There's a particular line of thinking I've been seeing a lot more lately, and considering how much terrorism was brought up by the last administration this is saying something, that is ripped right out of Joe McCarthy's playbook. It is this whole notion that somehow, some way, Muslim terrorists are going to take over our country and impose Sharia law on everyone creating a tyrannical totalitarian state. I think this has really come to the forefront because of the recent New York City Park51 controversy bringing those very primal fears to the fore. The fear of invasion and loss of self-determination is a very basic one that goes back as far as the invention of writing and likely further than that. The idea of all of that happening in the dark of night is one that is especially potent by adding in the even more ancient fear of the unknown.

This is not to downplay the horror, tragedy, and loss that terrorists seek to sow in their wake, far from it. Such people who deal in fear and violence deserve to rot in a cold, dark cell for the rest of their lives while worrying about dropping the soap in the shower. People who seek to usurp our Constitution, civil liberties, and way of life need to be opposed in every legal way possible. That said the plausibility, even possibility, of terrorists "taking over" the United States of America when you really look at the ideas and arguments a step removed from the savagery and brutality is somewhere in the same neighborhood as me reaching the moon by flapping my arms really hard. When you look at the most plausible means the terrorists would exercise to take over the country the entire line of reasoning falls apart pretty quickly.

The first, and most obvious would be military takeover. This one is laughable on its face, simple as that. Yes, there are over a billion Muslims in the world and growing. Quite a few of the more fundamentalist Muslim nations also sit on a lot of oil giving them quite a bit of money. That said how exactly are jihadi terrorists, a movement that to this date has yet to actually successfully overthrow a working government anywhere in the world or launch a successful terrorist attack on US soil since 9/11, going to pull that off? We have the most heavily funded, technologically sophisticated, and powerful military machine in the history of the human race. We have a navy that is virtually impossible to challenge. Our army is the best in the world. We have enough nuclear warheads to destroy the planet many times over. How would a group that has to run and hide in caves when American troops show up and can't fight a pitched battle possibly pull that off? The possibility of jihadi radicals actually beating all of that in an open invasion is somewhere near zero. It simply would not happen.

So what about using violence in some other fashion like a ticking time bomb scenario of some kind like nuclear blackmail or something similar that could have been pulled from the pages of Tom Clancy or James Bond. Again, nothing like that has ever happened. For all our stories of supervillains and masterminds holding a country or the world at ransom with some kind of doomsday device such plots remain exactly what they are: stories. There has never been a single incident in the history of the world of a group actually coming close to pulling off such a plot. And again such a plan also would run headlong into the aforementioned most powerful military machine on the planet. Within five minutes of getting a feed of terrorists threatening to blow up DC with a nuke unless we surrender or something there would see would be Navy SEALS breaking in doors and taking out the would-be conquerors in less time than it would take for me to make a sandwich. Simple as that.

Even assuming somehow, some way, the terrorists are able to take over the country at gunpoint even considering how incredibly unlikely that would be they would not hold on to it for long. At most the American Muslim population is 8 million people in a nation whose population is in excess of 300 million people. That's barely more than 2% of the population and the bulk of the growth of the Muslim population comes through immigration, not conversion. I'm also willing to bet that, since people don't work in monolithic blocs, that most of said population are not necessarily supporters of jihadi terrorists. The terrorists would be working with a very tiny minority population as their potential base of support with another 300 million some odd people who would vary from apathy to hating their guts. This is also in the fourth largest country on the planet. A country where, not counting military and police hardware, there are more personal firearms than there are people. How exactly would a rag-tag group of terrorists who need years of planning to engage in ONE major attack occupy all of that? How would they keep a population and country that huge, armed, and hostile in line? Sooner or later such a regime would collapse and probably much sooner than later.

Now granted overt take over by force is not the only way that a secret invasion could happen but the other main method such a takeover could possibly happen is just as far-fetched. To legally remove the Constitution, religious liberty, and impose requirements to follow specific religious laws on the people of the United States would take a Constitutional amendment. To successfully amend the Constitution you would need either for two thirds of both chambers of Congress to vote for the amendment or two third of all state legislatures to pass resolutions calling for a Constitutional convention. After that you would need 3/4ths of the states either to have their legislatures approve the new amendment or have ratifying conventions in 3/4ths of the states approve the new amendment. Now look at those numbers. It would take a pretty huge shift in public opinion to elect enough politicians who all are in favor of such a change to the US government. Definitely far more than a group that is at most 2% of the US population could possibly swing in any situation.

Now some would argue that somehow, some way, enough radical Muslims are going to come to the United States, have more babies than everyone else, and become the new majority. This line of thought assumes that all Muslims are radical terrorists and that somehow a group that is only 2% of the population is going to have so many babies that they overwhelm the other 98% in a tide of jihadi babies. For that to happen you would need that 2% of the population to be dosed up on enough fertility drugs to pump out litters of kids at a time and for the other 98% to voluntarily neuter themselves. Even the American Muslim birthrate were triple the birthrate of the rest of the country it would take at least a hundred years, if not longer, to even approach the numbers needed to pull off such a coup. This also assumes that over the course of this highly implausible demographic invasion the ideology is going to remain cohesive and the group remain in lock step and not assimilate into American culture. In fact more often than not the second and third generation children of immigrants in the United States tend to identify much more heavily with the ideas, culture, and beliefs of their new nation than that of their parents' homeland. For such a demographic and ideological shift to take place in our country would require a series of events, decisions, and actions that go completely counter to known human behavior.

This is not to say there is no threat of extremist groups taking over the country. This is always that possibility in a democracy. But there is such a thing as a plausible extremist threat and an implausible one. Ironically enough the groups shouting the loudest about Muslim takeovers often tend to be ones with close ties to Christian fundamentalists in the US. The same fundamentalists who have successfully written a specific tenet of their belief system into the Constitutions of 25 states by popular vote. The same movement that was able to bend President George W. Bush to interrupting his vacation to intervene in a family medical matter at a hospice in Florida. The same movement that regularly rails against the immorality, vice, and corruption of the country in a manner not all that dissimilar in nature than the rantings of Osama bin Laden and his cohorts. The very same movement that has been able to derail the careers of aspiring politicians and play kingmaker in elections across the country. A movement that, if they were given their way, would impose Old Testament Biblical laws on the country and throw out the bulk of the US Constitution. A movement that has inspired radicals to bomb abortion clinics, shoot doctors, and call for the death of Supreme Court justices on national television while claiming to be the ultimate example of patriotism.

There are groups that have plans that are definitely a threat to liberty in the United States. Now I'm not so sure about other people, but I know for me I prefer to keep my eye on groups that are capable of and have in some places made their authoritarian ideas the law of the land and not groups that would require a series of lucky breaks that defy all sense. There is no use in jumping at shadows cast by trees when the real monsters are already inside the front door.

Also published here: http://ryansdesk.blogspot.com/2010/08/terrorists-are-not-going-to-take-over.html

In this day and age it appears that what kind of leadership is valued has been seriously degraded. Corporate bigwigs on Wall Street and political power players in Washington DC have decided entirely on their own accord that to lead is to actively seek to enrich oneself and the pockets and bank accounts of your buddies. They have decided, probably thanks to a lot of money thrown around to help "persuade" them, that public service and the common good are just handy slogans to be trotted out on Election Day then shoved into the back of the closet for the other 364 days of the year while hoping no one notices. For them accountability is something you talk big on then make sure no one is looking when you quietly pass the buck onto some convenient fall guy or hide behind a law you wrote yourself to ensure that no matter what the impact of your decisions is that you will never actually have to own up for the consequences of those decisions. As far as they are concerned the sole purpose of being in a position of responsibility is to serve as a giant parasite sucking the lifeblood of the people dry while the world burns all around them.

It does not have to be this way.

This country has, up until the last few decades when the public good somehow became twisted into being "socialist" or "anti-American", been a nation that has prized liberty and worked to ensure that all both now and in the future can enjoy the fruits of their labors without fear. There was a time when a hard day's work earned a fair day's wage. When buying American meant buying something that was made by American sweat, American steel, and American ingenuity. It was a time when being in charge meant leaving your company and your community better than you found it.

We have crumbling schools, roads, and factories. The Gulf and the communities that depend on it for their livelihood have been irreparably wounded, possibly fatally, by rampant corruption and recklessness all in the name of profits. Jobs are being shipped off to never return and with it money that could be used to invest in our communities, our economy, and the well-being of our society as a whole. The more we give to the interests of those who only see us as a fat juicy side of beef to be carved up the less we have to use for the sake of ourselves, our homes, our families, and our country. We cannot keep living off of the deeds and works of our ancestors who understood that sometimes you have to sacrifice a bit of immediate comfort for the sake of long-term sustainability and the good of the community.

You can call me a socialist, a communist, anti-American, or whatever other popular buzzword you want. That doesn't change that there is something seriously wrong with our country. That doesn't change that right now the richest 1% of Americans have more wealth and assets than the bottom 95% combined. That doesn't change that we have roads and schools that poorer nations than ours would be embarrassed to call their own. No matter how much you deny the ugly truth that is staring us all in the face it doesn't change the nature of that truth or make it go away.

It's time we remember who this country really belongs to. It is time to remember why the Founding Fathers boldly declared in the first three words of the Constitution "We THE PEOPLE" are the ones in charge in this nation. That this is a government of the people, by the people, and for the people and not just the richest ones. The United States do not exist for the benefit of the few, the powerful, and the bloated to suck dry. It is there for all of us "to secure the blessings of liberty for us and our posterity."

The challenge to our nation and people awaits. What are you gonna do about it?

Alright here's my opinion on the elections yesterday and what it proves more than anything else:

Pundits don't know what they are talking about and the Beltway politicians have their heads up their collective posteriors.

Let's first look at all the media circus and political spin that was leading up to the elections that took place yesterday. It was loudly touted, especially by the GOP but by the media in general, as a "referendum on Barack Obama." It was spun as if these local contests would somehow give us an idea of what the people in the United States as a whole feel about Obama, the Democratic Party, and the direction our government is taking us in.


Funny that no one ever told the voters that.

In fact, in spite of the pronouncements of the punditocracy, the fears of the Democratic Party, and the pre-victory gloating by the GOP, these elections had very little in fact to do with Obama as the previous poll indicated.

In Virginia Democrat Craig Deeds, by all accounts on the ground, ran a terrible political campaign. He made multiple bone-headed mistakes including distancing himself from Obama in a state Obama carried in 2008, attacking his opponent's social conservatism while failing to offer an effective message regarding jobs and taxes the way his opponent did. Virginia also has a long tradition of electing a governor who is not of the same party as the current President; case in point being the consecutive elections of Mark Warner and Tim Kaine both Democrats during the Bush administration with Warner being elected in the shadow of 9/11. It doesn't matter how popular the president and standardbearer of your party is if the candidate you have running to fix state and local issues doesn't effectively speak to said issues and can't seem to run a campaign period. People when they go into the polls aren't just voting based on the issues, they are also voting for a person to handle the position they are being elected to. Running a campaign on your opponent's position on the social issues when the main concerns of most voters are jobs, jobs, and jobs is a good way to guarantee your political defeat.

In New Jersey the incumbent Democrat was running with a poor approval rating, an economy that tanked hard thanks to the crash, and the bonus points of being a former Goldman-Sachs CEO when anti-Wall Street sentiment among the average voter is running high. The state Democratic Party was also battered by multiple scandals under Menendez and McGreevey tarnishing their reputation. It's a miracle he even had a shot with all of what was running against him and no surprise he lost.

In NY-23 we had a real circus with the Republican who was running as the incumbent temporary appointment get ousted by conservative members of her own party then watch as last week she dropped out and endorsed the Democrat running in the election. Owens, the Democrat, would end up beating Doug Hoffman, the insurgent Conservative Party candidate who received backing early on from Sarah Palin, Rush Limbaugh, and Glenn Beck who all touted this election as the sign that they would come out on top and the conservative revolution was on its way. Shame that no one told the voters in the NY-23, a district that has been Republican for 138 continuously, about the revolution. What likely did Hoffman in was that the bulk of his money and support, not to mention his own residence, were from outside the district making it very easy to portray him as an opportunistic carpet-bagger.


Now that we have gone over what really happened that the pundits do not want to talk about:

They were dead wrong on all accounts. Virginia and New Jersey, elections that were part of the alleged barometer on Obama's first year in office, based on the exit polls were decided based mostly on local issues and the voters still approve of Obama himself even if not for the Democrats running in their states. Note that in New Jersey said Dem was an incumbent facing a political perfect storm that he couldn't beat while in Virginia Deeds was running to fill the seat held previously by Democrat Tim Kaine effectively making him the incumbent in political terms1. In NY-23 it was the insurgent candidate supported by out of district and out of state interests and money who lost to the local candidate.

The real meaning of this election is two-fold: first that the political analysts, pundits, and spinmeisters don't know what they are talking about and second that the people are fed up with business-as-usual inside the Beltway thinking and politics. Both the pundits and the big party bosses projected their opinions, wishes, and conclusions onto races in spite of that the data from the elections themselves doesn't substantiate the hot wind they've been blowing. The elections yesterday, more than anything else, prove that the punditocracy and the partyocracy in Washington DC don't know what is really going on outside of the Beltway.

Ideologues, incumbent candidates, and parties beware of 2010, if your voters are not happy with the job you're doing or think that you're taking them for a ride your political future will be over. The political dynamic active right now is not one of left vs. right; it is of the people vs. Washington. And the punditry and political bosses, who can plainly see the writing on the wall, have no idea what it means.


1. In Virginia Governors cannot stand for re-election to two consecutive terms as Governor.

Let's cut through all the chaff, spin, and whatnot of what has been flying around about the proposed health care reform and get down to the brass tacks of why the public option is really the only sane option. There have been a lot of other choices offered up, the most popular in the Republican Party being that of co-ops and tax credits. There also have been a lot of outright lies, like the "death panel" whopper that's been kicked around. Let's just look at things from a simple, pragmatic perspective about why the public option really is the best and only option we have.

The main opposition to the public option when you cut out all the fat and spin comes from three main criticisms: that it would lead to something that private industry cannot compete with, that it costs too much, and it would lead to too much government control over our lives mislabeled as socialism.

The first one is probably the most self-serving argument out there.

Why is that?

Because the people advancing this line of thought the most are the insurance companies. The same insurance companies that by law are immune to anti-trust legislation leading to many insurance companies dominating the different markets in the US. In many cases there are insurance markets where 90% and up of all health care is provided by one insurer. These are the same insurance companies who, in the midst of a recession that is forcing everyone to make do with less and tighten our belts, continue to post massive profits.

Of course they resent the idea of competing with someone who will actually force them to provide good health care. Right now they have it MADE. If they actually had to compete then they wouldn't be raking in their obscene profits, their massive bonuses and stock option packages.

If the public option was put in place then, Gods forbid, they would actually have to WORK for a living!

It's not like the public option would force them out of business. Private postal companies like UPS and FedEx do just fine right up against the Post Office who is hitting hard times mostly because the bulk of their business is being made obsolete thanks to e-mail. Even in the United Kingdom where you have a government run healthcare system there are private insurance companies that are still in business and doing quite fine. There is no reason to believe that the insurance industry will up and disappear if the public option is put in place.

There is, to the contrary, EVERY reason to believe that if we inject a competitor into the market who doesn't have to worry about big corporate bonuses then the insurance companies, to stay in business, might actually have to cut the gristle they are shoveling up to the fat cats running the companies.

I guess it must be unreasonable of me to think that those poor, persecuted multimillionaires and billionaires can only make it on a couple million dollars a year of after-tax income.


The second argument, that it costs too much, sits in good company with the counter-proposals of co-ops and tax credits.

This argument misses the point completely. Right now health care costs too much because of the rising cost of insurance premiums entirely because of the monopolistic control that the insurance industry exercises over the market. Currently wages rise at a rate of 2% a year on average over the past decade while health insurance premiums have risen on average 10% a year.

That's five times what the average wage-earner makes in terms of increase. That is already costing us too much. If this trend continues unabated would it be possible for people to even afford health care anymore and still pay for other things like food, mortgages, rent, and transportation to get to their jobs that they would be spending long hours at just to fork over most of their money to the insurance industry? As things stand now we can't afford health care as is.

But what about tax credits? Couldn't giving people their money back from the government address that problem?

Tax credits would create more problems than they solve. For one, to be able to actually address the problem, they would have to be indexed with the inflation of health care costs. If they aren't then very quickly they will go from barely enough to a band-aid over a bullet wound.

If they are indexed in a way to be useful then not only are we cutting out money from the federal budget, which would lead to a corresponding rise in the deficit at a rate that would very quickly wreck the federal budget. At that point it would be cheaper for the federal government just to pay the insurance companies directly.

But wouldn't co-ops fix the problem without leading to unnecessary government intrusion?

Newsflash: one of the worst offenders in the industry, Blue Cross Blue Shield, is a co-op network.

That and co-ops, unlike a public option, once on their own would be stuck trying to cut out a niche in markets so heavily dominated often by one or two providers that they would be quickly shoved off-stage by the insurance companies to keep control of the market. It would be a very short-lived, costly, and ultimately doomed effort.


To the last argument I only have this to say:

Why are you so afraid of the government who we elect and we as the public can hire and fire representatives who shape policies and how said public option is run who would have to operate under full accountability and transparency to the public running your health care as opposed to private corporations who have no incentive to be level with the people?

Why are you afraid of a government that ultimately you have the final say on covering your health care costs when as things stand right now the people who have the say on your health care in the insurance industry make money by denying you care that you need?


The health care reform bill addresses many of the worst actions of the insurance industry. The problem is without the public option it will be worse than useless for America. Without a public option to force the insurance industry who has proven time and time again not to be trusted to play honest and by the rules any reform effort is nothing more than smoke and mirrors.