A person's faith shouldn't be attacked

Soon after accepting victory as senator elect for Kentucky, Rand Paul, who was supported by the Tea Party, said, "I think that you shouldn't attack a person's faith.” This was in response to an attack ad aired during the campaign by his opponent, John Conway. In the ad, Conway asked if Paul was a true Christian based on Paul’s association with a group a number of years ago.

Oh, really? A person’s faith should not be an issue?

Paul said that while:

People are fighting the building of a Mosque in New York;

A church in Holly can’t hold service where it wants;

The President’s declaration of his faith is doubted;

A man running for office in Minnesota was attacked by the Tea Party for… well, his faith.

American has trouble with religion, either too much of it, the wrong faith or lack of it. We forget that this is a nation built on many freedoms including the freedom of religion. A person’s faith is as basic as the right to free speech and due process. All three, and more, are guaranteed in the Constitution. Yet, have the wrong religion, lack of or don’t act like you are expected and you get attacked.

You should not be judged because of your faith but by your action. It matters not what religion you are. No right is absolute, so even if your religion did require you to take anti-social action you still have a choice to act or not. If you do act in violation of the law, you should be held responsible as a common criminal, not as a zealot of your religion.

Let’s move away from this attitude that religion has anything to do with your action. No matter your religion, you are still obligated to act in balance with the best interest of the community.

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The death penalty should be put to death

It can’t be said that we as humans are perfect. So why do we occasionally take action that is based on being perfect?
The death penalty assumes that we have the absolutely correct answer. That we are certain about the crime, the evidence and the person who committed it. Yet, as humans, we know we can be mistaken.

It has been demonstrated many times over that our justice system is not perfect. After the trial and the appeal process ends, many groups from around the country examine the evidence, the process, the lawyers, prosecutors and witnesses only to find different results. The convicted is freed from a crime that everyone was certain he committed.

Even after evidence is found and presented that may prove the innocence of the convicted person, prosecutors continue to fight the new evidence. Sometimes technology has advanced since the crime was tried. It can then be used to demonstrate the innocence of the convicted. Sometimes it is witnesses that changed their story. Other times, it is the lawyer that was at fault.  Even here in the state of Michigan, Kym Worthy, the prosecutor of Wayne County, is asking the state courts to stop appeals after one year.

Kym Worthy is asking the courts to stop considering appeals after one year at the same time that Dwayne Provience contested his own conviction and won his freedom. He was convicted in 2001 of killing Rene Hunter on a crowded intersection in northwest Detroit. There were plenty of witnesses at the time of the shooting. One of the witnesses was even an off duty police officer. None of the witnesses were called by Provience’s lawyer, who has since been disbarred. A memo in police files that pointed to a drug gang as the likely killers wasn’t discovered until 8 years later, then only by accident.

It is likely, that if we had the death penalty in this state, Provience would have been put to death. If the evidence had surfaced after his death, what chance would we have to make restitution to this man?

A community needs certainty in its justice system. The kind of certainty that comes not from the blind belief that we are correct, which, if we know anything, we can’t always be. We need the certainty that comes from doing the very best we can to balance the need to keep our community safe by removing those that intend to do harm and rectify it if we are wrong.

The death penalty should be, well, in a phrase, put to death.

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Fear and hate in the campaign

This election season has been most fatiguing. Everyone is disgusted with the lack of decorum and reason in the process.


Both sides of the aisle are pursuing a no holds barred campaign that vilifies the opposing candidate. The attack ads illustrate the extreme case scenario of the position with the most horrific pictures of the candidates and the scenario they can find. Many, especially from the extreme right, have taken a very racist position to cast the left in this election as the devil himself.

Reason has been left in the gutter. Not because it has been pushed aside and fell there, but because both sides went to the gutter for their ideas. Arising from the sludge to deliver the messages they found, reason was left because they didn’t have enough arms to carry the crap and still carry reason – just in case they needed it.

People are being detained and hand cuffed. Others are being pulled down and their head stumped as police look on. Violence is beginning to seep into campaigns like sewer water that leaks through a crack in the pipe. If a Hans Brinker doesn’t find his way to the crack, more sewer will surely break through. Is it so hard to believe that with open carry laws that gun fire will find its way into the fight?

Money and hate are driving this. An unrestrained, if not hesitant this time through, flow of cash to those that hate have done all the research. The research was not on seeking the truth but on how to fire up the extremes with the sharpest rhetoric. Focus groups, surveys and observation has instructed the creators of the campaign slogans and hate ads of how to strike deep into the darkest fears of likely voters.

This is the reason this blog has not taken a position on candidates, because it isn’t the men and women that are running for office that is important. It is ideas and reason that we should examine. But, we can’t find it because slander and hate has blocked the view. Reason, at least this time around, has no place in the process. Bring up an idea that may work and ask for each side to discuss it and the extreme positions of both will come out immediately.

Those that develop and create the ads that spread hate and fear think it works. They have built an environment where the extreme has become so institutionalized that to propose ideas from a position of reason seems suicidal. If they carve out a reasoned and thoughtful position, it will be destroyed by fear and hate.

Beware, because the destruction of every culture has been driven not by reason but by fear and hate.

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Muslims do condem calls for jihad

To those that claim that Muslims are not denouncing the actions of extreme Muslims in their calls for Jihad… bunk!


Recently in a video, Adam Gadahn, an al-Qaida spokesman, encouraged Muslim living in the “miserable suburbs” of Paris, London and Detroit to take action. In the 48 minute video, Gadahn asks Muslims to plan local acts of jihad (as is used in this context, nothing more than criminal activity) as a matter of duty to their faith.

The 32 year old Adam Gadahn, born Adam Pearlman in Oregon, converted to Islam and set off for Pakistan in 1998. He is wanted by the FBI and is the first American to be indicted for treason since 1952.

How are the Muslims in Detroit (Dearborn) reacting? The publisher of the local Arab American Newspaper, Osama Siblani, says that Gadahn, “ is already receiving much more attention than he deserves.”

“This is a nutcase,” Siblani says. "I think that everyone in our community listened to this and laughed. People here are concerned about their well-being, the economic situation, putting their kids in school and bread on the table. ...They don't have time for this sick mentality from someone who dreams up something overnight."

The executive director of the Michigan chapter of the Council of American-Islamic Relations, Dawud Walid, was also quick to denounce the video. He told the Associated Press that, "I see little to no chance of such sentiment taking root in metropolitan Detroit. ...We're not a group of people who feel powerless," Walid said. "If any Muslim community has grown in civic engagement and empowerment, it would be this community. He invoked the wrong population to try and stir up."

With every episode of terrorism, or calls for it as in this case, the Muslim community does react negatively to the call for action. But the press in American either doesn’t report it, or it is a secondary story buried on the website or in the paper. The people that are the most fervently about Muslims report that the Muslim community doesn’t respond, and everyone believes them.

Sablani stated the clear issue with all of this. He says that the Muslim community is no different than every other community in America. They are more concerned about everyday issues like feeding their families and keeping their kids in school. They don’t have time to get involved in the sick calls for violence against anyone.

That sounds like mainstream America to me.

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Climate change final

Who could possibly believe that climate change is a result of human activity on earth? There are arguments presented on both sides of the issue. But, over the last three blog posts we have explored the effect humans have on the environment by using fossil fuel for our primary energy source. When the simple and practical evidence is examined, it is clear that humans are affecting the climate.


What action should a Responsible Community take?

As a culture we like to think of ourselves as self reliant. If that has any meaning, it is that we depend on ourselves to take care of our needs and don’t leave others to clean up the mess.

Many conservatives in this current political cycle are complaining about the high level of debt that the country is facing. It is said that the debt will have to be paid off by our children and grandchildren because we won’t be able to in our own time. To hand our children a large debt would be wrong for our community to do.

Another example of our belief in self reliance related to the national debt is that most of us live within our means. Each month we have a budget, reducing our spending when our income falls and increasing our savings when our income is good.

If we believe in self reliance like we say, then that should also apply to the environment. Our energy usage should not deplete the available resources and should be consumed in such a way that it doesn’t have a detrimental effect on the environment. To leave a future generation without resources and an environment that makes it harder to survive would clearly be wrong.

Sustainability is a concept born of self reliance. To use no more than can be replaced in our own generation is self reliance defined. By consuming a thousand year’s worth of energy in one year and releasing more carbon than the environment can absorb is not self reliance. It is leaving our children a mess that they will not be able to be clean up in their own generation. It is one that will take many more generations to clean up, if it can be at all.

Our values, our way of life and our laws must encourage, and force if necessary, our culture, the entire human race for that matter, to a sustainable life style.

This is the responsible thing to do.

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Climate change can't possibly be happening, part three

Who could possibly believe that climate change is a result of human activity on earth? Many people are in denial or don’t want to address the issue, including all 20 republicans running for the senate.


With all the seemingly convincing arguments about climate change on both sides, it can become a confusing issue. Have you ever tried to read a scientific paper on climate change? It can be daunting for most of us.

So, in the last two blog post, the practical side of climate change and its causes have been explored. In the first blog post, “Climate change can’t possibly be happening”, the issue of using fossil fuels was explored. In conclusion, humans are using a thousand years’ worth of stored carbon each year for our energy use. That is much more carbon being released than the environment can absorb, even when you include the oceans.

In the next blog post, “Climate change can’t possibly be happening, part two”, the issue of rising carbon levels and what affect carbon has on the world’s weather. Carbon levels in the atmosphere have been rising for the last 60 years. The levels are the highest they have been in 17,000 years. With all that carbon in the atmosphere as carbon dioxide, the clear molecule is allowing light from the sun to strike the earth but is keeping the heat generated by the sun light in.

In a practical approach to climate change it is fair to ask if the average temperature of earth’s atmosphere is rising with all the release of carbon? The answer is a resounding, yes!

According the NASA, the average temperature has been on an upward trend since the 1880’s.  When you look at a global picture of rising temperatures, you find that the only place that hasn’t experience a rise in temperature is a small part of the south arctic region.

This rise in temperature can also have a accelerating effect. With the average temperature of earth’s atmosphere on the rise, more snow melt will happen. Not only on the North and South Pole, but also glaciers around the world and less snow accumulation during the winter. Snow and ice reflect light back into space. This keeps the light from being absorbed by the earth. When there is less snow, more sunlight will heat the earth.

So how does this relate to the policies of a Responsible Community? In the next and final post of climate change, the response of the community will be explored.

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Climate change can't possibly be happening , post 2

Who could possibly believe in climate change with all the arguments for and against? Opinion leaders and politicians are providing different points of view. The issue has become political. There needs to be a simple and practical approach to understanding the issue and what to do about it. It is the attempt of this series of post to examine the practical side.


The last post explored how more carbon is being released in the atmosphere. Carbon is trapped in plants and animals when they die and decay. That decay process, over hundreds and thousands of years produces fossil fuels such as coal, oil and natural gas. When humans first discovered they could burn fossil fuels, they only consumed less than a year’s supply. The environment could easily absorb the carbon released. Now, humans are consuming about a thousand year’s worth of fossil fuels each year. The environment can no longer absorb that much carbon. [The ocean can absorb a lot of carbon, which provides some hope for the future. But, its rate of absorption is so slow that it can’t keep up. If the ocean absorbed faster, the carbon levels would not have found the balance needed to maintain a healthy carbon level to grow plants.]

So are the levels rising? Yes. The growth in carbon levels have been rising since the turn of the last century. Even the doubters will accept that fact. Science has known this for nearly a 150 years. The levels today are as high as they have been in 17,000 years.

Here is meaning of this. Carbon in the form of carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas. It acts like glass panels on a greenhouse. Carbon dioxide is colorless so it allows light from the sun to penetrate the atmosphere and reach the earth. Some light is reflected off because of the angle the light strikes the upper atmosphere. Some is reflected off by clouds. But, enough light gets through to warm the earth and grow plants. The heat generated by the light is radiated back into the atmosphere. The cold of space then cools the atmosphere keeping the heat levels in balance.

But, carbon dioxide also acts like a blanket on a cold night. It reflects heat back down to the earth. This doesn’t allow the natural cooling effect to keep a balance in the atmosphere.

The carbon dioxide affect is not a guess. It is an observable and measurable process. It is fact.

So, now we know, in practical and measurable terms, that humans are burning more than a thousand year’s worth of carbon based fuels each year. We also know that carbon levels are growing in the atmosphere. Carbon dioxide, the primary form of carbon, acts as the glass panels on a greenhouse, allowing light to reach the earth, but trapping the heat generated by the light. All observable and measurable.

In the next post, the effect of all of this will be explored.

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