Sunday July 2 Musings

Gun Violence = Terrorism = Anarchy

Why do the police exist?  Well from the very beginning of time, certain humans have decided to, or lost emotional control or perhaps both, to kill or abuse another human.  Eventually society decided to give certain individuals the authority to protect everybody else from those humans intent on wrecking havoc.  That is why we have the legend of Wyatt Erpe, Doc Holliday and any number of other famous policemen.  Anyone remember Serprico?

I make that point to wonder why we get so hysterical about Islamic Terrorism, but not other acts of random violence including police shooting unarmed or even legally armed African Americans for various car violations.  What motivated this thought was the Congressional baseball shooting was quickly labeled not a terrorist act.  The shooting at the Bronx hospital was quickly labeled not a terrorist act.  The shooting at the Little Rock night club was quickly labeled not a terrorist act.

Who did this labeling?  The police and the Media.  Who are they kidding?  These are acts of gun violence are terrorism, a form of anarchy and criminal.  They are just not committed by people of the Islamic faith.

So what I propose is the police and media either simply call Islamic Anarchy Islamic terrorism or call everything that is a criminal act terrorism or simply a criminal act.  And if there is a lot of criminal acts then what we have is anarchy.

It all the same sh*t.

Caution in Leadership

There was a book review about President Kennedy's caution in helping Dr. Martin Luther King.  This was an epiphany for me about both President Obama and President Trump.  Good leaders are cautious.  They want to make progress but only with consensus behind them so there is adequate support for what they are trying to accomplish.  That is how progress acquires support and acceptance from the masses.  As much as I supported President Obama's policies, he and the Democrats got lost in their Congressional majority in 2009/10 and abandoned caution in the face of Republican obstruction.  Now I don't have a clue what type of Health Insurance Reform the GOP would have supported in 2009/10?  or what type of environmental actions that GOP would have supported?  But we would certainly be in a better place if the GOP and a good slice of their voters supported a better health insurance structure than what we previously had and we would be in a better place with similar action on the environment.  And as for President Trump and the Congressional GOP, they don't have a clue about this concept of Leadership should be cautious.  They are pursuing a radical agenda with zero support from anyone other than the GOP core.

Now I read Trump EPA is busy undoing Obama Environmental Regulations.  But they are not doing it through Congress either so the next Democratic President can undo the Trump damage and we can go back and forth on this for any number of 4 year periods.  I'm not sure how business will react but I don't think this would be a net positive.  And this highlights my point about Leadership = Caution.

Rural Jails

Fact.  Most long term jail facilities are in rural areas.  Fact, except for 4 states, these criminals are counted in the population where the jail resides.  But felons do not have the right to vote.  So while the voting districts are designed to divide the population up evenly, these rural voters have more than one vote in the overall scheme because their vote is part of a smaller total of number of voters.  This enhances the rural voting power in Legislative Districts and leads to a GOP advantage.  I believe this is why the GOP supports filling up the jails as much as possible.  It enhances the gerrymandering.