#68: Blind Faith Vs. Resilient Faith

I take a lot of sociology classes, and I literally just started a new one. The professor in this class posed a great theory that I'd like to share. I think anyone who has read any of the entries in my blog know that I'm not a particularly religious person, and though I stand up for a lot of different religions and beliefs, people notice that I tend to sometimes exude animosity toward the Christian religion in particular, so I want to clear some things up. And keep in mind that this goes for any and every religion. I am completely open to other people's religions, Christianity included. The problem I have is that a lot of Christians that I have met in my life, not all but a lot, have my professor calls "Blind Faith."

Now, "Blind Faith," in my professor's terminology, means people whose faith blinds them - just as it sounds. It's when people believe so heavily that their religion is right that they judge other people and other religions based on their own, and some people go as far as to hate other people and other religions. People of "Blind Faith" push their religion on other people and don't question the practicality of their religion or understand why other people don't believe in it. They see only what they want to see and don't even hear out what anyone has to say about it. They are closed-minded and listen to anyone else's ideas or suggestions about it. They believe that what they believe is right, and everyone else is wrong, period. And they do not welcome comments or criticism and even become angry/irritated/offended when people comment or criticize their beliefs or religion.

On the other hand, a people of "Resilient Faith" ask questions about their religion and seek practical answers to the questions, so that other people understand where they're coming from and don't feel attacked, and so that the ideas of the religion do not seem so far-fetched to peope outside that particlar religion. These people are open to questions, comments, and criticism about their religion, and sometimes they have answers, while other times they allow themselves to ponder the proper and best answer to the question, which often times there are no good or true answers in the realm of beliefs that are not necessarily universal and can be based on individual perspectives. People of "Resilient Faith" understand that and are open to the idea. People of "Resilient Faith" are open and even interested in learning about other people's religions and cultures, and they may adopt some social norms of other religions and cultures that they think might be better than their own. They are open to the fact that they themselves and everyone else have a right to choose a religion or to not believe in anything at all, and they are ok with that. They do not judge people of other religions, and they do not push their religion or religious agenda on other people, but instead, they may be available for talks about their religion when called upon and they show their religious beliefts through treating people the way they should treat people (thereby living out what they would like to preach and would like for everyone to take from their religion.) They may even hand out fliers or try preach their religion in public locations, but they are always non-judgemental, sincere, and courteous in their preachings.

By the way, I actually think very highly of people who can question their own religion's flaws, think about the practicality and impracticality of different parts of their religion, take questions and concerns and criticisms from other people about their religion, ponder on those questions and concerns and criticisms in an open-minded fashion, not become offended or upset over said questions and concerns and criticisms, etc. - all the while still believing wholeheartedly in their religion. I think that makes for someone with extremely strong faith. But it also is a tell-tale sign of someone who is intelligent, open-minded, even-tempered, and easy to talk to. Afterall, if you go into conversations with an open mind and an even temper, you are way more likely to win someone over and have a good conversation, and you might even make the person re-evaluate their beliefs. You will definitely earn their trust and not push them away from that which you want to pull them closer to. Anyway, I feel like these are the makings of a truly strong Christian (or Muslim or Jew or whatever.)

These are the differences between people of "Blind Faith" and people of "Resilient Faith." If you are religious, I'd encourage you to strive to be like people of "Resilient Faith." The religious people that I can't stand and sometimes, admittedly, speak ill of are the people of "Blind Faith." That is why sometimes people say I have animosity toward Christians. That's completely untrue. My best friend/sister and her parents, who are like my second parents, are very devout Christians, and they are the most amazing people I've ever met, and I love them so much. But they have "Resilient Faith." They never judge; they only seek to help and teach love, which is how I think everyone should be, no matter what religion you are. The only people I have trouble with sometimes are people of "Blind Faith," and living in the Bible Belt, I meet plenty of them. And seriously, that doesn't just go for Christianity. It goes for any religion. Anyway, there's something you guys should keep in mind about people of "Blind Faith." No one who is not religious listens to those people anyway, and lots of religious people don't listen to them either. We just resent them and regard them as being looney tunes.

What people of "Blind Faith" are!

#67: Nature Vs. Nurture - As It Pertains To the Crazies In the World

What makes people who they are? What determines if people are going to be normal, a little odd, or completely insane? What causes that imbalance in the brain that makes serial killers addicted to killing, rapists addicted to power, necrophiles attracted to corpses, child molestors sexually attracted to children, etc.? Many people say that some people are born with certain brain imbalances that give them unique attractions and addictions. In contrast, many people say that everyone is a product of the environment they grow up in. This is the argument of nature vs. nurture.

There are all kinds of arguments and solid proof for each side of the argument. For instance, I wrote a note on feral children and the way they act animalistic when not given a proper social life growing up. You guys should read that note before reading this one. It's actually a really interesting topic too. It's called "Dodger Logic #7: The Importance of a Social Life / Environmental Adaptation." Anyway, for the purposes of this note, I'm only going to focus on proof of the nature vs. nurture argument that pertains to people with serious problems, such as an addiction to murder.

Allow me to give you a pretty good example. I'm sure you guys have heard of Ted Bundy. He was a serial killer, rapist, kidnapper, and necrophile, and he is one of the most infamous people in the world. When he was only a small child, when his aunt was sleeping one day, Bundy arranged some very sharp kitchen knives around her head. He laid them right next to her, around her head, the tips pointed inward at her head. Now that is really disturbing. That makes you wonder if Bundy was born crazy and sadistic. However, it is also pretty commonly known that Bundy's grandfather, who he lived with and thought was his father for a long time, was extremely abusive. Bundy's grandfather was known to beat his wife and the family dog, mistreat other neighborhood animals, and push his daughter (Bundy's aunt) down the stairs for oversleeping. So did this abusive household where Bundy was forced to grow up contribute to Bundy's lust for killing, raping, kidnapping, and necrophilia? This abuse is actually really good evidence that the answer to our question is nurture, because lots of convicted murderers, rapists, child molestors, etc. have been known to have been abused as children.

Another serial killer, Ed Gein, had an interesting childhood. If you guys don't know who he was, he was a grave robber who strung body parts together for fun, cut off female sex organs and stuck them to himself to pretend like he was a female, skinned people to make lampshades and "artwork" for his walls, etc. Later on, he grew tired of using body parts he robbed from graves, so he murdered people for the body parts. As for his childhood, he adored his mother in an extremely unhealthy manner. She was very domineering and sheltered her son, as she did not allow him any connections with the outside world, besides school, because she didn't want anyone to influence her son's beliefs. She taught him of all the evils of the world and that all women (herself excluded) were evil and sent to the world by the devil. Gein grew up only having his mother to love, fearing the world, and hating women. Gein's mother read him Bible scriptures - usually scriptures from the Old Testament that were about death, divine retribution, and murder. Many people contend that Gein's mother conditioned him to be a serial killer, without realizing it.

Now, I know you guys have heard of Jeffrey Dahmer. He was a serial killer, rapist, kidnapper, child molestor, necrophile, and cannibal. When he was a child, his parents were constantly in arguments with each other in front of their two sons and later divorced. His father wasn't around much, since he was persuing a degree in chemistry while Dahmer was growing up. His mom was constantly sick, became addicted to pills, and attempted suicide on one occasion. At a young age, Dahmer became intrigued by animals. At first, he collected dead insects but later collected larger carcasses from roadsides. He dismembered these animals and kept their body parts in jars inside the family toolshed. Dahmer said he liked figuring out how these body parts fit together. At one point in time, he impaled a dog head on a stick in his backyard. His facination with animals seemed to begin when his father found a dead animal below their house and pulled it out to get rid of it. He was shocked to find that his son was intrigued by the sound of the rattling bones. Now this innate "weirdness" of Dahmer seems to suggest the answer to our question is nature. To further this point, here's something else interesting about Dahmer. He murdered a 19-year-old man when he was only 18-years-old, and he didn't murder again for another 9 years. His second murder seemed to have happened by accident. Dahmer said he coaxed a young man to come home with him, and that his intentions were to drug him and have sex with his unconscious body. However, they had gotten extremely drunk together, and when Dahmer woke up the next morning, the young man had been beaten to death, and Dahmer had bruised arms. Dahmer said he couldn't believe that had happened, and that he had no recollection of it at all. This makes me think Dahmer's "need" for murder was innate. He committed this particular murder when he was incapacitated, which means this murder was one that he committed without thinking about it; he simply did it. Now, I don't know about anyone else, but I've been black out drunk before, but never have I woken up to find that I've killed someone. However, Dahmer grew up in a dysfunctional household, which is proof that nurture may have turned him into what he was.

Plenty of other serial killers that I can think of suffered the same kinds of childhoods. John Gacy dressed up as a clown and murdered young boys and men, and he even admitted to having an orgasm when he killed people. He was physically abused by his father and sexually abused by a family friend as a child. South American serial killer Daniel Camargo raped and killed over 150 victims, mostly virgin girls. He is believed to have been motivated to kill by the abuse he underwent by his step mother when he was a child. Robert Hansen abducted young girls and women and set them free into forests, so that he could hunt them down and kill them. He had a dysfunctional relationship with his father who was a domineering man, and he was constantly bullied in school for his acne and stutter. Carroll Edward Cole admitted to murdering 13 victims who reminded him of schoolboys who teased him about his "girl name" when he was in school and women who reminded him of his abusive mother.

Now all of these serial killers, and all others that I can think of, even fictional ones, have a lot of the same things in common. All of these murderers grew up in a dysfunctional household. They all were abused or were around some kind of trauma growing up. That leads us to believe that maybe the answer to our question is nurture, since their childhoods seemed to facilitate psychoticism.) However, if you think about it, all of these killers grew up in households with family members that were not completely mentally stable themselves. Bundy's grandfather was crazy and abusive, Gein's mother was out of her mind and domineering, and Dahmer's mother was suicidal and argumentative. Could these family members have passed the "crazy gene" on to their son/grandson, who then ended up being a serial killer?

It's kind of, actually, a waste of time to try to make an argument out of this, because anyone can say that these people were innately crazy, and thus, they were a product of nature. On the same token, anyone could argue they were conditioned to be crazy by their horrible childhoods, and that is why they ended up becoming serial killers. However, many people grow up in bad households. Many people have traumatic childhoods. Many people go through all different kinds of abuse from their parents and grandparents when they're children. However, not all these people become serial killers. So what makes these people the way they are, if they go through things that all kinds of people go through? That makes me think the answer to our question might be nature. Maybe something in their brains was messed up and gave them an urge that most people never feel.

Maybe it's a combination of nature and nurture. Maybe something went wrong in their brains and gave them urges to commit all kinds of weird acts of violence. And then maybe the trauma they went through as children caused them to snap and actually turn these fantasies of violence into reality.

I'd like to also point out that studies have been done on this. According to Wikipedia, "the most typical psychological term for functions carried out by the prefrontal cortex area is executive function. Executive function relates to abilities to differentiate among conflicting thoughts, determine good and bad, better and best, same and different, future consequences of current activities, working toward a defined goal, prediction of outcomes, expectation based on actions, and social "control" (the ability to suppress urges that, if not suppressed, could lead to socially unacceptable outcomes.)" So this prefrontal cortex area of the brain controls whether or not we understand the difference between right and wrong, what the consequences might be if we do something wrong, etc. It is that "little voice inside your head," if you will. According to a study done on this, which you can read about on this website: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2141160/Born-bad-Rapists-psychopathic-murderers-physically-different-brains-normal-people.html, "the results showed that the psychopaths' brains had significantly less grey matter in the anterior rostral prefrontal cortex and temporal poles than the brains of the non-psychopathic offenders and non-offenders." This means that these psychopaths actually may have been born with a brain abnormality, which sometimes causes them to not understand the difference between right and wrong and not quite understand the consequences of their actions. We deem people who have these problems as "insane," and instead of going to jail, they go to psychiatric facilities. However, this problem in the prefrontal cortex of the brain may not always cause people to not know the difference between right and wrong; sometimes it simply means they are unable to feel guilt, remorse, embarrassment, fear, and distress. This means the person might understand the difference between right and wrong; he/she just doesn't care. This is pretty damning evidence that the answer to our question is nature, which means some people may be "born to kill," according to the article I mentioned.

I found another article very interesting: http://healthland.time.com/2012/05/14/understanding-the-psychopathic-mind/. There was a study done that showed that some people are sadists, and some people are psychopaths. You should read the article to get the full explanation, but I'll give you a little summary here. When monitoring the brains of sadists and pyschopaths, the sadists were shown to delight in the pain of others, while psychopaths were shown to be indifferent by the pain of others. If a sadist were to hurt you, he/she would recognize that you were in pain, and that would arouse him/her. In contrast, if a psychopath were to hurt you, he/she would be indifferent to that pain and not care at all about it. So there might be different kinds of killers out there - ones who actually delight in killing and ones who simply have no guilt or remorse about killing. Again, that supports the theory that it's all about nature. Something else in this article that I found interesting: "Both those with ASPD [Antisocial Personality Disorder] and psychopathy tend to have experienced maltreatment during childhood, but unlike people with ASPD, psychopaths don’t have symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder as a result. Quite the opposite: psychopaths tend to have little anxiety and virtually no fear." This might mean that psychopaths aren't even bothered by the abuse they might have gone through as a child. This rules out the nurture idea, since they're not bothered by any maltreatment directed toward them.

However, isn't it kind of crazy that, when you study about any serial killer, the guy always seems to have come from a messed up family and seems to have had a horrible childhood? So maybe these people do have a messed up prefrontal cortex in their brains, but maybe that's not all that's needed in order to create a cold-blooded killer. Maybe that, coupled with an abusive, traumatic, and/or violent childhood, is what is needed to create a killer. So maybe our answer is a combination of nature and nurture. Or maybe it's different for every person. Maybe psychopaths come from nature, and sadists come from nurture. Or maybe it's not about what we classify them as. Maybe different people are compelled to do what they do by varying motivators. That sure would make sense, since one person who undergoes abuse as a child may turn out to be a serial killer, while another person with the same background might turn out to be pretty normal. Maybe the experiences that people have sometimes manifest themselves into something good, and other times, in something bad. I mean we do know that a traumatic event might cause one person do act one way, while the same traumatic event might cause someone else to act a completely different way. The way you react to anything at all has to do with your own individual personality, along with other things that may have previously happened to you. So maybe there's really no more science involved in this (besides the science of the prefrontal cortex.) And maybe there is, but it's an untraceable pattern, since no one has had the exact same experiences as another person has (throughout their entire lives.) No one has lived the same exact life, so maybe there's no real way to tell where things go wrong, or what makes people who they are. Therefore, the question of nature vs. nurture will probably continue to be a question in everyone's mind forever. However, I would be willing to bet that anything and everything affects who we are. So I think it's a combination of nature and nurture.

This talk about the prefrontal cortex makes me wonder if someone could, for instance, be a completely normal person, then get into a car accident, damage their prefrontal cortex, and then become a serial killer (or rapist, child molestor, etc.) According to http://voices.yahoo.com/serial-killers-born-made-2972483.html, this is possible and has happened before. "There has also been discussion that serial killers are missing the limbic system in the brain. The limbic system controls human's emotions and motivation. Some scientists have suggested that if the limbic system is missing, it could cause uncontrollable anger and aggression. (Criminology) There is evidence that many serial killers suffered head injuries. Arthur Shawcross (rock fight and near drowning), Bobby Joe Long (motorcycle accident), Earle Nelson (childhood accident), Gary Heidnik (fell from a tree), Randy Kraft (fell down concrete steps), Albert Fish (fell from tree), David Berkowitz (auto accident), Kenneth Bianchi (fell off jungle gym), Raymond Fernandez (steel hatch cover on freighter fell on his head) and Carl Panzram (head infection where he was operated on at home on his kitchen table) are just a few." So brain damage can actually cause people to feel uncotrollable anger and have more aggressive personalities. Maybe it can even be bad enough to cause someone to feel the urge to commit heinous crimes, such as murder. However, I'm not sure of this website's credibility, because it lists several serial killers that I previously mentioned and has some very wrong facts listed for those murderers. Furthermore, I researched the stories of a few of the murderers on the above list, and most of them claimed to have either been abused as a child or had been bullied in school. However, this does not mean that that is what caused their urge to kill, rather than their brain injuries. It could have been either or both that played a role in it. But as for the beliefs of the author of this article, she says that "the best determination at this point may be a genetic component that becomes worse in an abusive family." So there you go. She thinks it's a combination of nature and nurture.

And just for fun, I'm going to throw in here some tell-tale signs of serial killers that can be noticed even from early childhood, so you guys know what to watch out for:
1. Lots of serial killers were bed-wetters even into their teenage years.
2. Many are infatuated with fire and may play with it or commit arseny.
3. As we've seen, many are or have been abused in some way.
4. Many have been subject to bullying in school.
5. Lots of serial killers engage in animal cruelty, as we've seen in the case of Jeffrey Dahmer.
6. Many were very shy, quiet, and unremarkable (yet did fine) in school.
7. Many are characterized as "odd" by people who know them, yet these people usually never suspect they have the potential to be serial killers.
8. Many are emotionally detached.
9. Lots of serial killers are very charming and make good first impressions.

Now, this is a really good argument.

Also a good explanation.

 

This is great in explaining how nature and nurture must play a role in how a person becomes who they are. However, it might not necessarily be the same in every situation. For instance, in the case of serial killers, the explanation might not be this simple.

A lot of people don't believe in the nature argument, because that gives people a reason to not be held accountable for their actions. However, some people have been found to be "legally insane," meaning that they truly do not know the difference between right and wrong (probably because their prefrontal cortex is so damaged.)

This is interesting. There have been many studies involving twins, siblings, and unrelated people in order to test the nature vs. nurture question. In a study I remember I learned about in my high school sociology class, many traits were presumed to come from nature, while many were environmental. However, in twins, it was astonishing the types of traits that seemed to be natural - traits that each twin had, even though they had been brought up in completely different households in completely different places, never having known each other while growing up.

The bubbles that say "Pfc" show the prefrontal cortex, and you can see the bubble at the bottom that shows the temporal poles.

#66: The More the Merrier

Polygamy: A marriage which includes more than 2 partners.

Polygyny: A marriage which includes a man married to multiple wives, in which the wives do not have any marriage bonds to each other.

Polyandry: A marriage which includes a woman married to multiple husbans, in which the husbands do not have any marriage bonds to each other.

Group Marriage: A marriage which includes multiple wives and/or multiple husbands that all have marriage bonds within the marriage unit. They live together as a family, and depending on the sexual orientation of the members, all the men might be sexually with the women, all the men and women might be sexually involved with all the women (while none of the men are sexually involved with each other,) everyone might be sexually involved with everyone, etc.

Polyamorous Relationship: Any relationship, in which 2 or more people are involved and intimate with each other. (Some may not be intimate with all of the members of the relationship.)

***All of the above are distinct from "swinging," as that is simply described as sexual acts between couples, not a relationship that is formed between them. All of the above are also distinct from "open relationships" and "open marriages," in which each member is allowed to commit sexual acts with whoever he/she wants, with or without his/her partner's knowledge of each individual sexual partner. Polyamory is also distinct from adultery. In polyamorous relationships, everyone in the group is aware of every exploit that goes on, and everyone in the group consents. (The consent part is not necessarily true in polygynous and polyandrous marriages in various countries, but it seems to be such a norm in some places that people do not reject it, nor do they protest it.)

Bigamy: The crime of marrying more than one person at a time. Polygamy is illegal in many countries. Most countries in which it is legal include many Asian and African countries.

While polygamy is illegal in the United States, there are all kinds of polyamorous relationships here, as well as in other countries. As much as 10% of the United States is self-identified as polyamorous. Some people say this is the next generation of relationships and marriage, since so many people are on board with it. And let's be honest, every straight woman and gay man has fantasized about being loved and adored by a room full of men, and every straight man and gay woman has fantasized about being loved and adored by a room full of women. So is this something might become more acceptable in the future? It's quite possible. We've gone through so many social revolutions at this point that who knows what is in store for the future.

Many people criticize this way of life. Such criticisms include:
1. Polyamorous relationships could lead to abuse within the unit.
2. Polyamorous relationships could lead to the neglect of one or more people within the unit.
3. More than 2 people in a relationship will never work, as that is only a sexual desire without the capability of forming a real, true relationship. (By this, I mean jealousy will overtake the partners.)
4. It would be unfair and confusing for any children who are involved.
5. According to many religions, there are only to be 2 people in a relationship at one time. In some religions, including the traditional southern Christian Baptist religion, only a man and woman are permitted to be in a relationship.

There are also, however, many people who disagree with the criticisms. I've seen several videos and documentaries, in which many polyamorous families have been interviewed and believe that their lives are normal, besides the fact that they are in a non-traditional relationship. Many of these people say they simply could not be in a monogamous relationship, and that having a polyamorous relationship actually gets rid of the jealousy can come from relationships, particularly monogamous ones. Many people say it is freeing and, therefore, easier to maintain. Some people deny any counts of abuse or neglect, although there have been all kinds of counts in such relationships in countries where polygamy is allowed, encouraged, and/or required.

So what is necessary to keep a polyamorous relationship alive? According to http://people.howstuffworks.com/polyamory2.htm, communication is key. Everything has to be consentual, and everyone has to know what is going on at all times. It has to be a very open relationship in order for it to work. Everyone in the group has to be accepting of everyone else. For example, if Bob and Sue decide they want to bring someone else into their relationship, and Bob finds Linda and brings her home, Sue has to approve of Linda, and of course, it wouldn't hurt if Linda liked Sue too. Even if Linda and Sue are not going to be intimate with each other, they have to like each other. Sue may veto Linda and tell Bob to find someone else, or Sue and Linda might get along great.

What about the children? In a lot of polyamorous relationships, there are many children living in the household. Using the example above, Bob and Sue might have a polyamorous relationship with Linda, Matt, Johnny, and Laura. They all live together as a family. Bob and Sue have a daughter, Bob and Linda have a son, Matt and Laura have a daughter, Johnny and Laura have a son, and Sue and Johnny have twin boys. There may be any variation of this. It may just be that Bob and Sue have a daughter, and Linda and Matt have a son. Or it may be that Bob has a child with every woman in the household. Or maybe Bob and Sue have a daughter that all the other members of the relationship help parent. They may even tell the child that they are her uncles and aunts. Some children may not understand the relationship between all of the members of the relationship, or they may understand perfectly fine. According to many people in the situation, the children are not harmfully affected by the relationship in any way. If anything, they have extra people to love them and take care of them. The only thing that might harm them is the potential for them to be picked on at school, simply because they live in a non-traditional family.

So is this wrong? Is this something that should be illegal? Or should we let people do as they please? Should children be protected from such relationships? Should children in polyamorous relationships be taken away from their parents? I'm inclined to say that everyone should be able to do as they please, as long as they're not hurting anyone else. The government should stay out of everyone's business. It doesn't seem like the children are being harmed in any significant way. And who's to say what these people are doing is wrong? Obviously, it's not for everyone. But maybe some people simply can't be happy in a monogamous relationship. Maybe this is something that should be more acceptable in society. And who knows? Maybe it will be someday. Maybe it's the next generation of love! (And this goes for swinging and open relationships/marriages too.)

If you want to explore this further, there are all kinds of videos, documentaries, testimonies, and stories online about polyamorous relationships in America and in other countries. Check out the tv show Strange Sex. You can find it on Netflix. Every episode I've seen is very interesting. There are episodes that explain strange sexual things that may happen to some people that some people may not understand and want clarification on, as well as sexual diseases that are atypical. Also, there are episodes on all kinds of strange sexual addictions, as well as all kinds of other sexual accounts that you wouldn't believe. One episode in particular is about relationships and sexual exploits including more than 2 people. It's called "Two Boyfriends and a Baby" I encourage you guys to check out this episode, as well as all the rest, because this tv show really is enlightening and fun.

Let me just throw in a disclaimer here: I'm not encouraging, nor am I discouraging any of the above mentioned acts or relationships. I'm simply discussing it. I'm not judging anyone who may be involved in anything I've mentioned, and I'm not judging anyone who may be against any of the things I mentioned. Nothing that I've mentioned is a reflection upon me or what I do behind closed doors. I simply like to discuss and think about the various ways in which people live their lives and the reasoning behind them. I like to keep an open mind about all sorts of situations that people find themselves in, and I find these sorts of differences among people to be very intriguing.

The symbol for polyamory.

This is the tv show I was talking about above.

This is an example of a polyamorous family. If you want some more information on polyamory, check out this website: http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/love-sex/taboo-tolerance/meet-the-polyamorists-ndash-a-growing-band-of-people-who-believe-that-more-lovers-equals-more-love-1785263.html, which explains the beginning of polyamory and where it stands in today's world.

I don't know about you guys, but that looks great to me!!!

#65: Beyond Torture - Extraordinary Rendition Operations

Awhile back, I wrote a note on torture called "The 'Ticking Time Bomb,'" so you should check out that note before reading this one. According to the article, "The Evolution of CIA Secret Detention and Extraordinary Rendition Operations," the definition of "extraordinary rendition" is the "transfer - without legal process - of a detainee to the custody of a foreign government for purposes of detention and interrogation." The past 3 presidents, and possibly more, have ordered and allowed suspected terrorists to be sent to prisons in other countries (such as Afghanistan, Iraq, Cuba, Egypt, etc.) to be detained indefinitely, interrogated, and tortured. However, this extraordinary rendition and torture got way, way worse after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Government officials, including these past 3 presidents, have assured the U.S. that these prisoners are being treated properly. However, even CIA Director Porter Goss has reported that there is really no way of knowing if the prisons in these countries are going to treat the prisoners right or not. They say they will, but are they really going to? There's no way to be sure. U.S. government officials know that these prisoners are being tortured, even though prison officials say they aren't. The reason we know this is because there have been all kinds of prisoners recovered who have given accounts of being tortured. Even photos and videos of torture have been recovered from some places. Also we know this, because it's not JUST people of other countries doing the torturing. Some prisons are run by people in the U.S. military. But the prisons are in other countries, because if they were in our country, there would be an insane uproar, and the government wants to keep this as quiet as possible. The United States government has also been caught funding such prisons and providing training for the prison officials in these countries. And bear in mind that these detainees have not been given a trial and have not been convicted of any crimes; they are only SUSPECTED terrorists. Also, keep in mind that this torture is not just happening to people while they're under interrogation. In a lot of prisons, the prison officials are just randomly using torture techniques on the prisoners for fun, or are just punishing their prisoners for doing or saying something wrong with insane measures.

There's one other thing I want you guys to keep in mind before reading further. In my last note on torture, I talked about the "Ticking Time Bomb" situation in which it's very possible that torture is constitutional. This situation is when the government knows a person has information that they really need in order to save a ton of people's lives, and that person will not give up the information, and there is a time crunch. In this situation, the U.S. government has deemed torture to be constitutional, and I do agree with it, for the most part. For instance, say someone came up to our government and told them they knew where a bomb was hidden in New York City, and that it was going to detonate in 10 minutes, but he/she refused to tell the government the exact location of the bomb. In that case, I think most people agree it is ok to torture that asshole until he tells us where the bomb is, because if we don't get the information in less than 10 mintues, the bomb will detonate, and hundreds of people could die. These accounts of extraordinary rendition and torture that I'm bringing to light in this note are ones that are NOT considered to be constitutional and are NOT "Ticking Time Bomb" situations. They are outside the realm of what is considered to be legal and constitutional, and I really hope you guys read all this, because it will blow your mind.

Now what kinds of torture are we talking about? "Cramped confinement" in a box, "stress positions," forced nudity, sleep deprivation, dietary manipulation, "waterboarding," the smearing of feces on prisoners' faces, the act of peeing on prisoners' heads, the injection of medicine for dog cysts, threats of ill-treatment, and exposure to cold temperature are just the beginning. Many people have suffered intense beatings, where they've been almost killed, and some have been actually killed. In some cases, bones have been broken, eyes have been gouged, and heads have been forcibly beaten against concrete. This doesn't even touch the insane number of similar ways these people are being tortured. These people have been sexually assaulted, as well as physically, and it's insane the things I've read in the three articles I'm going to talk about in this note, including the one I've already introduced to you guys. It's also insane what I saw happened at Abu Ghraib, which can be seen in the documentary "Standard Operating Procedures," which I highly recommend you guys watch. Abu Ghraib is an Iraqi prison, where all kinds of torture took place. Oh, and U.S. soldiers ran the place and committed all of the acts of torture there. Prisoners there were forced to masturbate with each other, while the prison officials took photos of them. They were forced to get naked and climb on top of each other while pictures were being taken of them. They were beaten and killed, and I can't even explain to you everything I saw that happened to them in the documentary. You just have to watch it yourselves.  

Here are some accounts of actual people and actual events from the aforementioned article.

1. "Maher Arar was imprisoned for more than ten months in a tiny grave-like cell, beaten with cables, and threatened with electric shocks by the Syrian government, despite its assurances to the U.S. government that it would not torture him and despite post-transfer consular visits by Canadian officials."

2. "Ahmed Agiza and Muhammed al-Zery reported being subjected to electric shocks in Egyptian custody, despite Egypt's assurances to the Swedish government that they would not be tortured, and despite a post-transfer monitoring mechanism that involved Swedish diplomats visiting the men while they were held in Egyptian custody."

3."In April 2011, the Associated Press reported that suspected terrorists in Afghanistan were being secretly detained and interrogated for weeks at 20 temporary sites including one run by the military's elite counterterrorism unit, the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), at Begram Air Base. More than a dozen former detainees reported that they were held for weeks at the JSOC site in 2010, forced to strip naked and kept in solitary confinement in windowless, often cold cells with lights on 24 hours a day."

4. "U.S. officials reportedly provided intelligence that led to Kenya's kidnapping and extraordinary rendition of Kenyan citizen Ahmed Abdullahi Hassan to Somalia for interrogation and detention without charge or trial. Subsequently, the New York Times reported that the CIA has financed and provided training for Somali intelligence operations in addition to joining Somali operatives in interrogating detainees, including Ahmed Abdullahi Hassan."

5. "The Washington Post further reported that Eritrean citizen Mohamed Ibrahim Ahmed was held by Nigerian authorities in a Nigerian jail for four months under pressure from U.S. officials. He was first interrogated by a 'dirty' team of U.S. agents who ignored the suspect's right to remain silent or have a lawyer."

Now, I'd like to introduce another article that is solely about a thug squad being deployed by the U.S. military in prisons in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. By the way, the use of thug squads is illegal. They have been told to torture prisoners, even for the slightest resistance and petty reasons. They call these acts done by the thug squad "IRFings." According to the CCR, "Violence can be inflicted by the guards at any moment for any perceived infraction, or sometimes without provocation or explanation." According to this article, "Little Known Military Thug Squad Still Brutalizing Prisoners at Gitmo Under Obama," "former Guantanamo Army Chaplain James Yee, who witnessed IRFings, described 'the seemingly harmless behaviors that brought it on [like] not responding when a guard spoke.' Yee said he believed that, during daily cell sweeps, guards would intentionally do invasive searches of of the Muslim prisoners' 'private areas' and Korans to 'rile the detainees,' saying it 'seemed like harrassment for the sake of harrassment, and the prisoners fought it. Those who did were always IRFed.'"

According to the article I just mentioned, Omar Deghayes, was a Libyan citizen who had lived in England since 1986. In the late 1990s, he was a law student and traveled to Afghanistan, simply because he was Muslim and wanted to see what the country was like. He met and married an Afghan woman while he was there, and they had a son together. After the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, Deghayes was detained in Lahore, Pakistan for a month. There he was subjected to "systematic beatings" and electric shocks. They later transferred him to a prison in Islamabad, Pakistan, where "he claimes he was interrogated by both U.S. and British personnel." He recounts his imprisonment there: "One day they took me to a room that had very large snakes in glass boxes. The room was all painted black and white, with dim lights. They threatened to leave me there and let the snakes out with me in the room. This really got to me, as there were such sick people that they must have had this room specially made." Eventually, Deghayes was sent to an Afghan prison, where he was beaten and "kept nude, as part of the process of humiliation due to his religion." Deghayes was also placed by U.S. personnel into a closed, locked box with little air. He recalls seeing U.S. guards sodomize an African prisoner. These guards "forced petrol and benzene up the anuses of the prisoners." Deghayes said that "the camp looked like the Nazi camps That I saw in films." In September 2002, Deghayes was sent to a prison in Guantanamo Bay, where he was sprayed in the eyes with pepper spray, had one eye gouged, and was refused medical attention after the fact. This caused him to go permanently blind in the eye that was gouged and temporarily blind in the other. Later an officer came into Deghayes's cell with the feces of another prisoner and smeared the feces on Deghayes's face. One time, prison officials pushed Deghayes's face into a toilet and repeatedly flushed it in his face. Deghayes was beaten by having a prison official knee him in the nose, trying to break it. Later he was in the recreation yard when 17 soldiers came up to him, armed with guns, and sprayed him and others. "Then they pulled him up into the air and slammed his face down, on the left side, on the concrete." He was then sent to isolation. One time, prison officials brought a strong water hose into his cell and forced water up his nose, so that he was suffocating.

All of the actions done by the IRF team were supposed to have been documented on paper, videotaped, and recorded by photographs. All the IRF team members were required to write sworn statements after every IRFing, and every person that was IRFed was supposed to obtain immediate medical treatment after each IRF. According to Army Spec. Brandon Neely, who was apart of one of the first IRF teams in Guantanamo Bay, "every time I witnessed an IRFing, a camera was present, but one of two things would happen: 1. the camera would never be turned on, or 2. the camera would be on but pointed straight at the ground." In a lot of cases, the video and photograph evidence were destroyed or simply never made. "As for the 'sworn statements' by IRF team members, a review of hundreds of pages of declassified incident reports reveals an almost robotic uniformity in the handwritten accounts, overwhelmingly composed of succinct portrayals of operations that went off without a hitch. Almost all of them contain the phrases 'minimum amount of force necessary' and the prisoner 'received medical attention and evaluation' before being returned."

Here are some accounts from other released prisoners at the Guantanamo Bay prison: (All of these accounts are from the article I've been referring to for the past few paragraphs.)

1. One released prisoner recounts seeing prisoners being IRFed while trying to pray or for refusing medication.

2. David Hicks, an Australian citizen who had been held prisoner at Guantanamo Bay, said he "witnessed the activites of the [IRF,] which consists of a squad of soldiers that enter a detainee's cell and brutalize him with the aid of an attack dog.

3. According to Binyam Mohamed, "They nearly broke my back. The guy on top was twisting me one way, the guy on my legs the other."

4. British human rights lawyer Gareth Peirce put together documentation of the torture of one prisoner, Bahraini citizen Jumah al Dousari, by an IRF team. Jumah was previous known to be mentally ill. Many other prisoners gave accounts to the attack on Jumah. One prisoner recounted that one prison official "did a knee drop onto Jumah's back just between his shoulder blades with his full weight. He must have been about 240 lbs. in weight. His name was Smith. He was a sergeant E-5. Once he had done that, the others came in and were punching and kicking Jumah. While they were doing that, the female officer then came in and was kicking his stomach. Jumah had had an operation and had metal rods in his stomach clamped together in the operation. The officer Smith was the MP sergeant who was punching him. He grabbed his head with one hand, and with the other hand, punched him repeatedly in the face. His nose was broken. He pushed his face, and he smashed it into the concrete floor. All of this should be on video. There was blood everywhere. When they took him out, they hosed the cell down, and the water ran red with blood. We all saw it." All of this was done, because Jumah had previously allegedly insulted a female soldier.

5. One active-duty U.S. soldier, Sergeant Sean Baker, was actually sent in to a prison in Guantanamo Bay to see what it was like to be a prisoner there. He was told to take off his uniform and put on an orange jumpsuit, and he was told to yell out the code word "red" when the pain was too much. "They grabbed my arms, my legs, twisted me up and, unfortunately, one of the individuals got up on my back from behind and put pressure down on me while I was face down. Then he - the same individual - reached around and began to choke me and press my head down against the steel floor. After several seconds, 20 to 30 seconds, it seemed like an eternity because I couldn't breathe. When I couldn't breathe, I began to panic, and I gave the code word I was supposed to give to stop the exercise, which was 'red.' ...That individual slammed my head against the floor and continued to choke me. Somehow I got enough air. I muttered out: 'I'm a U.S. soldier. I'm a U.S. soldier.'" The first thing Baker wanted to do after the incident was obtain a videotape of the incident, but there wasn't one. "Baker was soon diagnosed with traumatic brain injury. He began suffering seizures, sometimes 10 to 12 per day."

Now, my third article is from the New York Times. I highly recommend you guys read it. Here's the link:  http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/15/opinion/hunger-striking-at-guantanamo-bay.html?_r=0. It's about a man who is being kept in a prison in Guantanamo Bay, where he is force-fed with a tube that prison officials shove down his nose. It's apparently an extremely agonizing pain. This man, who is from Yemen, is Samir Naji al Hasan Moqbel. He has been detained in Guantanamo Bay for more than 11 years, without trial, and without having been charged of any crimes. He was said to have been a guard for Osama bin Laden, but the prison officials no longer believe this to be true, yet they continue to hold him prisoner. Samir holds that the allegations against him are "nonsense." Read the article, though. There's more detail, although it is short and sweet, unlike this forever-long note.

So what's been going on at the White House? President Obama has been going back and forth on shutting down these prisons. Currently, nothing seems to be being done about them. According to the second article I discussed, the prisons in Guantanamo Bay seem to have been "ramping up" on the torture since Obama's presidency began. What should be done about this? I think you all know the answer to that. 

This is a picture that was taken at the Iraqi prison Abu Ghraib. You can see so much more in the documentary I mentioned above. Or you can google more pictures if you want to see something extremely disturbing. I'm not posting anything more disturbing than this on here, because you guys seriously won't understand how horrible the pictures are until you actually see them. In most of the pictures, peoples' heads have been bashed in, they're forcibly nude, etc. If you google the pictures and watch the documentary, you'll agree with me that those images are not appropriate to put in here.

This photo was also taken at Abu Ghraib. The man in the picture is dead and was killed there.

#64: Ew, Don't Go There! It's a Hole In the Wall!

So we're going to play a game that I played in one of my previous public management & policy classes. Imagine there's a wall. In fact, I can't draw it for you on here, so draw it on a piece of paper if you want to get the full effect of my point. We're going to place this wall between church and state, so that there is a divide or separation, if you will, between church and state. Now, think of anything and everything you can that incorporates religion in the state. I've listed a few that come to mind below:

1. Kids being forced to say "Under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance.

2. Not being able to sell/buy alcohol on Sundays, or at certain times on Sundays, because Sunday is the Christian Sabbath day.

3. Gay people being denied marriage rights, because the Bible supposedly says that homosexuality is a sin.

4. The top of the dollar bill where it says "In God We Trust."

5. The 10 Commandments being put on display at the White House.

6. The former mandatory prayer in schools. (This has now been banned.)

7. The fact that churches are not forced by law to pay property taxes.

These are just a few examples I came up with in about 5 minutes or less. There are all kinds of infringements on the Separation of Church and State mandate. Now, for every infringement you can think of, along with the ones I thought of, draw a nice, big hole in the wall that you drew. Your wall should have lots of holes in it, or maybe you put all the holes together and made a giant hole, big enough for people to walk through. Either way, the wall that separates church and state is completely messed up. 

Is this a problem? Are these particular holes insignificant, because the problems they cause are insignificant? I'd say that some of these problems are really significant. I'd also say that, if we want to be a nation that keeps church and state separate, we can't do it halfway. If we want to be a nation with a government free of religion, then we have to go through with it, even with the minor details, such as removing "In God We Trust" from the dollar bill. I'm not saying those minor issues are something I'd rally for, but the larger issues, such as the denail of marriage rights to gay people, I'll rally for until either something is done about it or I die.

For some comic relief, check out this video on the topic that the wonderful Jane Lynch and Jordan Peele made. It's pretty cute. The link is http://www.upworthy.com/america-has-been-waiting-hundreds-of-years-for-it-this-breakup-needs-to-happen-5.

They're incompatible, as they go in completely different directions.

See what happens without Separation of Church and State?

Also, I'd like to point out another reason we have Separation of Church and State: This mandate protect the right of every person to freely practice any religion privately. So Separation of Church and State works for both sides here, so everyone should be grateful for it.

First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

Thomas Jefferson was a pretty smart dude.

#63: Brainwashing and False Patriotism

"1492 Columbus sailed the ocean blue." We've all heard that saying. We've been taught it in school ever since we were children. But you know what we were never taught in school? They say Christopher Columbus was the man who founded America. But, really, wasn't it the Native Americans who founded America? (Besides the fact that Leif Ericson and his crew made it to America before Columbus did. It's just that they didn't make lasting settlements there.) Christopher Columbus just took it from them by force. Not only that, he murdered, tortured, enslaved, and kidnapped thousands of Native Americans. According to the article "Columbus, the Indians, and Human Progress," during his first of 4 voyages to America, he rounded up 500 Native Americans to take back to Spain with him. En route, 200 died. They lived in extremely cramped quarters in their own urine and feces on the journey to Spain. Disease, hunger, and thirst killed that 2/5 of those passengers. The ones who arrived alive were sold as slaves. Columbus was sure there was gold in America, even though there wasn't any, so he went back. According to the article, "They ordered all persons 14 years or older to collect a certain quantity of gold every 3 months. When they brought it, they were given copper tokens to hang around their necks. Indians found without a copper token had their hands cut off and bled to death." Since there was no good, the Native Americans were sentenced to torture and death, and they could do nothing about it. The Native Americans tried to fight back, so the Columbus's crew took prisoners and hanged them and burned them to death. Many Native Americans took their own lives. "The Spaniards thought nothing of knifing Indians by tens and twenties and of cutting slices off them to test the sharpness of their blades." One account was that 2 young boys approached the Spaniards once, and the Spaniards beheaded them, just for fun. And it was all for nothing. "For all the gold and silver stolen and shipped to Spain did not make the Spanish people richer. It gave their kings an edge in the balance of power for a time, a chance to hire more mercenary soldiers for their wars. They ended up losing those wars anyway, and all that was left was a deadly inflation, a starving population, the rich richer, the poor poorer, and a ruined peasant class." So see? Columbus was not a hero. He didn't even found America; the Native Americans did. He didn't give our country a good start, and he did way more damage than good. He even ruined his own country for a long time with what he did to ours. We definitely should not have a holiday for him, and we absolutely should not be teaching our kids in schools about what a hero he was. He was comparable to Osama Bin Laden, Saddam Hussein, Adolf Hitler, and many other disgraces of the world.

So why am I telling you this? Because it's crazy what kids are taught in schools about patriotism and how our country is the best in the world. Until I was probably 12 years old and said something to my parents about it, and they set me straight, I thought America was the only free country in the world. How sad is that? I had been taught in school that our country was the best in the world, and that Columbus was a hero, and all these crazy things that simply are not true. At a very young age, I was forced into this sense of false patriotism that was a form a brainwashing by school systems. Every student in my classes since I can remember were forced to recite the Pledge of Allegiance before school started every day. Now, if that's not a form of brainwashing kids into false patriotism, then I don't know what is. I mean, it's great to love your country. But are our children being brainwashed into loving their country before they can even really learn anything about it? Are we essentially forcing them to pledge allegiance to a country before they are even able to understand what the words mean or make up their minds as to whether or not they want to pledge that allegiance? I mean, let's face it, when I was a kid, I recited the pledge a million and one times. But not once did I actually understand what the words meant. I was just mindlessly reciting words my teacher was essentially forcing me to recite. Also, are we teaching our kids a bunch of lies and making murderers into heroes, just because we want our country to seem like it had a good, valiant start? What other lies are our kids being taught in school? In what other ways are they being brainwashed? What other things are they being forced to do? In what other situations are they only hearing one side of the story? And I feel like I need to say that, by teaching children that Columbus's efforts were valiant, but at the same time teaching children that what Hitler did was unforgivable, we're essentially teaching people that it's ok to murder, torture, enslave, and kidnap other people, as long as we're the ones doing it, and as long as the victims are people other than ourselves. We're basically teaching our kids that, when other people do it, it's wrong, but when we do it, it's good. That's one hell of a double standard. We're teaching children that we're superior to everyone else in the world.

So why don't we start teaching people the truth, instead of these crazy lies about Columbus being a hero? We can still be proud of our country as it is today. We can still be happy that the Europeans settled America, thus giving us the home we were born and raised in. People need to know the truth. And we should re-name Columbus Day "Murder and Torture People Who Are Different From Us Day." Or we could just do away with it. Or maybe we should just stop celebrating Columbus and just celebrate the 4th of July. Afterall, that is the day we celebrate the founding of America. And I don't really know what we should do about the Pledge of Allegiance. I mean, it's nice to teach your kids to love their country and be devoted to it, but that's their decision to make when they're older. Just because someone grows up and doesn't like their country doesn't mean there's a problem. If kids don't recite the pledge, it doesn't mean they'll grow up to hate their country and become internal terrorists. It also doesn't mean that they'll forever love their country and never question it when they become adults and start seeing all the corruption of America. Some of them will, probably because they've been brainwashed to the point of no return. (I like to call these people rednecks.) But it's just ridiculous. Teach kids the truth about America, and teach them that they should be good people and have sense of devotion to their country, but don't have them mindlessly recite a bunch of words which they don't even know the meaning of. It's pointless, except to attempt to brainwash them.

Anyway, take a look at this video. It's short and sweet, and it's HILARIOUS. My professor in my previous sociology class showed it to the class, and we laughed our butts off. You guys really do have to check this out. It's about the recital of the Pledge of Allegiance by school children being a brainwashing method. Here is the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=618U-_8o31k.

Don't be this guy. Don't do it.

I thought this was interesting.

#62: Proud To Be an Organ Donor

They say animals are valuable in death - as in their meat, bones, skin, etc. are all very valuable. It is considered respectful to use them for all they're worth, so that nothing is wasted. Why is it not the same for humans? Why don't we use our bodies for everything they're worth after we're dead. So many people don't put "organ donor" on their driver's licenses, which I highly recommend. So many people's bodies just go into the ground when they're dead, even though their organs could save another person's life.

I recently watched an episode of CSI in which people who were dying and badly needed organ transplants that didn't seem to be coming to them decided to buy organs on the black market, instead of waiting to die. They, of course, got into huge trouble with the law for buying organs on the black market, and granted, it's not a good idea to buy on the black market. You have no idea where those organs came from. They could've come from people who were alive when the organs were taken from them. Those people could've been murdered. The organs could easily not be functioning, like maybe they've gone bad. Or maybe they came from a person with HIV. You never know. However, this episode brought up a really great point. There was a little boy who was going to die without a new kidney, and he was not at the top of the donation list, so he probably would've died without getting a kidney off the black market. Should people have to resort to the black market to get what they need in order to live?

I'd say an easy solution would be for people to become organ donors. Everyone should put "organ donor" on their driver's licenses. However, it's not that simple. So should people's bodies be owned by the state after they die, so that we can use everything from their bodies that we can in order to save other people's lives? This would be valiant, although it would definitely desecrate people's bodies in death, when in life, they possibly didn't want such things to happen to their bodies. However, bodies are bodies. And I think people should be willing to let whatever happen to their bodies in order to help other people. At the same time, is this the choice of the state? Should they be allowed to use our bodies after we die? Afterall, they are just bodies. Once we're dead, WE are gone, only our body is left behind.

One other thing that's interesting: During the Holocaust, after Hitler and his crew killed the Jews (among other groups of people,) they used their bodies for everything they could. They used their fat to make soap, and they used their hair to make cloth. Now, obviously, that's insanity. But hey, that's using the body for everything it's worth, for sure! What if our society found this to be totally normal...and maybe even a good use of the human body? There are and have been in the past all kinds of cultures that do this sort of thing. Who knows if our culture would ever accept something like this. All I know is, I don't want to wash my body with someone's else's corpse. But hey, it's certainly a good use of resources!

IF YOU HAVEN'T ALREADY, MAKE SURE TO PUT "ORGAN DONOR" ON YOUR DRIVER'S LICENSE!!! Be that vital organ that that 5-year-old kid needs in order to survive. Afterall, what do you need with your body after you die?