue.

If you’re interested… Head on over to CalTax.org. This is a watchdog organization that researches how California spends it’s tax payers money. On that site is an interesting report that details the waste between 2000 and 2010. This is very interesting reading. It’s doubtful that anything in California’s spending pattern has changed.

Instead of raising taxes and threatening the school system… Why doesn’t Sacramento clean up their spending before going back to the taxpayer?

The document is linked in PDF here.

201003_CalTaxResearchBulletin_Decade of Waste.pdf

After reading this… If you still think that these politicians really need more of our money you go right ahead and vote for Prop 30.

The rest of us will be voting no… 

After all how many times can Sacramento expect us to fall for those scare tactics? Especially when in the past we have fallen for it and found out well after the fact that the money allocated to the schools got cut anyway…

Tell Sacramento to KISS OUR COLLECTIVE ASS and vote a resounding NO to every single measure that seeks to raise taxes!

Force Sacramento to actually be responsible for their spending.

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Texas Voter ID Poo Pooed by the Supreme Court

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I’m not sure that I get this.

Texas, wants to reduce voter fraud so they reduce the valid forms of ID down to 5.

No longer can you bring a utility bill to prove you’re authorized to vote. It looks like Texas wanted the ID to be something with a photo. Something like a Drivers License, State Issued ID card, Passport, you know something that was state issued and verifiable.

Instead the Court found that requiring a tangible form of ID was too arduous and unfairly targeted certain segments of the population, in particular the poor who could not afford to obtain ID. What?????

$26 to obtain ID in California. Of course California has a reduced fee ID for $7. Are you fucking kidding me?

Why not make every ID cost $7 and then you wouldn’t be discriminating against the middle class? Oh RIGHT… The middle class gets to pay full pop for everything and they also get to pay via taxes for the reduced fee folks too.

Assuming that California is one of the most expensive states to get an ID then how the hell is it possible for “The Poor” in Texas to NOT be able to afford proper ID which everyone is supposed to produce upon request. 

I’m confused as hell. 

Why is it “Racist” or somehow economic discrimination to ask for a piece of identity documentation? Does this mean that I’m no longer required to carry ID? can I shred my passport? Can I call someone racist if they ask me for one of those documents?

How about this…

On those lovely little forms that new employers make you fill out where you have to produce 2 forms of ID or your passport to prove that you’re eligible to work in the US… can I now legitimately refuse to produce any of these forms of ID on the grounds that it’s clearly discriminatory? I somehow doubt it.

I thought that voting was a privilege reserved for citizens. If that’s still true then providing documentation about identity is  simply the price for admission to the voting place.  For goodness sake you have to show a ticket to get into a theater. Why is something as important as voting treated with less respect?

Moreover, why didn’t the Supreme Court see it this way?