NEW BLOG URL

Hello all:

Partially due to the fact that my current address is too long to remember, and partially because I wanted a blog with my school, I decided to change blog URL/ Formats.

MY NEW BLOG IS:

blogs.moundsparkacademy.org/tholton11

its a bit easier to remember.

DONT WORRY it still has the same title, and will be about the same stuff as this one. It will just reach a larger audience with a shorter URL, and the whole school as well.

I may consider continuing to post on this blog, especially if there is something I cant publish on a school blog.

PLEASE: go to my new blog, and follow me, bookmark the site, and continue to read!

Thanks,

Tom

The healthcare scam government involvement isnt the solution

One of the most predominant issues of this past presidential election is the dispute on health care. Politicians such as President-elect Barack Obama have stated that health-care is a right to every American, and that the government should intervene through expanding initiatives such as Medicare, mandating visits to doctors, or even nationalizing the whole health care system in its entirety. Politicians back their claims with statistics stating that millions of Americans are without health insurance, stories of successful government run health other countries, and concerns that America’s health care industry is behind the times due to the fact that it is run by a free market economy standard. Nothing is more outlandish and revolting. The reason health care is failing in the United States is because we have too much government intervention already. The reality is we haven’t allowed the private sector to handle itself in regards to health care for decades.
The ramifications of past government intervention in health care have been dire. The government bankrupts, over regulates, and corrupts any monetary decisions. The government’s Medicare program alone has never had a higher surplus than what it originally started with when founded in 1965, and has been running a rapidly growing deficit ever since. At this point, experts believe that by 2040, there will be a one trillion dollar Medicare deficit. There is simply no way to pay for programs such as Medicare, so long as the government runs it. And while some may jump to conclusions, the Medicare program wasn’t weakened by the Bush administration alone. Ever since its creation in the sixties, the surplus has dropped, leading to the deficit five times larger than the original surplus. One reason for this is that the government doesn’t devote taxed monetary funds designated for Medicare just to Medicare itself. Instead, the government finds loopholes to spend this money on many other projects such as infrastructure, bailouts, and even the war in Iraq.
Another serious problem with our current health care system is over-regulation by the Food and Drug Administration. One outstanding example is the 1962 Kefauver Harris amendments to the Food and Drug Act. These regulations, which concerned the pharmaceutical industry, were enacted to “protect” the American public, but have caused irreparable harm in terms of both money and lives. According to a study by Dr. Mary Ruwart, former leading candidate for the 2008 Libertarian Party presidential nomination, 80 percent of the cost of new pharmaceuticals is due to the Kefauver Harris amendments. Ruwart also states that because these regulations allow the FDA to continuously increase the requirements for new drug development, the time to take a product from the laboratory bench to the marketplace has tripled since 1962 from 4.5 years to 15 years. This means that the American people must literally die waiting for a drug to come out for treatment.
A great example of this concerns the anti-ulcer drug Tagamet®. Before Tagamet® came to market, the treatment for ulcers was surgery at a cost of approximately $25,000. However when Tagamet® came to the market place, treatment for ulcers cost only $2,000 for the proper dosage. Health-care costs for ulcer disease were slashed over 90 percent by switching patients to this radical new drug. Now imagine how low health care costs could be if Americans didn’t lose 50 percent of our new innovations due to the Kefauver Harris regulation expansion.
While pharmaceutical laws and mismanagement of government funds are both concerns, the most important problem with our health care crisis is the ideology that the solution should be universal health care, more aptly called socialized medicine. This ideology must be reversed no matter what. We have seen many examples of socialized medicine countries that have failed. Some examples of these failures include countries such as Britain, Canada, and Israel who implement socialized medicine often have low quality health care, and long waiting lists for treatment. For example in Britain, kidney dialysis is routinely denied to seniors on the grounds that the resources might serve society better by keeping them for the young. In a town in British Columbia, Canada there is a drawing in which the winner gets a rare prize: a visit to the doctor’s office. It is also common knowledge that Canadians flood our northern states in order to get the cardiac bypasses and hip replacements that they need without having to suffer through a two-year queue in their socialized medicine program. Of course, only the well-to-do have this option; the poor literally die waiting for the care they have been promised. It is clear that socialized medicine has never worked, and never will. The government simply cannot run anything that the private sector is capable of doing.
Politicians such as Barack Obama promise that even though the government has failed at every attempt to run anything in the public sector, socialized medicine will work today. When it comes to health care, it is simply too dangerous to allow the government to run something directly affiliated to matters of life and death.

The truth about The Patriot Act

This was an article for my school paper that later got censored:

One of the many unresolved issues of this election is what president elect Barack Obama will do regarding reform and repeal of drastic legislation pushed through by the Bush administration the days following September 11th 2001. Although most people don’t realize this, the legislation dramatically changed many aspects of our lives including the fundamental liberties that define our standing as Americans. The Patriot Act (H.R. 3162) was allegedly created for the purpose of counteracting terrorism. However many of the provisions within the bill were “controversial” at best. These flaws that threaten our fundamental freedoms include giving the government the power to access to American civilian medical and tax records. In addition, it allows the government to break into your home and conduct secret searches without telling you indefinitely. Incredibly, it also eliminates our right to Habeas Corpus, which has been considered a civil right for thousands of years. In fact, the provisions in the Patriot Act eliminate every protection provided in the Bill of Rights. But how could the Congress of the United States allow this to happen? The answer is simple: The state of fear created by the terrorist attacks on the of September 11th, 2001 allowed the Bush administration to push through authoritarian legislation propagated as a “security blanket.” In reality, it is a gateway to the imposition of martial law, as well as reason to expand the power of the federal government to an atrociously large size.
Before the World Trade Center attacks of 2001, the people of the United States had many essential rights guaranteed by the Constitution. However, with the Patriot Act today, only one amendment of the Bill of Rights has not been obstructed. But why would Congress, the people who are allegedly the sole defenders of our country’s sovereignty, allow this to happen? Many believe that after September, 11th 2001, the government made sure to envelop the country in a prolonged fear of another attack, one that could come at any time. According to Francis A. Boyle, an international law expert who worked under the first Bush Administration as a bioweapons advisor in the 1980s, our government manufactured the Anthrax scare of October, 2001 in order to make sure that Congress was afraid of another attack on our country. During the Anthrax scare, the congressional buildings were evacuated as countless biohazard teams raided the offices. The entire Anthrax scare, took place “conveniently” before the deliberation of the Patriot Act. The Bush administration blamed these attacks on Al Qaeda. However, according to Robert Mueller, former FBI director, Al Qaeda “couldn't go from box cutters one week to weapons-grade anthrax the next.” This led many to believe that the executive branch did implement the Anthrax scare to scare the Congress into passing the Patriot Act. Whether this is true or not, the state of fear created by the Anthrax scare did eventually work. The Congress approved the Patriot Act with an overwhelming majority on October 20th 2001, and was set to vote on it at 8:00 the next day. However, Congress did eliminate many provisions that threatened our civil liberties through deliberations. The annihilation of these civil liberties was vital to the Bush Administration. At 3:23 am on October 21st, bush appointed former department of homeland security head John Ashcroft, “edited” the bill approved by Congress, photocopied it, and placed it on the desk of each representative, replacing the bill previously approved by the Congress. This alone is outlandish misconduct. It is unfathomable why John Ashcroft is not sitting in jail for this. Also, the fact that not one representative read the bill before it was passed is atrocious. Even when Congress was informed by one keen representative Peter DeFazio that the bill presented before the floor wasn’t the bill adopted previously, it still passed. On October 26th 2001, President George Walker Bush signed the Patriot Act into law, starting the spiraling downfall of liberty.
So what rights did we give up that day? One of the most critical is the right to Habeas Corpus. The literal translation of Habeas Corpus in Latin is “You have the Body.” In law, Habeas Corpus protects a citizen from being denied the once unalienable rights to life liberty, and property. The passing of the Patriot Act changed this. According to witness accounts, the United States government has removed many people from their families and “detained” them for a year or more. According to the American Civil Liberties Union, the detainees were kept in solitary confinement in a jail cell, without blankets in winter, with the lights on 24 hours a day. These events happened without any hearing before a judge, consultation with an attorney, and even without a primary warrant for arrest.
The majority of people who have been detained are Hispanic, Muslim, and Black. This is not a coincidence. The government wanted specifically send the message that they were catching terrorists. Due to the fact that these races are the closest related to the stereotype of an “Islamic Radical,” this plot worked for a while. In fact, the Department of Homeland Security released a number of how many people were detained to send a message that they were preventing another 9/11. However this plot only worked for a few months, until the number was over a thousand. When this happened, the media inquired as to how many of these people were charged with a terrorist related crime. The executive branch was embarrassed when they responded “none.” Instead of stopping the horrific practice of “detaining” citizens, the executive branch simply decided to stop giving a running tally of how many people were detained.
Another injustice is that done by the USA Patriot Act, is the new right to spy on American citizens, through wire tapping of phones and browsing a citizens computer activity, including email, Internet history, and any documents. The Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution clearly states: “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated.” However president George Bush has made clear by signing the patriot act, that he believes that all civil liberties in the Constitution must be removed due to threats of a future terrorist attack. The ideology that all freedom must be repealed due to alleged danger is revolting! The fact is, is that the Constitution does not disappear in any situation. Unfortunately President Bush, who was sworn in to office as the upholder of the constitution, stated in a meeting with congressional leaders, that the constitution “is just a goddamned piece of paper.”
With President elect Obama taking office in January, many Americans hope that he will follow what he trumpeted during his campaign: change. But in regards to the Patriot Act, I fear nothing will change. The annihilation of our civil liberties hasn’t been mentioned once in the debates between Senator John McCain and President-elect Obama. Obama, Bush, and McCain view the Patriot Act as necessary, and have voting records to back that up. The only way to bring change to America is to elect leaders that want to restore the constitutional precepts of individual liberty, by halting the governments right to spy on citizens with impunity, and even to arrest and torture people without due process of law.

No threat to us = No reason for War.

March 30th of 2003. This was the day that President George W. Bush declared war on Iraq without the constitutionally required declaration of war by Congress. The reason given to us and to the world was that Saddam Hussein's regime had ongoing programs to produce biological, chemical and nuclear weapons, known as weapons of mass destruction. Five years later, the search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq has long ended, and nothing was found. It is despicable that we went to war so rashly, without sound intelligence reports. However, it is even worse that the U.S. are still in Iraq, with no plans of withdrawal.
Since then, the war has become the single greatest threat to our national security. Most recently this was proved when Russia invaded its neighboring country, Georgia. Whether Russia was justified in attacking Georgia or not, we heard President Bush admit that it would be impossible for the United States to intervene due to a lack of available troops. If Russia had attacked us, would we have no means of defending ourselves because all of our troops are fighting a war in Iraq?
Due to the war, our reputation with the rest of the world has sunk to new record lows. With rising economic and social tensions in China, Russia and Iran, it is imperative that we pull out of Iraq now, in order for us both to have a platform to build diplomatic relations, and to defend ourselves against an inevitable attack.
The war has also spurred great human, and economic cost. To this day, we have lost 4,168 American soldiers, all of whom have husbands, wives, children and families of their own. Financially, the U.S. went from having a surplus of money to having a deficit by spending over a trillion dollars on the war.
There are those who claim that weapons of mass destruction were not really the reason for going into Iraq; it was to free the Iraqi people from their brutal dictator, Saddam Hussein. However, we have long since caught Hussein and executed him. Since that day, the Iraqi people have had the opportunity to forge a democratic society and to maintain peace in their country. Contrary to our desires, they have not chosen to implement democracy, nor are they moving in the direction of one. Instead, the Iraqi people have asked us to leave.
The United States, however, has taken a different course of action. We increased our troop presence and are currently building an embassy in Iraq the size of the Vatican. The Iraqi people justifiably turned to violent action in order to remove us from Iraq. It is time that we listened to their wishes, and just came home. As congressman Ron Paul put it, “we don’t understand the irrationality of Middle-Eastern politics… what would we say if China was doing this [building an embassy] in our country?”
In other words, we may not agree with Iraqi choices or politics, but it is their country, not ours. The Iraqi people have the right to form their own society, as do we, and we have no business controlling it. That means that our only option is to withdraw all troops from Iraq, along with the 2,500,000 American troops located in over 700 military bases across the globe.
All it takes is to follow the advice of our founding fathers by following a non-interventionalist foreign policy, refrain from nation building, and finally remove our troops from Iraq, as we have already found out that they are no threat to us, and we have no right to decide their political and social course.

Drill ANWR and not AFAR!

The nation’s painful experience with four-dollars-a-gallon gasoline along with increased drilling and oil exploration in foreign countries demonstrates the necessity to tap our resources in the Arctic Wild National Reserve (ANWR) along with oil located offshore in order to provide relief to the American people and to establish safety from total dependence on foreign oil sources.
With Russia and China drilling offshore at full force, the fact that we must begin to drill in becomes more inevitable. The U.S. cannot allow these already influential countries to bear greater leverage over our political policies and our daily lives by creating a situation where the United States is completely relying on them for oil.
In addition, many countries have been building new oil refineries in hopes of increasing production. The result of this expansion creates a great decrease in the price of refined gasoline in these countries and a significant job increase throughout these nations.
The rest of the world also appears to understand this. Currently, Germany is building 27 new refineries and Iran is building seven new refineries. Even the French are getting involved, as they have begun building nuclear plants and investing in refineries and offshore oil exploration.
The only developed country that has failed to build new refineries in the past 37 years is the United States. It was in 1981 when former president Jimmy Carter officially imposed an executive ban on building refineries, along with domestic oil drilling. It wasn’t until June 14th, 2008, that President George Walker Bush repealed the executive ban. Now all that is left is for the democrat-controlled Congress to approve drilling offshore and in ANWR, along with building more refineries.
I want to be clear. I’m not saying that drilling will solve all of our energy problems. We also have to invest in nuclear energy and alternative renewable energy sources as well. However, this is no excuse to not also drill in the United States. According to the Energy Information Administration of the U.S. government, alternative energy sources only accounted for seven percent of our consumption in 2007, but petroleum accounted for 40 percent, followed by natural gas, coal, and nuclear.
The fact is that, even if we were to drill at full capacity and utilize all of our alternative energy resources, we would still have to import a small amount of oil from foreign sources to fulfill our energy needs. However drilling domestically would still play a very large role in achieving our energy independence, ensuring that our nation remains secure and providing a boost to our faltering economy.
Despite the unfortunate choice of legislative bodies on Capitol Hill to prevent drilling in ANWR and offshore drilling, many organizations such as the group American Solutions have formed to encourage both drilling and investing in alternative energies. They stress the point that domestic drilling must be pursued because, according to U.S. Geological Survey, ANWR has at least 16 billion barrels of recoverable oil. It could provide one million barrels a day for 30 years, or about five percent of daily consumption. Also, only two thousand acres of the 19 million acre ANWR refuge would be subject to drilling, in an area so remote that few Americans not associated with the oil industry will ever see it. Also, drilling would have economic benefits. It could create 250 thousand to 735 thousand jobs nationwide, supporters say.
With the price of oil endlessly rising and the ban on offshore drilling lifted, the United States has an opportunity to take advantage of our domestic oil surplus by tapping in ANWR, as well as offshore sources. This must be done in combination with development of alternative energies, such as nuclear, wind and natural gas. If we do this we can create a vast amount of jobs, strengthen our delicate national security situation, and prevent another energy crisis in the future.

Are the Mumbai attacks proof enough that banning guns is no good?

I have yet another point that became once again even more evident with the recent attacks on hotels in Mumbai. Now, the 5 star hotels in Mumbai are just like any 5 star hotel in New York, which are the same as any building in America in this regard: Approaching any building today in the world, one is greeted with a sign that reads: "This building bans guns in these premises." The purpose of these signs is to hopefully keep us safer from vicious attacks with armed weapons. However it does nothing but put us in mortal danger by un-arming law obiding citizens who could defend from people with grave intentions. But wait... How could ALLOWING people to carry guns make us SAFER? This is where the Mumbai attacks come in. This is what happened in a nut shell: A hotel full of people who are law obyding citizens, occupied the hotel. As they do obey the law they wouldnt think of carrying guns, as they would not like to be arrested. Then, terrorists who could give a damn less about the "ban gun" signs storm the hotel with a mission to kill. Thanks to these wonderful signs, we disarmed anyone who could help save the day, prevent murder, and stop the terrorists from doing so. The bad guys still won, and are winning still, as they are still in control of half of Mumbai. Good people simply waited in the dark, under their beds counting the seconds until enivetably being "picked off."

Now here is another way this situation could have played out. If we were to remove the gun bans, yes the terrorist attack may still occur. However with the removal of the ban, perhaps one out of 25, or even one out of 50 good guys would have an armed weapon. In a situation such as that in Mumbai, there is at least a more even playing field. When armed terrorists knock on a persons hotel room, instead of surrendering, one may fight back against them.

Mumbai-Indian Taj hotel bombed... Yet another prime litmus of blowback

Well, I just came up to Lutsen lodge, and turned on CNN only to see this tragedy. In Mumbai, India, (the worlds largest democracy) three luxury hotels were over taken by "Islamic militants." As of now, 87 people are dead with 186 injured. The militants asked for passports in order to identify American and British victims. Throughout the day, we have seen videos of blood scattered throughout the streets of India, along with hostages standing motionless in the window sill. As the day progressed, we heard the same story flashed across the screen of our televisions: No one has any idea how or why this happened, and that it is a tragedy. As the evening came about, and morning dawned in India, we have heard several witness testimonies pressed upon us telling us the same thing. For example, a CNN news correspondent Rohit Chandavarker who had told us about his experiences staying at the hotel previously, that there was a lack of security forces, and no one had conducted searches, and the area wasn't engulfed in a police state allegedly providing a security blanket. We do not hear the true story: this is yet another example of the ramifications of the aggressive foreign policy, and our overly belligerent military occupation of the middle east.

Now at this time, some of you are likely be disgusted at my outrageous statement. You may think of how I am an unpatriotic traitor of the United States, and the admirable values it stands for. I encourage you to hear me out.

This isn't the only time a terrorist attack has occurred recently. We have seen countless attacks by the same people on a frequent basis in this region, as well as in other areas such as westernized European countries, Russia, and Euro-Asia. We hear the same stories: these Islamo- fascist militants are attacking American and British people as we are "free"and "rich." It is clear now that this is not the reason. They aren't radical religious terrorists, pursuing holy war. The majority of these terrorists are average middle eastern people who want to fight back against the forces invading their countries. I believe strongly in what one of the greatest presidents of our country had said: "We do not understand the irrationality of Middle Eastern politics"-Ronald Reagan. Our first invasion of the middle east was during World War I. The United States, along with British Allies, invaded Balkan territories, and it has continued since then. We began to establish long term military bases, which have grown rapidly since then. As our presence has grown more aggressive, and it began to affect the lives of middle eastern people, they formed groups to rebel against our military. These groups are what we know as terrorists. They began using force continuously in hopes we would listen, and remove ourselves from their countries. We didn't. Up until the start of the new millennium, it appeared that we may have started to cohere to these ideas, and began to exercise them. Then came 9/11/2001-one of the most tragic days in the history of our country. I will not go into whether our own government manufactured 9/11 or if it was terrorists, but either way the message was clear: The people wanted us out of Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, and the other 730 military bases we had set up around the country. Instead we began a long term invasion of Iraq. Since then terrorist attacks have dramatically escalated, and thousands more have died and it will continue so long as we continue down this path.

After reading this, some may be thinking: but how can we be sure that they just want us out of their country, and not to kill us out of hatred for freedom? The answer is simple. What is say for example... China decided to invade our country, and set up 730 permanent military bases in our country. What if it has continued for 100 years, and their army continually murdered us with impunity. I think we the people of the United States would rebel by forming militant groups of our own, and we may just attack China, and the countries that were occupying our land. That is preciously what our founding fathers did in 1787. In conclusion, it is imperative that we make our judgements from this point on in our history based not just solely on our perception, but on how the rest of the world will perceive it, and respond to it. If we do this, the rest of the world will look to us once again not with fear in their eyes but love in their hearts, as they will admire us once again for the virtues for which our founding fathers died for: liberty, justice, and peace.