The Tenth Amendment Elephant in the Room

The War on Drugs is no more successful than the War on Terror. Cocaine trafficking didn’t magically stop when the CIA/DEA Centra Spike Team assassinated Pablo Escobar. That was a termination of employment, not enforcement. Just like with any other management level termination or assassination, another person simply took his place. The well-established fact that your government has been in bed with the Cartels with evidence going back to the Reagan Administration is not up for debate, but does lend to the idea that the deck is stacked against you, whether you’re a drug user or not.

In 2010 the Federal Government budgeted $15 billion dollars for drug war enforcement. Here just three years later they are nearly doubling that amount with a 2013 budget of $26 billion to combat the ever growing menace, on which in 2009 it was estimated that Americans spend $64 billion on each year. The incongruity of the numbers alone means to me that the nation’s policy is not one of enforcement so much as it is a regulation of trade.

Currently the United States is spending about $500 every second on fighting the drug war. These costs are seen in specialized police and military deployed here and abroad. A penal and judicial system that sees’s nearly half of its cases being drug related. People, time, equipment, and money, spread across the states through enforcement and judicial systems adds up to more than $36.7 trillion drain on the economy so far this year alone, as of this writing.

Where this comes back to roost is when you consider that an estimate one of every 100 US adults is currently behind bars, although DoJ statistics suggest that number is starting to plateau or even fall. While this number is dropping, it does not change the fact that the Land of the Free has the highest incarceration rate in the world. While the plateau or drop could easily be attributed to prison overcrowding that has resulted in early intervention and release programs, the fact remains that one in 31 adults are currently under some form of court supervision where they enjoy as much as a 90% recidivism rate meaning that 90% of participants will be arrested again for the same or related charges. That’s not success. That’s your money.

Given that information, 52% of all drug arrests in the United States are marijuana related meaning 48% are parsed out between harder drugs like your government subsidized cocaine and heroin habits, healthcare subsidized abused medications, LSD, banana peels, whatever. In as much as the first two are exclusively manufactured abroad, marijuana accounts for 60% of imported narcotics while domestically cultivated cannabis accounts for as much as 80% of marijuana consumed in the US. The point of course being that the policy of attacking marijuana as a gateway drug is a fool’s errand as its popularity and availability lends to its potential growth as a used and abused substance that on its face has less of a negative impact than either tobacco or alcohol.

Using the numbers provided by the Office of National Drug Control Policy and the Mexican Institute for Competitiveness, legalization in Colorado and Washington alone can translate to as much as $46.2 billion dollars being retained in local economies. Of the $114.2 billion spent annually on drug treatment, only 14% of persons being admitted listed marijuana which may only be as much since 18% of all admissions were for co-occurring addictions where one or more other substances such as cocaine, heroin, or alcoholism were in play. Even if we disregard the co-occurring factor, marijuana would only account for $16 billion in annual treatment costs. By way of comparison in 2006 Americans spent $83.6 billion on tobacco related products. In the period leading up to those numbers, 2000 – 2004, cigarette smoking alone was estimated to be responsible for $193 billion in annual health-related economic losses in the United States. The economic costs of alcohol consumption in 2006 were estimated at $223.5 billion while Americans are expected to account for around $120 billion in sales. Clearly the matter of regulation and enforcement is arbitrary as it is not substantiated by matters of health, morality, or economy. So what is it all about?

First of course there is the money that goes into the states from the federal level to subsidize drug control initiatives by way of grants from the Office of National Drug Control Policy. This program alone boasts of funding 17,000 state, local, and tribal officers, analysts, and other representatives while removing a combined $32 billion from the illicit drug trade while dismantling 2,925 drug trafficking organizations. Funds from the individual seizures go directly back into the departments that made the arrests. At the same time prisons are given state and federal money for each prison held that has given rise to the private prison industry, many of which have a required occupancy rate. States will actually have to pay a penalty for not keeping a set number of citizens in jail which disincentivizes rehabilitation. So long as there’s more money to be had by enterprise, nothing will change.

In this manner the transfer of taxpayer money into private hands is nothing new. The early War on Drugs itself started as a matter of legislating in favor of business beginning with the Uniform State Narcotic Drug Act of 1932 of which Dow Chemical was a lobby in the inclusion of Marijuana whose naturally insect resistant production competed with the cotton industry that was dependent on Dow Chemical for pest management. At that same time DuPont had also patented nylon of which hemp was a direct competitor, and William Randolph Hearst, whom had heavily invested himself in the deforestation of North America found that hemp was a major competitor to wood-pulp paper production. These same groups were also mentioned as co-conspirators to the Business Plot of 1933 in which a group of American businessmen approached General Smedley Butler for his help in overthrowing the United States government. None were ever charged.

Up until this time hemp production was a part of American life going back to the Colonies when King James I in 1619, ordered every colonist to grow 100 plants specifically for export that was used in the manufacture of rope and other textiles. Industrial hemp had many uses in early America as at the time it was used in the manufacture of textiles and even paper production where as much as 90% of the world’s paper was hemp until regulation began in 1883. The turning point was two-fold in that the period coincided with the influx of Chinese immigrants building the continental railroad that brought with them hashish parlors and opium dens; complaints from soldiers that the drug didn’t provide a long-term alternative to injury treatment; and that marijuana cigarettes were commonly smoked by Mexican soldiers during the US-Mexican War. The latter argument was resurrected in 1932 when the marijuana prohibition lobby put into the American psyche that marijuana incited “Mexicans and negroes” to go on murderous rampages; innocent white women seduced into ruin; and teenagers going instantly insane. It is from this period that we get the movie, Reefer Madness.

Since that time much knowledge has come by way of legitimate research into the field of cannabis that has seen its returning to medicinal use in a few states and the recent legalization for recreational use in Washington and Colorado. With the exception of supporters, few recognize this as being the will of the people suggesting that the majority doesn’t support the measure, regardless that the majority of those that bothered to actually vote did. While the two states wait for their cue from the Federal Government before creating a control policy, the United Nations has begun pushing the federal Government for a fight on the issue of state level legalization despite of Obama saying that the issue belonged to the states.

The issue of legalization has truly become an issue of states’ rights, once the call of Reagan that leading up to the 2012 election and immediately afterwards was the rallying cry of the GOP. They’ve been remarkably silent on this issue, so much to the point that a Democrat had to pick it up in seeking not to allow the Federal Government to usurp local authority. The same as they were silent on the issue of raids inside California and their legal dispensaries.  This hypocrisy is perhaps best exampled in laws in states like South Carolina and others that require employers to perform a mandatory check on the residency status of immigrants unless they are employed as nannies or groundskeepers, AKA employed by the affluent.

Clearly the only right they care about is their right to do as they please. Otherwise Rush Limbaugh wouldn’t shut up about it, even though he was caught up in substance abuse. Glen Beck would be on the television drawing us pictures of some grand conspiracy to keep him from smoking pot. Bill O’Rielly would be screaming on Fox News about this lapse in freedom. Rep. John Boehner would be standing at the speaker, crying about Obama ruining his country.  Sarah Palin would of course say something about how great Alaskan weed is. In fact, I’m sure even Mitt Romney would be seeking the endorsement of Snoop Dogg. But none of that happens. They don’t have your interests at heart. They’re only in it for themselves, and the sooner everyone recognizes whose interests they are working for, the better.

In God We Trust?

I realized that the our currency says, "IN GOD WE TRUST," but which god? It's been cited to me that the reference is to the Judea-Christian god based on a bas-relief of Moses adorning the US Statehouse wall, but other figures are featured there as well. Hammurabi was a polytheist Babylonian. Gaius was a polytheist Roman. Papinian and Suleiman were Muslims. Maimonides was a Jew. Thomas Jefferson mostly refused to be pinned down on ascribing to a particular view while Solon banned religion in politics altogether. The other 14 were arguable Christian, so again I ask, "Which god?"

God really didn't figure too prominently before the McCarthy era when the national motto "In God We Trust" supplanted "E Pluribus Unum," Latin for, "Out of many, one" in 1956 and "...under god" was added to the Pledge of Allegiance in 1954. Both were in response to communism as an effort to further differentiate ourselves from our identification of them as godless for their banning religion. Christians didn't exactly win so much as god did. The Christians just seem to think that their god is the only god. It's not "In Jesus We Trust" or "...one nation under Jesus."

By virtue of of the argument that 76% of the US is Christian you have to ask how many are actually active while also acknowledging that 24% are not Christian. The reason for multiple reliefs on the walls of the US House is that ours is a democratically elected republic. It's not entirely majority rule as a minority population of Americans is still a population of Americans. The interests of everyone are supposed to be represented, which is why they chose to add god and not Jesus to the national dialogue. Really it can be any god you wish if you want to drill down on this subject, and there are literally thousands to choose from.

On the US as a Christian nation it should be noted that even in recent history governments that called themselves Christian have been used to commit unspeakable horrors. Hitler was a catholic that used his seminary teachings as an excuse to exterminate the Jews, gays, or anyone else that was not of similar thinking. He drew the conclusion that since Jews did not accept Christ, they didn't deserve the protection of a Christian government. Stalin was also a catholic though he used his knowledge to marginalize the church as part of the ruling class. And finally Pol Pot was a Buddhist whose ideas on government extended from his own interpretations of Buddhist teachings.

Removing this fallacy of the US as a Christian nation does not mean that laws regarding theft and murder would be removed. It is a dangerous person whose morality hangs on a fanciful story. Laws such as those exist because most people understand what is and what is not socially acceptable. The rationale that a law or belief in god is the only thing that keeps a person in check equally says that a lack of laws or belief could inspire a person to kill or justify any other misdeed up to and including discrimination on issue of marriage equality, which is honestly not an issue of god's will so much as a person's interpretation of a vague, bronze-aged text that says nothing explicitly in regards to homosexuality.

Homosexuality itself is something of an anomaly because the Bible does not normally speak cryptically on matters of sex. The Old Testament is replete with graphic descriptions such as Genesis 38:9-10 on birth control (NSFW), Ezekiel 23:20 on trashy women (NSFW), and Leviticus 20:18 on menstruation. The New Testament can be equally as graphic with Matthew 5:28-29 on ogling women or Romans 6:13 on masturbation. These are explicit texts on sex and sexuality that are equally explicit in regards to slavery, human trafficking, wearing blended fabrics, eating shellfish or pork, planting crops, and even shaving, all of which are said to necessitate your execution and being sent to hell. It's pretty clear. I argue that you cannot say that it's just a metaphor.

This issue of same-sex marriage is just another of those moments where religion will come scampering up from the rear with some remarkable revelation that is really just another revision as it gives in some areas to meet with the times. One-hundred-fifty years ago slavery was cool because the Bible said so. Sixty years ago inter-racial marriage was illegal because the Bible said so. This is just example of how religion impedes our government today, the same as it impeded development of the free world for the 800+ years following the fall of Rome, it was called the Dark Ages for a reason. Highlights from the period feature famine, plague, and crusades.

Religion had it's chance to run the show and they did a pretty shitty job of it. Think about what started the moment Gutenberg created the printing press (which was directly against the church). Suddenly people were able to read the Bible on their own. Heliocentric theory was published. People learned about new worlds and constellations. Sadly this is all information that was a part of Greek culture. They actually suppressed knowledge to the point that it had to be rediscovered. That 800+ years easily cost us almost twice as much.

Religion had it's chance and fell far short of the mark by cheating us out of a future. Pretend for a moment that we only lost that 800 years of progress without having to recover lost knowledge. What do you think the Earth will look like 800 years from now? That is the today that they stole from us. Seriously, these are the conversations that we need to be having with people that want god and government to be synonymous. Otherwise us kowing to their beliefs is pretty much the same as us negotiating with terrorists.

Some of why I'm not voting for @MittRomney

How the Invisible Hand of Government works is by taxing activities that it wants to limit while incentivizing activities it wants to encourage. Taxes over and above sales-tax, such as on alcohol or tobacco are meant to regulate their use while incentives like deductions on home, work, education, and family size are meant to encourage settling down, buying a home, and having kids. It's a system of punishment and reward that's been effectively used for quite some time. You can take the red pill or you can take the blue pill, it's called free will, but I'll slap your hand if you take the red pill and tell you that you're a 'good boy' if you take the blue. It's simple training and we all respond to it.

See a toddler playing with a set of keys near an electrical socket? Dog shits on the floor? You know what to do. That's you enforcing the invisible hand of government that modifies behavior to affect the decisions of others for those moments of when someone is not looking over their shoulder's. Failure to heed these social controls can result in taxes, fines, incarceration, or even death when it's taken far enough. It's just what makes society function. Encourage. Discourage. Seriously, it's the foundation of capitalism. The person that conceptualized it is the only non-monarch or politician to be pictured on a British Bank Note. Adam Smith rivals Ben Franklin on his impact in creating the world we live in today. His writing helped inspire Theodore Roosevelt in creating the National Parks System. It was from his and the writings of John Locke that we got the US Declaration of Independence and the US Constitution.

Now of course on the side of encourage and discourage, larger corporations are being encouraged to outsource work while small businesses are being heavily taxed to make up the revenue. Our government signing into free trade agreements only compounds the issue because it limits their ability to bring American industry back. Adam Smith also wrote about this.

On the individual level just as taxes on alcohol or tobacco are meant to discourage, that same discouragement is used to regulate industries in other ways through secondary means. You may smoke or drink and pay the taxes because you can afford that little extra bite in the wallet. You may speed because you're OK with getting that ticket or the increase in your car insurance premiums. Just like Paul Ryan, as an avid bow hunter, could afford the extra taxes on archery equipment when he created a law that added taxes to its cost and use. It's the same as when Mitt Romney passed a law that increased fees on horseback riding instructors. He could afford to pay the little extra because after all his wife Ann is an avid fan of equestrian events. Or even when as the Governor of Massachusetts when Romney raised gun licensing fees from $25 to $100. He could afford it, but also on its face was an attempt to limit availability of the right to carry a firearm. It's the same as Romney's secondary function would limit the amount of people that his wife Ann would be made to compete against in an event, or Paul Ryan's would limit competing bow hunters in the same forest he was hunting. It wasn't exactly poaching that got Robin Hood in trouble when he was found in King Henry's forest.

Die Religion ... ist das Opium des Volkes

I hated onions as a child. I recall entering a store with my mother when I was a child of three or four years old. She'd planned to make a potato salad and some calamari for a BBQ we were attending and ran a list of items needed. I questioned their necessity in the potato salad when she read off onions. "Because it's illegal not too," was the short answer. I seriously thought there would be police involved and I continued believing this until I was about 6 or 7 when I learned otherwise.

Why I bring up this uncomfortable episode from my childhood is that it perfectly illustrates how a person in authority will effectively lie in an effort to suit their own agenda. I don’t fault my mom for this. It’s really no different from other tools of indoctrination such as Santa Clause or other pseudo non-corporeal authoritarian figures meant to affect individual behavior for the benefit of a community. She could have said, “Because I like onions. Deal with it.” Or, “Because everyone else likes onions. It’s you that’s different.” But she didn’t. I was a small child and my mom never really was that abrasive. Besides children that age don’t exactly have a handle on their position in the world and are oft likely to test boundaries. Thus we have Santa Clause or other pseudo non-corporeal authoritarian figures to fit whatever occasion.

There are literally thousands of gods, goddesses, saints, prophets, and other incarnations to choose from to suit a specific purpose. Do you want help winning the big game? Make an offering to the Greek Goddess of victory, Nike. You want to express humility for that amazing touchdown? There’s a Jesus for that. Problem training your dogs? Try St. Hubert. Need a standard of food safety in regards to pork or shellfish? The Talmud, Qu’ran, and Holy Bible all have variations on the Book of Leviticus. In fact if you see something in society that you don’t like be they the actions of a group or individual, you can take comfort in that their mortal actions will carry on into the afterlife by mechanisms of karma, being removed from the light of god, or just outright eternal damnation. What better way of manipulation is there to modify a person’s behavior short of physical abuse?

It’s simply cheaper and easier to tell a person that they will face some unseen punishment than it is to explain the truth of a matter, thus it is easier to control an uneducated population.

Do we need institutions that reinforce morality? It helps, but whose morality and necessarily are they just compounding intolerance towards others of dissimilar faiths. Three of the religions that I referenced earlier have the same foundation, so legitimately the same god, but one split off and decided that god should have a son, and then another split saying that son was just another prophet before their current one. They sit like riders on a Bill before it’s ratified into law. Religion is a governing body with its own purposes and agendas that knows no border, though depending on where you are born more than divine planning. If you’re born in the United States, you are likely to be born a Christian. In the Middle East, overwhelmingly you’re likely a Muslim. In Israel, by law you should be a Jew. Each is culturally specific to be inclusive of the society following its edicts, and exclusionary of those devices that may challenge it. Why? Because fuck you. That’s why.

We can of course contrast and compare all day long in regards to how you are of the chosen in this divine plan while 72% of the population has been condemned to burn in hell on the day that they were born. Or that 98% of the population will await resurrection in Gehenna. Or that all but the true believers will suffer in Jahannam for all eternity. We can discuss why the first European immigrants came to the Americas, what our founding father's had to say about our Christian nation,  the sanctity of marriage, immaculate conception verses rape and contraception, contributions to contemporary culture, charitable extensions, or even that moment when you really felt alone. But let’s discuss historical fact where in American history alone we can also discuss burning people at the stake, manifest destiny, the segregation of communities, the subjugation of women, or the firebombing of clinics and the assassinations of medical personnel. Globally we can discuss 77 dead in Norway, inquisitions that lasted up until 1988, the 6 million dead at the hands of Nazi ideology, or even the one-thousand years of history called the Dark Ages.

But society is better than all that. God after all is a fluid being designed in the image of man to suit the purposes of an individual’s idea of community that are not necessarily in line with communities competing for the same resources. Whether it was yesterday, 32, 80, 400, or 900 years ago, it’s not today. It’s not here. It’s not this moment. It’s not until the next terrorist, martyr, or patriot rises up to rampage a youth camp, mixed singles event, or family planning clinic, and even then the people will bury their heads in the sand looking for ways they are different rather than seeing how they are the same.

"Die Religion ... ist das Opium des Volkes"

The Forgotten Issue with Chick-fil-A

Like many, I am upset over Chick-fil-A donating large amounts of money to lobby for anti-gay legislation that is based on the faith of the company's owner, Dan Cathy.

IMO Dan Cathy (President and founder of Chick-fil-A) is entitled to his freedom of speech and is entitle to donate HIS money as he sees fit because he is a person.  Indeed people are upset over how he exercises his freedom of speech and that is sad. People should be allowed to believe as they want just as those that disagree would be doing a better public service by seeking to understand a person’s beliefs and by educating the public on the specifics of the issue. Not doing so is a failure in society.  And just like the conservative furor over Oreo's, the protesting side too forgets about the recent, and not so recent past. These protesters attacking Cathy for exercising his freedom of speech threaten the credibility of protesting Chick-fil-A supporting anti-gay legislation with criticism that cannot even withstand the scrutiny of Sarah Palin. They’ve already lost.

The issue that should be focused on here is that unlike Cathy, Chick-fil-A is not a person. It is a business and regardless of the 2010 US Supreme Court decision in Citizens United vs. The FEC, corporations are not people and are not entitled to exercise their freedom of speech. Corporate influence is one of the gravest threats to the US political system.

Unfortunately there is no such thing as bad advertising which is why I am bothered that protesters have allowed the issue to be made one of free speech. It will only compel others to patronize the offending institution while still others that don't give a shit about its practices one way or the other will not change their buying patterns. Educating the both sides of the debate would be a more constructive manner of affecting change in the system rather than the planned Kiss-In that will only likely affect employees and franchise owners.

Just as where many were already afraid to speak out against their employer, and in this case, franchises speaking out against corporate policy, the issue is made a bit more complex in today's uncertain economy. Affected employees my find prospects of finding new employment a bit scarce, especially for the people with only a high school diploma or less that makes up a the majority of the unemployed population. This of course emphasizes the problem of downward mobility and a shrinking middle class.

Beginning with an organization that Chick-fil-A made donations to, Exodus International, they went beyond shaping American politics to shaping politics in countries that are noted for human rights violations and acts of extreme cruelty such as Uganda that made it legal to execute homosexuals for being homosexuals. That's not supporting free speech. That's supporting state terrorism.

Exodus International is partly funded by the charitable arm of Chick-fil-A, the WinShape Foundation that also donates to several other anti-gay groups that also lobby here in the US and around the world. Exodus International though is the one that got the ball rolling on the Kill All Gays legislation based on a March 2009 presentation by Exodus International where they outlined the connection between homosexuality, child molesters, and HIV transmission. Based on the information they provided the Ugandan government felt that it was prudent to pass an anti-homosexuality bill that penalized behavior with either imprisonment for life, or execution depending on the severity and mitigating circumstances of the crime. The law was passed in October 2009 and there was a call to boycott Chick-fil-A because over their support in the matter and there has been inconsistent pressure in that regard since.

It wasn't until five months after the passage of the Uganda's Anti-Homosexual Law, following public outcry and a possible threat to their status as a 501(c)(3) in a March 2010 that Exodus International publicly distanced themselves from the Ugandan government with an open letter to the President of Uganda by saying, "Exodus International believes that every human life, regardless of an individual’s sexual behavior, is of inestimable worth to God and that defending this principle is foundational in offering a Christian response to any issue."

It's amazing how easily a God made in man's image changes his mind. The Biblical God would have stood by the Ugandan law requiring execution as it pretty much mirrors His own.

Just as in 2009 with Exodus International, it will take an all-around effort of educating the public to influence the corporate policy of Chick-fil-A. At the same time the invisible hand of government may do well to encourage Cathy to start a private foundation through which he can support anti-gay groups on his own.

The Police State Act: An Issue With Which Everyone Should Be Concerned

It would seem that the Large Capacity Magazine Ban has been inserted into the Cyber Security Act of 2012 in Section 2575 as a compromise move with the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA) and is set for a debate tomorrow with a push towards a vote being made for later this week. Of course compromise is good. It's what politics are about in ensuring that we are equally represented, but this compromise is at the detriment to the people. Left or right, everyone would be equally disfranchised by this legislation.

I'm assuming of course that we are all aware of CISPA, but let's cover the finer points of the Large Capacity Magazine Ban in the Cyber Security Act of 2012. It's important to note that the magazine ban would ban the sale or transfer, public and private, of magazines with a capacity of more than ten rounds to anyone other than law enforcement or military. Law enforcement or military? Let me repeat that, to anyone other than law enforcement or military. Take as long as you need to think that one over.

Law enforcement or military, but not you.

That being said most double stack magazines hold around 14 rounds so this ban would include popular concealed carry firearms like Glock, Beretta, and CZ. In turn I've read that many police departments require their officer's service weapons to be large capacity magazine and that is why you don't see cops carrying a Colt 1911, which is a combat tested gun. In fact the Colt 1911 is so popular with the military that the US Marines recently put in a $22.5 million order for their armories. This of course is not connected with the Department of Homeland Security March 2012 order of 450 million rounds from local manufacturer ATK. The ordered rounds were .40 caliber while the 1911 is a .45.

The more common civilian caliber is the 9mm for the estimated 80 million private owners in the United States. So let's say that you were one of these owners and you passed away. What happens to your semi-automatic? Better question, what would happen to your family?

Well...whoever would be heir to that firearm would be a felon since the private transfer of not the weapon, but the magazine would be illegal. Your wife your husband, your now adult child over the age of 21, anyone who comes into possession of that magazine after you would be a felon thus making them ineligible to own a firearm. I assume you would be expected to call the police so they could come collect it, thus it becomes a legitimate war of attrition.

Whether you are for or against the private ownership of guns, this is an important issue. Think about this quote from one of the key framers of the US Constitution, "The strongest reason for the people to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government." Thomas Jefferson said that. He also said, "When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty." But best of all he said, "Tyranny is defined as that which is legal for the government but illegal for the citizenry." He also said something about the "Tree of Liberty," but that is a conversation for another time.

Now I don't know about you, but I know quite a few liberal minded protesters that are pretty concerned with the government, today. Last night one even dropped the F-word, fear, and when a liberal fears the policies of a Democrat President, it's time to start having some frank conversations with your politicians. Here is a list of Utah's current Congressional delegation. Feel free to contact them regarding this issue. If you are outside of Utah, then you can lookup members of your own delegation HERE.

Tell them NO on CISPA, S.3414 and NO on the Large Capacity Magazine Ban, S. 2575. In the same call, tell them YES on another measure in the bill, the Geolocation Privacy and Surveillance Act that would require law enforcement to get a warrant before tracking your movements surreptitiously.

Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT)

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Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT)

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Rep. Rob Bishop (R-UT 1st District)

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Rep. Jim Matheson (D-UT 2nd District)

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Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT 3rd District)

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ObamaCare and You

“Obamacare is socialized medicine,” says the Republican Party. No, no — excuse me — socialized medicine is what we have now! People without insurance can go to an emergency ward or throw themselves on the mercy of a doctor, and the cost of all this uncompensated care is shared by all those who have insurance, raising your rates and mine. That is socialized medicine and that is what Obamacare ends."

~Thomas Friedman, May 26, 2012, New York Times

As an unemployed, uninsured single-father, I had hoped that the US Supreme Court would strike down the Affordable Care Act, but they didn't, so now it's time to adjust. The Affordable Care Act, or as the wags would call it, ObamaCare does nothing to help those in need of coverage that don't qualify for federal assistance, and in fact penalizes them for not being covered. This will only further erode an already suffering middle class.

Yes if you're younger than 26, you can get on your parents insurance, but how many in that age group have kids of their own? And yes if you have a pre-existing condition, you cannot be denied coverage. That is if you have access to health insurance. While relative unemployment sits just above 8%, real unemployment in America is around 15% combined with scores of the populations, just under half, living barely above the poverty line of $23,050 for a family of four making them ineligible for state assistance. People in that group will be on the hook for their own coverage. People in that group are going to be penalized. The President gave the insurance company customers, but he gave a huge chunk of America nothing!

The insurance companies only agreed to drop the pre-existing condition in exchange for agreeing to everyone being required to be insured. There is a voucher program being implemented for those making up to 400% above poverty level, but that voucher will only be equal to the monthly portion of the cost of the eligible employer-sponsored plan which would have been paid by the employer if you were a covered employee. Medical insurance can be expensive when you're working. Imagine if your not working, but still paying that same premium. When you're already covering housing, transportation, and food, then add one more obligation, that "and" could quickly become and "or," and you're forced to choose which one you don't need so much of.

Add to these concerns that a $2,000 penalty to employers that do not offer coverage to full-time employees and you'll see an accelerated push to already alarming employment trends. For one the penalty  in many cases will be the cheaper option for the employer over providing membership in a group policy. What exactly defined full-time employment may also change to further exclude employees to avoid the penalty altogether such as 36 hour work weeks just avoid full-time status, longer probationary periods for new employees, or as what's becoming popular in some sectors, contract 1099 workers with an option for a permanent position after one year making them their own entity responsible for everything that the employer would normally manage, except the workload that is.

The Affordable Care Act is a back-handed attempt to appeal to the masses that will hurt more than it helps, and will ultimately serve to further marginalize the middle-class. It's time to legitimately socialize medicine already and to start taking care of the people. The healthcare system as it stands or even as Obama has designed it to become, even with emergency care is far from a socialized system, and frankly it's a display of, for lack of a better term, proletariat ignorance and a slap in the face of 143 million Americans to suggest otherwise! Health care in America is one of the best, but it's the healthcare system that is a horrible representation of our society, and serves as an embarrassing reminder that we are incapable of taking care of our own people.

On June 27 I checked my Facebook and found a notice from a person on my Friend's List advertising a fund raiser for a person's cancer treatment. This is the forth such notice to cross my Facebook account since January, all for different people. One is for cancer treatments, and two are for traumatic brain injuries, and another for a chronic condition. All four are high-school graduates, one holds a middle management position, and two are unemployed. One that I know of does have medical insurance, but the coverage is inadequate which caused much of his therapy to end after 30 days and leaves the quality of his long term care in limbo. So if there is going to be any substantive insurance reform, how about we start with these four people?

TBI

• Ashton MacFarlane
• Jeremy Israelson

Cancer

• Brittany Wilson

Chronic Condition

• Amanda Quinlan

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P.S. To add insult to injury,  one in three Americans is unable to visit a dentist and you realize that we have a real problem that making it illegal to not have insurance won't fix. Our leaders sold us out. Proud to be an Amerikan, yo...

P.S.S. Damn, post this article a few times in reply to people celebrating the Supreme Court decision and I get reported for spam? It's the online equivilant of putting your fingers in your ears and shouting "Lalalalalalala." That's a fine defense to your argument.

Today's lecture with Baleigh: Reality Shows

So I'm scrolling through Hulu seeing if there's anything interesting.

Baleigh: Hey look, they have the new season of Punk'd!

Me: What? No! I hate the show. Well I don't hate it, but rich people playing pranks on rich people is not something that I want to watch.

In fact, do you know what would make a good reality show? If they took away Ashton Kutcher's home, his cars, drained his bank account and set him on the streets of America just to see how he'd handle it. We'd get to see Ashton Kutcher in the homeless shelter. Ashton Kutcher in the food line. I'd watch that. Hell, I'd watch the shit out of that!

Baleigh: You're mean. </sarcasm>

Me: No, it's just that people like him make me sick. There are three types of wealth: acquired, inherited, and given.

Acquired wealth is when someone comes up with an idea and markets it, which makes money for them.

Inherited wealth is when someone is left money by the person that acquired it. Sometimes they do well with it. Other times they don't.

And then there's just the given wealth for people like Ashton Kutcher who really did nothing to earn it beyond being pretty. He was a Calvin Klein underwear model before anything else, and people gave him money for it. It's not like he has talent anyway.

Baleigh: Like Paris Hilton?

Me: No. Her's was inherited wealth, and the only reason she got famous was because someone thought it would be a good idea to take two untalented, spoiled rich girls and put them on TV.

Baleigh: Remember when we watched House of Wax just to see her die?

Today's lecture with Baleigh: Music and Politics

So we're in the car listening to Public Enemy.

Me: So you didn't know that Flava Flav came from Public Enemy?

Baleigh: No.

Me: Ugh. OK, let's take it back. What did Ice T bring to the hip-hop scene?

Baleigh: I don't know.

Me: A hype-man! That's what Flava Flav did.

Baleigh: I don't care. Well, I knew that, but I don't care.

My poor child gets frequently lectured on the socially significant music of late 20th century artists like Public Enemy, Ice T, Beastie Boys, NWA, et.al. Occasionally others like Slayer, Megadeth, and early Metallica get thrown into the mix for their relationship to politics and the American war fetish. She says that doesn't care, but she listens.

It's at this point that we should maybe feel bad for her teenage self.

Losing the First Amendment

The print media may well be the foundation of the American political system. Since before Benjamin Franklin absconded from his indentured servitude as a printers apprentice and chose to live as a semi-fugitive, the printed media has served as a platform to incite discussions on fairness and equality. Men like Adam Smith that authored a series of pamphlets named “An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations,” and John Locke with “The Second Treatises of Government,” laid the foundation for what the new world was to become.

During the framing of the US Constitution, a series of articles written by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay that came to be called the Federalist Papers appeared in the newspaper, The Independent Journal and were designed to persuade the population into ratifying the US Constitution. It was from these writings that evolved our Bill of Rights that guaranteed among other things that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” But regardless of this guarantee, our freedoms are fragile, and without due attention can be fleeting.

The Fairness Doctrine

The Fairness Doctrine’s importance was in the limited available spectrum utilized by the various broadcast networks. The internet did not exist. Cable television was not available. There was radio, newspaper, and TV. We had television that consisted of Very High Frequency that covered channels one though 13, and Ultra High Frequency for channels 14 and higher. Channel one was later reserved for war purposes after 1941, which is why it is not accessible on your television today.

The Fairness Doctrine was introduced in 1949 to preserve fair and balanced reporting of important social issues. The mandate had little to do with providing equal time to contrasting viewpoints as it did require that those contrasting viewpoints be offered. As a child I remember a stuffy old man that would come on KSL Channel 5 for 30 seconds to lecture on whatever, that was the KSL television editorial commentator, Don Gale. He was honoring the Fairness Doctrine by providing a contrasting viewpoint. And later I found out, he was far from stuffy. Such voluntary compliance was a testament to the success of the program as noted by the Federal Communications Commission in 1974 with the caveat, "Should future experience indicate that the doctrine [of 'voluntary compliance'] is inadequate, either in its expectations or in its results, the Commission will have the opportunity—and the responsibility—for such further reassessment and action as would be mandated."

None of this is to say that the fairness Doctrine did not experience its own set of problems. Multiple Supreme Court challenges questioned the constitutionality of the program that was upheld under the understanding that electronic media has limited distribution while newspapers for their maturity had a more diverse and thus fairly competitive market. Ultimately in 1987 the US Supreme Court ruled in Meredith Corp. vs. FCC that the FCC was no longer held to enforcing the Fairness Doctrine as it was not a mandate of Congress.  In response an attempt was made by Congress to legislate the Fairness Doctrine, but was vetoed in 1987 by then President Ronald Reagan who felt embattled by the three major networks at the time, and was again stopped in 1991 with a promised veto by then President George H.W. Bush.

Later that year the FCC in a unanimous decision voted to remove enforcement of the Fairness Doctrine citing, “We seek to extend to the electronic press the same First Amendment guarantees that the print media have enjoyed since our country's inception.”

In the period since 1987 we have met Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and Glenn Beck. We have met John Stewart and Steven Colbert. We have been witness to divisive media that pits American against American. We have seen the broad diversity of the public media again become distilled into the hands of a few media giants that control everything from the music we listen too, to the newspapers and magazines we read, to the TV we watch, the movies we enjoy, and the internet we surf. This is the very action that the Fairness Doctrine was intended to prevent.

As Justice Byron White wrote for the court in its unanimous 1969 Red Lion Broadcasting Co. vs. FCC decision, "A license permits broadcasting, but the licensee has no constitutional right to be the one who holds the license or to monopolize a radio frequency to the exclusion of his fellow citizens. There is nothing in the First Amendment which prevents the Government from requiring a licensee to share his frequency with others.... It is the right of the viewers and listeners, not the right of the broadcasters, which is paramount."

Jane Akre & Steve Wilson vs. Fox Broadcasting

The Telecommunications Act of 1996 was the first significant overhaul of the Communications Act of 1934, which created the Federal Communications Commission. The new Act sought to broaden the field of the media industry by allowing anyone to "let anyone enter any communications business…" but it instead had the effect of concentrating media ownership that gave large news organizations a direct influence over local reporting.

Jane Akre and her husband Steve Wilson were a husband and wife journalism team working for Fox subsidiary WTVT in Tampa, Florida in 1997 when they began working on a story regarding the agricultural biotechnology company Monsanto and their use of recombinant bovine growth hormone (rBGH) in dairy producing cows. Monsanto responded with a threatened lawsuit if WTVT chose to air the story. WTVT responded by airing a Monsanto rBGH positive story. Ultimately Akre and Wilson were dismissed as a result and in a subsequent lawsuit won their claim under Florida’s whistleblowing statute, but lost under appeal as The Communications Act of 1934 did not specifically prohibit the distortion of news. At no point during the trial did Fox Broadcasting dispute their distortion of the news, they only cited that it was their prerogative to do so. The ruling gave Fox the permission to present the news however they saw fit, and this is the very reason that Fox News is not shown in Canada. Canadian stations with similar ambitious are also denied a broadcast license.

Espionage Act of 1917

The Espionage Act of 1917 was enacted shortly after the United States entered into World War I with the expressed intent to prohibited any attempt to interfere with military operations, to support U.S. enemies during wartime, to promote insubordination in the military, or to interfere with military recruitment. The draft originally proposed by the President Woodrow Wilson proposed a measure that included press censorship, but the House declined and Wilson begrudgingly signed the Act without the provision on June 15, 1917. The law was made to include the Sedition Act of 1918 eleven months later that included a broad range of offenses that are normally covered by the First Amendment of the US Constitution, but that specific provision was repealed in 1920. The Espionage Act itself still remains with infrequent updates and enforcement of the Act is at the discretion of the US Attorney General.

Notable persons prosecuted under the Act would include columnist and suspected spies Julius and Ethel Rosenberg. Ethel was posthumously exonerated, though it was later revealed that Julius was indeed involved in passing information to the Soviets. Noted whistleblowers Daniel Ellsberg, and US Army Pfc. Bradley Manning had also found their way into prosecution for very similar actions. Ellsberg was eventually hailed as a hero for his leaking information on the Viet Nam war while the case remains to be seen on Manning. Five other relatively recent cases have also found themselves under the magnifying glass. You may not know the names, but if you’ve been paying attention, you would know the stories: former senior executive at the National Security Agency, Tom Drake; Former FBI translator, Shamai Leibowitz; former State Department contractor, Stephen Jin-Woo; former CIA Agent, Jeffrey Sterling; former CIA Director of counter terrorism operations in Pakistan, John Kiriakou; and former Department of Justice Attorney, Thomas Tamm. 

Reporters as well are caught up and threatened in the dragnet approach of national security, most notable to me would be New York Times reporters, James Risen and Eric Lichtblau that were awarded the Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting in 2006 for a series of controversial investigative reports that they co-wrote about the National Security Agency's surveillance of international communications originating or terminating in the United States codenamed "Stellar Wind" and about a government program called Terrorist Finance Tracking Program designed to detect terrorist financiers, which involved searches of money transfer records in the international SWIFT database. SImilar to the New York Times, and Risen and Lichtblau, Wikileaks and its founder, Julian Assange remain beset by difficulty at the behest of State Department officials from being made to relocate their servers to having their funding blocked. At least eleven of those 13 names should be honored as national heroes rather than just Ellsberg's, not forgotten in the winds of history along with an unknown number to come. All of these individuals have provided rich context from which we are able to understand the workings of our government.

Smith-Mundt Modernization Act of 2012

As evidenced by the above names, Washington and the military have long played politics in the media. A quick scan of your local TV listing would reveal any number of programs that air with the governments blessing so long as the government is portrayed in a positive light. Immediate examples on television would include NCIS and Army Wives. Examples of movies would be Top Gun, Transformers, Battle: Los Angeles, Battleship, Act of Valor. All play a subtle role in developing desired behaviors in the public and the enlisted ranks which all dance the edge of permissible propaganda that has been explicitly forbids targeting American citizens on American soil since 1948.

The Smith-Mundt Modernization Act of 2012 is being written into the Fiscal Year 2013 National Defense Authorization Act that would remove the distinction between foreign and domestic audiences similar to the removal of the distinction between foreign and domestic combatants in the FY2012 NDAA. Entirely too much we sit back and watch this happen. Though these laws may have originated in private, the smoke filled rooms where this kind of legislation once originated is happening before our very eyes. The smoke filled rooms of the past have become the House and Senate floors of today!

These bills are being passed with remarkable swiftness with nary a debate in the House and near unanimous votes in the Senate. Our politicians do not speak for us and those that we depended on to explain these issues for us are falling silent. This is not America, and this is not our representational republic. As President Abraham Lincoln said, “America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.” And he may well be right.

Channel one may soon be on your TV.