Brutality & The New Reality: Taxi to the Darkside

One thing is for sure, a reformation in the Islamic world is much better than the destruction of the Islamic world. This weekend watching from Carlata Gall and the BBC is enlightening about the way that brutality and reality meet to form a new set of rules in the American war on terrorism. It follows that my prediction of a ham handed response to a human problem is the cause of new forms of extremism for the "terrorism industry."

It shows less incoherence in the system then you would think at first, and it is not the work of a few bad apples, and it illustrates more systemic problems within our ability to effectively manage people we do not understand or who "some nameless 'we' do not care about" and are managed for us, to quote Adolous Huxley. The film is called the "Taxi to the Dark Side" and has won critical acclaim around the world. It is a sad contrast with my humorous posts and I am posting the whole thing here for your viewing with one question, "is American Idol still so entertaining?" Make sure you send this to all your friends.

Part 1 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=--GCkdWlHdk

Part 2 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aFCeNOfVduY

Part 3 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nmsD_7uAS8w

Part 4 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cXxJF_ixSaA

Part 5 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bSwv6eF6QHo

Part 6 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SiZuiGNHNuo

Part 7 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VC__qW7FDAQ

Part 8 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LC3rUgGOMpk

The reality of this film has affected me profoundly and it reminds

me of the 1664 persecution of Quakers; there are of course differences but they can be hard to discern during the fog of a total war strategy predicated on the idea that 9/11 changed everything, and must change us as human beings too. Such fear building techniques are less reminiscent of American political life and more reminiscent of the period just before the reign of Charles the II in Restoration England. I hope the restoration and reformation come quickly so that such deep sadness does not continue to occur here or abroad. I fear that what we win for "ourselves" by violence we will only be able to maintain with increased violence against ourselves and others.

I note with horror that in the film a taxi driver named Dilawar was killed by the Army and fear that Delaware could suffer the same fate because these details of the war of course have neither been explained to us or discussed with us as a people in an open democratic forum. It would be much better to do so to prepare the American people for changes and to explain the profound level of violence we are either willing to use or forced to use in the world.

Like others I of course will continue to advocate peace and non-extremism in all things, that includes from my own government, but the culture of "lawlessness" at one level of the executive branch has moved into other levels from the local DMV to the highest legislative offices of our state and I wish I our Governor, Senators and Congress people would work with the people to put an end to this type of arbitrary rule. Because while other states may not be good, or desire to be good, Delaware and Pennsylvania have William Penn sitting on our shoulder, and whose writings I will be publishing here soon, encouraging us to do so for the sake of all future generations.

We live in an imperfect, but it does not have to be brutal, world that is in deep need of a sense of the rule of law, the dignity of the human person and values of the enlightenment. Being tough on terrorism does not mean throwing away American values and principles- we can be better than good, we can be intelligent and good if we choose to be. This disturbing film is not for the squeamish. After you watch it you can all go back to your "American Idol" feel-goods.

Comment Rescue (?) and child-related gun violence in Delaware

In my post about the idiotic over-reaction to a New Jersey 10-year-old posing with his new squirrel rifle , Dana Garrett left me this response: One waits, apparently in vain, for you to post the annual rates of children who either shoot themselves or someone else with a gun. But then you Libertarians are notoriously ambivalent to and silent about data and facts and would rather talk abstract principles and fear monger (like the government will confiscate your guns). It doesn't require any degree of subtlety to see why you are data and fact adverse. The facts indicate we have a crisis with gun violence and accidents in the USA, and Libertarians offer nothing credible to address it. Lives, even the lives of children, get sacrificed to the fetishism of liberty. That's intellectual cowardice. OK, Dana, let's talk facts. According to the Children's Defense Fund , which is itself only querying the CDCP data base, fewer than 10 children/teens were killed per year in Delaw

The Obligatory Libertarian Tax Day Post

The most disturbing factoid that I learned on Tax Day was that the average American must now spend a full twenty-four hours filling out tax forms. That's three work days. Or, think of it this way: if you had to put in two hours per night after dinner to finish your taxes, that's two weeks (with Sundays off). I saw a talking head economics professor on some Philly TV channel pontificating about how Americans procrastinate. He was laughing. The IRS guy they interviewed actually said, "Tick, tick, tick." You have to wonder if Governor Ruth Ann Minner and her cohorts put in twenty-four hours pondering whether or not to give Kraft Foods $708,000 of our State taxes while demanding that school districts return $8-10 million each?

New Warfare: I started my posts with a discussion.....

.....on Unrestricted warfare . The US Air force Institute for National Security Studies have developed a reasonable systems approach to deter non-state violent actors who they label as NSVA's. It is an exceptionally important report if we want to deter violent extremism and other potential violent actors that could threaten this nation and its security. It is THE report our political officials should be listening to to shape policy so that we do not become excessive in using force against those who do not agree with policy and dispute it with reason and normal non-violent civil disobedience. This report, should be carefully read by everyone really concerned with protecting civil liberties while deterring violent terrorism and I recommend if you are a professional you send your recommendations via e-mail at the link above so that either 1.) additional safeguards to civil liberties are included, or 2.) additional viable strategies can be used. Finally, one can only hope that politici

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