What Nation Should the US Support the Most?

The United States of America has long prided itself as a global leader in economic prosperity, security, and freedom, and regards itself as a model that the rest of the world follows. As a global leader, the US has an obligation to encourage and help other countries that aren’t as prosperous as the US through financial aid and military intervention to remove extreme regimes that oppress their citizens.

The US foreign policy aims to bring as many nations to a level of economic force so they are able to contribute positively to the global economy. This includes stabilizing a country by reducing violence, mortality rates, and poverty.

There is one country in particular that the US has failed at attaining this goal. The country in question has high rates of infant mortality, child poverty, violence, and incarceration. All figures are from sets of data recorded through 2013, as this was the most complete set of data to compare this country to the rest of the world:

-In this country, the infant mortality rate is 6.0, compared to the global average of 3.4 – nearly 1.8 times greater than the global average.

-In this country, 16 million children are in poverty, which is 22% of all children, and 7% of the population. This is compared to 400 million in total globally, which is 21% of all children, and 5.5% of the global population.

-In this country, the total crime index is at 53.44, compared to the median index of 42.95. This country ranks 31 out of the 188 countries in which data was analyzed in crime - meaning it is the 31st most susceptible country for crime.

-In this country, nearly 1% of its total population is incarcerated, compared to the global average of 0.0046%. Additionally, this country will see 50% of their prison population recidivate – i.e. reenter the prison population within three years.

-Finally, during the entire existence of this country, it has been at war nearly 96% of the time.

On paper this country seems like an impoverished, dangerous, war torn place. This is the kind of country that the US needs to support. Fortunately, the US doesn’t need to go very far, because the country I speak of is the United States of America.

I'm Running for President

Go home hair, you're drunk

Donald Trump entered the GOP presidential race today, assumedly naming his hair as his running mate. This brings the total nominees to 58 - 27 Republicans, 13 Democrats, 10 Independents, 4 Libertarians, 2 Constitutionalists, 1 Reformer, and 1 Green party.

All of these people think they have what it takes to lead a country of 325 million people while simultaneously doing their best to not piss off the rest of the world, and drop some freedom on yo ass if you ain't got no freedoms.

I'm 98% sure I'm smarter than all of these people, or at least all but maybe 2, so I should throw my proverbial presidential hat into the ring as well. I mean, I'm not 35 yet, the minimum age to run for president, but that didn't stop a Kenyan from serving two terms and a Canadian from running, so I think they are pretty lax on those rules nowadays. The only hurdle I may have is that I was born in Guam, which most of these nominees probably don't know is a US Territory and will probably think I'm Japanese or some shit.

So I’ll be running in some sort of party. Let’s call it, the Super Awesome Democracy party, or SAD for short. I’ll do some stuff, but pretty much my campaign slogan will be “If you vote for me, all of your wildest dreams will come true”.

My platform will be pretty cool I guess. Women will get to decide what to do with all their reproductive bits, because I mean, why the hell do old men with no medical experience think they know what the hell goes on down there. God knows they don’t know what to do down there. They’re probably like “oh my god what is this tiny penis like looking thing, I’m not gay so I’m just going to work around it”. It’s the clitoris, you idiot, and women like it to be touched. That’s why pure romance parties are a thing. Also women will make 20% more than men. This isn’t to make up for years of unequal pay, I just want women to pay for shit more often cause they got more money than I do. Gay people can get married, because they deserve the right to be as miserable as married straight couples. Also, they can adopt all the orphans they can handle, because as far as I know there are literally millions of orphans.

I’m going to switch our system of government to a democratic, technocratic meritocracy. Jesus that’s like 13 syllables so I’ll break it down. People who hold high offices will not only be elected (democracy), but they will only be elected based on their proven contributions to that area of expertise (meritocracy), and be of the brightest individuals in that field (technocracy). Seriously, no more electing a dude that thinks the world is 4000 years old and that Jesus rode dinosaurs to the science committee. We will have actual scientists in the science committee. We will have actual educators in the education committees. And dammit we will have actual doctors in whatever committee makes healthcare decisions.

Next, free higher education. How will we pay for this socialist endeavor? By dismantling another socialist program. You see, we take taxpayer money and give it to corporations as bribes to keep doing business in our country, ignoring the irony that if we didn’t give them that money, they would still do business here because they still need to sell shit. Additionally, we let big businesses pay smaller taxes for the same reason, reducing the federal government’s tax revenue. Also, states are constantly poaching business by dangling the proverbial carrot of tax breaks so they will move to their state – sure it adds jobs to that state, but it eliminates jobs in the other state. That’s not going to happen anymore. Business will pay their fair share of taxes or they can move over and let another person start a business that’s not going to be a greedy jerk. You see, we spend a lot of tax money, and potential revenue to invest in big businesses that don’t need investing. They are plenty profitable. So I’m going to take that money and invest it into our own citizens so that we can continue being the highly educated and innovated country we are (or should be). Also, no more student debt, and low barriers of entry for our poorer citizens, which means they will have more consumer confidence to buy stuff. Pretty sure that’s how a healthy economy works.

What else… Oh yeah, some of the hawkish candidates think we need more money for our military. Hawkish is really just a term for politicians that want to drop freedom bombs on second and third world countries because freedom. Really, they just need to keep funding the war economy. A lot of their donors are wealthy business owners that make military equipment, and they need to give them a reason to make lots of money. Sure a lot of soldiers will die, but that’s worth it for the $20 million contract to make Kevlar vests for soldiers that won’t get them in time, because the project will end up going over budget and over schedule. So I’m going to reduce military spending to pre-9/11 levels. In the last 14 years, the defense budget doubled. I think we were still a force to be reckoned with in 2000, I think other countries will fear us just fine with the reduced spending. I mean, we spend more on defense than pretty much every country combined, I don’t think we need to keep pumping steroids into the proverbial biceps of military power (I used proverbial a lot). What’s that, Senator McCain? We need to protect ourselves against a potential attack from North Korea? They can’t even launch a missile that doesn’t comically flop into the ocean after 20 feet. Also, their ideal missile trajectory is to shoot it all the way across the pacific rather than over the northern pole which is like half the distance. I don’t think they have their shit together.

Free healthcare for everyone – you don’t even need insurance. We’ll probably pay for this with the reduced military spending. Canada figured it out, we can too. Do you want to be less capable of ensuring your citizens are healthy than Canada? Didn’t think so.

Naturalize immigrants from southern nations. I know, this is a controversial issue, but I’m going to be adding a whole lot of jobs. More jobs than we have workers, so we will need them. Also, it was the US drug war that pushed cartels further south into previously peaceful nations that are now nightmarish countries, which is why they are now trying to get into the US. We owe it to them to at least give them a new place to live, given the fact we totally screwed up their countries.

Buy an island and put Ted Nugent, Wayne LaPierre, and most other crazy open carry weapon nuts and people who shoot endangered species for fun on it. Then they can hunt each other and we won’t have to deal with it. Also, no for profit prisons, and no putting somebody that was busted with an ounce of weed in jail for 5 years. Seriously, it costs 40k a year per inmate and we are putting lots of people in there that will just recidivate because no one wants to hire a former inmate. The US has 5% of the worlds population and 25% of the worlds incarcerated population – pretty sure that’s not how it’s supposed to be. You’d think we were a nation of pure chaos with so many inmates, but nope, we just like to put non-violent offenders in jail for long periods of time so they can make shit on the cheap – mostly military gear. Indentured servitude at its finest – yay capitalism! Instead of incarcerating addicts, let’s send them to addiction counseling and solve the problem instead.

Women get like a year of maternity leave. They can split it with their husbands too. Babies need to be nurtured, yo. However, this may be an incentive for people to just pop out babies Duggars style so you will need to pass a test before you can become a parent. So we will need to get our scientists started on some sort of temporary, reversible sterilization. Yeah I know it goes against the whole “personal freedoms” thing, but come on, overpopulation is crazy high. Also have you ever seen that movie Idiocracy? This is about preservation of a healthy, intelligent human race. Also, we are banning the name “Cleetus”.

It's got what plants crave

Green energy for shits sake. We need it. No reason we can’t have solar panels, geothermal power, nuclear energy (ok, not so green but not so bad). I say we need to bring back Nikola Tesla’s “Tesla Coil” technology. You ever hear about it? Shit is crazy. What we do is put a metal rod down into the Earth’s surface, which transfers the natural resonance frequency into static electricity, which is then blasted into the Ionosphere, which is a electrically charged protective layer in Earth’s atmosphere. Then we can wirelessly transmit that energy into homes and buildings and such. It works, too. Tesls did this in like 1890. He was able to wirelessly power light bulbs a hundred feet away. It’s high voltage, so it can power a bunch of stuff, but low current so it’s not going to fry everything and everybody, also it’s alternating current, which is used by pretty much everything. The only reason we don’t have this now is because no one would invest in it, because they can’t make money off of it. Yay capitalism!

I will declare the “war on Christianity” over, because there is no war. Stop encroaching on other people’s right to freedom from religion and you won’t get so much pushback. No more refusing business on your “deeply held religious beliefs”. You don’t have deeply held beliefs, you just use that to make yourself comfortable for your irrational behavior. You are privileged to start and profit from a business in this country. If you want to refuse service to a minority, then you can kindly GTFO and make room for a responsible business owner. You clearly are not fit to own a business and take up market share. You can’t refuse birth control to employees because it’s against YOUR religion. Keep trying to say that it’s a deeply held religious belief while you are eating a bacon sandwich while getting a tattoo after your monthly haircut. You look ridiculous. Either practice your faith in full force or not at all, stop cherry picking. “Homosexuality is a Sin!” said the guy to his ex-wife. “Gay people will convert me to be gay!” – dude, you are already gay. “Birth control is abortion!” No, it’s pre-abortion. It’s about preventing fertilization, not terminating a pregnancy. If you promoted birth control there would be far less abortions. If you are against birth control, sex education, and safe sex, then you are promoting abortion, you stupid hypocrite.

I’m afraid of bridges, because they could collapse at any moment, so we’re going to go ahead and fix those. Also roads. Also all the other infrastructure.

Disband the Senate, or at least take away their lawmaking abilities. Think about it, a state with 1 million people has the same representation as a state with 30 million people in the Senate. That’s just unbalanced. The interests of the many, outweigh the interests of the very few. Sorry, but that’s just how it should be. We can compromise, but only so far. Life isn’t fair, we are all different, no one is going to get everything they want.

There’s probably some other stuff. Maybe build a wall at the Mexican border, but that wall goes around the entire state of Texas. Pretty much just give Mexico Texas. They can give us all the mariachi bands. Also give Canada back Justin Bieber and Ted Cruz. We will give them Alaska. Nothing against Alaska, it’s just why do we have a state up there? It should be part of Canada anyway. They also need to take back Ryan Gosling, he’s stealing all the pretty ladies. I’ll just wing foreign policy. How hard could it be?

All your women are belong to me

The BS Opposition to the BSA GB Lift

News had been circulating that the Boy Scouts of America (BSA) would consider lifting the ban on gay scouts and volunteers amidst strong encouragement from the LGBT community and activists.  Of course, once news broke about the consideration, thousands showed up in opposition.  The BSA decided to postpone their decision until May.  It’s not clear why they are waiting until May, nor are their considerations known.  It would seem that they are weighing on whom to alienate – gay rights activists or anti-gay supporters.  Since the BSA doesn’t appear to have a legal obligation not to discriminate against the LGBT community, it is evident that consideration to drop the ban on gays was financially motivated.  Unfortunately, the decision to postpone the decision until May is also financially motivated.

As stated before, the BSA is now concerned with who they want to alienate.  More specifically, they must decide what type of funding they receive.  Since activism for gay rights and equality has increased and been recognized on a global level, the financial impact to large corporations and political impact on politicians have come into the spotlight.  Intel had halted donations to the BSA organization because of their anti-gay policy.  I believe it was the threat of losing funding that led them to consider changing their policy, not necessarily a moral obligation.  Since the announcement, opposition to gay rights has threatened to pull their funding as well.  Nearly 70% of scouts are supported financially by religious organizations.  The decision not to lift the ban will be due to the fear of losing funding from religious groups, as a Quinnipiac poll shows 55% of Americans favoring elimination of the ban, to only 33 percent opposed – clearly a majority interest is not at stake.

It is of course a sad state of affairs, as it has been, that such extremes are taken to protect children from what is perceived to be the evils of homosexuals.  Parents are determined to pull their kids out of a program that teaches them integrity and honor simply because there may or may not be a gay scout leader, or member in their troop.  It’s a pathetic notion that an organization that donates to the scouts would pull their funding just because the BSA says they would allow a gay child the same opportunity as his straight peers.  The intolerance and alienation of the gay community from gay rights opponents will create a self-fulfilling prophecy of evil from homosexuals.  If a homosexual commits a sin it won’t be because they are gay, but because much of society refuses to accept them as an equal human being.

Fear of acceptance and ignorance to understanding is preventing positive development of our youth.  They call one who opposes gay equality a homophobe, because by definition that is what they are.  A phobia is an irrational fear.  Homophobia is an irrational fear towards homosexuality.  The fear is irrational because there is no logical reason to be afraid of someone, simply because they are gay.  Anyone who says they are not afraid of homosexuals, but oppose gay rights is extremely naïve.  They are afraid of the impact to society that would be caused by homosexuals, because that is what they are taught to believe despite any evidence opposing their beliefs, or the lack of evidence to corroborate their fear.  Most homophobia is the result of religious beliefs, which makes it harder to convince someone of the irrationality of their fear because they are led by faith; faith is strengthened, not diminished, by the belief in something despite the lack of evidence in support or the abundance of evidence in opposition.

The case with BSA accepting gay members is just one quest in eliminating the irrational fear of homosexuals.  It could be any organization, the fact this case happens to revolve around the Scouts is irrelevant.  In order to convince opponents of the BSA’s decision to allow gays into the organization, one must understand what the opposition is about.  This is usually difficult when arguing against homophobic individuals and groups, because their opposition is irrational, and they have no clear reason for their opposition.  Reasoning for the opponents usually jumps around quite vaguely: “It’s just wrong” or “it’s immoral” are common arguments, although why it’s wrong or immoral is often excluded.  “Because the bible condemns it” or “Jesus said it’s bad” or “it’s bad for society” are insubstantial claims.  The bible also condones slavery and rape in some situations, but the church no longer enforces these passages because they no longer conform to developing societal morals.  Claiming homosexuals are bad for society is an extremely unaccredited and hypocritical claim as well.  There is no credible evidence to suggest homosexuals have a negative effect on families, communities or child rearing, and any reports stating otherwise are riddled with inaccuracies and presumptuous conclusions at best.  What is the opposition really about? 

Many believe that subjecting their sons to homosexuals in the scouts will increase the possibility of either their sons becoming homosexual, being influenced by the evil nature of homosexuality, or worse being molested.  The first two are easy to discredit.  Being around homosexuals does not switch someone from being straight to being gay.  Chances are every straight person has come in contact with a gay person and did not walk away a homosexual.  Deviant homosexual behavior is yet to be defined.  Exactly what to gay people do that is wrong?  If a gay person commits a crime it isn’t because they are gay.  If this were the case, everyone would be gay.  There is nothing specifically deviant about homosexuals that also cannot be committed by heterosexuals, and being homosexual does not intensify the occurrence of said behavior.  I believe it is largely the third claim: allowing homosexuals to openly volunteer or join the scouts will lead to pedophiles molesting your children.

How ridiculous is that?  Say it out loud, it sounds even worse.  Most will not admit it, but this is the reason to oppose allowing gays in the scouts.  Rick Perry believes the scouts should keep their anti-gay policy because “societies failure to adhere to the organization’s core values was a cause for high rates of teen pregnancy and wayward youth who grow up to be men joining their fathers in prison.”  He makes this claim despite the fact that teen pregnancy is highest in abstinence only educated states.  Where Perry doesn’t specifically say including gays will invite molestation in the scouts, his core values against homosexuality and belief of the evils it causes suggests he doesn’t necessarily oppose that assumption. 

Some are more outspoken about the assumption homosexuality equal pedophilia.  The host of 700 Club Pat Robertson suggests if the ban is lifted on gays joining the organization then there will be “predators as Boy Scouts, pedophiles who will come in as Scoutmasters.”  Tony Perkins, the “leader” of the Family “Research” Council says something similar.  “Leader” and “Research” are in quotations because they aren’t credibly used in that sentence.  Family is a stretch, too.  Really it’s just a council of people who hate homosexuals, and believe the sanctity of marriage and family values will disappear because homosexuals have rights. 

Opponents of lifting the gay ban are determined to keep the scouts pure and molestation free, just like it has been in the past, except for, you know, it’s never been like that in the past.  Just three years ago in a case of sexual abuse the Oregon Supreme Court ordered the BSA to release what is referred to as the “perversion files”.  The case revolved around a scoutmaster that was accused of molesting 17 boys, and later found guilty.  The 1,247 files are reports on individuals volunteering or employed by the BSA that have cumulated over 2,000 instances of abuse between 1965 and 1985.  The BSA started keeping these files and using them internally in an effort to track scoutmasters that have been found to abuse scouts. 

“More than 3 million reports of child abuse are received each year, including half a million reports of child sexual abuse. As a major youth-serving organization, the Boy Scouts of America has a unique opportunity to help protect the youth of our nation.”

This is an excerpt from a BSA handbook given to parents to warn their children about child molesters.  The handbook was distributed in 2005, five years before the BSA was forced to release their records of child abuse allegations.  The BSA also did not report these offenders to the police when the abuse occurred.  The BSA apparently was not concerned about informing the community of possible predators, rather they were concerned about mitigating exposure of the organization to litigation.  829 of the files involved molestation of 1,622 boys.  In some cases, either more than one boy was molested per occurrence or multiple occurrences were reported.  To further highlight the disturbing nature of this situation, these are only reported situations; considering only 10% of molestation cases are actually reported, it would be easy to accept that far more accounts of sexual abuse occurred.  Maybe these scoutmasters were homosexuals?  After all, you don’t know someone is gay unless they tell you, or if they are wearing a fabulous scarf.

Is this a preemptive measure, then?  Will allowing homosexuals in the BSA increase the occurrence of pedophilia?  The answer is an emphatic NO.  The truth is not just philosophical, it’s scientific.  Yet, tt’s not enough to tell proponents of the BSA gay ban won’t result in homosexuals molesting boys, so here’s the proof.

First off, the math just doesn’t add up.  Child molesters are overwhelmingly male, but the victims are overwhelmingly female.  Without facts and figures, one may deduce that most molestation encounters of children are heterosexual.  However, the encounters in the BSA were homosexual, or male on male.  In reality it’s not a homosexual or heterosexual encounter at all.  The psychology department of UC Davis performed a study on molestation compared to sexual orientation.  One may describe a male as homosexual once he has molested a male scout; however, a male child molester choosing a male as a victim does not indicate the offender’s sexual orientation.  Many child molesters lack an adult sexual orientation completely.

“…many child molesters cannot be meaningfully described as homosexuals, heterosexuals, or bisexuals (in the usual sense of those terms) because they are not really capable of a relationship with an adult man or woman. Instead of gender, their sexual attractions are based primarily on age. These individuals – who are often characterized as fixated – are attracted to children, not to men or women.”

In a study of 175 adult males who were convicted in Massachusetts of sexual assault against a child:

-47% were “fixated”, meaning they had never developed a sexual orientation

-40% were regressed heterosexuals

-13% were regressed bisexuals

None of the men identified as homosexuals, nor were they primarily attracted to other adult males

In another study, the medical charts of 352 sexually abused children were reviewed.  Less than 1% of the occurrences involved a gay or lesbian offender.  The study did not mention if the offender-victim relationship was same-sex.

A study in Canada enlisted the help of homosexual and heterosexual males to try and link the relationship of pedophilia and sexual orientation.  All men were determined to have physically mature adult sexual partners.  The men were then shown photos of boys and girls, clothed and unclothed in various environments.  The applicant’s sexual arousal was measured for each photo.  The conclusion was that homosexual men were no more attracted to male children than heterosexual men were attracted to female children.  This is the exact, scientific antithesis to the argument that homosexuals are more prone to pedophilia, and putting them in an all male child environment will result in higher cases of molestation.

Male scout leaders molested male scouts because they were pedophiles, not homosexuals.  There were so many occurrences in the scouts during 1965 and 1985 not because there were homosexuals infiltrating the organization, but because it was an environment susceptible to pedophilia.  There was a large selection of unsupervised children, and what’s worse is there wasn’t a deterrent to improper action.  If you got caught molesting a boy, at most you got kicked out of the scouts, but imprisonment wasn’t a worry. 

In the late 1980’s, the BSA developed the Youth Protection program.  The program was the result of pressure from law enforcement due to the rise of child abuse.  Unbeknownst to law enforcement at the time, the BSA had been keeping secret tabs on all of the child abuse allegations within the organization.  The program included policy changes that would prevent abuse from occurring such as requiring at least two adults on all trips and outings, no one-on-one or private contact between a scoutmaster and a member, requiring all scout masters to sleep in separate quarters from scouts and prohibiting supervision of scouts during compromising situations (showers, dressing, restroom breaks, etc.).  The BSA also required all volunteers and paid scoutmasters to pass background checks.  Since the program took effect, the BSA recorded one instance of abuse – AND there have been gay scoutmasters who had publicly come out during this time, and then promptly ejected from the scouts despite no bad behavior.

A homosexual is no more likely to be attracted to a young boy than a heterosexual.  The attraction is not because of sexual orientation, rather to the age of the child.  Homosexuals and heterosexuals are equally susceptible to pedophilia.  Actually, given the fact that most pedophiles are individuals without a sexual identity, I would expect homosexuals to be less susceptible to pedophilia.  Scouts may actually be safer with gay scout leaders.

The hypocrisy is overwhelming, but it really isn’t shocking.  The ultra-conservative religious indoctrination of homosexual beliefs is ever present.  Getting followers to fear gay people is the core strategy of their war against homosexuality.  One must decide if they will continue to accept an irrational fear in an effort to protect obscure and discredited morality, or if they will be flexible with a changing society as humans develop into a more reasonable being.