Democracy and Dictatorship

Let's Interpret the Constitution!!

  Are the Supreme Court justices acting like rock stars or are they just fond of lengthy arguments back and forth? The founding fathers who  were on very advanced level of intellectualism, they clearly separated States from religion. At the same time they made sure to write it down, discuss it and emphasize the importance of human rights regardless of their background, religious beliefs, gender or skin color.

Now looking at the Fourteenth Amendment it states that no state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunity of citizens of United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, LIBERTY, or property without due process of law, nor deny to any person with in its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.  It is time to enforce this right to same sex couple in every state and require of the state to treat same sex couples exactly as it treats  heterosexual couples.  In other words, marriage is a fundamental liberty to individuals.  It is unconstitutional to fence out a group of people from exercising their right to marry. 

As a Supreme Court judge, I would vote to require states to recognize marriage performed on foreign soils or in other states whether gay or straight. I would also prohibit irrational ideas of stigma and contamination often labeling same sex marriages. My interpretation of the constitution is simple and straight forward; citizens have the right of privacy in their homes and citizens have the right to live happily. My concern is that denying same sex couple the right to marry under the law would be an attack on democracy especially in a country that shouts out loud on daily basis our American love for freedom, liberty, and Justice. In many cases going to wars in the name of spreading democracies all over the world and in so many cases sacrificing American lives doing it. 

Immigration reform is a human right! (Blog Stage 3)

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/15/opinion/end-immigration-detention.html?ref=topics&_r=0

Jennifer Whitney wrote an article in the New York Times criticizing ICE (Immigration and Custom Enforcement) practices and detentions methods being utilized against undocumented immigrants. I totally agree with her argument especially because I myself come from an immigrant family. So many people are extremely lucky that they are born in a safe and prosperous country like the United States of America but there are millions of people who are born in poor or war torn countries and they have nothing.

 

The vast majority of immigrants who travel thousands of dangerous miles are indeed trying to find a safe haven for themselves and for their children. 

What do they meet when they arrive in the United Sates? They get separated from their children starting with border petrol officers and in most cases they are detained in facilities paid by our tax money. 

President Obama was given the nickname of  "deporter in chief" for a good reason.  Since he came to office in 2009 he deported 2 million immigrants. Wasn't America founded on immigration?  How is it that we as Americans in love with freedoms but we as people and a government deny freedoms to others? 

There is absolutely no doubt that our immigration system is broken. Immigration reform is essential where we come up with new laws starting with vetting immigrants who makes it on our soil.  It's time to find ways to keep justice to the millions who are already here and the thousands that arrive here on daily basis. This way they can integrate into our society. We all agree that the criminals should be deported and the law abiding citizens should stay.  We should never separate family members from each other especially when children are involved.  And among these new laws an end to the privatization of prisons should be presented. 

I find Jennifer's editorial to be very a useful reference to citizens and politicians who  are deeply interested in immigration reform. 

America needs the new founding fathers!

  Commentary on US National Govt. (Blog #7)

It is safe to say that America is unique and exceptional.  The question is; can this be put in positive or negative term? What makes any  country functional is a solid infrastructure built by a solid government in charge.  Americans and in some cases non-Americans give so much credit to our founding fathers in constructing a near perfect and some argue a genius constitution that sparked a powerful beacon in a dark world. 

  One genius of this constitution is building our government body where three branches with equal power must come together and agree to go forward with any decision minor or major and was also able to prevent this government from abusing it's powers to condemn or threaten its citizens. 

You may ask how Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, John Adams, James Madison and Alexander Hamilton were able to build an empire of democracy.  The reason behind  that is that they were aware of human history, the European government system, religion, and how citizens can play a pivotal role in establishing a functional government and a successful country. 

They studied Science, they read Plato, they hung out in Paris and thought that the religion was mostly used to control mankind. This is another reason why they made sure to separate State from religion and focused so much on education. After all no one can put together an intelligent and successful country with citizens who lack a reasonable amount of understanding of Science, Geography, Anthropology, Economics, putting laws in place, and the justice system that can be used as an example for the rest of the world. 

  My focus here on the founding fathers is paramount because without them we wouldn't have the country we have right now.  And if the founding fathers came back to modern times they would be disappointed and shocked at government officials we elect and a drug war that's costing us billions of dollars and hundreds of lives, bombing random countries to please and fund the military industrial complex, our arguing and bickering over nuisance issues. Our current government is in desperate need for politicians, law makers and intellectuals like Thomas Paine (Philosopher), Thomas Jefferson (Lawyer), Alexander Hamilton (Constitutional Lawyer), James Madison (Lawyer), John Adams (Constitutional Lawyer). They were not the common men of their day.  Ben Franklin studied Scientific phenomena like lightening. James Madison was fluent in Greek and Latin and could translate Virgil and Cicero. And if Ben Franklin  was alive Today he could explain to the Republicans how mankind are causing or contributing Global Warming.  

  

Our current government is in desperate need for new founding fathers who can end the American corruption, bring out troops home and shut down the American empire. They will be willing and capable in stopping the growth in our deficit. They will be able to repeal destructive rulings such as Citizen United where individuals and corporations can legally donate unlimited amount of money to politicians and to their political campaigns. Our country must wake up and elect politicians who can focus on building our schools to produce the next generation of intellectual Americans. A generation not brain washed by ancient ideologies and superstitions or delusions.  

  The time has come for our elections to be decided by the people to elect the candidate most fit for office to run the country and not the one who spend the most amount of money. The time has come for our country to fire "The lobbyists" and private entities.  America with a complete, just and comprehensive immigration system that can add to its citizenry a more diverse immigrants with new secular and social ideas; because if there is a country that is capable of becoming an equal opportunity and economically prosperous it would be the United States of America.

Commentary on my colleague's blog from stage 5.

http://colejohnsongov.blogspot.com/2015/04/us-buget.html?showComment=1429501862649#c4755878824125678509


My Comment is as follows:


  Hi Cole, yes I agree with your point and I would like to elaborate with some background information on this topic so we can have better understanding of the issue of US Budget and the effect and causes of its deficit. 

  Currently, the United States has uncontrollable debt exceeding Eighteen Trillion Dollars.  During the presidency of George H W Bush and shortly after the end of the Gulf war and the liberation of Kuwait, the United States government seems to put itself in situations where we as a country end up fighting and dying for other countries' interests.
During the Clinton administration, president Clinton took several steps to eliminate the deficit, control the debt and he found ways to bring back the golden word to the United States' budget; Surplus. 

  In the year 2000, a major calamity hit the United States and its people.  The Supreme Court took a decision to hand George W Bush a win over Vice President Al Gore.  Many Americans had hoped that the presidency of Al Gore would be a continuation of  President Bill Clinton's policies in issues like not interfering in other counties' politics and wars, enhance the Surplus and taking more aggressive steps to slow down Global Warming. 

  There's a huge segment of the Unites States' population who believes that the attacks of 9-11 were the inside job planned and executed to create a reason for the United States and convince the American people to invade Afghanistan and shortly after the Invasion of Iraq.

  An answer to your question, why are we messing with other countries is; there are multiple reasons which I will discuss briefly. The immense powers and money given to Lobbyists who are working on the behalf of major corporations such as Halliburton, Koch Brothers, Lock hart Martin, and Northrop Grumman should be illegal.  The US military is being deployed all over the world because these lobbyists are financing US politicians from all ranks.  So a huge chunk of tax payer's money is going towards building and rebuilding US military bases overseas.  Another huge chunk of money is going towards weapon system.  The Pentagon itself asked the administration not to finance.  There are other reasons behind keeping bases opened all over the world.  There are politicians still believe that the American Empire must have the upper hand and must stay in control of many parts of the world. 

I personally believe that we can cut the deficit, control spending by shutting down or reducing US military bases in America and overseas.  We, as people of America must find ways to stop our government from sending our troops to useless and endless wars and the American Public must be educated on where their money is being spent. 

Imagine, if we could have One Trillion dollars that we spent in Afghanistan back into the US economy we could have spent this money on cancer research, rebuilding our highways, rebuilding our crumbling school system, build a more efficient transportation system and pay our educators better salaries to produce more enlightened generation of America. 

Should US launch a military attack against Russia?

  

   No, the United States  of America should not launch a military attack against Russia but before we reach the point where we may conclude "whether US should launch a military attack against Russia or not", it is imperative to first examine the scenario currently being caused by Russia on the international arena.  

The stockpile of lethal weapons of mass destruction with Russia and the USA are huge and massive.  Russian latest military exercises across the country, conducted in an area chosen, are deliberately to send warning to NATO, and seem to deploy nuclear armed submarine. Russia's nuclear capabilities have also been deployed to locations near NATO borders. The Russian activities signal threat to NATO.  The activities involve 45000 servicemen, around 3000 vehicles, more than 40 surface vehicles, 15 submarines and 110 ballistic missile submarines.

Ukraine is of-course a country vital to Russia as a buffer state against the West, and as a route for delivering energy to Europe, which is the foundation of the Russian economy.  The Ukrainian government is favorably inclined to Russia.  Russia will never part with its influence in Ukraine.  It is mainly the US interest to get Ukraine under its dominance, which is the cause of conflict between Russia and the US.  Russia is now lot stronger than it was 15-20 years ago.  With Vladimir Putin at the helm, Russia has a lot more effective military force, and carries a much more diplomatic and political influence.  Russia is not like Iraq, Afghanistan, or Iran; that’s a militarily strong and well equipped power.  US in good wisdom should not attack Russia for the following important reasons:

1.          US launching an attack against Russia may trigger a 3rd World War involving and engulfing many countries; the western and European countries would be the hardest hit economically and militarily.
2.         Death and destruction would be many times more than what happened in the last two wars combined.
3.          Any use of nuclear device by any involved country would cause immense annihilation and devastation of humans and material. Many countries may have to  start with scratch after the conflict and war is over.
4.         Besides Russia, US economy would have been absolutely collapsed, and would be dependent on countries like China.
5.        China as a result of its not directly involving in the war game while remaining neutral, would emerge as an economically and militarily SUPER POWER.  May be the only super power dominating the globe.  US balance of payment and trade deficit via China is already in the doldrums. 

        It will be  extremely unwise for the United States to attack Russia, as it will definitely be a step towards plunging the world in third world war.  In the last but not the least, the most important is that military conflicts or launching attacks should be avoided at all cost.  US must have better understanding of that by previous experience of invading other countries and landing our boots on other countries’ soil; that by doing so not only have we made their situation worse than before as well as hurt ourselves economically and while effecting many lives negatively in the process.  That is why it’s extremely important for US to adapt a diplomatic policy towards Russia.  However, a good way to bring Russia back to the community of nations and force it to practice more democratic policies is to resolve and settle all differences through diplomacy, negotiation, and through the policy of “Give and Take”. 

Obama embarrassed over Letter to Iran.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/03/13/obama-iran-letter_n_6864134.html?ir=Politics

The above link is to the article on The Huffington Post written by Paige Levine who is a senior politics editor at the Huffington Post and a graduate from American University in Virginia.  In her post she mentions about President Obama's embarrassment over the open letter sent by 47 Senators  to the supreme leader of Iran, Ayatollah.  While President Obama was focusing on making a peaceful agreement with Iran over their nuclear program, the Republicans on the other hand had started an extremely risky game by first inviting Netanyahu, the leader from Israel to speak over US foreign policy and  sent out a letter to Iran warning them against their nuclear deal with United States that President Obama must not be trusted over any nuclear program agreement as the agreement may be reversed by his successor or changed by lawmakers in the United States. By doing so the Republicans have not only disgraced he President of United States but they have embarrassed the whole country by undermining an American diplomatic leader. 

The author's intended audience is the people of United States and in her post she also tried taking a poll among Democrats, Independents and Republicans asking if it is or is not appropriate of Republicans to write this letter to Iran? 

The results show that only 10% of the Democrats, 25% of Independents and about 55% of the Republicans found it Appropriate of the Republicans to send this letter to Iran. Where as 60% of the Democrats, 39%of Independents and only 8% of the Republicans found the letter to be not appropriate. And between 19% to 39% were not sure. By looking at the results of the poll it looks like the author's intended audience were Democrats who found the letter to be extremely in appropriate and on the contrary 55% of the Republicans found it ok to have the President of their country embarrassed in front of the world.