What to do with a terrorist...

Let me quickly set a scene for you the reader. Shortly after a terrorist attack (ie. 9/11) American intelligence leads to the successful capture of a high level member of the terrorist group responsible for the attack.  It is safe to assume that he has information on other members as well as future attacks and plans. What do we do with them? In all likelihood a trial would lead to life imprisonment, or death, and he has information that "we" could use to save lives. 

My opinion here is that we "extract" as much information as possible before sentencing him to a swift trial (likely leading to death). The exact methods of "extraction" will vary as needed. I believe that there should be a limit to just how inhumane we can treat them, but there will be a point before that limit in where they will be treated in some inhumane ways. The methods can start with simple interrogations and lead to minor physical interrogations, and finally before the stage of actual "torture" we reach the "chemical assisted interrogation" in where we use chemicals such as "truth serum" and other chemical lie inhibiters. This is far more reliable than other forms of "interrogation" because it reduces the likelihood of lying, and increases the comparative skills of the interrogators. After all other options are exhausted, then actual torture such as water boarding, sleep deprivation, and the other plethora of mental and physical torture.

Bearing arms, Right or Privilege?

The right to keep and bear arms is one that is engrained in our constitutions, and a highly patriotic notion. But is it really an "inherent" right for all humans? Has the "rest" of the world done a horrible atrocity by not allowing their citizens to own firearms? 

Here in the United States, previously convicted criminals are not allowed to own or possess any kind of firearm. The same rule applies to those that have been diagnosed with a mental disorder, specifically that could hinder their ability to use a firearm in a safe and controlled way. If these people don't have the right to own a firearm, then have we taken away a right? Or merely a privilege?

The "right" to keep and bear arms has many conditions relating to age, history, past acts, and many others. If the right to bear arms is an inherent one, then how/why do we take it away from so many people? It's because we are not confident in their ability to use a firearm safely, or with out harming others. You are not allowed to drive if you are impaired in a way that would make it unsafe for you or others. Driving is not a right, then how is gun ownership?

We may not have the inherent right to use or even own a gun, but that does not mean that we can not defend ourselves. Guns although effective for self defense are by no means the only way of self defense. Many other forms of self defense not the least of which is our own bodies, and our mind. The right to own a gun might be a privilege, but the right to defend one's self is certainly a right.

Gun ownership is not a universal right, the right to defend one's self is, and that should not and can not be taken away.

The Right To...

Do we have the right do anything that does not directly and negatively affect the well-being of another person?

Rights or an inherent rights more importantly are something that you have and can/should not be taken away from you. But do we have the right do anything that does not directly and negatively affect the well-being of another person? That is the question stipulated here today.

Right to live, and does life directly affect the well being of someone else? In cases where someones mental wellbeing is affected by the knowledge that another person exists, what do you do? Do you make one of the people "not exist" or do yo kill the one(s) who's mental wellbeing is affected? What about situations in where a criminal is about to take some one's life? You take the life of the criminal, not the victim, right? Now what about in the case of a bad pregnancy? Where the baby is going to kill the mother. Do you terminate the baby and save the mother or will the mother die in child birth? Do you kill the victim? So, are there cases in where it's our right to take someone's life?

If we have the right to poses knowledge, and that knowledge does not directly affect someone, then is it right? In the case of leaked photos from iColud, would it have been right to steal them so long as it wasn't leaked? It couldn't affect their wellbeing, because they don't even know that they were copied! Or in the situation where the NSA is using many various ways to collect large sums of data (knowledge) on us, this does not directly affect us in a negative manner, and could even be a positive change. It could help us catch terrorists, right? But it currently invades our privacy, and that affects us right? But it only affects us if we know that it exists.

If I do things to my own body, whether they be surgical, or drugs, or cutting myself, it doesn't affect others, it would only effect me. So should I have the right to cut myself until i bleed out and die? Should I have the right to use any drug I choose, so long as I don' harm anyone while I'm using? Do I have the right to surgically alter my body in any way I choose, do I then have a right to a sex change, or any piercings, or any plethora of odd-ball "enhancements? (Split toung, eye tattoos, nose removal, etc.)

Could we actually have the right to do anything so long as it does not affect others, or does this rule have too many exceptions to actually constitute a rule?  The "right to do anything (insert condition here)" is far too broad and vast a possibility to consider an inherent right.

Society: a Man-Made Darwinistic Construct.

Prompt: Why do individuals band together into society?

  Darwin once stated the facts of evolution, and the means of natural selection. Similar systems to natural selection can be seen in many human constructs such as capitalism, in where the weaker business dies and the stronger ones move on until taken by a better, more efficient company. 

       I believe that the ability to form communities is a way that us, as homo sapiens found to improve our chances at survival. The creation of groups, weather it be a pack for hunting, a flock for travel, or a herd for safety. Humans formed communities because it helped us accomplish goals together that would have been impossible separately. It created a more efficient, and stronger "organism" made from multiple independent individuals.

       With a community comes issues that result from differences between individuals, but these differences create strength, the variation gives a wide spread of ideas and ideals to the community and a form of "natural selection" happens once more. Ideas that do not make sense get exchanged for ones that do, the longer an idea lasts, and the more changes that are made to it the more refined it can become. The same goes for beliefs and ideals. 

       The faith in Zeus and the greek gods is gone. The thought of slavery being a good thing is dead. That is because ridiculous ideas get thrown to the road side, while the good ones survive.

       Our entire existence depends on communities, they developed our current technology from rocks to computers, because with out a group of people any improvements made by a single person would only be for that one person, and only for one lifetime.       

Individualism vs. Community, A timed essay by Peter Kamin

A balance between being an individual and being part of a community is a hard thing to decide, and a balance must be found, However the decision of weather or not community or individualism is the right choice, should be made on an individual basis, and by that person.

I believe that it not better to be an individual, and that being in a society is also not better. I believe that it is best to let the individual decide and do what they wish, or need to do, and that avoiding the creation, or participation in any community is a horrible idea. However, it can not be argued that joining in a society does not come with down sides.

Communities are groups of people gathered for a reason, often this reason is a goal, and many goals require more than one person to accomplish. For instance, in Throeau's "Walden" he uses a steel axe to chop dow trees for his house. Without a community to mine the iron, and a blacksmith to turn it into steel then make it into an axe, then he could not have used the axe. However, the cost of the community is freedom, the miner can't just leave, the blacksmith can't stop working. Because the community needs them to do their jobs, with out them other tasks could not be completed, like the farmer could not plow his fields, because there would be no blacksmith to repair his plow. The rewards from having a community are worth the cost though. The blacksmith can get bread from the baker, and the miner can get his clothes from the tailor. Commerce is the reward for being included in a society.

Communities can take freedoms, and the ability to be absolutely what ever you want is one of them. But being an individual does take more time and energy to even survive, much less to take time to do what you want to do, many survivalists and studies have shown that in a survival situation you are far more likely to survive if you work in a group, in where there are allocated tasks, such as foraging/hunting for food, collecting fuel for, and tending to the fire. building shelter. ect... Rather than trying to do all those tasks on your own. However, who are we to decide if another wishes to maintain their complete individuality by not joining a community, and instead decides that it would be better to live on their own? Isn't making the decision for them taking even more freedom away from them than joining a community?

In conclusion, I believe that it is not our decision on weather Community, or Individualism is better for someone, but a decision to be made by the person themselves.    

Thoreau's definition of freedom, and an American's comparison.

Acording to Thoreau, are Americian's free? This is an intriguing question with an even mor interestion answer. 

Americans we value our "freedom". It's one of the cornerstones of our nation, Its in our constisution. It's one of the spots of rediculus arumentation in congress, and it's somrthing we all share a love for. 

But are we actully free by Thoeau's definition? 

No, by 

Thoeau's Definition of freedom we are not free. Freedom is the absence of conformity, comforming to a norm, no matter what kind, if you can be catagorized and filed, then you are not free.

Us Americians love our ability to match social circles and to file others into steriotypes. because of this we are in chains, chains that we are not willing to let go of. We as Americians are not fee, not untill we let go of our dependince on steriotypes, get out from our "clicks" and find a world to learn from.

My Fahrenheit 451 Creative Project

I made a video with a friend of mine for our creative project. 

We posted it on my youtube, you can see it here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6U1K6WBsKDo