tar

swansont, I looked at the links. And yes it is a real problem, and yes there is institutional racism and economic and physical isolation in terms of having "black" communities, and predominately white communities...but Hilary lives in Chappaqua she does not live in Newark. She and her husband had something to do with the three strikes you're out, and the crack cocaine sentencing stuff. Its not like I caused the problem and she is trying to save the country from my hate. And there is an element of dependency on the government, that smells to me like a kept population, that is fostered by the democrats. I want to not have a line beyond which an affluent black can buy a home. But I don't need to be forced to have a low income housing project next to the house I am paying a mortgage on, that is going to drive down the resale value of my home, and introduce drugs and crime into my highschool. I think a lot about how to solve the problem. I grew up in the Oranges in NJ. West Orange, and Orange and went to school in Orange for a year during the 67 riots, and college in East Orange, and had my first child in East Orange. We were broken into in East Orange, twice, once by a team one black and one white, and once by a lone black man. A white neighbor had confronted the lone black man with a pillowcase full of our stuff, leaving our house, and of course he did not stop. The neighbor lives now in Sussex county, and I live in Northern Passaic county, far from East Orange. I did not want to raise my daughter and send her to the local schools. They themselves were, like the prisons, training grounds for criminality. I abandoned East Orange, with all the great infrastructure of apartment buildings and roads and schools and trains into the city, for the woods, where bear and hornet and skunk were my biggest dangers, and deer and bear raided the flower garden and the fruit trees. But where I can keep my stuff in an unlocked shed and trust my neighbors to look out for my interests. So I think, in the grand scheme of things, that some responsibility for a neighborhood goes to the inhabitants. They need to take care of each other and their property. There is a responsibility that blacks have to bear their weight in society and feed into the economy, not feed off it, and look for ways to get over on the man, and pay back the crackers for enslaving their ancestors. I have no special in with the royality of the country, where I am the master and a black person the slave. I am on paar with any middle class black man, that works every day, raises his family, and protects me and my interests at home and abroad. I want to be in the same tribe. I do not however think I do a black man a favor, nor my society a favor, by thinking of him as a ward of the state, from the get go. Regards, TAR

There is a secondary, important consideration to deal with in law enforcement. Maybe a primary consideration. The peace officer is there to enforce the law and gain control of the situation. He or she must be respected and given the ability to handle the situation. You don't go in, thinking the police are going to foul up. You go in thinking the person generating the call the police are responding to has fouled up, and we need the police to go in and straighten the situation out on our behalf. If you go in, thinking the police are there to take away somebodies father, then you have missed the point, and your criminal justice system should not be built around that premise.

But the criminal is ultimately responsible for his or her actions. You don't fire the Mayor, because some high on illegal drugs individual breaks the law, threatens public safety and gets killed when the police arrive and can not deal sanely with his insane state.

It took force to accomplish those two ideological victories. I was in the ARMY, with guns and tanks and some other forceful stuff, at my disposal. dimreepr, You know what you are proposing, but I have no idea. Get me out of this logical bind. You say we should not use force, we should think enigmatically, but you do not provide me with the problem you think we need to solve. I am an excellent problem solver. Give me the ideology you wish to defeat and I can apply smart diplomacy to it and suggest where we need talk, where we need science and technology, where we need art and music, where we need whatever we got, to apply to the problem. But you have to state the problem. Who holds this ideology we are trying to defeat, and what are the tenants of the ideology? Does it have a name? Is it bigger than a breadbox? What do you want me to solve? Regards, TAR

dimreepr, I am doing the best I can at confronting your thought that we can defeat a forceful threat by other than force. If you think we should attempt to not fight fire with fire, but find another way to invalidate the ideology, I am game. But you have to clearly identify the ideology that you think we should be attempting to defeat. If we can't use force, and we can't defeat an ideology by other means of persuasion and education, then what are you proposing? If you do think we can defeat an ideology with the proper education and example, then it is important for you to define the ideology that we are trying to dissuade so we can get to it. Regards, TAR

dimreepr, Perhaps, but do you think my serving in the Army in Germany helped in a small way to keep Nazi ideology from resurging and my presence as a stop against Soviet tank invasion might have, in a small way fought against the communist ideology that had hold of East Germany and allowed for the eventual coming down of the wall? You want me to think enigmatically. Solve some mysterious puzzle, while my countrymen and allies get blown up and shot and sliced. Try thinking backward. Let's say we have this ideology of peace and freedom and cooperation and economic development and mastery of disease and poverty, rule of law and human dignity and freedom. How does somebody defeat that ideology and make it so we distrust each other and go through screening processes at the airport and entering tall buildings. They do it by piloting planes into beautiful towers, cutting off heads, blowing people up and threatening to do more of the same if we do not stop being so happy and cooperative and successful and tolerant. Our ideology is being challenged by force. We are being defeated by the hate and fear and derision being sown by ISIS. Terror is winning. How do we defeat that threat? By solving a puzzle? By thinking good thoughts? We already were thinking good thoughts prior the threat. The threat is not only an ideology, it is actual physical people trying to defeat ours. We can not defeat an ideology, but we can remove those that are trying to defeat ours, from power. Regards, TAR

DrmDoc, Secretary Clinton's massive criminal justice reform, linked to in a recent post, IS what I was responding to. Regards, TAR

http://www.jta.org/1934/10/08/archive/percentage-of-jews-in-prison-is-small-j-f-fishman-finds Thinks that our prisons are criminal training grounds, and need reform in that way, but why should there be fewer Jews in prison population wise, then other religions? I would look to the ethics and the parents and the respect for the law, before I would look to blaming the KKK for incarcerating Jews. It would not be sensible to blame the KKK police, who do not like Jews, for discriminating FOR them, and keeping them out of prison.

Phi for All, I do not have a conservative bias, I have a common sense bias. I do not doubt the statistics, I doubt that blacks in prison are there inappropriately. If you demand criminal justice reform, then you figure the cops need to have body cams on to prevent them from behaving badly and blacks that behaved badly need to be given a pass. Just watched last night the NY news and there was a video of a black man pushing a robbery victim down a flight of stairs. Should the police identify the guy and go to his house and arrest him? If the guy resists arrest and force is used to bring him in should the arresting officer be fired? If the guy is arrested without incident and brought in, should he be incarcerated or put out on bond? If he is incarcerated and adds to the statistics of blacks in prison, should some other black in prison be released to bring down the numbers? Usually police and judges are a little acceptant of low level crime and give people a fine or community service and a scolding. Repeat offenders however get some jail time to teach them a lesson and suggest they are going down the wrong path. A lily white young lady I know has a heroine problem. She got involved with the law several times, due to buying or having or using an illegal substance. Finally this year, after many years of detox and family love and understanding, she got involved with the law again and the judge said enough, you need some prison time, to detox and to see the error of your ways. If blacks are in jail to a higher percentage than Hispanics and Hispanics are in jail to a higher percentage than whites and whites are in jail to a higher percentage than oriental folk, I would think it sensible for everybody to act more like oriental folk, when it comes to obeying the law. There are more males in prison then females (I would guess.) Not because the criminal justice system is bias against males, but because males commit more crimes. If all black men acted like oriental women when it came to respecting the law, then the numbers of blacks in prison would go down, regardless of how many KKK members are police officers. In fact, suggesting that there are ANY KKK members that are police officers in Chicago and Newark and Paterson is probably incorrect an assumption. Regards, TAR

swansont, Well I guess she did speak out against the violence. But her overall thrust is for sweeping criminal justice reform, suggesting that the cops are wrong to incarcerate blacks that break the law. Regards, TAR

I shared an article on facebook, and I never share articles on facebook, where a white military friend of a black pro football player responded to the pro football player about how he felt concerning the anthem protests. The military person completely supported the player, and said powerfully how that speech is exactly the freedoms that the military protects, and that we absolutely should link arms as one tribe. I strongly support such sentiments. I was in the army, and we were taught that there is no black, no white, no red, no brown no yellow, we were all green. Close friend, platoon mate and roommate of mine, in Germany, Hollywood by nickname, from California, (His name was Harold, he was black and we called each other cuz for cousin, instead of bro, for brother) and I spoke many times about race relations and we were on the same page and he ceded come Helter Skelter, that I would be alright. I did not like the fists in the air at the Olympics, I did not like Kaepernick's lonely kneel, but I like the linking of arms, very much. Not just three blacks kneeling, in defiance, but the whole team showing that we are one tribe. I am for being one people. You know that I have always argued to stop calling each other names, to give the other the benefit of the doubt, and support the other as a brother or sister, and a countryman or woman under the greatest flag on the planet. Black lives matter wants to have blacks treated like equal citizens, like brothers and sisters, and have a cop, make a traffic stop (or a pedestrian encounter) like they were stopping their own family member, and not treat every black motorist and pedestrian like a criminal. The KKK feels pure in their beliefs and used to lynch blacks that they feared were after their women, or challenging their control of the place. We long ago, outlawed the KKK for taking the law into their own hands, and so we should have, and so we should all speak against any rise in white supremist sentiments, because it is completely un-American, and against our principles as a nation, against our tribe, and against the law. I think Hilary should speak out against Black Lives matters, when they burn cars, loot stores, burn stores and kill cops, because it is like a lynching, it is completely un-American, and against our principles as a nation, against our tribe, and against the law. Regards, TAR On Saturday I saw one college football anthem where the people in the stands were linking arms and swaying back and forth in unison. Beautiful. Like a young boy in the stands at a pro game, sitting during the anthem, with his hand over his heart,

SwansonT, Not using anybody's talking points, just calling it like I see it. If the homicide rate has dropped over the past 50 and gun ownership has tripled, that sort of contradicts the need to repeal the 2nd amendment. If the police shootings are at historic lows, that is fine, but if it has been steadily decreasing and just in the last year reversed the trend, then the reversal is the important data point, not the trend. To be fair, compare the last Bush with Obama, not years ago with Reagan. There there is a difference but not so much. It makes the recent increase more problematic and in need of the suggestion of a cause and of a solution. Regards, TAR I don't need the statistics to feel that more people are getting shot in Paterson then usual. I don't need statistics to know most of it is drug related. I don't need the statistics to blame the black and Hispanic gangs because that is who is killing each other. I don't need the statistics to know that people from my town are driving to Paterson to get heroine which is 5 dollars a high to replace their pain medication addiction which is 40 dollars a high. I don't need statistics to see 5 cops, black and white and Hispanic, killed by ex-military blacks that want to see social justice, to know that the black lives matter movement along with drugs pouring over our southern border and criminal Mexican gangs are adding to our gun deaths, just this year. and Obama care might have made it easier to get pain medication and that may have been contributory to the epidemics of Oxycodone and Oxycoton as well as decreased the poverty level. Maybe people sold their prescriptions. drug addicts have a way of taking their food stamps, buying softdrinks and selling the softdrinks at a discount to retail outlets. Then purchasing their drugs. All on the government. The foodstamps stop kids from starving and people on disability from starving but also allow drug addicts to have a source of money for their drugs. come to think of it, you could reach your deductible, have your pain team continue to prescribe 80 dollar per tablet medication, sell a tablet for 50 dollars on the street, and have the money to buy 10 highs on herorine...all on Obama care. besides how do you get any feel for what is happening now by studying 50 year old statistics. So much has changed, you have no idea of the causes, except to use common sense. Which you can do without the stats.

The Obama coalition included a few more blacks and a few more Latinos and several more young people, than Clinton has behind her. It is somewhat pandering toward the black community to not speak out against looting and burning and shooting police. For the sake of the black community, it would be better if they were not painted as the victim of white racism, and instead encouraged to stay in school, start businesses, work to improve the community and start a family. Things not encouraged by the Democrats, who would rather have a voting block that voted for them every time, because they promise to take care of the poor, and victimized. (with the tax money of the rich and successful, by the way). Sure we should take care of our weak. But we should not suppose that you are weak because you are black or latino. That is especially racist.

Delta1212, Granted. But as an old white male, I take offense at being called KKK, if I have misgivings about Hilary. Granted Trump should speak out against David Duke, but so should Hilary Speak out against Black Lives Matter, when cars are set on fire, stores burned and looted and police attacked. Regards, TAR

DrmDoc, Good point again. By those metrics Trump is a devil, Hilary is an angel. But Trump says he is going to use his cleverness and acumen as a negotiator, now, for the benefit of the Nation. He says he is not owned by any special interests and just wants to pay back all the benefits he has received from living in such a great country, by using his talents of persuasion and ability to get great projects done, to the advantage of America. Whereas Hilary's help has gotten the common people to exactly where they have fallen over the last years. Maybe it is Racist to push for birth control in an African American community, for instance. Maybe it is not so good to give people a fish, and better to teach people to fish, as the old new testament line goes. Give a man a fish, and he eats for a day. Teach a man to fish and he eats for a lifetime. Dependence on Government will never be as efficient as dependence on yourself, where every link in the chain is strong and self suffient. So what Hilary has done for the masses, might not have been a favor. Depends on one's politics, who will be better for the country. That is why we hold elections. Usually we do it with respect for the other side. This year, the other side of the isle is being painted as deplorable. A deplorable condition indeed. Regards, TAR better if we embrace the other side and link arms like one tribe

Ten Oz, Well yes I mix and match. How I felt then and how I feel now, have varying degrees of regret and pride involved. My take however is different than the take of those who would trash Bush and Elevate Obama for doing the same things. In arguments about the middle east, there are at least two different battles going on. Zionist against Muslim, and Warmonger against Pacifist. I frame all debates, and look at all facts as if I am a Zionist and a warmonger. You can not call me a warmonger and a Zionist, as if it is going to hurt my feelings. I am 100% for me, my country and my way of life And will not pretend to be pure and uninterested in oil, as I drive my car, run my lawnmower and blower, and travel to Atlanta by car or plane. And I will not disavow my support for Israel and allow it to be OK to follow Sharia law and cut of Clitorises and throw gays off buildings and cut of the heads of apostates. So I am not at all after a solution that makes everybody happy, because that is impossible, I am after a solution where the Western ideals, couched int the Judeo Christian religion, win out over whatever evil ideology has spawned ISIS, and Kim Jung-un. It would be better for me to retain the good life I have, than to have it taken away because of a failed effort to improve someone else's. As far as I am concerned, we , the U.S. and the coalition and the U.N. gave Iraq a chance to be a free democratic, secular, country, unencumbered by a dictator, and free to establish peace and freedom for its population, male and female, Sunni, Shiite and Kurd. That it did not happen is not the fault of Bush, or me. dimreepr, Tell me more about the kind of intelligence you are talking. Regards, TAR

SwansonT, He did disqualify himself as one who unites and as one to stand for the country in the eyes of the world, and alienate entire swaths of people at an alarming rate. Muslims, Mexicans, Women, Republican Elites, the press, judges, billionaires, "my African American"s, disabled, prisoners of war, etc. Yet every time we thought he had crossed the line and said that "two Corinthian" line, that would reveal him as a fake and a blowhard and as unpresidential, his numbers would go up, instead of down, as everyone expected. Some other current is running through the country, the anti-establishment elite, current that fueled Sanders supporters, and made it so Bush lost in Florida to Trump. In this light, 40 years of government service is not a qualification, it is disqualifying. In this light, where 85 billion a month in quantitative easing has increased the gap between rich and middle class, where the inner cities are afire with drug gangs and killings because of the flow of drugs from Mexico, and Europe is afire with Islamaphobia and terrorist strikes, having Obama say you are the most qualified to carry on his agenda, is not necessarily a qualification received well by a population that sees threats they have never seen, see police murdered in the street, see their health insurance expense doubled, and have been unable to find a job in the new economy. Being steady and status quo, is evidently not the only virtue the electorate is looking for. And calling the people that are looking for a change 50% deplorable, just pushes them further from wanting to see her in the White House. On occasion I wonder if maybe Trump can get Mexico to pay for the wall. When he says things, people change their tune. Like maybe we don't have to be enemies with the Russians, and it wouldn't be such a bad thing if we had better relations. The U.S. will still be the U.S. with either of them president. We will still work it out. We will still be great, still be tolerant, still be the bastion of law and order, human rights, and freedom in the world. Nobody, or at least not many of either's supporters are going to move to Canada or Mexico if the other wins. Regards, TAR

dimreepr, So, please, tell me what you mean by political Islam, and what would be a good way to go about defeating it? Regards, TAR In words I can only take as you mean them.

and the American people include drug companies, Iranians, day traders, corporations, bankers, Wall Street execs, insurance companies, Republicans and a whole basket of deplorables. Xenophobes, Islamaphobes, Homophobes, Rascists, drug addicts, criminals, rapists, drug gangs, pedafiles, cheats, liars, bullies and ever other thing you might wish to call someone that is not as pure as you are Selling access and buying access are two different offenses.

DrmDoc, While I completely agree in principle, it is important to remember in looking at the past actions of the two, that the one has been in public life and the other in private. Things done in the name of the people, hold the doer, in terms of public trust, to a higher standard. Trump is expected to cause his competition to lose. Hilary is expected to cause the American people to win. Regards, TAR

Carrock, Yes, I get that argument. We wanted to go in for various reasons, which all turned out to be bogus, and therefore America had a bad, stupid leader interested only in the oil and that pulled the wool over the eyes of the world and the American people in doing the thing. Except that is not what happened. And follows the anti Zionist anti American propaganda, that spins all against America. Saddam was pulling the wool over the eyes of the world, alternately allowing inspectors and foiling them, lying and shifting stuff around, while threatening the region, including Israel, with a very powerful army Years of no fly and sanctions had not reduced the threat. He would take aid and what came through the blockade for his own political benefit, starving his enemies and taking care of his friends. Meanwhile blaming the coalition blockade for starving children. When we did go in, I remember how he was publically speaking about how the mighty Iraqi forces were victorious over the advancing U.S. WHILE U.S. tanks were rolling into the city blocks away. I did not trust him a whit, while I did trust my own country and my president to do my bidding, which was to remove Saddam from power. That 20 20 hindsight showed his chemical arsenal was depleted, and he had no ties to Bin Laden, and his nuclear program was not as far along as we feared, did not change my feelings that we needed to take him down, and I am glad we were successful in doing it, and subsequently finding him and having him tried and executed by Iraqis. Now what was bad, was the Shiite, Sunni split that caused. Shiites in power, Sunnis in jail. Laid the groundwork for years of civil war and resistance against occupation. Caused inhumane slaughters of Sunnis by Shiites and retaliatory killing the other way. Laid the ground work for Iranian influence to grow against the Sunnis and resulted in the Sunni remanants of the Saddams guard, releasing Sunni political prisoners from jail and creating ISIS. The U.S. wanted regime change, also in Syria. We did not invade. We did not have U.N. permission. Instead we backed the rebels, and encouraged the Arab Spring. Just as dangerous as going into Iraq. 5 and a half years of a quarter million deaths and refugees destabilizing the whole area including Europe. Yet we are scolded for going into Iraq, and thought wise to stay out of Syria. I am thinking we tried to do the right thing, in both cases and it turned out we did not do it right. 20 20 hindsight can make a fool or a hero out of anybody you want, depending on your overall philosophy and what sides you choose to take. I have chosen to take the side of the U.S. and my way of life, and I parse the world from that position. I am not interested in striving 'til all the world is for Allah. Makes no sense. If Allah is true then the whole world is already his by definition. Being that I know for a fact, that Gabriel did not visit Mohammed in the cave and relay God's last messages to us, I have to take the thing as figurative, and therefore take Muhammed's conquests as literal. And that being said, 'til all the world is for Allah, is completely political, and there is no humanism in it, and it is reverence only to Mohammed and his successors. To defeat that, you have to either tell Muslims to stop requiring children to memorize the Koran, or ask Muslims to stop requiring children to memorize the Koran. Regards, TAR

Phi for All, I had a couple of those dreams were I took a drag off a cigarette without thinking about it, and then realized I had taken a drag of the cigarette and ruined my quitting. Very disappointing feeling, but so good to wake up and know you did not actually take that drag and ruin the quit. String Junky, Dreams are hard to interpret. Ones own, you sort of get, because a dream I feel is you talking to you in only a language you understand. But it is hard for others to understand as it is hard for a parent to understand baby talk, or hard for a Chinese person to understand a Greek person. Not only difference in the symbols, but a difference in the historical background and meaning of things, in the case of people from different cultures. Your dream however reminded me of the Shire and Frodo's race and extreme effort to destroy the ring of power before the Shire was engulfed in the flames of Sauron. The ring of power was both heavily coveted and very dangerous. Sort of like half a fag. Would feel good to take that drag, but there is evil in the thing (health risk, expense, stink, dependency, hurting others, etc.) Regards, TAR you have to take that ring off your finger, lose that invisibility and invincibility, and throw the damn thing into the lava and destroy it. Release yourself from its draw. Make it not an option, brick up that door and never use it again.

I keep trying to ask what we are talking about in terms of political Islam, I just react to other people's posts. In terms of WMDs you are talking about this. "The Niger uranium forgeries were forged documents initially revealed by SISMI (Italian military intelligence), which seem to depict an attempt made by Saddam Hussein in Iraq to purchase yellowcake uranium powder from Niger during the Iraq disarmament crisis. On the basis of these documents and other indicators, the governments of the United States and the United Kingdom asserted that Iraq violated United Nations Iraq sanctions by attempting to procure nuclear material for the purpose of creating weapons of mass destruction." I do not deny that happened, nor do others. But those were not the only WMDs that Saddam had, there were those "other indicators" and I am after those others. So I would be glad to get back on topic. What about political Islam, should we try to defeat? So Hans, do you think there is any way to separate political Islam from Islam? Would we not need Muslims to do it, instead of the Great Satan doing it? Like if your kids are terrorizing the neighborhood, shouldn't you stop it, before someone calls the police? http://www.thereligionofpeace.com/pages/quran/violence.aspx This site has some verses and some political and historic context to the verses. The politics of Islam are closely tied to Muhammed's rule.

Phi, My sister and wife and stepmom smoke, but I draw a distinction between my sister and wife, and my stepmom. The former two smoke outside, and ask me if the smoke is bothering me, if it is drifting toward me during a Scrabble game or something, and will put it out, or move far away, if I say it's getting to me. On the other hand my Stepmom will light up in her house in a closed livingroom causing me to have to excuse myself from the room to avoid ingesting the nicotine, and awakening the old habit. So smokers should be concerned not only with the health risk of second hand smoke, but with the more serious reality of drugging the people that inhale their smoke, that do not wish to be drugged. Regards, TAR

ya know I think I just figured out this charge of me shifting the goal posts Something is said, that has assumptions behind it, that I do not agree with. I explore the validity of the assumptions I question, and make a good point about the assumptions, and am then accused of shifting the goal posts. At the time of the Iraq invasion there were anti-American and anti-Zionist propagandists working in the world. I was against them then, and am against them now.