The "Liberal View" on the NSA scandal.
Title: The liberal case for high-tech NSA surveillance
Author: Bill Scher June 12th 2013
http://theweek.com/article/index/245464/the-liberal-case-for-high-tech-nsa-surveillance
The "Conservative View" on the NSA scandal.
Title: NSA Surveillance Angers Our Allies!
Author: Not posted
http://www.conservative-daily.com/2013/10/24/nsa-surveillance-angers-our-allies/
NY Times point of view, lightly leaning left, just how I like it.
Title: N.S.A. Gathers
Data on Social
Connections of
U.S. Citizens
Author: James Risen & Laura Poitras
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/29/us/nsa-examines-social-networks-of-us-citizens.html?_r=0
I am neither liberal nor conservative. I am neither libertarian nor socialist. However, I do lean left. This means when i read the article from Conservative Daily i was far out of my comfort zone. When i read the article on the recent NSA spying scandal entitled "NSA Surveillance Angers Our Allies!", i was expecting a bashing on our current president and his health care reform. What i got instead, to my genuine surprise, was a well thought out concise argument about why the NSA privacy breaches hurts our government.
Throughout the article, the author (who is unknown) continually reiterates his or her point that the spying will only hurt our government and its relationships with other countries. He /she mentions that "The NSA already has some 70 million French phone conversations on record!" and that when the German Chancellor found out that she was being wire tapped called it a "serious breach of trust...". The spying violates international law, as well as anger our allies. Before long, the author calls to arms all the readers, stating that the violations continue in "YOUR BACKYARD".
Monday, 9 December 2013
Wednesday, 4 December 2013
Bank of America? Or Bank of Lies?
We all know what happens at the High School level of education. Kids cheat. They are growing and testing the boundaries of what they can get away with. Some of them do not get away with it; others never get caught. It is those who never get caught who are the ones to worry about.
Sometimes these cheaters climb to the very top, and since they lack a hierarchy of moral values, continue to do the sin they have learned to do so well. One of my personal favorite examples of dishonesty in the top tiers of our society is the Bank of America sandal of 2008-2009. As I am sure you all know and have experienced, there was a massive foreclosing of homes in the 2008 financial crisis. One of the driving factors of this crisis was the dishonesty in the Bank of America employees and staff.
The Bank of America would encourage their employees to foreclose homes. Often times, the employees were given a quota to foreclose per month. If they did not meet this quota, they were disciplined, sometimes even fired for their actions. If they met or exceeded their quota, they were given rewards, such as cash bonuses or gift cards. These sort of incentives lead to employees "never receiving paper work" or "not receiving your check" to cause homeowners to fall behind on their mortgage and eventually foreclose (good for the employee, bad for the family).
I define cheating as dishonesty, at the academic, emotional, or economic level. What the Bank of America staff did was cheating. They cheated their customers out of money, and out of their homes. A majority of the time, cheating is only at the expense of the one who commits it. They cheat on a test, don't learn the material, and fail when it comes to be finals. The sort of cheating caused by B of A is much worse. Their cheating is at others expense, and to an extent, at the expense of the nation.
Now that we have caught them red handed, what is there to do? Unfortunately, you can not call the principle and get them expelled. If you were to do away with B of A you would leave some 40 million Americans without a bank. You would also stop the massive cash flow from B of A that helps stimulate the economy.
The government decided to regulate. In 2009, the government passed the Home Affordable Modification Act, which helped homeowners renegotiate their mortgages and protect them from harm. However, there have already been 18,000 complaints to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, another organization created by the government to regulate banks.
If regulation does not work, what is there to do next?
Sometimes these cheaters climb to the very top, and since they lack a hierarchy of moral values, continue to do the sin they have learned to do so well. One of my personal favorite examples of dishonesty in the top tiers of our society is the Bank of America sandal of 2008-2009. As I am sure you all know and have experienced, there was a massive foreclosing of homes in the 2008 financial crisis. One of the driving factors of this crisis was the dishonesty in the Bank of America employees and staff.
The Bank of America would encourage their employees to foreclose homes. Often times, the employees were given a quota to foreclose per month. If they did not meet this quota, they were disciplined, sometimes even fired for their actions. If they met or exceeded their quota, they were given rewards, such as cash bonuses or gift cards. These sort of incentives lead to employees "never receiving paper work" or "not receiving your check" to cause homeowners to fall behind on their mortgage and eventually foreclose (good for the employee, bad for the family).
I define cheating as dishonesty, at the academic, emotional, or economic level. What the Bank of America staff did was cheating. They cheated their customers out of money, and out of their homes. A majority of the time, cheating is only at the expense of the one who commits it. They cheat on a test, don't learn the material, and fail when it comes to be finals. The sort of cheating caused by B of A is much worse. Their cheating is at others expense, and to an extent, at the expense of the nation.
Now that we have caught them red handed, what is there to do? Unfortunately, you can not call the principle and get them expelled. If you were to do away with B of A you would leave some 40 million Americans without a bank. You would also stop the massive cash flow from B of A that helps stimulate the economy.
The government decided to regulate. In 2009, the government passed the Home Affordable Modification Act, which helped homeowners renegotiate their mortgages and protect them from harm. However, there have already been 18,000 complaints to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, another organization created by the government to regulate banks.
If regulation does not work, what is there to do next?
Monday, 2 December 2013
My Father and Initiative
When i was the age of six, my father and I took a trip to New York. I do not remember why, but the reason was more an excuse to go to the Big Apple. My father grew up in New York, or more correctly, just outrside of it. A short train ride and he could be in downtown. He lived either in or around the city for the first forty years of his life.
On the first day of our trip, we got stuck in traffic. The traffic was caused by no one in particular, but there were certainly those who were not helping the situation. My father, being the New Yorker that he is, threw a couple of bird flips in thier direction and uttered (not so discreetly) a few rude phrases. I did not understand, nor did i wish to partake.
I asked my father later that night what a few of those choice phrases meant, not mention why he had done it in the first place. He gave me a very long and serious talk about tradition. He could tell quite quickly i did not buy it. I took the imitative and laid out my arguments. Moral, ethical, and emotional. Before long, I had him vowing to never do it again. That was the day i learned to stand up for what i believe in, and that one day i am going to become a politician.
On the first day of our trip, we got stuck in traffic. The traffic was caused by no one in particular, but there were certainly those who were not helping the situation. My father, being the New Yorker that he is, threw a couple of bird flips in thier direction and uttered (not so discreetly) a few rude phrases. I did not understand, nor did i wish to partake.
I asked my father later that night what a few of those choice phrases meant, not mention why he had done it in the first place. He gave me a very long and serious talk about tradition. He could tell quite quickly i did not buy it. I took the imitative and laid out my arguments. Moral, ethical, and emotional. Before long, I had him vowing to never do it again. That was the day i learned to stand up for what i believe in, and that one day i am going to become a politician.
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