Human Misfortune
Humans’ inherent inclination toward violence, corruption, and prejudice is humanity’s inescapable misfortune. Violence destroys precious wealth. Corruption abuses precious wealth. Prejudice wastes precious wealth. Humanity’s inability to divorce from its built-up affinity for ideology, dictatorship, and flawed democracy unavoidably exacerbates violence, corruption, and prejudice, worsening wealth destruction, wealth abuse, and wealth waste. Destruction of wealth caused by violence, abuse of wealth caused by corruption, and waste of wealth caused by prejudice are the sole cause of humanity’s never-ending poverty. The lone solution to human misfortune is embracing nonviolence, altruism, and tolerance to end wealth destruction, wealth abuse, and wealth waste, ending poverty forever.
Violence. Corruption. Prejudice
Violence, corruption, and prejudice make up humanity’s uncivilized citizenship. They cause unbearable economic and social costs. Violence destroys wealth. Corruption abuses wealth. Prejudice wastes wealth. The sum of the costs of violence’s wealth destruction, corruption’s wealth abuse, and prejudice’s wealth waste is the overwhelming cause of humanity’s never-ending poverty. The reduction in wealth, resulting from destruction, abuse, and waste, directly causes reduction in investment. Reduction in investment curtails economic growth. Reduction in economic growth decreases social progress. Reduction in economic growth and social progress decreases economic development. Reduction in economic development lowers people’s standard of living and lessens their quality of life. Decreases in people’s standard of living and quality of life worsen poverty. Worsening poverty destroys human dignity.
Every human being is born with an inclination toward violence, corruption, and prejudice. Everyone is inclined toward violence. Everyone is inclined toward corruption. Everyone is inclined toward prejudice. No human being is excluded or exempted from the inclination for violence, corruption, and prejudice. The human environment, such as family, school, culture, community, and country, heighten or lessen people’s inclination for violence, corruption, and prejudice. Enlightened culture, ethos, and education help modify the inborn disposition for violence, corruption, and prejudice.
Violence, corruption, and prejudice happen as people’s inborn inclinations are actualized. Human nature and human essence are responsible for stirring up inclinations for violence, corruption, and prejudice. In order to become civilized and make strides toward ending uncivilized citizenship, people are required to modify their human nature and human essence. Built-up discipline and fear of punishment help few people control their inborn inclinations. With little modification in human nature and essence, people are unable to control their inborn dispositions for violence, corruption, and prejudice.
People’s inability to modify their human nature and human essence prevents them from controlling their inborn disposition from being actualized into violence, corruption, and prejudice. People’s inability to control their inborn disposition causes the continuation of violence, corruption, and prejudice. People’s inability to modify their human nature and human essence cause their inability to eschew violence, corruption, and prejudice.
The human inclination for violence, corruption, and prejudice explain how human behaviors are inevitably directed by its immanent dispositions. In the absence of remedial measures, innate inclinations inevitably incline and compel people to commit violence, corruption, and prejudice, causing intolerable economic costs. Despite its abundance of affluence and cultural triumphs, a nation remains uncivilized as long as its people and governments continue to commit violence, corruption, and prejudice.
Humanity is as uncivilized as it was at the beginning of time. It remains and continues to be as uncivilized as it was. It is no different from what it was at the beginning. Today’s humanity is no less uncivilized than Adam’s and Eve’s. Adam and Eve stole the forbidden fruit. They preferred Abel to Cain. Cain killed Abel. As it was at Adam’s and Eve’s time, and throughout history, humans’ nonstop uncivilized acts of violence, corruption, and prejudice cause nonstop wealth destruction, wealth abuse, and wealth waste, causing perennial poverty. Wealth destruction from violence, wealth abuse by corruption, and wealth waste from prejudice are solely responsible for the 90-plus percent of humanity’s inability to achieving appreciable and justifiable improvements in their standard of living and quality of life.
Since violence, corruption, and prejudice are ubiquitous and universal, humanity is entirely and patently uncivilized. With no exception, every country is uncivilized. Europe is uncivilized. America is uncivilized. Asia is uncivilized. Africa is uncivilized. Every advanced country is uncivilized. Every backward country is uncivilized. No nation can pretend to be civilized as long as it has ongoing and widespread violence, corruption, and prejudice. No country can pretend to be civilized so long as it has widespread poverty.
Poverty is caused by wealth destruction by violence, wealth abuse by corruption, and wealth waste by prejudice. Wealth reduction causes investment reduction, which causes reduction in economic growth. Reduction in economic growth decreases social progress. Reduction in economic growth and social progress cuts economic development. Reduction in economic development lowers people’s standard of living and quality of life. Corruption institutes unequal economic opportunity. When people are deprived of equal economic opportunity, the most powerful win while the least powerful fail. When a country is afflicted with high unemployment and/or unjust wages, the most powerful win while the least powerful fail. Such inhuman realities manifesting unequal economic opportunities are caused by entrenched asymmetry in political prerogatives and privileges. Uncivilized human conduct is solely responsible for the prolongation of asymmetrical opportunities and the perpetuation of poverty.
Ongoing violence, corruption, and prejudice keep humanity forever uncivilized. Perennial poverty keeps nations forever uncivilized. Like violence, corruption, and prejudice, poverty is a human trespass caused by human transgression. Such detrimental transgressions make humans inevitably and perennially uncivilized. To make a country civilized, its people and its governments must eschew violence, corruption, and prejudice, eradicate poverty, eliminate human suffering, and end human indignity.
Every country has poverty. Their poverty is caused by the inordinate economic costs of widespread and ongoing violence, corruption, and prejudice. It is caused by wealth destruction from violence, wealth abuse from corruption, and wealth waste from prejudice. As they entail an ongoing unbearable economic cost, poverty is perpetuated. America’s poverty is caused by its endless violence, corruption, and prejudice. Europe’s poverty is caused by its endless violence, corruption, and prejudice.
Poverty is profane. When humans are caught in poverty’s snare, they are trapped in despair. Poverty’s disgrace and indignity are more hurtful than hunger’s physical pain. In poverty, human dignity and human pride are obliterated. A poor person is devoid of human dignity. Poverty’s malignancy gets metastasized into a dense gangrene on human dignity and human pride. Poverty’s deprivation unavoidably turns human destiny into a barren wilderness. It inflicts indignity and dissolves pride. It makes a person a living humiliation. It corrodes physical and mental competence. Its social disgrace and personal indignity stamp enduring stains on human glory. Humans have the power to end violence, corruption, and prejudice. Termination of violence, corruption, and prejudice will end poverty forever.
Nonviolence. Altruism. Tolerance
Nonviolence, altruism, and tolerance make up humanity’s civilized citizenship. Nonviolence, altruism, and tolerance help create untold economic and social benefits. Nonviolence would end violence’s wealth destruction. Altruism would end corruption’s wealth abuse. Tolerance would end prejudice’s wealth waste. Elimination of wealth destruction, abuse, and waste will enable humanity to instantly eliminate poverty. Nonviolence, altruism, and tolerance offer humanity the opportunity to utilize its entire economic resources for accelerating economic growth. Increase in economic growth helps increase social progress. Increase in economic growth and social progress help increase economic development. Increase in economic development helps improve people’s standard of living and quality of life. As everyone’s standard of living and quality of life are improved, poverty is eliminated. As everyone becomes civilized, barbarity gets eliminated.
Nonviolence, altruism, and tolerance guarantee untold economic and social benefits. Only nonviolence, altruism, and tolerance will help eliminate poverty in poor and rich countries, alike. Until people become nonviolent, altruistic, and tolerant, poverty will remain pervasive and entrenched everywhere. Success in modifying human nature and human essence will help people easily embrace nonviolence, altruism, and tolerance. Humanity’s glory is guaranteed by its success in building Civilized Citizenship by embracing nonviolence, altruism, and tolerance. Nothing but nonviolence, altruism, and tolerance will save humanity from its barbaric transgressions and help it become civilized.
Humanity’s failure to embrace nonviolence, altruism, and tolerance will forever prevent it from eradicating poverty. It would everlastingly prevent humanity from shunning its uncivilized barbarity. Failure to study the untold economic and social benefits of nonviolence, altruism, and tolerance prevents nations from learning how they could eliminate poverty and how they could help people become civilized. The inability to grasp the cause of and solution to poverty will prevent governments from ending humanity’s indigence and indignity. Nothing but nonviolence, altruism, and tolerance perfected by flawless democracies would help humanity become forever civilized and free of poverty. To make a country civilized, its people must embrace nonviolence, altruism, and tolerance. To end human poverty and indignity, humanity must embrace nonviolence, altruism, and tolerance.
Only nonviolence, altruism, and tolerance would help mold civilized citizenship; only civilized citizenship would help people escape poverty, barbarity, and indignity. Nonviolence, altruism, and tolerance, burnished by a flawless democracy, would help everyone gain a dignified standard of living and quality of life. Humans would then be entitled to say we are better than animals. Nothing but nonviolence, altruism, and tolerance will help humanity reach its cherished status of being a noble species.
Ideology. Despotism. Flawed Democracy
Ideology, despotism, and flawed democracy exacerbate violence, corruption, and prejudice. As violence, corruption, and prejudice are exacerbated, economic growth and social progress are further curtailed, worsening poverty. Added reduction in the standard of living and quality of life caused by reductions in economic growth and social progress aggravate a country’s social, political, cultural, religious, racial, and ethnic tensions. Violence, corruption, and prejudice are exacerbated most by ideology, and greatly more by despotism, than by flawed democracy.
Ideology is an axiomatic belief system that stylizes ignorance, entrenches inflexibility, and divests insight. It deprives individuals of the privilege to epitomize freedom and exemplify choice. It imposes limits on individuals’ freedom to think and decide independently. It requires people to move on an enclosed path bereft of detours and bypasses. It prevents people from appraising available alternatives to decide which one is more detrimental, more expedient, more costly, or more profitable to the country.
Since every ideology is considered inviolably sacred, it firmly rejects the need to consider and appraise alternatives. In order to find the most beneficial alternative, it is necessary to appraise alternatives. As a result, ideology’s exclusion of appraising alternatives inevitably causes infinite economic waste, leading to serious reduction in economic growth and social progress. As it inescapably exacerbates violence, corruption, and prejudice, ideology unavoidably decreases economic development. In reality, ideology is a sophisticated term for tribalism. As each group in a tribal society claims infallibility, each ideology claims inviolable infallibility. Ideology is the epitome of human vacuity, a manmade debacle, a manmade catastrophe, causing nonstop ruination.
Despotism is an oppressive system of government in which the ruler, whether an individual or a group, exercises absolute power. In a despotic system, citizens have little participation in governance. It denies people liberty and dignity. To seize power, despots use violence. To keep power, they burgeon violence, widen corruption, and deepen prejudice. Despotism fabricates a ruinous environment and a dreaded reality. It shapes a context of vexed mistrust and breeds a nightmare of dystopian alienation.
Poverty is the inevitable detriment of despotism, which inexorably causes violence, corruption, and prejudice. As violence destroys, corruption abuses, and prejudice wastes wealth, they entail an exorbitant economic cost to the country. They cause inevitable cuts in investment, economic growth, and social progress. Since reduction in economic growth and social progress leads to poverty, most despotic countries are necessarily poor. Even small countries like Qatar, Brunei, and Singapore with immense wealth are not entirely devoid of poverty.
A democracy is flawed when some citizens are deprived of equal economic, political, social, and legal rights, opportunities, and privileges. It is flawed when one group is offered more rights, opportunities, and privileges than other groups. It is flawed when selected citizens are offered hereditary prerogatives or special privileges. It is flawed when it fails to guarantee everyone human rights, equal economic opportunity, and equal legal protection. It is flawed when it allows political leaders power and opportunity to amass unmerited and unearned wealth through corruption. It is flawed when the powerful are enabled and empowered to exploit the powerless. It is flawed when powerful politicians grant the powerful rich the power, scope, and opportunity to usurp public wealth for their private gain at the expense and detriment of the powerless.
A democracy is flawed when it fails to embody equal economic opportunity and equal legal protection. Economic rights and legal rights outrank political rights. Unequal economic opportunity causes poverty, starvation, and death. Unequal legal protection leads to seizure, detention, torture, and death. The starved, jailed, maimed, and dead are unable to reach a polling station to exercise their political rights. The opportunity to vote is a necessary requirement in a democracy. Since equal economic opportunity and equal legal protection are life and death requirements, they are compulsorily necessary requirements in a democracy. Equal economic opportunity is paramount as its absence causes starvation and death. Economic inequality leading to starvation and death fuels endemic instability and discontent.
Flawed democracy entails a serious economic cost. As it embodies entrenched inequality, it sires violence, corruption, and prejudice. As it embodies entrenched prerogatives and privileges, it especially begets corruption and prejudice. As it embodies entrenched divides, it casts and insinuates widespread institutional prejudice. Ensuing violence destroys wealth. Ensuing corruption abuses wealth. Ensuing prejudice wastes wealth. They necessarily cause reduction in economic growth and social progress, burgeoning poverty, and leading to immiseration and indignity.
Every existing democracy is flawed. American democracy is deeply flawed. America’s unimaginable violence, corruption, and prejudice are infinitely exacerbated by its deeply flawed democracy. America’s extremely flawed democracy causes entrenched and plethoric corruption. Lack of opportunities and endemic discrimination ensued by flawed democracy fuels violence, corruption, and prejudice. A democracy becomes flawed when it abandons democracy’s equal-rights principle, equal-opportunity principle, and equal-privilege principle. A flawless democracy guarantees everyone, the majority and minorities, the powerful and the powerless, equal rights, equal opportunities, and equal privileges.
Every European democracy is deeply flawed, discriminating against the powerless among both the majority and minorities. In affluent Europe, poverty and lack of opportunity are common among black- and brown-skinned people, who are degraded as second-class citizens. The powerless Caucasians are not greatly better off than powerless minorities. Every European country has privileged classes. Eight Western European democracies have constitutional monarchies with hereditary prerogatives. The prevalence and primacy of both the privileged class and hereditary royalties and nobilities establish and exemplify inequality. They authenticate those democracies’ extreme flaws. That Prince Harry lives the extreme flaw of British democracy.
American democracy’s exceptional flaw is pronounced by the unlimited power, privilege, and luxury given to its president. Its president’s near infallibility makes American democracy perniciously flawed. With little reservation and reckoning, America wastes unimaginable sums to furnish the president and his family obscene luxury, elevating a regular politician and his family to the opulence of seventeenth-–century royalty. Presidential candidates desperately chase voters in the freezing-wintry streets of New Hampshire and Iowa. Once a candidates gets elected to the presidency, instantly he is elevated to kingship, a one-man Brahman-caste.
Need for Economic Development
Economic resources constitute wealth. Wealth consists of labor, capital, organization, and environment. Wealth enables investments. Investments create economic growth. Economic growth facilitates improvement in the standard of living. Economic growth pays for social progress. Economic growth and social progress together create economic development, which eliminates poverty. Decreases in economic development increase poverty. Increases in economic development decrease poverty. Improvements in the standard of living and quality of life reduce poverty, offering human beings human dignity.
Economic development is indispensable for all countries, rich and poor, alike. It is achieved through ongoing economic growth and social progress. Only sustained economic development will generate the required economic growth and social progress necessary to generate ongoing improvement in people’s standard of living and quality of life. Improvement in the standard of living and quality of life improves people’s overall welfare. The inescapable obligation of a democratic country is to furnish ongoing improvement in its people’s welfare. An improvement in people’s welfare is achieved through ongoing concurrent economic growth and social progress.
An increase in economic growth creates an increase in economic prosperity, providing an improvement in people’s standard of living. Social progress is an absolute necessity to improve people’s quality of life. It includes a template of measures necessary to improve everyone’s quality of life. Included in it are the absence of poverty, universal healthcare, public education, and old-age pensions. Support for children, seniors, the disabled, and mentally challenged are included. A fair minimum wage, full employment, unemployment assistance, employment training, and public works at minimum wage are needed. Equal economic opportunity is a necessity. Individual freedom is a requirement. Rule of law, equality in legal protection, and equal legal rights are crucial. A clean environment and modern infrastructure are essential. Good governance and a fair tax system are needed. A free market is a necessity. A free press and freedom of speech are essential. Commitment to remedy climate change is an existential need.
Social progress must include ongoing education on the costs of violence, corruption, and prejudice, and the benefits of nonviolence, altruism, and tolerance. Education about the intolerable costs of violence, corruption, and prejudice, and the untold benefits of nonviolence, altruism, and tolerance should be a critical part of social progress. It should be an indispensable national priority. It is imperative that social progress must include the elimination of flawed democracy. It must unavoidably include a flawless democracy to ensure that the economic, legal, social, and political systems furnish everyone equal access and equal opportunity to maximize everyone’s benefit. It must incorporate provisions to guarantee remunerations to workers equal to their productivity and their contribution to economic growth. It must include an uncorrupted legal system to justly punish corrupt politicians and dishonest businesses. Blind justice and equality before the law are indispensable requirements.
Social progress must include a favorable environment for everyone to contribute toward achieving “a more perfect union” for “the pursuit of life, liberty, and happiness.” Everyone deserves a livable standard of living and quality of life to ensure dignity and fulfillment. An opportunity for challenging work and benefits that are equal to one’s productivity will help to gain dignity and fulfillment. Equal focus on both economic growth and social progress is necessary to create ongoing improvement in everyone’s standard of living and quality of life.
No society can end poverty solely through economic growth. Eradicating poverty requires social progress as much as economic growth. Improving the quality of life requires social progress. To achieve a net reduction in poverty, the actual annual increase in GDP realized through economic growth must exceed the actual annual loss of GDP due to violence, corruption, and prejudice. In many respects, social progress is essential for both the powerful and the powerless. Air pollution causes ill-health to everyone, whether they are rich or poor. Hazardous freeways and unsafe bridges create discomfort and danger for everyone, regardless of how rich and how poor people are. A reduction in social progress will reduce funds for airport maintenance and air traffic administration that will affect the comfort and convenience especially for the rich who own their own airplanes. A reduction in social progress necessarily causes a reduction in the standard of living and quality of life of the powerless, while decreasing elements of comfort for the rich.
Violence destroys wealth. Corruption abuses wealth. Prejudice wastes wealth. Wealth destruction, abuse, and waste decrease economic development by reducing economic growth and social progress. Reduction in economic growth reduces the standard of living and funds for social progress. Reduction in social progress will unavoidably worsen everyone’s quality of life. The climate change that global warming causes is an impending catastrophe. It afflicts everyone’s health and well-being, regardless of whether they are rich or poor.
People cannot be asked to change without giving them the reasons for change. Reasons for change are critical because people need the motivation to change. People are to be taught about the benefits of change and costs of no change. People are to be taught about the intolerable economic and social costs of uncivilized behavior and the untold economic and social benefits of civilized behavior. People are to be taught about the unbearable economic and social costs of violence, corruption, and prejudice and the incalculable economic and social benefits of nonviolence, altruism, and tolerance. People will change once they know the reasons for change, costs of no change, and the benefits from change. Humans do embody the capacity to change.
A nation’s foremost concern is creating ongoing economic growth to provide its people ongoing improvement in their standard of living and quality of life. When labor, capital, organization, and environment, inputs for production, comprising a country’s wealth, are appropriately blended, output is created. If they are found in the right ratios required by production requirements, the country is wealthy. Abundance of labor, capital, organization, and environment in the desired proportion create an abundance of wealth. A country’s wealth gauges its achieved prosperity. A country with plenty of wealth could create plenty of economic growth.
Copious consumer demand and investment demand, and plentiful capital and skilled labor, help accelerate economic growth. Labor embodies effort and skill. Since effort and skill are the required inputs to create output, labor is wealth. An entrepreneur is wealth. An engineer is wealth. An electrician is wealth. Without effort and skill, no economic growth is achieved. Skill is more critical than effort for creating growth. Unskilled labor creates less output than skilled labor.
Land, buildings, and machinery are capital. As a fountainhead of productivity, capital acts as an aide, stirrer, expeditor, and agitator. It embodies the power to proliferate production. It includes technology. Without capital, nothing is efficiently produced. Since it helps create output, capital is wealth. Capital and labor are required to work together to make output. By themselves, capital and labor are of limited use. Workers need shovels to dig and brooms to sweep. Bus drivers need buses to drive. Just like a man and woman are needed to make a baby, labor and capital are needed to make output.
A country’s abundance of capital measures its abundance of wealth. Capital highlights a country’s achieved prosperity. Rich countries are capital abundant. Poor countries are capital scarce. A country with plentiful capital will achieve much more economic growth than a country with limited capital. Capital helps labor become more productive. A researcher with a computer is more productive than one without a computer. A barber with a hair clipper can cut hair faster than one without a hair clipper. Capital helps make labor maximally productive.
Organization is wealth, as it includes the setup to get things done efficiently, by which productivity of both labor and capital are increased. Organization is a catalyst. It is an accelerator. It is a promoter. It is a maximizer. It is critical for maximizing output. It helps blend labor and capital in the most efficient manner. How efficiently labor and capital are blended determines their productivity. Organization is a medium maximizing output. Being a technique, it is a process. It is intangible, while labor and capital are tangible.
An organized person is more productive than an unorganized person. A best-run business is noted for its organization. How decisions are made, how decisions are dispersed, and how decisions are executed are determined by a company’s organization. Efficiency is a function of organization. Profit is a function of organization. Even with motivated employees and the latest technology, an unorganized enterprise could fail. The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs’ notoriety for ineptitude shows its deficiency in organization.
Environment includes nature-made resources, like air, water, and weather. It is wealth because their favorable use impacts productivity. Environment invariably functions as a necessary accessory to create and increase production. Clean air, clean water, and better weather are especially critical to increase labor productivity. A snowstorm lasting 10 days would have considerable adversity on output and thus economic growth. People in temperate areas are more productive than people in tropical areas.
When labor, capital, organization, and environment are blended, they produce goods and services, creating economic growth. Economic growth must fulfill three purposes. It must provide income for raising people’s standard of living, funds for countries’ social progress for improving people’s quality of life, and capital for new investments to grow countries’ wealth. Economic growth’s major purpose is to help create economic development. Economic development is realized as economic growth helps facilitate social progress.
The role of a country’s economic growth is analogous to the role of parents. Parents are required to work hard to earn a growing income to offer a better life for their children. A country must work hard to increase economic growth to fulfill its three obligations, whose core purpose is to improve people’s overall welfare by raising the standard of living and improving the quality of life. Achieving a desired investment growth is critical to bring about ongoing economic growth. To offer everyone a better life, economic growth must be increased to help raise the standard of living and quality of life.
The purpose of economic growth is to improve people’s welfare and a country’s wealth. It must increase employment and income to improve people’s standard of living. It must provide funds for social progress to improve people’s quality of life. It must provide funds for a country’s investment growth. Even a superb rate of economic growth would be deemed a failure if it didn’t improve people’s overall welfare by raising the standard of living and improving the quality of life. Thus, a country’s goal is to achieve economic development through economic growth and social progress.
A nation’s obligation is to protect its people by facilitating an improvement in everyone’s welfare. Unlike economic growth, economic development guarantees an improvement in people’s welfare as it guarantees simultaneous improvement in their standard of living and quality of life. What every nation needs is economic development. Economic growth, without social progress, is laissez-faire idiocy. Economic development created from parallel economic growth and social progress ensures concurrent increase in people’s welfare and the country’s wealth.
North America includes the United States of America, Canada, and Mexico. Canada emphasizes economic development by focusing on simultaneous economic growth and social progress. Mexico lags in both economic growth and social progress, resulting in cruel indigence. It has little orientation toward social progress, as it is deficient in economic growth. America excels in economic growth but derisorily lags in social progress. Consequently, America has achieved much less economic development than Canada. Economic development requires concurrent economic growth and social progress. The fountainhead is economic growth. It must create full employment with well-paying jobs, providing everyone with increased income to improve their standard of living. It must help create social progress in order to improving people’s quality of life. It must help cause investment growth. Economic growth’s role is to create employment and generate resources to facilitate social progress. Its purpose is to help achieve economic development. Its final goal is to help improve people’s standard of living and quality of life, and the country’s investment growth.
A nation’s obligation is to serve its people by facilitating an improvement in everyone’s welfare. In order to improve their welfare, economic development must be prioritized and accelerated. Nothing but economic development would improve everyone’s welfare. It alone can guarantee an improvement in people’s standard of living and quality of life. Unlike economic growth, which is to create employment and output, economic development guarantees an improvement in people’s welfare by improving their standard of living and quality of life.
America is very wealthy. It excels beyond other advanced economies in generating ongoing economic growth. However, its lack of concern for adequate welfare for all its people unconscionably amounts to neglect. Implicitly its orientation is laissez-faire. Nonetheless, it has neither capitalism nor free enterprise, as its businesses are subsidized and supported by governments. It has little concern for social progress. It lacks a coherent social policy. It has little focus on people’s welfare. It owns little credibility as a market economy. It is rich, but it is corrupt, wallowing in hypocrisy.
Since its orientation is laissez-faire, America has little concern for economic development. Nor does it appreciate the distinction between economic growth and economic development. It has little interest in undertaking and accelerating social progress. It has little appreciation of the role social progress plays in improving people’s welfare. Regardless of which party is in power, Democratic or Republican, whether Obama or Trump, Ryan or Pelosi, Schumer or McConnell, the government is intrinsically inspired by the disinclination to social progress and thus to economic development. America’s exclusive focus on economic growth and its cherished antipathy for social progress intuited by its laissez-faire mindset is conspicuously shown by American universities’ ineffable neglect to teach the economics of development. It is a costly neglect, stifling the inventiveness of American-trained economists.
Regardless of their party label, America’s political leaders are politically, ideologically, and emotionally disinclined to promoting, creating, and accelerating social progress to help people achieve a better quality of life. In the meantime, regardless of their party label, American politicians are adept at finding ways how to become multimillionaires. Although they call themselves public servants, with little exception, American politicians are incorrigibly corrupt. They thrive on private airplane rides and chauffeured limousines. Their preoccupation is how to gather wealth. Evidence of their irremediable corruption is the difference between their net worth at the time they enter politics and their net worth when they are 70. As soon as they retire or are defeated, they become lobbyists, join corporate boards, go on lecture circuits, or work for hedge funds. Or sell marijuana. Somehow they become multimillionaires.
Laissez-faire indoctrination and politicians’ inexorable corruption turn governance into an ideological narcissism. Hardly anything is ever initiated and hardly anything is ever done to improve people’s welfare by improving their standard of living and quality of life. America’s entrenched tradition is the everlasting cohabitation between the wealthy and the politicians. That perennially ordained cohabitation has embedded an everlasting tradition of corruption into the evolution of politics. Hope and change seer, Barack Obama, is either with billionaire Richard Branson or with billionaire Oprah Winfrey. To give the people a larger share of the country’s prosperity, politicians would have to give the wealthy a smaller share. Politicians would not dare cut the share of the wealthy because only the wealthy can provide the opulence and luxury that politicians crave.
Education on Uncivilized Citizenship
The movie Mystic River is based on Dennis Lehane’s novel Mystic River. It is a fiction, a pure fiction. Nonetheless, it is a spot-on account of human reality. It is a spot-on account of human history. It is a spot-on account of human embodiment. It is a spot-on account of human disposition. It is a spot-on account of human characteristic. It is a spot-on account of humanity’s never-ending barbarity. The abduction and sexual abuse of the little boy, David Boyle, by two men, for four consecutive days, is a spot-on account of human evilness. The pedophile’s rape of a little girl and Dave Boyle’s killing of the pedophile are a spot-on account of human barbarity. Celeste Samarco Boyle’s betrayal of her husband is a spot-on account of human perfidy. The inability of Jimmy Markum to show empathy by keeping his promise not to kill the emotionally dilapidated David Boyle, his boyhood friend, is a spot-on account of human violence. Annabeth Markum calling her husband a king after he confessed his murder of Dave Boyle is a spot-on account of human corruption. The murder of Katie Markum by two boys is a spot-on account of humanity’s dedication to prejudice.
Forty-two percent of Americans smoked cigarettes in 1960. In 2018, only 14 percent smoked. Education made such a steep drop possible. People were taught that smoking kills and disables. People were taught that smoking causes fatal illnesses like cancer, heart disease, and lung disease. Education on the health problems of cigarettes swayed smokers to quit. It swayed nonsmokers not to start. Education convinced people of the need to become scared of cigarettes. Many Americans now refuse to even socialize with smokers. People listened and learned. Education about the danger of cigarettes has helped people to quit smoking. Education on the dangers of second-hand smoke helped people stop smoking near children. Education has helped people to recognize the importance of exercise. Education on the health issues of obesity is slowly helping people learn the need to reduce weight.
Education enlightens. It offers awareness. It will help people learn how to modify their nature and temperament. It will teach how to modify the human environment. It will teach how to improve the standard of living and quality of life. It will teach how to gain human dignity. It will teach how to control the inclination for violence, corruption, and prejudice, which make up uncivilized citizenship. Education will make people aware of the desperate need for nonviolence, altruism, and tolerance, which make up Civilized Citizenship. Humanity cannot eliminate its barbarity and poverty without embracing nonviolence, altruism, and tolerance.
Education will teach how violence, corruption, and prejudice lower the standard of living and quality of life. It will teach how nonviolence, altruism, and tolerance improve the standard of living and quality of life. As people learn the benefits of change, they help themselves undergo change. Education will teach the intolerability of the cost of uncivilized citizenship. It will teach the immense profitability of Civilized Citizenship. Education will teach why people should disown violence, corruption, and prejudice. It will teach why people should embrace nonviolence, dedicate themselves to altruism, and celebrate tolerance.
Education about the unbearable costs of uncivilized citizenship will motivate people to eschew violence and embrace nonviolence, forsake corruption and cherish altruism, disown prejudice and rejoice in tolerance. Only education will help people become nonviolent. Only education will help people become altruistic. Only education will help people become tolerant. Education is the lone way to help people learn the enormity of the costs of uncivilized citizenship and the immensity of the benefits of Civilized Citizenship. History expounds the power of education to change human behavior.
Without ending violence, corruption, and prejudice people cannot become civilized. Without becoming civilized, people cannot end violence, corruption, and prejudice. Without ending violence, corruption, and prejudice, poverty cannot be eliminated. Without ending violence, corruption, and prejudice, everyone’s standard of living and quality of life cannot be improved. Without learning how violence worsens and nonviolence improves the standard of living and quality of life, people cannot shun violence. Without learning how corruption worsens and altruism improves the standard of living and quality of life, people cannot end corruption. Without learning how prejudice worsens and tolerance improves the standard of living and quality of life, people cannot eschew prejudice.
People are born with the disposition for violence, corruption, and prejudice. Their culture and environment, within which they grow and evolve, either heightens or lessens, inflates or deflates, their innate proclivity toward violence, corruption, and prejudice. The success in ending their uncivilized citizenship lies in people’s ability to change their nature and environment in order to deflate their inborn inclination. Without education, people wouldn’t know how to go about changing their nature and environment. Since the lack of Civilized Citizenship entails an intolerable cost, becoming aware of the unbearableness of the cost is crucial to build and strengthen everyone’s need for Civilized Citizenship. A dedication to nonviolence, altruism, and tolerance should be nurtured and built upon. Only education can help make everyone aware of the intolerable cost of uncivilized citizenship and the immense untold benefit of Civilized Citizenship.
The decision to embrace nonviolence, altruism, and tolerance can be made by comparing the cost of violence, corruption, and prejudice with the benefit of nonviolence, altruism, and tolerance. Unlike the innate inclination toward uncivilized citizenship, the passion for Civilized Citizenship is an acquired choice made after having made a detailed interpretative analysis. People must learn the unbearable costs of violence, corruption, and prejudice, and the infinite benefits of nonviolence, altruism, and tolerance, in order to motivate them to disown uncivilized citizenship and own Civilized Citizenship. Since devotion to Civilized Citizenship is not inborn, it must be built up by methodical nurturing. Only ongoing and structured education will help people embrace Civilized Citizenship.
Recognizing the triumph of Civilized Citizenship is a patriotic requirement. Patriotism is a civic responsibility. Awareness of one’s civic responsibility is the critical substructure for renouncing uncivilized citizenship and embracing Civilized Citizenship. Shunning uncivilized citizenship, which causes ruin to one’s country, is the required response to the patriotic call inspired by one’s civic responsibility. Becoming a civilized citizen by ending uncivilized citizenship is a disciplined process. It is a dedicated process. Discipline and dedication are to be acquired. Liberation from one’s inborn inclination for uncivilized citizenship needs commitment. Grasping uncivilized citizenship’s unbearable costs is a necessity. Grasping Civilized Citizenship’s untold benefits is a necessity. Only education will help build the needed awareness.
People need education to learn how their patriotism requires them to end violence, corruption, and prejudice. A true patriot cannot allow her or his country to become economically weak, which inevitably causes danger to national security. True patriots must prevent their uncivilized citizenship from causing wealth destruction, wealth abuse, and wealth waste. Destruction, abuse, and waste of wealth will necessarily cut economic growth and social progress. True patriotism demands that people do everything to increase their country’s economic growth and social progress in order to strengthen their country’s national security. People need education to become true patriots.
Just waving flags will not make a person a patriot. Just marching in an Independence Day parade will not make a person a patriot. Just demonstrating against an enemy country will not make a person a patriot. Just owning a gun will not make a person a patriot. What makes a person a patriot is ending wealth destruction, wealth abuse, and wealth waste, which is a necessity to make the country economically strong through concurrent economic growth and social progress. A nation’s economic and technological superiority measures its strength.
Awareness of civic responsibility and patriotic duty are critical to learn the need for changing one’s nature, temperament, and environment so as to become a civilized citizen. The human inclination for violence, corruption, and prejudice, catalyzed by their nature, temperament, and environment, can only be moderated with an awareness of civic responsibility and patriotic duty. Education on the extreme cost of uncivilized citizenship and the immensity of the benefit of Civilized Citizenship will help people carry out their civic responsibility and patriotic duty. As people become aware of those costs and benefits, they will be motivated to control their inclination for uncivilized citizenship. An awareness of the costs of uncivilized citizenship and the benefits of Civilized Citizenship helps people gain rationality.
A built-up disgust for the barbarity of violence, corruption, and prejudice is a necessity. A built-up allure for the beauty of nonviolence, altruism, and tolerance is a necessity. Such necessities are to be inculcated through education. Everyone needs education on how to be always productive, maximally productive, and never destructive. Everyone must produce at least enough to cover her or his consumption need. Everyone needs to learn the need for ending violence, corruption, and prejudice, and the need for adhering to nonviolence, altruism, and tolerance. Everyone must learn that failure to eliminate the unbearable cost of uncivilized citizenship will inescapably prevent ongoing improvement in everyone’s standard of living and quality of life. Everyone must learn how untold benefits of Civilized Citizenship would help guarantee ongoing improvement in everyone’s standard of living and quality of life.
Education is the key to help people become nonviolent, altruistic, and tolerant in order to end wealth destruction, wealth abuse, and wealth waste. Ending wealth destruction, wealth abuse, and wealth waste is essential to accelerate prosperity. To get separated from animals, humans must become civilized. No individual and no country are civilized so long as they commit violence, corruption, and prejudice. Uncivilized citizenship is the sole cause of people’s barbarism, greed, and narcissism. No amount of wealth, technology, and culture will make people civilized so long as they remain as uncivilized citizens.
People are required to spend years to become architects, carpenters, engineers, surgeons, or nurses. Likewise, people are required to devote time making serious efforts to learn of uncivilized citizenship’s unbearable costs and Civilized Citizenship’s untold benefits. People must learn how to modify their nature, temperament, and environment to become civilized in order to fulfill their civic duty required by their Civilized Citizenship. Since becoming civilized is more crucial than becoming a doctor, more ardor and devotion are needed to learn how to change one’s human nature, temperament, and environment.
Humanity is violent. It is corrupt. It is prejudiced. Its violence, corruption, and prejudice keep it uncivilized. Rarely are individuals civilized. Invariably, nations are uncivilized. Humanity has achievements. It has mastered technology. Its ingenuity to invent helps geometrically improve human skill. Yet, it failed to use its ingenuity to invent ways to civilize itself. Its affinity for violence, corruption, and prejudice is allowed to waste its prized ingenuity to invent. People’s inability to become civilized prevents them from becoming nonviolent, altruistic, and tolerant, which inevitably leads to infinite prosperity.
Never in human history has a country instituted an education system to help its people understand how violence, corruption, and prejudice prevent its ability to improve everyone’s standard of living and quality of life. Never in human history has a country instituted an education system to help its people understand how nonviolence, altruism, and tolerance will inevitably help immensely improve everyone’s standard of living and quality of life.
No country has ever given its people a chance to become aware that violence’s wealth destruction, corruption’s wealth abuse, and prejudice’s wealth waste are the sole reason for their perennial poverty. No country has ever given its people a chance to become aware that they are uncivilized because their uncivilized citizenship is insinuated by their barbaric mindset. No country has ever given its people a chance to become aware that nonviolence would end wealth destruction, altruism would end wealth abuse, and tolerance would end wealth waste, and those outcomes would help achieve an infinite improvement in their standard of living and quality of life and eliminate poverty forever.
Uncivilized citizenship is the sole reason for humanity’s never-ending poverty. Without shunning uncivilized citizenship, humanity will never succeed in eradicating poverty. Without shunning uncivilized citizenship, poor countries will never succeed in eliminating poverty. Without eliminating violence, corruption, and prejudice, the rich countries will fail to eliminate poverty. People cannot begin behavioral changes until they are taught why and how the status quo is extremely costly and change is exceedingly profitable. Education will help people recognize the need for change.
Individually and collectively, countries have failed to develop insight on the desperate need to educate people on how uncivilized citizenship keeps humanity lastingly uncivilized. Individually and collectively, countries have failed to develop insight on the desperate need to educate people on how uncivilized citizenship perpetuates poverty. Nations have failed to articulate to people the economic consequences of violence, corruption, and prejudice. Nations have failed to articulate to people how uncivilized citizenship causes serious cuts in economic growth. Nations have failed to articulate how such cuts in economic growth lower people’s standard of living. Nations have failed to articulate to people how such cuts in economic growth reduce social progress. And nations have failed to articulate to people how such cuts in economic growth decrease people’s quality of life.
Violence destroys wealth. Wealth destruction decreases investments. Corruption abuses wealth. Wealth abuse reduces investments. Prejudice wastes wealth. Wealth waste curtails investments. Shortfalls in investments reduce economic growth. Reduction in economic growth cuts resources going into increasing social progress. Deficiency in economic growth and social progress jointly curtail economic development. Reductions in economic development lower people’s standard of living and quality of life. Such realities inevitably make people destitute, deprived, and denied. Violence, corruption, and prejudice prevent people from having a chance to become concurrently civilized and affluent.
A nation’s critical duty is to equip its people rationally to create maximum productivity to gain an affluent life. Education on the cost of uncivilized citizenship and the benefit of Civilized Citizenship helps children grow up learning the need to abstain from initiating violence, corruption, and prejudice, so that they can maximize their economic affluence and ensure their dignity. It is very critical to teach kids how uncivilized citizenship causes a continuum of consequences causing an increase in poverty, human suffering, and human indignity. More than history and geography, more than physical education and social studies, and more than ethnic courses and foreign languages, kids need to have lessons on how violence, corruption, and prejudice lower their standard of living and quality of life.
More than European history and African American studies, colleges must teach students how violence, corruption, and prejudice cause unbearable economic costs, as it causes deaths, injuries, destruction, damage, abuse, and waste. The glory of kings, fame of warriors, and beauty of queens cannot civilize people. Teaching wars laurels and warriors heroism will not help civilize people; it will only keep people uncivilized. Education on violence’s cost and nonviolence’s benefit, corruption’s cost, and altruism’s benefit, prejudice’s cost, and tolerance’s benefit, alone will help people become civilized.
Acting as responsible suppliers of information, the media, including the print industry, broadcast industry, Internet industry, and social media industry, are required to remold themselves into a civilized medium so that they can help humanity become civilized and escape barbarity’s unspeakable degradation and poverty’s indescribable indignity. The media must disseminate information on the uncivilized citizenship’s intolerable cost. The media must detail the economic cost of murder. The media must detail the economic cost of Injury. The media must detail the economic cost of rape. The media must detail the economic cost of property destruction. The media must detail the economic cost of property damage. The media must detail the economic cost of corruption. The media must detail the economic cost of prejudice.
The media must detail the unbearable cost of uncivilized citizenship. The media must detail the untold benefits of Civilized Citizenship. The media must detail the obligations of civic responsibility and patriotic duty. To meet such bare-minimum obligations, the media must become civilized. To become civilized, they must recognize their civic responsibility and patriotic duty. To become civilized, they must end their obsession with nonstop gossiping and palavering about celebrities and their body parts.
Barbarity and poverty cannot be eliminated until uncivilized citizenship is ended. People are unable to shun uncivilized citizenship without understanding how ruinous uncivilized citizenship is to human progress. Societies are obligated to furnish everyone with a coherently organized education about why and how people should liberate themselves from the entrapment of the uncivilized citizenship. Only ongoing education will help people recognize the enormity of the costs of uncivilized citizenship to themselves and to their country. Historical evidence shows how education helps people change.
Societies are obligated to provide their people with education to help them become most productive and least destructive. Everyone needs education about how to be productive and how not to be destructive. Children need education even more than adults, as they have greater longevity than adults. Education on the cost of uncivilized citizenship for children will help them learn about the necessity to avoid uncivilized citizenship and the indispensability to become civilized citizens. Education on the cost of violence, corruption, and prejudice, and the benefit of nonviolence, altruism, and tolerance, helps children grow in understanding that refraining from indulging in violence, corruption, and prejudice is a necessity for maximizing their own refinement and prosperity, their country’s economic growth and social progress. Everyone needs ongoing education to fully appreciate how violence, corruption, and prejudice would destroy a person’s ability to maximize economic affluence and civic responsibility.
A person cannot become an engineer or surgeon without spending several years studying and getting trained. Similarly, without making serious efforts in inculcating awareness, people cannot change their nature and lifestyle to develop civic responsibility, so as to recognize the importance of Civilized Citizenship. More efforts might be needed to learn how to change human nature and lifestyle than becoming an engineer or surgeon. Awareness of civic responsibility is critical to recognize the need for changing human nature and lifestyle to earn Civilized Citizenship. People’s inclination for uncivilized citizenship, catalyzed by their nature, temperament, and environment, could only be moderated with the help of imaginative teaching on the cost of uncivilized citizenship. As people become aware of those costs, they will be motivated to control their inclinations. Lack of insight and perspective on the cost and consequences of violence, corruption, and prejudice will prevent people from dedicating themselves to nonviolence, altruism, and tolerance, the lone path to Civilized Citizenship.
Never in its history of 400 years has America instituted an education system to help its people understand how violence, corruption, and prejudice have kept them as uncivilized albeit plethoric prosperity. Never in its history of 400 years has America instituted an education system to help its people understand how violence, corruption, and prejudice destroy America’s ability to provide everyone with an ever-growing standard of living and quality of life. Never in its history of 400 years has America instituted an education system to help its people learn how nonviolence, altruism, and tolerance inarguably will help people improve their standard of living and quality of life. Americans have never been given a chance to become aware that violence, corruption, and prejudice are the lone reason for their poverty and barbarity.
Behavioral change cannot be brought about without people being taught why and how no change is extremely costly and change is exceedingly profitable. Without ending violence, people cannot escape barbarity. Without ending corruption, people cannot escape depravity. Without ending prejudice, people cannot escape tribalism. Without ending violence, corruption, and prejudice, people cannot become civilized citizens. Everyone must become civilized to improve their standard of living and quality of life.
Neglect of Conventional Economics
Economics is about human behaviors. However, economics has hitherto neglected the most common and detrimental human behaviors. Violence, corruption, and prejudice are the most common and most detrimental human behavior. They make humanity barbaric. They make humanity uncivilized. They cause economic ruin. They are the overwhelming cause of humanity’s poverty. How can economics design a solution to poverty if it doesn’t address the core cause of poverty, which is violence, corruption, and prejudice? This neglect is unconscionable. Such unconscionable omission is the epitome of irresponsibility. Such unconscionable omission is the height of absurdity.
Poverty is perennial because people unrelentingly commit violence, corruption, and prejudice. As economists allow their dysopia and myopia to inhibit their insight, they neglect to study the economic consequences of violence, corruption, and prejudice. They fail to investigate to what extent violence, corruption, and prejudice curtail economic growth, social progress, and thus, economic development. Such curtailments are the inevitable cause of poverty. Economists’ neglect to study how poverty is caused and perpetuated has been the reason for the failure of both rich and poor countries to eradicate poverty.
Conventional economics insists that poverty is caused by the insufficiency of economic resources and the inability to utilize available economic resources efficiently. Conventional economists’ such assertions are unsound and unfounded. Poverty is widespread and entrenched in rich countries where resources are exceedingly abundant and resource use is exceedingly efficient. In the meantime, in poor countries, where poverty is pervasive and ingrained, resources are less abundant and resource use is less efficient.
Pervasive poverty in both rich and poor countries contradicts the contention of conventional economics that poverty is caused by scarcity of resources and inefficiency in resource utilization. Poverty is caused solely in rich countries and almost solely in poor countries by nonstop violence, corruption, and prejudice. Only the eschewal of violence, corruption, and prejudice, and the embrace of nonviolence, altruism, and tolerance, will help eliminate poverty everywhere, in both rich countries and poor countries.
Poor countries’ pervasive poverty might be partly attributable to insufficient resources and inefficient resource utilization. However, the major cause of even poor countries’ poverty is violence, corruption, and prejudice. Entrenched poverty in rich countries is solely caused by violence, corruption, and prejudice. Poverty in rich countries cannot be even marginally or tangentially attributed to the insufficient resources and inefficient resource utilization. Rich countries have an abundance of economic resources and are adept at efficient resource utilization. Thus, conventional economics have failed, miserably failed, unconscionably failed. That horrific failure is analogous to a nihility between dystopia and perdition.
The entrenched poverty in various neighborhoods in rich countries is not caused by a lack of economic resources or an inability to utilize economic resources efficiently. The poverty in Los Angeles neighborhoods like Watts and Pacoima, for instance, is caused by corrupt and prejudiced resource allocation strategies consciously pursued by corrupt and prejudiced governments and businesses. Their poverty is worsened by their residents’ mindless violence, petty corruption, and unfathomable prejudice.
The prevalence of poverty in rich countries proves that poverty is not caused by scarcity of wealth and inefficient wealth utilization. Poverty in both poor countries and rich countries is perpetuated by the destruction of wealth by violence, abuse of wealth by corruption, and waste of wealth by prejudice. Violence destroys economic resources. Corruption abuses economic resources. Prejudice wastes economic resources. Destruction, abuse, and waste of wealth cut economic growth and social progress.
The wealth that violence destroys, corruption abuses, and prejudice wastes instantaneously becomes unavailable for investments to create economic growth. Economic growth is the sole source of funds for improving people’s standard of living and quality of life. Economic growth is the sole source of funds for burgeoning social progress. Reduction in economic growth reduces resources for social progress. Decreases in social progress caused by cuts in economic growth would exacerbate poverty as it reduces the standard of living and quality of life. No nation can eradicate poverty without ending violence, corruption, and prejudice. No nation can eradicate poverty without courting nonviolence, altruism, and tolerance. Only a radical change in human behavior would end poverty.
Economics of Civilized Citizenship
The Economics of Civilized Citizenship concerns two critical issues. It concerns the economic impact of uncivilized human conduct, causing violence, corruption, and prejudice. Likewise, it concerns the economic impact of civilized human conduct, embracing nonviolence, altruism, and tolerance. The Economics of Civilized Citizenship investigates to what extent violence, corruption, and prejudice cause humanity’s never-ending poverty. It probes into what extent nonviolence, altruism, and tolerance help eliminate poverty forever. It tells how to go about augmenting and accelerating economic development.
The Economics of Civilized Citizenship deserves more importance than any other branch of economics, be it be fiscal economics, monetary economics, or international economics. The neglect of the Economics of Civilized Citizenship prevents nations from learning what prevents them from achieving the needed economic growth and social progress to end poverty. The neglect deters people from learning how their readiness to become civilized would help end poverty and how their willingness to allow their inclination to remain uncivilized would perpetuate poverty.
The Economics of Civilized Citizenship will detail how violence, corruption, and prejudice reduce economic growth and social progress. It will detail how poverty is caused, perpetuated, and worsened. It will explain why poverty is entrenched in rich and poor countries, alike. It will explain how the entrenched poverty in both rich countries and poor countries can be eliminated. It will outline how nonviolence, altruism, and tolerance will eliminate poverty forever. It will outline how nonviolence, altruism, and tolerance would work to eliminate poverty in rich and poor countries, alike.
The neglect to study the Economics of Civilized Citizenship prevents humanity from learning how violence, corruption, and prejudice would entail unbearable economic costs. The neglect to study the Economics of Civilized Citizenship prevents humanity from learning how nonviolence, altruism, and tolerance would furnish untold economic benefits. The neglect to study the Economics of Civilized Citizenship prevents humans from learning the infinitely immense benefits of becoming civilized. Nothing but nonviolence, altruism, and tolerance will make humanity forever civilized. Nothing but nonviolence, altruism, and tolerance will help humanity eliminate poverty forever.
Economic concerns and economic opportunities are infinitely more compelling motivations than threats of legal punishment, moral persuasion, or religious injunction, to help shun violence, corruption, and prejudice. People’s overwhelming concerns are means for survival, comfort, and luxury. Their tempting concern is how to become wealthy. New economic opportunities are created by ending the existing detrimental economic realities, like wealth destruction, wealth abuse, and wealth waste. Humans are awfully wronged by economists’ failure to explain how violence, corruption, and prejudice prevent them from steadily improving their standard of living and quality of life.
People are awfully wronged by economists’ failure to explain how nonviolence, altruism, and tolerance would unfailingly help improve everyone’s standard of living and quality of life. Everyone would do endeavor to stop violence, corruption, and prejudice when shown to what extent violence destroys wealth, corruption abuses wealth, and prejudice wastes wealth. Americans would do things differently when shown to what extent corporate corruption is actuated and actualized by political corruption. Americans would do things differently when shown to what extent corporate corruption and political corruption prevent them from having opportunities to improve exponentially their standard of living and quality of life. Americans would do things differently when shown how political and corporate corruptions cause poverty in America. Americans would do things differently when shown how violence lowers the standard of living and decreases the quality of life. Americans would also do things differently when shown how prejudice lowers the standard of living and decreases the quality of life.
Economic motivations are exceedingly more powerful than threats of legal punishment and ethical requirements. People routinely ignore both threats of legal punishment and ethical requirements. The pervasiveness of fraud, cheating, scams, and swindle shows people’s willingness to risk legal punishment to make money. Politicians’ obsession, fervor, and resolve to become rich show the power of money. The corruption of the leaders of business, government, and nonprofit shows the greed for money, the illegal and immoral pursuit for money. As people become aware of how violence, corruption, and prejudice lower their own standard of living and quality of life, they would inevitably be more motivated to shun violence, corruption, and prejudice. Economic motivation is the most compelling motivation influencing people’s behaviors and activities.
To find money, Ronald Reagan went to Japan. To find money, Bill Clinton went everywhere. Hillary Clinton’s greed for money disgusted voters, who as a result rejected her and chose Donald Trump, who is incidentally a template of temptation for money. To find money to add to his growing fortune, Barack Obama went to Wall Street to peddle his prestige. To find money, Michelle Obama went on a book tour. A book tour is nothing but peddling books. Greed for money motivated three living former Senate majority leaders, Bob Dole, Tom Daschle, and Trent Lott, to become lobbyists, work in unison, peddling their prestige and connections. That is the magic of money. That is the power of money.
Managed Capitalism
The unemployment rate in April, 2019, was the lowest since the late 1960s. Despite its auspiciousness, there was no improvement in the 90-plus percent patriotic Americans’ standard of living and quality of life. The past 30 years have witnessed either forlorn stagnation or mournful decline in those patriotic Americans’ standard of living and quality of life. Almost the entire productivity increase was taken by capital owners and corporate executives. In the meantime, America’s never-ending violence, corruption, and prejudice have caused huge wealth destruction, wealth abuse, and wealth waste. A huge amount of America’s wealth was siphoned away by endemic incorrigible corruption.
Thousands of powerful politicians, including former presidents and their enablers pocketed billions. Influence peddling was celebratedly normalized. With no shame and regret, Congress has made corruption mostly legal and entirely acceptable. It made corruption a growth industry. Since everything is determined by ideology, most profitable alternatives were ignored, which burgeoned wealth waste exponentially. Those detrimental matrices unavoidably emptied the pot, leaving little for the 90-plus percent patriotic Americans, denying them a piece of the prosperity.
No sensible thinker would argue for socialism. Managed capitalism, motivated by profits, is the ideal system to maximize productivity and accelerate economic growth. Since technology is being continuously innovated, labor’s power is being decimated. That evolution requires an ongoing fine-tuning of the capital-labor metric to ensure that workers receive compensation equal to their productivity. Without ending corruption, entrenched inequality cannot be reduced.
When people vote, they should differentiate economic issues from social issues to avoid owning their ideology’s huge economic cost. In a democracy, economic issues are entirely political issues, and thus, voters shouldn’t conflate economic issues with social issues. The 90-plus percent patriotic Americans will not succeed in receiving their fair share of America’s prosperity unless they shrewdly base their political priority and voting decision solely on improving their standard of living and quality of life.
People are emotional and bigoted about social issues, like abortion and guns. Ideology has incontestably succeeded in causing in people confusion between social issues and economic issues. Ideology has smartly managed to conflate social-issue discussion for economic-issue discussion. It has successfully convinced people that social issues are as existentially vital as economic issues. Giving existential priority to the social issues would unavoidably jeopardize the economic interests of the economically disadvantaged.
Every ideology entails an enormous economic cost, especially to the economically disadvantaged. The ideology on guns entails an enormous economic cost; the ideology on pro-life entails an enormous economic cost; the ideology on pro-choice entails an enormous economic cost; the ideology of bilingualism entails an enormous economic cost; the ideology on racism entails an enormous economic cost. While the economically disadvantaged pay a huge price for their sins of giving more priority to social issues than economic issues, the interest groups championing social issues like NRA, Planned Parenthood, and NARAL leaders make unwholesome profits.
Unwillingness to differentiate between socialism and social progress entails an enormous economic cost to the economically disadvantaged. Economic fairness cannot be achieved without ongoing social progress that alone would guarantee continuous improvement in everyone’s standard of living and quality of life. To ensure economic fairness, everyone should be paid equal to their productivity. To ensure economic fairness, an appreciable portion of the gains of economic growth should be devoted to social progress, which alone will improve people’s quality of life.
People’s ability to amass unimaginable wealth is not caused by the inherent shortcomings of managed capitalism. Nothing but managed capitalism can motivate people to work hard to increase productivity and accelerate economic growth. The unjustifiable deficit in the standard of living and quality of life of the 90-plus percent of patriotic Americans is not at all caused by the inherent defect or malice of managed capitalism. The unjustifiable deficit in the standard of living and quality of life of the 90-plus percent patriotic Americans is solely caused by America’s flawed democracy, which ensues a corrupt political system, legal system, and tax system. It is the corrupt political system, legal system, and tax system that helped Mrs. and Mr. Clinton amass $300 million. It is the corrupt political system, legal system, and tax system that helped Mrs. and Mr. Obama to amass $100 million. It is the corrupt political system, legal system, and tax system that helped Bob Dole, Tom Daschle, and Trent Lott mint money. It is the corrupt political system, legal system, and tax system that helped Bezos, Gates, Buffet, and Zuckerberg amass unimaginably incredible wealth.
Such outrageous wealth usurpation has nothing to do with managed capitalism. Reforming America’s flawed democracy is the sole solution to bring about the desperately needed changes to stop the outrageous usurpation of wealth. Reforming America’s flawed democracy is the sole solution. Reforming America’s flawed democracy is desperately needed to end the burgeoning and widespread corruption in America’s political system, legal system, and tax system. Reforming America’s flawed democracy is the urgent and desperate prerequisite to help improve the standard of living and quality of life of the economically disadvantaged patriotic Americans.
Managed capitalism is a paradigm outlining how to maximize economic growth. It is nothing more than a neutral guideline. It is nothing less than a neutral guideline. It is nothing but a neutral guideline. It says if the market is allowed to function freely, it would maximize production and profits. It is concerned solely with economic growth. It is not concerned about how the benefits of economic growth are distributed. It is not concerned with what portion of economic growth should be given as wages to raise people’s standard of living. It is not concerned with what portion of economic growth should be earmarked as funds for social progress to improve people’s quality of life. It is not concerned with what portion of economic growth should be given as profits to enrich business owners and managers.
Managed capitalism is not concerned with what portion of economic growth should be taxed and budgeted for social progress to improve people’s quality of life. If voters could put real fear into Mitch McConnell and Chuck Schumer, Donald Trump and Nancy Pelosi, surely they would legislate how much tax Zuckerberg should pay and how much tax Zuckerberg’s coffee server should pay. It is a sad commentary on their ignorance when pundits blame managed capitalism for the widening income inequality. It is solely the handiwork of Congress and the president. Literally, it is the sole responsibility of Congress, which has the power to override the presidential vetoes. Managed capitalism is foolishly blamed for the politicians’ never-ending corruption.
Managed capitalism is concerned with accelerating economic growth. It says nothing about economic development, which alone is concerned with an economy’s both productive and distributive functions. Only economic development concerns itself with both economic growth and social progress. America’s lack of economic fairness is greatly determined by its unimaginable neglect of economic development. America’s lack of economic fairness is greatly determined by its unimaginable political and corporate corruption facilitated by its flawed democracy. In a flawless democracy, corruption would be nonexistent. With a flawless democracy, it is easy to accelerate economic development, as it would furnish a generous budget for social progress. Flawless democracy will unavoidably guarantee social progress. Together, economic growth and social progress ensure economic development, creating an ongoing improvement in the standard of living and quality of life of the 90-plus percent patriotic Americans.
Managed capitalism ensures economic growth. Flawless democracy ensures social progress. Together managed capitalism and flawless democracy help accelerate economic development. Together economic growth and social progress help accelerate economic development. Lack of social progress caused by flawed democracy cannot be blamed on managed capitalism, which concerns only production and has no role in distribution. The distributive issue is a political issue. It can only be addressed by an incorrupt political system. Sadly, corrupt politicians are unfamiliar with incorruptness. Since most politicians are incorrigibly corrupt, their unfamiliarity with incorruptness spawns widening inequality. Politicians’ corruption is the lone cause of America’s growing inequality.
A nation’s regulatory system is the handiwork of the political system and has nothing to do with managed capitalism. A nation’s regulatory system is not organized or legislated by managed capitalism. It is solely determined by the political system regardless of it being an authoritarian system or a democracy. American democracy’s regulatory system’s reach and depth are determined by its political system. America’s regulatory system is shaped and determined by the ideology and corruption of America’s political system. It is especially determined by the governing political party’s ideology and corruption. The degree of the regulatory system’s shortfall and shortage are determined by whether or not it is organized and enacted by an extremely flawed democracy like Zimbabwe’s, a very flawed democracy like America’s, or a flawed democracy like Norway’s.
The Republican Party’s regulatory regime is meant to support business interests over people’s interests. Rhetorically, the Democratic Party straddles between business interests and people’s interests. Ultimately, it ends up protecting businesses’ interests, which handsomely reward Democratic politicians. In the meantime, the true believers in the eloquence of managed capitalism are affronted by the shady practice of businesses asking for government support and subsidy. Availing government support and subsidy for businesses is a corrupt system. Government support and subsidy for businesses is a flagrant intervention to competition. It causes diminution to competition. It is market intervention. It is a socialistic paradigm. It is the uncouth aspect of socialism. It is a hypocritical charade on the part of business. It is a hypocritical charade routinely profaned by corrupt politicians who rhetorically denounce socialism. Government support to business is a flagrant corruption. It is a blatant swindle. It is a scoundrel’s trade.
Strategy for economic growth must be seen differently from strategy for social progress. The focus of economic growth is to maximize production. The purpose of economic growth is not to protect workers’ interests. Employers like to pay as little as possible especially when unemployment is high. As labor scarcity grows, wages are somewhat raised. It is the responsibility of the government to ensure the powerless labor is paid equal to its productivity. The focus of social progress is to improve people’s quality of life, which is achieved by using a portion of what is produced by economic growth.
In order to maximize production, the market should be allowed to function as free as possible with little headwind imposed by unnecessary bureaucratic regulations and distributive requirements. Social progress should be accelerated with the tailwind furnished by flawless democracy, enabling ongoing increases in spending on social progress. Ongoing increases in spending for social progress is achieved by diverting a portion of the economic growth achieved. It is done through tax increases, which, when it happens, if it ever happens, will evidence politicians’ interest in improving people’s standard of living and quality of life.
Eminent economists who interpret the traditional economics nonstop appear to be confused about the respective roles of economic growth and social progress. The roles of economic growth and social progress are different. Allowing the market to function freely is necessary to maximize economic growth. If economic growth is not maximized, there aren’t enough resources available to achieve social progress, stalling efforts to improve people’s standard of living and quality of life. Achieving maximum social progress is an existential necessity to maximize the 90-plus percent patriotic Americans’ standard of living and quality of life.
Increasing minimum wage, providing free healthcare, offering free college education, undertaking generous pension plans, and remedying climate change are indispensable to increasing social progress. There should be maximum economic growth so as to furnish required resources to achieve the desired social progress. Managed capitalism is a necessity to achieve maximum economic growth so that more resources become available to furnish maximum social progress. If the economically disadvantaged, including the poor and the lower-income and middle-income people, act politically prudent, they would elect politicians dedicated to help achieve maximum social progress by diverting a sizeable portion of the economic gains that managed capitalism has realized through economic growth. Their failure to elect politicians dedicated to helping increase social progress would help capital owners and corporate executives skim most of what economic growth has produced, helping the economically powerful win while the economically disadvantaged lose.
Managed capitalism is neither guilty nor corrupt. It is a mechanism. It is a robot. It is process. It is devoid of moral imperatives. Facebook is not guilty for the abuse. Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg are guilty. Their unfathomable corruption led to the unforgivable abuse. They flagrantly and blatantly abused their platform to quench their greed. Microsoft Windows is neither greedy nor guilty. Bill Gates was greedy and guilty. He hired Indian labor to provide technical support to American customers of Windows. He paid his Indian labor probably 50 cents an hour. Then he turned around and charged Americans maybe $10 an hour for the service for which he paid Indian workers 50 cents an hour. Taking 95 percent profits confirms abominable greed, obscene greed, unfathomable greed, unforgivable greed.
Even guiltier than Bezos, Gates, Buffet, and Zuckerberg are the Democratic Party and Republican Party. They allowed those tycoons to fleece Americans. The administrations and Congress could have taxed those greedy tycoons appropriately on their windfall profits. The guiltiest ones are the American voters, who voted for such corrupt politicians who are in bed in public during high noon with greedy tycoons. The voters who imprudently elected greedy politicians gave those politicians license to cause perennial misery, injustice, and deprivation to the 90-plus percent patriotic Americans.
Politics determine everything. Politics especially determine Americans’ economic destiny. America has unlimited wealth. It has the most advanced technology. It has exceptionally skilled labor. It has uniquely gifted organization. It has every imaginable natural resource. What it doesn’t have is a cadre of uncorrupt politicians who are dedicated to guarantee patriotic Americans a continuously improving standard of living and quality of life. Democratic and Republican politicians’ pervasive corruption causes patriotic Americans’ deprivation, indigence, and immiseration.
When politicians are dedicated to abusing their power to pile up riches to quench their greed, they need patrons to give them money to make them rich. As a reciprocal return for those patrons’ favor, politicians are required to give favors to their paying patrons. Since at a point in time a nation’s total income is fixed, if one person takes more, others get less, obeying a zero sum game. The more money that Bezos, Gates, Buffet, and Zuckerberg take, the less there is left for the 90-plus percent patriotic Americans. The more money Bush, Clinton, Obama, and Trump take, the less there is left for the 90-plus percent patriotic Americans. As a required business and social protocol, powerful Obama had to give billionaire Richard Branson something in return for the privilege of vacationing at his luxury mansion on Necker Island.
Anyone who believes managed capitalism will help bring about fairness to everyone or most everyone is clueless. Managed capitalism has no such built-in mechanism or power. It is not designed or destined to perform a distributive function. Furthermore, owners and managers of businesses are corrupt and greedy and thus they would doggedly fight to prevent managed capitalism from undertaking any distributive function. Income distribution is solely the function of a government. It is a political issue. The muscle of the distributive function is the political undertaking fashioned and shaped by a political party’s platform.
Inflation and Recession Are Not Inevitable
Conventional economics teaches that inflation and recession are inevitable. It says recession and inflation are indivisible realities of managed capitalism. Such teachings of the inescapability and inevitability of recession and inflation are retarded economics, a stunted cerebration. With no further increase in restrictions to managed capitalism, recession and inflation can be prevented through a partnership between businesses and governments. Such a partnership would be a true patriotic endeavor. America is superbly prosperous. It doesn’t need more prosperity. What America needs is to keep the prosperity going and use it to ensure everyone has a chance to earn a satisfactory standard of living and quality of life.
Insatiable human greed pushes for higher and higher growth rates to create more and more prosperity. The nonstop push for higher and higher growth rates inevitably leads to inflation and recession. The nonstop push for higher and higher growth rates when unemployment is low would necessitate more immigration, which would inevitably cause further social divide and social chasm. Inflation and recession unavoidably cause unimaginable costs to the country, inordinate sufferings especially to non-rich people, and costly losses and ruin especially to small businesses.
Human greed is insatiable. Nobody is saying “I have enough.” The social guru Oprah Winfrey, liberal Hillary and Bill Clinton, and progressive Michelle and Barack Obama want more. Conservatives Mitch McConnell, Kevin McCarthy, and Rush Limbaugh want more. Bezos, Gates, Buffet, and Zuckerberg want more. None of them are saying “I have enough.” Since America is very prosperous, it should opt for a stable economy, eliminating recurring recessions and inflations. Greed-motivated push for never-ending demand for an accelerating economic growth rate, zero unemployment, and burgeoning immigration is an idiotic and insane goal for today’s America. Recurring inflations and recessions caused by insatiable greed cause ups and downs, cause ruin for powerless people, and cause huge losses to businesses and governments. Although businesses and governments jointly cause recessions and inflations, inevitably businesses and governments are forced to bear their huge costs, besides the laid-off workers.
For the exceptionally prosperous America, the prudent goal should be low and steady growth. It should contend with a steady 1.5 percent growth and 3.5 percent unemployment. Greed-motivated push for perpetual increase in the growth rate is an idiotic and insane goal for today’s America. Greed-motivated perpetual insistence for zero unemployment is an idiotic and insane goal for today’s America. Greed-motivated push for ever-growing immigration is an idiotic and insane goal for today’s America. Since America has immense prosperity, it has much more than enough to offer the rich plethoric luxury, the political class seamless luxury, and the poor, low-income, and middle-income people a better standard of living and quality of life. Still Bezos, Gates, Buffet, and Zuckerberg can amass as much wealth as they covet. Still Trump, Obama, Bush, Clinton, McConnell, Schumer, Pelosi, and McCarthy can have seamless luxury. And still there would be ample surplus to sustain the desired rate of investment.
In 1930, America needed fast growth. In 1960, America needed fast growth. Maybe in 2000, America needed fast growth. In 2019, America doesn’t need fast growth. America is enviably prosperous. It is incomparably infamous for its nonstop wastes and splurges. It doesn’t need fast growth. What it needs is improvement in quality of life. What it needs is instructions on Civilized Citizenship, civic responsibility, and disciplined use of prosperity. What America needs for a true triumph is a true appreciation of the benefits of nonviolence, altruism, and tolerance. What America needs is a slow, stable, and steady growth.
Above all, what America needs is commitment to remedy climate change to avoid looming catastrophe. What America needs most is an exponential increase in social progress to improve people’s quality of life. What Americans need is assured economic security to build an unstressed life. To have a stress-free life, nobody needs a life coach, wellness class, Oprah’s sermons, Corey Booker’s veganism, or Julia Robert’s Hinduism. What Americans need is awareness of the costs of violence, corruption, and prejudice, and the benefits of nonviolence, altruism, and tolerance. What America needs is the awareness that the corruption of the powerful politicians is the sole cause for the 90-plus percent patriotic Americans’ economic deprivation.
Greed is humanity’s inborn endowment. Jeff Bezos has $109 billion. Bill Gates has $92 billion. Warren Buffet has $91 billion. Mark Zuckerberg has $72 billion. Those richest men’s greed propels them into seeking even more billions. The ever-growing greed of the rich and political leaders are solely responsible for recurring recessions and inflations, which invariably cause ruin to people. Recessions and inflations can be avoided if the human tendency to splurge and indulge can be disciplined and restrained. The sensible 1.5 percent growth rate and 3.5 percent unemployment are easily realizable without causing ruinous inflations and recessions. In the meantime, the rich can continue to grow their wealth and political leaders can continuously enjoy their unmerited luxury. If businesses and governments work together in a patriotic spirit and camaraderie unity, there wouldn’t be any recession and inflation.
Recession happens when businesses cut expenses, reducing their spending on labor and material. As more businesses cut expenses, total spending cuts get accelerated and proliferated. As a result, spending on materials and the labor is reduced. As a result, owners of materials and labor spend less as they have only less to spend. Soon more businesses cut spending. What determines a recession’s depth is how many businesses cut spending as well as how much each business cuts spending.
As spending cuts snowball, they become a contagion, growing into cumulative and collective. It is like a wildfire, spreading from one side to the other, soaring and swelling, as if a prophecy of doom is actualized. Recession is a contagion, like cholera, self-propelling and gathering strength autonomously. The vulnerable become helpless, the weak stumble, the strong withstand, and the resolved survive. Expenditures at reduced levels continue, and many small businesses crash.
Darkness pervades darkness. At some point, at an unstated time, the spiraling spending cuts come to an end, as if a destined termination actuated by an indecipherable exhaustion. At some point in time, as if a spurt, someone will start to increase spending, thus starting a reverse revolution, which slowly gets strengthened. Businesses start hiring. Workers spend more as they receive new and increased income. Starting small and growing gradually, business gathers speed and builds full momentum.
Expansion slowly works toward full employment. The economy starts moving in a fast lane, steadily growing, and the fever of growing demand steadily rising. A new contagion gets built up. Everyone is demanding more, bidding up prices, creating a self-propelling cycle of rising prices. Rising fever turns into a frenzied hysteria. Inflation is peaked. Now an unknown actor breaks the fever, stops raising prices. Others follow suit. The fever breaks. Layoffs begin. A new reverse revolution begins. Poor people, labor, and small business become unwilling victims. In recession and inflation, changes occur as if in an autonomous rush. No cruel villains are found, only victims. If there a villain, it is human greed. It is human ineptness.
There is no reason for exceptionally prosperous America to endure recurring recessions and inflations, which cause hardship to the poor and low-and middle-income people and huge losses especially to small businesses. If the economy is managed prudently and presciently, everyone will be better off. The rich can still increase their wealth. The political class can still wallow in luxury. The regular folks can be saved from hardships. To achieve this, business leaders and political leaders must behave smartly.
The incessant push for faster economic and employment growth for the superbly prosperous American economy is reckless and idiocy, wagering the survival of the powerless and risking the ruin of the powerless. Since America already has unimaginable affluence, its prudent goal must be non-inflationary steady economic growth, aiming for a sustainable 1.5 percent economic growth after the unemployment reached 3.5 percent. Any effort to speed up growth beyond 1.5 percent after the unemployment rate has reached 3.5 percent is suicidal. Such effort would cause first inflation, then recession.
It doesn’t have to be what it is. America doesn’t have to have recessions and inflations. A government dedicated to good governance must start a formal partnership with businesses to set up an agency to end recession and inflation. A partnership between businesses and the government is neither interference nor intervention in the market system. The purpose of the independent agency, the Agency to Stop Inflation and Recession (Asiar), is somewhat similar to the Federal Reserve System. Its role is to prevent recessions and inflations. It should have broad powers and a $25 billion budget, jointly funded by businesses and governments. When a business decides to cut spending and fire workers, it must promptly advise Asiar.
Amazon decides to terminate 2,000 employees as consumer demand for Echo Dot becomes sluggish. Immediately after Amazon’s layoff occurs and before Amazon’s layoff becomes a contagion, Asiar would promptly absorb those 2,000 employees. At Asiar, they will be temporary recruits until they find permanent work elsewhere. Some of those temporary recruits would be sent to various regulatory agencies, some of those temporary recruits would be sent to the Environmental Protection Agency, and some those temporary recruits would be assigned to do infrastructure work. At the regulatory agencies, they would help end bureaucratic delays that cost businesses inordinately, providing businesses with quick answers to help them make needed changes promptly. Everyone knows time is money.
With a $25 billion budget, Asiar could hire as many as 800,000 people at $15 an hour. Wages paid by Asiar would be tax free. Hiring huge numbers of workers by Asiar as soon as they are laid off would prevent isolated layoffs from becoming a national contagion. Such an epic hiring program would prevent the fear of recession. It would prevent other businesses from creating their own layoffs for fear of recession. It would prevent the snowballing of a distortive action into a ruinous reality. At the start of Asiar’s creation, governments should end every kind of subsidy, tax cut, and tax credit given to businesses, regardless of the pressure of lobbyists, amount of campaign contributions, or size of covert bribes. It would help governments save trillions by ending subsidy, tax credit, and tax cut given to businesses. With Asiar, governments would save on assistances given to people who are ruined by recession and inflation.
Recessions and inflations are destructive, depressing, and demoralizing. Since recessions and inflations cause serious losses to businesses, they have a compelling reason to help Asiar succeed. Since preventing recessions and inflations would help workers, labor unions have a compelling reason to help Asiar succeed. Since preventing recessions would be a vital responsibility of every government, governments have a compelling reason to help Asiar succeed. Since it ensures stability, consumers have a compelling reason to help Asiar succeed. Since its ability to prevent recessions and inflations would help business, workers, governments, and consumers, all political parties, ideology groups, religions, and social groups would unanimously endorse Asiar’s creation and purpose.
Asiar could control inflation as easily as recession. Asiar would make it mandatory that businesses report any price increase in excess of 2 percent. For noncompliance, there would be huge fines. When material and labor costs go up, businesses are compelled to increase prices to maintain their profit margin. While they should avoid arbitrary cost increases, raw material suppliers should receive compensatory subsidies when nature causes catastrophes. Wage rates should always equal labor productivity.
With generous funding, potent mandate, and all stakeholders’ cooperation, Asiar would eliminate recurring recessions and inflations, and help maintain steady growth with no recurring ruins. Asiar’s success would be a boon to all as recessions and inflation, recurrently menace the economy, terrorize managed capitalism, and peril people.
Whenever unemployment rises above 3.5 percent, economic growth should be driven up to bring the rate down to below 3.5 percent. The goal of economic growth is to create jobs and increase income. Once the unemployment rate is below 3.5 percent, every incentive and push for economic growth should be forthwith paused and ceased to prevent the economy from being inflated. The lone focus of an exceptionally prosperous economy should be preventing unemployment to exceed 3.5 percent. The nonstop drive to grow the economy more than 1.5 percent when unemployment is below 3.5 percent is injudicious. It would be inviting serious troubles, especially inflationary surges. The ideal unemployment rate is 3.5 percent. When the unemployment rate falls below 3.5 percent, Asiar would readily start employing whoever among the unemployed want to work without directly competing against businesses.
New jobs created during February 2019 totaled 20,000. Splashing its ignorance infected by conventional economics, the media became dispirited and disappointed. The new job number was seen as a letdown, a disappointment, a defeat, evidencing Trump’s loss of economic virility. The media’s dejection was similar to the glumness of a McDonald’s burger flipper as his date requests were simultaneously rejected by both Angelina Jolie and Jennifer Aniston. Every sensible person with a basic knowledge of economics should have been euphoric instead of glum. Everyone should have been complimenting businesses for their prudence in not going berserk to add more jobs. An unemployment rate of 3.8 percent shows that America is at near full employment. Any further job growth would have added inflation pressure. Inflation is in no way beneficial to anyone, whether it is labor, capital, or consumers. It is true, however, that even at a 3.8 percent jobless rate, some people would still be looking for and needing jobs.
Asiar’s noninflationary program would have provisions to hire those who are looking for work when the jobless rate is below 3.5 percent at a $15 tax-free hourly wage. Its crucial concern is to eliminate growing inflationary pressure arising from a bidding war for labor, as labor supply becomes growingly reduced. Asiar would start hiring only when the jobless rate is just below 3.5 percent. Asiar’s direct intervention would be more effective, immediate, and efficient than the Federal Reserve’s monetary policy intervention. It is no different from a fiscal policy’s expenditure increase to achieve economic expansion and would be more effective, immediate, and efficient than monetary policy’s interest rate reduction.
Asiar’s hiring program would be complementing the private sector priority, never competing against it. It would cause neither inflationary pressure on the economy nor demand pressure on labor supply. Its recruits are to be utilized for three broad purposes. They would be used to expedite regulatory agency works to cut decision-making delays to help improve business’ efficiency, perform environmental tasks to help reduce climate change, and to work to improve the nation’s infrastructure to help increase efficiency.
When businesses are given prompt and expedited relief from bureaucratic delays, they are able to increase efficiency and productivity, decelerating inflationary pressure, and increasing profit margins. Businesses, in turn, are required to look at labor and wage issues from a fairness perspective to highlight their responsible citizenship. They should pay labor equivalent to its net productivity. The corporate ideology and practice should be changed from the corrupt, predatory, unfair tradition to a fair paradigm.
Responding to an appeal from Pope Francis, the United States Chamber of Commerce declared a new doctrine on business integrity. Following the doctrine, every corporate board resolved to eliminate corporate greed, resulting from corporate boards’ corruption favoring top executives. Corporate boards in America have thus fixed the maximum CEO salary at $5 million a year. At $5 million, the hourly rate would be $2,500, compared to $15 for regular workers. No corporation in America should pay a CEO more than $5 million, as no person’s service is worth more than $2,500 an hour, 167 times more than a regular worker’s $15 hourly wage. Since no corporation wants to pay more than $5 million, those who want to have the CEO glory must accept it or go without a CEO’s prestige, power, and perks.
Economics was built on an elegant concept called “perfect competition.” In perfect completion, many sellers compete with each other, guaranteeing the lowest prices, and crowning consumers kings. The foundation of economics is exemplified by the eloquent simplicity of perfect competition. The formulation of economics is organized on the conceptual artlessness of perfect competition, an exemplar of purity devoid of imperfection. The world of today is crowded with behemoths like Amazon and Wal-Mart. The world of today is dictated by the burgeoning globalization, founded on infinite human greed. Today’s behemoths and globalization sullied the concept perfect competition by transforming a noble aspiration of the philosopher king into a tangled manifestation of unquenchable greed, disparaging an idealistic ambition into an abstract inconsequence, and downgrading an eloquent proposition into an absurd incongruence. The idealistic mission of perfect competition was reduced into a convoluted betrayal. It is entirely sabotaged by inordinate imperfections streaming from callous greed and insane ideology.
Superior Men and Inferior Women
In the evolution of gender relationship, over the millennia, starting from the days of Adam and Eve, superior men and inferior women have been the hallowed patriarchal paradigm. The patriarchal paradigm was built on the metric of superior men and inferior women. Men rule and women are ruled. Men exploit and women are exploited. Men control and women are controlled. Men owned superiority and women owned inferiority. The patriarchal paradigm has shaped and structured the genetics of men as superior and the genetics of women as inferior. To continue their undisputed superiority, men acquired dominion over women. From the start, from the days of Adam and Eve, women have been purposefully led to believe they needed men as their superiors to protect them and women are inferior requiring protection. The gender relationship has always been between superior men and inferior women. Never in human history have women attained true liberation. Never in human history have women ingrained in them the eloquence of the immutable truth that women are equal to men.
The word woman was derived from the word man. It is a speculative guess; maybe it was meant to be a man with a womb, the nontechnical word for uterus. The word woman is also used to refer to a female servant. The word husband came from an Old Norse word meaning “master of a house.” Men created a world in which men considered themselves superior and women inferior, awarding men, seizing without deliberations, usurping with abandon, unlimited dominion over women. Men’s physical prowess and stature were used to enforce men’s claim of their superiority and women’s inferiority.
Over the millennia, since Adam and Eve, the gender relationship, the patriarchal paradigm, defined and enforced by men, have forced women into inferiority. Men have imposed complete control and exercised absolute authority over women, instilling in women the “joy” of looking up to men as masters and heroes. Men ordered women to act obedient, passive, and unassertive. Men made women submissive and subservient, insecure and diffident, inferior and unequal, fans and groupies. At no time have men ever declared, categorically or coyly, that women are equal to men. Men invariably enforced men’s dominion over women. Lack of choice ensnared women in inferiority. Nonetheless, women celebrated men’s superiority and consented to women’s inferiority with little objection, with little protest, and with little complaint. With little row and ruckus, women readily complied with men’s demand for their servility.
In the twenty-first century Western world, important women have the choice to categorically reject the unholy proposition that men are superior and women are inferior. Important women, influential women, have the choice and intellect and humor to laugh at the men-women superior-inferior paradigm. Notwithstanding, most important women in the West, still at the end of the first quarter of the twenty-first century, voluntarily accept the unholy proposition that men are superior and women are inferior, men are primary and women are secondary, men are assertive and women are subservient.
Only true liberation would proffer true emancipation. Patriarchy is a doppelganger of subservience. Until patriarchy is undone, women will remain unequal. True liberation requires the undoing of patriarchy’s every facet, every aspect, and every remnant. Women’s secondary and subservient status is entirely caused by patriarchy, which started with Adam’s dominion over Eve. Only true liberation, dismantling the patriarchy, will elevate women to equality and dignity.
To achieve gender equality, women must reject the patriarchal paradigm Adam constructed and others continued with the help of religious, cultural, social, political, and educational institutions that men created. Without a total rejection of patriarchy, gender equality cannot be attained. Continued obedience to patriarchal directives will keep women secondary and inferior, enabling men to control and coerce women into surrendering their equality, identity, and dignity. As long as women continue to allow themselves to be brainwashed by the patriarchal paradigm, they cannot be truly independent, equal, and liberated.
Men’s predatory sexual transgressions are conditioned by the patriarchcal psychology that women were created to serve men, as Eve was created to serve Adam. Rejection of patriarchy is the lone way for women to convince men that gender transgressions are unacceptable, uncivilized, and abominable. That sexual trespasses are criminal, wicked, primitive, and scandalous. Men reign. Women serve. Wearing suits, not wearing bras, wearing crop tops, and going “commando” do not mark liberation. Only outright rejection of patriarchy, which enforces inequality, domination, and inferiority, will offer true liberation.
The United States of America was created by the Founding Fathers. No woman was included as a Founding Mother. Until 1920, the political status of Caucasian women and slave women was similar. Neither Thomas Jefferson’s legal wife nor his slave mistress had voting rights. Though changes have been happening, economically, politically, and socially, American women have always been inferior. However, with their given independence, affluence, and opportunities, American women do have the power to change the prevailing gender inequality overnight should they decide to liberate themselves. American women are exceedingly freer than Chinese, Indian, Saudi, or Israeli women. They have much more economic independence, social status, and political power. History has long since unequivocally registered that women have comparable professional ability, competence, and leadership to men. Having the power and using the power to effect changes are different. So far American women have failed to change the tradition that consigns them to inferiority. Electing a woman to the presidency or receiving equal pay will not elevate American women to equal status. Excelling in combat is not liberation. Becoming the commander-in-chief is not liberation. Outright rejection of inequality and inferiority is liberation.
Women’s inferior status entails an avertable economic cost, curtailing America’s economic prosperity and social progress. Women’s productivity would increase in proportion to their equality because productivity is a function of an individual’s freedom and equality. India’s caste system ordains that Hindus who are not members of the four castes are “Untouchables,” who, when they touch anyone at the top of the caste hierarchy, will pollute them. The Untouchables’ productivity in 2019 is spectacularly more than what it was in 1950, when they were legally emancipated. African Americans’ productivity in 2019 is dramatically more than what it was in 1964, when the Civil Rights Act was passed. American women’s productivity will increase dramatically and exponentially once they become liberated, ceasing to be unequal and inferior.
Men created religions. Men created social, political, educational, and economic systems. As they created the world, men intentionally categorized women as inferior. Women accepted inferiority. Men’s superior physical size was used to enforce man’s superiority over woman. Religions created by men stipulated that God commanded that men were created superior and women inferior. Judaism, Christianity, and Islam espouse that it was subsequent to Adam’s creation, upon Adam’s request for a companion, God created Eve by using one of Adam’s ribs. The parable on Eve’s creation had forever designated women as a derivative of men, casting women categorically as inferior to men. Religions created by men hallowed, consecrated, and pronounced men’s supremacy and women’s submission. With dominion over women, men cast themselves superior to women.
God created Eve as an extension of Adam to give Adam a mate to please and pleasure him. God gave Adam dominion over everything. His dominion over Eve started patriarchy, giving men eternal dominion over women. Eve’s inferiority and inequality eternally instituted women’s inferiority and inequality. Women cannot end their inequality and inferiority until women truly become liberated from patriarchal dominion in order to attain gender equality and gender dignity. Women’s failure to achieve equality is caused by women’s failure to believe in their parity with men. No one can achieve true liberation until they become convinced that they deserve liberation. Oppression continues because the oppressed allow the oppressor to oppress.
The Torah, Bible, and Quran, written by men, are filled with references and allusions to women’s inferiority. Edicts of women’s inferiority were edited into the holy books. Orthodox Jewish men are advised to say every day, “I thank God who has not made me a woman.” Men are supreme in Christianity. Islam keeps women unseen behind walls and veils. The cultural, social, political, and educational institutions men created reinforce religions’ view of women’s subordination. Judaism, Christianity, and Islam created by men declared that God wanted only male prophets. Angels are males. Jews’ patriarch Abraham and liberator Moses were men. Jesus was a man. His 12 disciples were men. Mohamed was a man. His disciples were men. The Pope is a man. Catholic priests are men. Muslim Imams are men. Hindu pujaris are men.
The three most powerful Gods, Hinduism’s supreme Trinity, Shiva, Brahma, and Vishnu, are men. Although there are Goddesses, none are considered equal to Shiva, Brahma, and Vishnu. Unlike Gods, Goddesses were required to remain chaste. No woman was included in Buddhism. The Buddhist leader, the Dalai Lama, is a man. Japanese Buddhist men created geisha women to please men. Religions started by men approved polygamy. Abraham took Hagar as his second wife while Sara was alive. Jacob mated with Bilhah while Rachel was alive. Polygamy among Hindu Gods was celebrated. Hinduism demands a widow’s immolation on her husband’s pyre. Women cannot consecrate absolution. Only men are empowered to mediate entry to heaven.
Feminist rhetoric aside, patriarchy reigns absolute. Lack of categorical demand for equality prevents women from upending the patriarchal paradigm. Indifference to true liberation denies women equality, compelling them to capitulate to inferiority. Lack of awareness about the gravity of their inferiority, whether imposed or accepted, keeps women oblivious to their desperate need for liberation. Women routinely accept unequal status, unequal representation, and unequal valuation. Women voluntarily accept inferiority, surrendering to the patriarchy’s dominion. It was women who defeated the Equal Rights Amendment. It is women who sabotage their legal right for choice. Despite their majority status, women are a tiny minority in caverns of power.
Regardless of their prominence and power, soon after their marriage, women change their birth name and take their husband’s name. Never in history has a husband ever taken his wife’s name. Through their identity metamorphosis, women capitulate to patriarchy, accepting inferiority. Slaves were given new names when they were bought by new owners. Women get a new name soon after they get a new owner, when ownership changes from father to husband. Women change their name, disown their birth name, and take their husband’s name. Since men do not change their name, women’s readiness to take their husband’s name establishes their submission to inferiority. Women’s readiness to mislay their own identity, to shine in their husband’s, makes them their husband’s sidekick, subordinate, inferior, minion, or subaltern. A sidekick can never be equal to the boss. When women take their husband’s name, they surrender their identity and uniqueness, succumbing to patriarchal dictates, surrendering to men’s dominion. When famous women of intellectual and financial power voluntarily accept their inferiority to men, they are impeding women’s ability to assert that they are equal to men. Since they have the power to reject their identity change through name change, they deserve objective criticism.
Amal Alamuddin is a human-rights attorney, a human-rights activist. She has worked with famous men like former United Nations Secretary General, the late Kofi Annan. Before she married actor George Clooney, she had accomplishment, clout, and fame. Albeit, soon after she got married, she discarded her birth name, her maiden identity, the symbol of her uniqueness, the embodiment of her existence, the mark of her individuality, the reference to her distinctiveness. Amal Alamuddin became Amal Clooney. She agreed to surrender, consented to submission, yielded to her rebranding. She agreed to her transformation, alteration, and amending. She conformed to subservience. She took a new identity, a new incarnation, a new embodiment, a new manifestation, a mutation, a metamorphosis. She became inferior, legalized herself as an inferior, declaring her voluntary consent to inferiority to a man. She changed her name on her own accord, on her own volition, on her own decision. By taking a man’s name, she was declaring her inferiority to a man. Changing her name was not reciprocal. George did not change his name. George did not take a woman’s name. He remained what he was. She underwent change. She courted change. She submitted to change. She allowed herself to succumb to patriarchy’s demand, as women from the time of Eve have done. Like others, another eminent woman, another accomplished woman, on her own accord, became inferior to a man.
Yale graduate Hillary Rodham became Hillary Clinton. Librarian Laura Welch became Laura Bush. Harvard graduate Michelle Robinson became Michelle Obama. Duke MBA Melinda French became Melinda Gates. Harvard professor Elizabeth Herring became Elizabeth Warren. GM’s Chair and CEO Mary Makela became Mary Barra. Senator Kirsten Rutnik became Kirsten Gillibrand. IBM Chair and CEO Virginia Nicosia became Ginni Rometty. Singer Victoria Adams became Victoria Beckham. Princeton graduate MacKenzie Tuttle became MacKenzie Bezos. Actress Robin Wright became Robin Penn. Columnist Ariana Stasinopoulou became Ariana Huffington. Out of 23 women U.S. Senators, 11 took their husband’s name. Husbands do not take their wife’s name. Even progressive George Clooney did not take his wife’s name. Routinely, famous women unilaterally give up their identity to become men’s subaltern, accepting inferiority.
Women conceive, endure pregnancy, give birth, do midnight feedings, and spend years to raise kids. Yet children always carry their father’s name, without any reference to their mother’s, as if children were sired solely by men. Every child is named, identified, and known solely as a father’s child. Regardless of women’s disproportionate sacrifice to carry, birth, and raise children, they are expunged from history. By allowing their kids to carry their father’s name, women are voluntarily giving up their right to be a part of their children’s identity. Becoming the main part of her kids’ identity is a mother’s existential right. Male dominion and female surrender are perpetuated when kids have only their father’s name. Is there anyone in America, female or male, carrying only a mother’s name in recognition of mothers’ disproportionate service rendered and incomparable sacrifice endured to have and raise children? Doesn’t she want recognition for carrying an eight-pound baby inside her belly?
Famous women allow their children to carry solely their father’s name. The late Gloria Vanderbilt did not add her identity to son, Anderson Cooper. Hillary Rodham did not add her identity to daughter, Chelsea Clinton. Maria Shriver did not add her identity to daughter, Katherine Schwarzenegger. Michelle Robinson did not add her identity to daughter, Malia Obama. Arianna Stasinopoulou did not add her identity to daughter, Christina Huffington. Laura Welch did not add her identity to daughter, Barbara Bush. Melinda French did not add her identity to daughter, Jennifer Gates. MacKenzie Tuttle did not add her identity to son, Preston Bezos. Meryl Streep did not add her identity to daughter, Mamie Gummer. Beyoncé did not add her identity to daughter, Rumi Carter. Jennifer Lopez did not add her identity to daughter, Emme Muniz. Shakira did not add her identity to son, Sasha Mebarak. Victoria Adams did not add her identity to son, Brooklyn Beckham. Kirsten Rutnik did not add her identity to Theodore Gillibrand. Annette Bening did not add her identity to daughter, Ella Beatty. Meg Whitman did not add her identity to son, William Harsh. Amal Alamuddin did not add her identity to daughter, Ella Clooney.
Men give rings to women to have women engaged and “ringed.” Women do not give rings to men. When a man gives an engagement ring to a woman, it is a symbol of the intent to own and control her. It is like giving a down payment for layaway until he is ready for the final buy. Women get engaged like a performer, get engaged to be a man’s indentured servant, get contracted to be tied to a man like an apron. Women should start proposing and giving men rings, as men propose and give women rings. George Clooney gave an engagement ring to Amal, staking his claim. Amal did not give a ring to George. England’s Harry gave a ring to America’s Meghan, staking his claim. Meghan did not give a ring to Harry.
Slave owners routinely flogged slaves. The physically strong routinely beat the physically weak. Domestic violence has always been a universal reality. Men’s violence upon women is a predictable reality, as men have dominion over women and men are stronger. Most likely, Adam must have committed domestic violence. Eve was smaller. Adam had dominion over Eve. True equality, equality in practice, equality as a hallowed concept, despite variance in physical power, could alleviate the epidemic of domestic violence.
Until the 1970s, men continued to broadcast fake news that women could not have and did not need orgasms. It was a strategy to convince women that their role is to serve men. It was a ruse to pass up men’s obligation to satisfy women. Sexologists Alfred Kinsey, William Masters, and Virginia Johnson broke the conspiracy. Hinduism, Judaism, and Christianity consider menstruating women unclean. Hinduism prohibits women from living inside their homes during their periods.
Didn’t famous women know sexual harassment has been an ongoing patriarchic tradition? Didn’t they know men started abusing women from the time of Adam and Eve? They should have known that men have been abusing women long before #MeToo and Time’s Up. Of course, they knew that men considered women inferior. Women have been oppressed from the time of Adam and Eve. They knew men’s obsession for superiority makes them control women. Only superiors have the power to harass inferiors.
With the help of crooked attorneys, some shady women make up sexual harassment allegations against innocent but affluent men. False sexual harassment allegations have become a profitable trade for shady women and crooked attorneys. The motivation for those shady women and crooked attorneys is to unconscionably fleece innocent men. The legal system is not equipped with provisions to winnow the real harassments from made-up harassments. The growth of made-up harassment allegations has become a hugely money-making scheme for crooked attorneys for plaintiffs, their shady women clients, and sexual harassment defense attorneys. Its profitability enabled some such crooked plaintiff attorneys and unscrupulous defense attorneys, despite their mediocrity, buy their own private planes. With no escape from outrageous injustice, innocent men are unmercifully trapped and fleeced by those shady women, their crooked attorneys, and greedy defense attorneys.
Everyone knows about polygamy. Few women know about polyandry. Polyandry means one woman concurrently having multiple husbands. Though uncommon, polyandry is a daring revolt against patriarchy. Even as late as the 1950s, some women in India’s Kerala state practiced polyandry. Since men believe women were created to serve, please, and pleasure men, polyandry is a rebellious and provocative challenge to patriarchy. Let activist women reflect on the power of polyandry.
Dictated by patriarchal tradition, highlighting women’s dependence on men, women routinely accept men’s stock-in-trade gestures of bribery, like buying women dinners and taking women to bars. For centuries, women have been buying into the nefarious tradition, yielding sex more readily if they get opulently “wined and dined,” as though sex is for sale. The still flourishing practice of “wining and dining” gives men the notion that every woman has a price. Practice of such patriarchal tradition encourages men to indulge in sexual trespasses.
Successful actresses Ashley Judd, Uma Thurman, Angelina Jolie, and Gwyneth Paltrow came from affluent and influential families. Unlike economically disadvantaged young women from rural America coming to Hollywood, they could have taken a little risk, showed a little chutzpah. They should have exposed sexual predators years ago, instead of waiting for #MeToo. Their stories, their humiliation, and their capitulation tell how powerful women surrender pride and principles, submitting to abuse and shame. Those younger Hollywood women did not show any more chutzpah to reject patriarchy than did famous middle-aged or older female politicians and celebrities. Regardless of their generation and profession, women generally follow the patriarchal paradigm. Exceptions are rare. Liberation demands courage and sacrifice. Liberation is not costless. Nonetheless, liberation is healing, heroic, and historic.
As a patriarchal custom, women always marry taller men, as if they are choosing bodyguards. Having taller husbands require women to look up to men as superiors, who, in turn, look down on shorter wives as inferiors. Marrying men taller is consenting to have a protector to furnish protection. A protected cannot be equal to a protector. Choosing taller men is a metric of a male-female unequal relationship. A tall-man and-short-woman paradigm trumps gender equality, installing a union between a protector and a protected. A tall-man and short-woman paradigm reinforces a superior and inferior union. Patriarchal tradition demands women marry men older, making husbands superior and wives inferior, requiring them to show respect for him as wiser and superior, giving him license to act like a boss.
Often wives act as collaborators with their husbands in perpetuating the patriarchal tradition as if they thrive on the thrill of being enablers. Mothers collude with fathers in laying down discriminative rules for boys and girls, like stricter curfews for girls. Mothers acquiesce in tasking girls with the duty to protect family honor. Generally, parents brag about playboy sons. Invariably, they are ashamed of a playgirl daughter. Unequal treatment between boys and girls helps destroy girls’ confidence. Treating daughters as unequal to sons prevents girls from growing up with the ability to stand up to men later and teach men how to treat women as equals.
Giving women away is symbolically similar to a slave trade. It is a patriarchal practice, a barbaric custom. Are women impersonal chattel and immovable property? As if transferring the ownership of a property, women are given away by one man, a father, to wed another man, the incoming husband. To ensure equality, both women and men are to be given away. Instead of men, women should start doing the giving away, as they bear more of the burden to have and raise children. Patriarchy dictates that only fathers are entitled to give their daughters away. Giving daughters away is exclusively a father’s prerogative, demeaning mothers into superfluity. Bill Clinton gave his daughter, Chelsea Clinton, away, flaunting his sole ownership, downgrading Hillary Rodham into an appendix.
Patriarchy entitles men to choose. Men choose. Women are chosen. It is not unlike choosing a beauty queen in a pageant. Men ask women to marry. Asking is man’s prerogative, enshrining his hunter status. Patriarchy doesn’t permit women to ask men to marry them. How many women in America proposed to a man? There were mail-order brides, never mail-order grooms. That bygone American reality was symbolic of the patriarchal paradigm entitling men the right to choose. Maintenance money or protection payment, called “a dowry,” is a payment that women, the protected, give men, the protector. A dowry is not unlike the mafia’s protection money.
Men shrewdly created an awesome market for women’s nudity. Money and publicity tempt women to eagerly participate in the nudity trade. Don’t the New York Times and the Washington Post report more on Kim Kardashian, whose fame came from a sex tape, than on Meryl Streep’s artistry? Didn’t Serena Williams’ nude pictures in Sports Illustrated and Vanity Fair give the tennis champion more money and more publicity than her Wimbledon victory did? The fame of championships is less lucrative than the infamy of nudity. Why didn’t Sports Illustrated and Vanity Fair ask the great male tennis star, Rafael Nadal, to pose nude? They couldn’t because there is little market for male nudity.
The fashion industry tempts and coerces women into spending billions of dollars to exaggerate their sexiness, decorating women like Barbie Dolls. Why won’t the fashion industry start making lipstick and mascara for men? Women get men as they come, while men get women packaged, perfumed, and perfected. When Hillary wears pink pantsuits, she is aping men, not liberating herself. Wouldn’t Hillary become more admired if she were to wear long skirts, helping her look exceptionally elegant?
Men artists rarely parade on red carpets. Even great artists, like Beyoncé, Lady Gaga, and Pink, exhibit themselves on the red carpet, flaunting themselves as sexy Barbie Dolls, showing their skin tone, tattoo designs, and sculpted curvatures. Couldn’t such famous artists tell the Grammy to shuck the red carpet parade of women? Let Jay-Z, Drake, and Usher pose for the red carpet at the 2019 Grammy Awards in jockstraps, with a neck full of chains and chest full of tattoos. Wouldn’t it make a good story for Netflix?
Oppression continues because the oppressed accept oppression. Infrequently, in Iran, few women appear in public without a hijab. Authorities harass, arrest, and charge them. The government’s oppressive actions ensure such protests inevitably fizzle. Since those infrequent protests are staged by few women, probably 50 women, maybe at the most 90, the Iranian government succeeds every single time in suppressing the dissent. If four million women, 10 percent of Iran’s 40 million women, appeared on streets without hijabs, the Iranian government would not be able to oppress them. They do not have enough jail space for four million people. If two million Saudi Arabian women would appear on the streets of Riyadh without abayas, Saudi authorities wouldn’t be able to oppress women.
Head covering is common among Muslim women while not uncommon among Christian, Jewish, and Hindu women. Head covers are probably meant to enforce modesty, assigning modesty exclusively to women. Why modesty is exclusively earmarked for women? Fairness demands both men and women observe modesty. Requiring only women to cover their hair is misogynistic discrimination. What make women’s hair and head, unlike men’s hair and head, more secretive, more illicit, more furtive, more forbidden, thus, require covering? What makes women’s hair and head sexual exhibits, carnal charms, or erotic sensuality?
Everyone knows conservative Republicans are allergic to feminism and women’s liberation. Democrats are as allergic as Republicans. Female leaders, like Hillary Clinton and Nancy Pelosi, are fake liberals. Male leaders, like Joe Biden and Barack Obama, are fake progressives. Had all those so-called liberals and progressives strongly supported the eminently courageous Anita Hill in 1991, the burden of American women’s inequality would have been considerably mitigated. It was a Democrat-controlled Senate that humiliated Anita Hill—shame on Joe Biden, who didn’t even offer Anita Hill a fair hearing. The so-called champion of women, Barack Obama, could have awarded Anita Hill the Presidential Medal of Freedom for her exceptional contribution to making women aware of their perennially desperate predicament. Instead, Obama, one patriarch, gave the Presidential Medal of Freedom to another patriarch, Joe Biden, Fans and groupies are mostly women. Lovers of convicts are exclusively females. Male superstars have more female fans and groupies than female superstars have male fans and groupies. More women go gaga over male celebrities than do men over female celebrities. Usher and Drake have more female fans and groupies than Beyoncé and Lady Gaga have male fans and groupies. Famous women, including every First Lady, as if an inviolable creed, act as their husband’s fans and groupies. Most women are inclined to be subservient to men, who thrive on women’s psychological inability to become liberated.
Former Speaker of the House, Republican Paul Ryan said, “Women are to be championed and revered, not objectified.” Wow—pure patriarchal patronizing. It must have belittled informed women. It was a talking down to women. Since women are equal to men, women do not need championing. Since women are equal to men, women do not need reverence. What women need is a prompt, expeditious, and quick censorious reminder whenever they tend to forget the immutable truth that women are equal to men.
Hardly ever in history, anywhere in the world, have women marched nonstop for their true liberation from servitude, despite their universal and perennial secondary status. India’s Untouchables marched endlessly for their liberation. And, they became liberated. No longer do they act servile to upper castes. African Americans marched endlessly for their liberation. And, they became liberated. No longer do they act secondary to Caucasians. Women’s disinclination to march nonstop for liberation tells either that they are unaware of their servitude or they do not care about their servitude. Women’s disinclination to march nonstop for liberation tells that they do not need liberation. Maybe women think they are not entitled to true liberation because the natural law had destined them to be secondary to men.
Colored People Became People of Color
Ironically, Comedian Rodney Dangerfield’s “I don’t get no respect” routine earned him great respect. His success was due to Rodney’s inventiveness to make everyone who watched his routine believed he was desperately begging for respect. Minority Americans are in somewhat of a similar predicament as Rodney Dangerfield. The difference is that Rodney’s routine was a comedy. Rodney was pretending to be desperate for respect, whereas Minority Americans are truly desperate for respect. Minority Americans are really desperate for respect. They are fraught with desperation for respect. Their desperation is real, as real as a $1 bill with Lincoln’s image.
Minority Americans are desperate, frantically desperate, to get some respect, any respect from European Americans. They seem to believe they desperately need Caucasian Americans’ respect, some respect, a semblance of respect, to become respectful. Should they need respect from European Americans, they should try to learn how Rodney’s irony of antithesis brought him respect. They should change their approach from desperate insecurity and inherited inferiority to a confident challenge, an intellectual confrontation. They should frontally and bluntly challenge the notion that Caucasian Americans are superior to Minority Americans.
Minority Americans should embolden themselves to challenge their inherited historical desperation for Caucasian Americans’ respect; they should embolden themselves to confront their historical and inherited notion that Caucasian Americans are superior. They should confidently and boldly expose the hypocrisy, spuriousness, falsity, and fallacy, which Caucasian Americans use to establish their fake, bogus, invented superiority. Minority Americans should internalize their belief, if they have one, that they are equal to European Americans. They should convince themselves that they do not need European Americans’ recognition and respect because Minority Americans are not inferior to Caucasian Americans.
Minority Americans include descendants of slaves, children of former colonial subjects, and Native Americans. Their ancestors never received respect from Caucasians who enslaved them, colonized them, and oppressed them. Minority Americans are consequently desperate for respect. During the Jim Crow period, liberal European Americans who were not despisers of African Americans politely called them colored. African Americans accepted the word colored as a polite term and subsequently used it and continue to use it as a part of their iconic National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.
Some African Americans subsequently expressed dissatisfaction with the term colored people. Thus, the clamor for change started. Colored people became people of color. Caucasian Americans generously started calling Minority Americans people of color. Non-African Americans among the Minority Americans either joined or were co-opted in the desperate pursuit for respect. Now all Minority Americans are called people of color and its variations, such as person of color, woman of color, man of color, communities of color, artist of color, and something and somebody of color.
God Bless America. Colored people were promoted, they were given the honor, and they were allowed to become people of color. Is the term, people of color, more respectable than colored people? What is the difference between colored people and people of color? Are the meanings of people of color and colored people any different? Aren’t European Americans secretly laughing their heart out about how they duped Minority Americans into believing that people of color is a more respectable term than colored people. CNN’s Wolf Blitzer and NBC’s Chuck Todd might be laughing their head off every time they address a Minority American as a person of color. For so many centuries, Caucasians played smart, proficiently smart, in duping non-Caucasians, when they inhumanly attempted to exterminate Native Americans, when they brought Africans in chains to the new world, when they inhumanely enslaved and segregated African Americans, and when they immorally colonized the entire non-Caucasian world.
Milk is white. Snow is white. Some flowers are white. Some clouds are white. Some birds have white feathers. No human being is white. No person anywhere has white skin color. Caucasians’ skin color is not white. Their skin color is beige. However, they identify as and call themselves white. They feign that they are white. They claim they are white. They pretend they are white. The question is, why do beige-colored Caucasians claim to be white? Why do they pretend they are white? Why do they posture they are white?
Caucasians shrewdly and purposefully made the color white into a symbol of purity, virtue, and innocence. They knowingly fictionalized the color white as a blessedly superior color. They made the Nazareth-born Jesus white, holy angels white, prophets white, and gowns to mark virginity white. Caucasians ingeniously made the color white into a superior color. After making white a blessedly superior color, Caucasians made the claim that they are white. Its purpose was to ensure their racial superiority. Their pretense is the continuation of the postiche Indo-Iranian group started some four millennia ago in their quest to become superior. Their motive for claiming whiteness is to claim and establish their superiority. It was a phased process. First, the Caucasians made the color white blessedly superior. Then the Caucasians made themselves blessedly white. Then the Caucasians made themselves blessedly superior because the color white is blessedly superior and Caucasians are blessedly white. It was a calculated postiche. It was a shrewd con game. Non-Caucasians readily bought the Caucasian postiche.
Even among religions, there is no consensus regarding in which part of the world the Garden of Eden was located. Nobody thinks the Garden of Eden was in present-day Norway or Sweden or Finland. Nonetheless, the likes of Jan Brueghel and Peter Rubens portray Adam with a blond beard and Eve with blond pubic hair, similar to two Norwegian or Swedish or Finnish Caucasians. Nonstop fake stories depict prophets and angels as lookalike Swedish Caucasians. Claims of Caucasian superiority have been routinely popping up as in a whack-a-mole game. Such depictions of prophets and angels as Scandinavian Caucasians are to convince non-Caucasians that the similarity between Caucasians and prophets and between Caucasians and angels prove Caucasian superiority. That theory is solely based on their fraud claim that their skin color is white.
A person’s skin color doesn’t define merit, highlight character, measure intelligence, or espouse integrity. Intelligence and integrity are not the proprietary attributes of any one skin color. Beige-colored Caucasians are no more honest and honorable than people of black skin or brown skin. Ethical people are found among all skin colors. Dishonest people are plentifully in every skin color.
Fake stories that Caucasians are intellectually superior to people of other races were discredited long time ago. More than a century ago Indian-born Rabindranath Tagore was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. Only the Indian-born Gandhi had the insight and ingenuity to discover the beauty and blessedness of nonviolence. Writers like Richard Wright, James Baldwin, and Toni Morrison showed the intellectual eminence of African Americans.
Fake stories are invariably and continuously undone by continuously unfolding scientific findings. At the start, Europeans weren’t blue-eyed, blond-haired, and beige-colored. What is found today is a slow evolvement. Was the Indo-Iranian group’s skin color beige four millennia ago? When did Chinese and Japanese become beige-colored people? The most recent finding reveals that Cheddar Man, who lived in England no more than 10,000 years ago, had dark skin, dark curly hair, and blue eyes. Europeans did not have beige skin color 10, 000 years ago. Even 10,000 years ago, the Caucasian race did not have beige skin color; it evolved much later. What they are now is not what they were before.
Television journalists like beige-colored Caucasian Wolf Blitzer of CNN and Chuck Todd of NBC with no shame often use the word white to identify themselves and other Caucasians. Wolf Blitzer and Chuck Todd are exemplars of postiche. Didn’t their journalism schools teach them that no human has white skin? Don’t they have eyes to see it, sense to feel it, intelligence to discern it, and commonsense to know that they do not have white skin color? Their skin color is not white. Their skin color doesn’t look like milk or snow. Shouldn’t they know feigning is fake news?
Human skin colors include beige, black, and brown. None are white. Every skin color is equally fascinating. No color is superior. None are inferior. None are blessed. None are cursed. No race has exclusively one skin color. Every race includes an array of skin colors. People of the Americas, Asia, Africa, and Europe have varying skin colors. Sicilians and Cretans are darker than Swedes and Danes. Sephardic Jews are darker than Ashkenazi Jews. Arabs include beige-and dark-skinned people. Iran has beige and dark people. India has beige-skinned, black-skinned, and brown-skinned people.
The skin color of the majority of the world’s population is beige. Like Caucasians, most Arabs, Chinese, Iranians, Koreans, Vietnamese, Japanese, and others have beige skin. Many in India are beige. If beige-colored Caucasians are white and superior, why aren’t beige-colored Chinese and Japanese, Iranians and Arabs, white and superior? What makes beige-colored Caucasians superior? What makes stories built on prejudice sound and appear true? Evidently, the skill of the prejudiced to invent great stories to bolster their greatness and the inability of victims of prejudice to scientifically refute those fictitious stories are what help carry on the fake stories that Caucasians are superior.
Calling Caucasians white by non-Caucasians is idiocy born of ignorance and an inability to disown the inaccuracies of inherited illusions. They should recognize realities and motives. Caucasians’ skin color is beige, not white. Non-Caucasians should understand why Caucasians call themselves white. Non-Caucasians should realize that the Caucasians’ lone goal is to convince non-Caucasians that they are white and thus superior. When non-Caucasians call Caucasians white, they are following the notions of their ancestors while they were colonized, enslaved, and oppressed that Caucasians are white and superior. If notable Minority Americans like Al Sharpton, Jorge Ramos, and Fareed Zakaria were truly discerning, they wouldn’t ever call or consider a European American, or any Caucasian, white.
Minority Americans should learn how to improve their social status by improving their analytical power and economic status by revolutionizing their inherited notions. Victims cannot achieve liberation unless they learn the causes of their dispossession. They must stand up for their economic, social, and political rights. They must in particular get their economic disadvantages eliminated by electing uncorrupted progressive politicians. Economically disadvantaged minorities routinely fail to vote. If they ever vote, they often help elect candidates opposed policy-wise to improving their economic interests. Such realities keep Minority Americans marginalized. Such inanely incompetent realities are a continuum of ineffable ironies, incongruous surmises, endless oxymora, untellable paradoxes, and indefinable absurdities. It is an irrefutable conundrum that Barack Obama’s eight-year presidency did nothing to improve the economic plight of African Americans. Of course, it helped Al Sharpton become more famous.
It is an uncivilized practice to use crude terms to identify people. Calling a person white, black, or brown is crude and derogatory. A refined way is to use terms like African American, Asian American, Caucasian American, European American, Hispanic American, Jewish American, and Native American. One can use narrower terms like Irish Americans, Arab Americans, Cherokee Nation, Ethiopian Americans, or Cuban Americans. Calling Native Americans Indians is absurd. They are not Indians. People of India are Indians. Continuing the Columbus-age folly is idiocy. Calling Native Americans Indians even after 525 years is absurd. Calling African Americans black is reality distortion. A large segment of African Americans is not black. The skin color of African Americans includes beige, black, and brown. Why would anyone call a brown-colored or beige-colored African American black? Isn’t it idiotic to call former Congressman Harold Ford, Jr., black when his skin color is vividly beige? Grouping Greeks and Norwegians as whites is doubly and unimaginably absurd.
Caucasians call themselves whites. Sometime ago, they called African Americans colored. Now they call all non-Caucasians people of color. When Caucasians call non-Caucasians colored people or people of color, they imply they themselves are colorless. Maybe they consider themselves colorless because they believe their color is white and that white is not a color. Maybe they believe the color white is beyond color categorization. Caucasians are not white. Caucasians are colored. Like all other human beings, Caucasians are colored because their skin has a color. Their skin color is beige, not unlike the skin color of Chinese people. No human being is colorless. No colorless human ever existed. Every person has skin color. Everyone is thus colored. No human being is white. No white human ever existed. Minority Americans calling themselves people of color is utterly demeaning. It is idiocy for non-Caucasians to accept Caucasians’ label for them as people of color. Using or accepting the label “people of color” is an appalling absurdity, confirming their intellectual incongruity, highlighting their inability to escape their history of oppression and tradition of coercive indoctrination. They need liberation from oppressed brainwashing. They must escape their “mental slavery.”
In response to the alleged “shithole” comment by President Trump, the African Union’s recent statement described Africans as “people of color.” Such labeling is idiocy. Like Africans, all humans are people of color. Every Caucasian from whatever country is a person of color. Nobody is colorless. Every human being is a person of color. Neo-Nazi leader, Dillon Harper, is a person of color. The comedian, Islamophobic and bigoted Bill Maher, is colored. Senator Diane Feinstein is colored. Speaker Nancy Pelosi is colored. President Donald Trump is colored. Racist David Duke is colored. Former President Barack Obama is colored. That Wolf Blitzer is colored. That Chuck Todd is colored. Heavenly Father, Pope Francis, help people get that every human being is colored.
African American moderate Republican Senator Tim Scott, Hispanic American liberal Congressman Joaquin Castro, and Asian American progressive Democratic Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal are colored. Caucasian American diehard rightwing Republican Senator Tom Cotton and Caucasian American racist Republican Congressman Steve King are colored—just colored, not white, just colored, simply colored. African Americans were delighted during the Jim Crow era when more refined Caucasian Americans used colored as a polite term. In 1909, the term colored was a compliment. In 2019, it defines an incontrovertible truth because everyone now knows that every human being is colored. Every human being, including every Caucasian, is a colored person because every human being has a skin color. African American Cornell William Brooks is no more colored than Caucasian American Tom Cotton. Since African Americans are no more colored than Caucasian Americans, it is foolish for America’s most renowned, iconic, and vital African American organization, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, to continue to use “Colored People.” It could be the National Association for the Advancement of African Americans or the National Association for the Advancement of Minority Americans.
Minority American notables are delighted to consider themselves people of color. They look so grateful when Wolf Blitzer and Chuck Todd call them people of color. Billionaire Oprah Winfrey gets excited when she is called a woman of color. Leader Al Sharpton gets excited when he is called a person of color. Journalist Jorge Ramos gets excited when he is called a person of color. Senator Marco Rubio gets excited when he is called a person of color. Columnist Fareed Zakaria gets excited when he is called a man of color. Princeton professor Eddie Glaude gets excited when he is called a person of color. Demos’ Heather McGhee gets excited when she is called a woman of color. Such excitement of Minority American notables implies that America is crowded with colorless people descended from Mars. Those Minority American notables inadvertently help spread the fake idea that Caucasians are colorless, giving credence to the Caucasian Americans’ fake claim that they are white and superior.
Don’t those Minority American notables get that no human being is colorless? Don’t they feel embarrassed when they label themselves “people of color”? Don’t they realize that when they say they are people of color, they are labeling themselves inferior? Because the word colored has acquired an implied subtext of inferiority, it is a shame that those highly educated Minority American notables call themselves people of color. It is laughable that in their insecurity they label themselves “people of color,” exhibiting their colored mindsets. It is a shame that those highly educated Minority American notables call Caucasians white. It is laughable that in their insecurity they label beige-colored Caucasians white and thus look up to them for guidance on color.
Whether black, brown, or beige, no minority person is required to add ‘‘colored’’ or “person of color” to describe her or his identity because every human being is colored. No person is colorless. All human beings have a skin color. Hence, all humans are colored. Since Caucasians have skin color, they are not colorless. Like others, Caucasians are colored. The real issue is Minority Americans’ inability to disown their “mental slavery.” They don’t need to identify themselves as people of color. They could easily identify themselves as people or Minority Americans, African Americans. Asian Americans, Hispanic Americans, or Native Americans. Minority Americans should stop believing that they are colored and that Caucasian Americans are colorless. They should call Caucasians colored, as Caucasians call them colored. The meaning of the terms colored person and person of color are identical, unless Al Sharpton, Jorge Ramos, and Fareed Zakaria have redefined those terms. Imputing or impugning new meanings to existing terms will not help Minority American notables become smart and aware that none are superior and none are inferior.
Coercion and intimidation force people to feign and fake changes. Feigned and faked changes are untrue and insincere, ephemeral and expedient, seldom true or sincere. To help people sincerely change, they must be edified. Only awareness through edification helps people recognize the need for change, the need for understanding, the need for empathy. Pressuring Florida DNC member John Parker to resign for inadvertently referring to African Americans as “colored people” was diabolic deceit, unforgivable unfairness, and blatant discrimination. It was a mean reaction on the part of African Americans, especially since John Parker had sincerely apologized.
The HuffPost is marketed as a progressive online newspaper. Its women’s issues reporter Alanna Vagianos, Yahoo News’ Michael Isikoff, and Mother Jones’s David Corn are Caucasians. Recently, Alanna wrote a story about the book Russian Roulette, written by Michael and David. She used the terms women of color and contestants of color. Michael and David used the term women of color. Alanna wrote, “Trump has a long history of racist remarks.” While registering her disapproval for Trump’s racist remarks, Alanna made her own racist remarks. She identified non-Caucasian women as women of color and contestants of color. Michael and David labeled them “women of color.” It would make these journalists more progressive and enlightened if they could become more aware of their own prejudice. Like Trump, Alanna, Michael, and David are prejudiced. Like Al Sharpton and Oprah Winfrey, Alanna, Michael, and David are people of color. Like every other human being, Alanna, Michael, and David are colored. Since no human being is devoid of skin color, Alanna, Michael, and David are as colored as Kamala Harris and Ellen Ochoa.
On May 2, 2018, NBC News published a story with the headline, “Two Black men arrested at Starbucks settle with Philadelphia for $2.” Its lead sentence was “The two black men whose arrest at a Philadelphia Starbucks last month set off a wave of protests against the coffee giant for discrimination have reached a settlement with the city…” The names of the story’s heroes were wedged in small letters between the headline and lead sentence. To NBC, they were two black men. Their names were used as if an afterthought. Their names were demoted. Their skin color was promoted. The heroes were identified by their skin color, just like it was during the dark days before the civil rights movement. The readers were coerced into knowing the heroes, the two young men of aplomb and character, as two black men. The journalist who was trained in ignorance used the heroes’ skin color, the symbol of bigotry and mark of discrimination, to identify them. NBC thus was perpetuating prejudice.
The story’s heroes are Donte Robinson and Rashon Nelson, not two black men. To the NBC journalist, the heroes are two black men, first and foremost, though Dante and Rashon are two individuals. They are not black men; they are men. They do not represent the African American community. Nor does the African American community represent them. It is beneath journalists to use people’s skin color as their identity. It is vulgar journalism. It is rude journalism. Using one’s skin color as one’s identity insinuates a chasm of prejudice. It smacks of categorization. The polite way to introduce and identify people is by their legal name, not by their skin color. People’s honor and dishonor should be their true identity. Their goodness and evilness should be their true identity, not their skin color.
With little insight and discernment, journalists routinely broadcast and print fake news. They flourish in gossip without introspection or integrity. Police commonly act extremely prejudiced, tormenting and persecuting especially non-Caucasians. The Philadelphia police’s initial position smacked of racism. The way NBC reported the story smacked of vulgarity and prejudice. Journalists and police play a huge role in shaping and perpetuating racism, whether in Philadelphia’s Rittenhouse Square or Los Angeles’ Culver City. California’s Culver City is endemically, sweepingly, and pervasively prejudiced. California’s Culver City is incorrigibly racist. The Police Department and City Hall of Culver City habitually and knowingly incite, encourage, and support boorish prejudice and vulgar racism.
The Hypocrisy of Political Correctness
Political correctness coerces people into lying. Its role is similar to putting makeup on to hide acne. Fearing bad publicity and loss of livelihood, people say what is politically correct. However, what they say in public and what they believe do not even approximate. What they believe is infinitely more important than what they say. He lives in Culver City’s Culver Crest. Culver City is part of greater Los Angeles. He was born in South Asia. He doesn’t look or sound anything like an African American. Nevertheless, a beige-colored Caucasian-looking man, an ex-Marine, a building contractor, who lives in Culver Crest, called him a stupid nigger. Another time, a beige-colored Caucasian-looking man, then a Culver City police detective, now retired, who lives in Culver Crest, called him a dumb nigger.
Being intellectually aware and thus able to laugh at the ridiculousness of him, a South Asian–born man with a South Asian accent and no resemblance to an African American, being called a nigger by those two Caucasian-looking people, delighted him. It further confirmed his established experience that the residents of Culver Crest are exponentially and extravagantly prejudiced. They are racists. It told him more about his neighborhood and its people. It told him more about the lack of basic etiquette and refinement of those men, an ex-Marine and a police detective, and the people of Culver Crest. It refreshed his accrued discriminative experiences in Culver City. It added to the prejudiced, racist, and hateful experience he had in Culver City. People of Culver City did everything to prevent him from building a home in Culver City’s Culver Crest. The Culver Crest residents did everything against him to make his life a hell except burning crosses. The marks, stains, smudges, remnants, leftovers, remains, and vestiges of pink paint the Culver Crest residents threw at his new house 17 years ago are clearly and colorfully seen even today. Three people assaulted him brutally. One man, his neighbor, a doctor, pushed him after using an ethnic slur. The Culver City Police overtly supported and protected his assailants and detractors.
The Culver City Police consistently and unfailingly supported and protected his persecutors. It consistently discriminated against him. It violated his civil rights. It denied him justice. It worked every way to deprive him of fair play. From his experience, during the past almost a quarter of a century, he now knows the Culver City Police Department is more prejudiced, racist, and hateful, and more unfathomably corrupt, than the Police Department of Money, Mississippi, where 14-year-old Emmett Louis Till was lynched. Even though Culver City is a part of the second-largest city, Los Angeles, in the world’s most advanced country, America, its Police Department is more corrupt, prejudiced, racist, and hateful than any Police Department anywhere, more prejudiced than the world’s most backward or primitive country.
Parenthetically, he thought him being called a nigger by two Caucasian-looking men might grant him the privilege to be a “brother.” He doubts it. African Americans are driven by their own variety of prejudice and racism. Several African Americans have asked him to go back to where he came from. If the ex-Marine, and the now retired police detective, follow the politically correct requirement, they would deny that they ever called him a nigger. They would even say that they consider him the gentleman from South Asia. If those Caucasian-looking gentlemen were to pursue the politically correct path, they would deny their abhorrence, though in their inner sanctum, they consider him a nigger. Whether they said it openly or not, in their reckoning, in the depth of their hearts, he was a nigger to them.
Political correctness is idiocy. It is tyranny. It is coercive. It is a fake social innovation. Its acceptance is enforced through coercion and intimidation. It is devoid of persuasive appeal through edification of its benefits. It stipulates how people should talk and what people should say. It stipulates how something that was said should have been said. Its intent is to make people say their opinions differently from how they wanted to say them. Its intent is to change people’s attitudes and behavior through coercion and intimidation. As with Mao’s Cultural Revolution, neither coercion nor intimidation will change people’s attitudes and behavior. Only edification and persuasion will help people learn why they should change.
Political correctness was created to police free speech. Its penalty can be more brutal than police brutality. It could cost people their livelihood. For the media and pundits, it is a game of sensationalism. It is a fake standard. Humans are emotional beings. Most politically incorrect folks are not rabidly prejudiced. At times, even good people use foolish words. None are unprejudiced. Everyone is prejudiced. African Americans are prejudiced. Asian Americans are prejudiced. European Americans are prejudiced. Hispanic Americans are prejudiced. Native Americans are prejudiced. Every human being is inevitably prejudiced.
There is a huge difference between hate speech and careless utterances. Hate speech is abhorrent. The intent is to hurt, offend, and demean people. Hate speech is vicious and venomous, destructive and disparaging, frequently causing economic consequences. Politically incorrect utterance are manifestations of thoughtless splurges. Hate speech is meant to rate one group superior and another inferior. No person or no group is superior to any person or any group. Every human being is equal to every other human being. People who hold high positions are not superior to people who have no positions. The rich, powerful, and privileged are not superior to the poor, powerless, and unprivileged.
Haters’ intent is to cause pain and deprivation. Their motivation is to deny people rights and dignity. Only contemptible pariahs preach hate. Since they preach hate, they are unworthy of respect and recognition. Winston Churchill was a hater. John Wayne was a hater. David Duke is a hater. Steve King is a hater. Franklin Graham is a hater. Bill Maher is a hater. Haters’ intent for hatemongering is to degrade people, divide people, deny people, and deprive people. They spread hate to articulate their evil intentions.
Celebrity offenders of political correctness include women like Roseanne Barr, Kelly Osbourne, Rihanna, and Tila Tequila, and men like Mel Gibson, Floyd Mayweather, Jr., Ted Danson, Shaquille O’Neal, Jay-Z, Alec Baldwin, Soulja Boy, and Zab Judah. They cover a range of races, ethnicities, and nationalities. Allegedly, England’s Harry once called a man of South Asian ancestry “Paki.” As he married a mixed-race regular woman, he mightn’t be a racist—like others, just prejudiced. Prejudice transcends rank, class, status, and wealth. Ted Danson’s blackening his face to humor his then African American girlfriend Whoopi Goldberg, who defended him, was not a hate act. It was just stupid wasted bad humor. The late avatar of comedy, Richard Pryor, a comedic genius, an exceptionally inventive humorist, often used the word nigger; but it was always meant to be outrageously funny, facetiously funny, frivolously funny, always said with salacious humor, uttered with erotic humor.
Prejudice is an inclination, a feeling, a mindset. It leads to violence. It causes killings. Prejudice led to the murder of 14-year-old Emmett Till and 17-year-old Trayvon Martin. When the intent of a word or speech is to cause hate, its perpetrator must be ostracized and blackballed, censured and boycotted. It cannot be legally punished, however, since it is First Amendment free speech. Inadvertent and careless verbal offenses, not knowingly intended to cause hate, stemming from generic prejudice, is political incorrectness. It deserves mocking, merciless mocking; it deserves ridiculing, merciless ridiculing, nothing more, because it is unintended and careless. Although it is an inadvertent idiocy, it is nonetheless prejudice, though not an injurious prejudice intended to deny and deprive.
If political correctness was invented to help change people who show inadvertent non-hateful prejudice, they should be given a chance to articulate their explanation and express their regret, instead of censuring and punishing them. They shouldn’t be heartlessly demeaned or deprived of their humanity or livelihood. Virginia’s First Lady Pamela Northam was unfairly tainted as politically incorrect for using cotton as an educational prop to show how slaves were oppressed into picking cotton from dawn to dusk. That was unfair and uncalled for.
Punishment causes bitterness. It stirs up hostility. It consigns people to alienation. The punished become the victim. A punished person has little incentive to cordially cohabit with a punisher. The sole solution to prejudice is to persuade people to appreciate tolerance’s benefits. Lack of awareness of prejudice’s cost and tolerance’s benefits leads to loathing, revulsion, and exclusion. People need education on the costs of prejudice and benefits of tolerance. Preaching tolerance is preferable to punishing. Punishing is primitive and teaching is civilized.
Caucasian supremacist David Duke is a racist. He has been ostracized. For a long time, despite censure, he remains an infected racist, unreformed, indignant. If an insightfully creative person had sat him down and explained how his racist words cause offense to others, on reflection, he might recast himself as a tolerant human being. If David Duke were shown how he could become a congressman if he shed his racism, very likely, a long time ago, he would have shunned racism and prejudice to court tolerance.
In the past, Congressman Steve King talked racist talk, espousing Caucasian supremacy and nationalist ideology. As if an unstoppable disgorgement, he often coughed up racist rhetoric. He deserved to have been censured for his racist rhetoric. Nonetheless, he shouldn’t have been punished for his seemingly political incorrect question to the Times: “White nationalist, white supremacist, Western civilization— how did that language become offensive?” His question sounds like a high-minded academic probe or intellectual inquiry.
Over the years, Steve King brazenly and blatantly uttered racist rhetoric. The latest uproar, however, was about the political incorrectness of his question whether in America the right to free speech was aborted. The Bill of Rights constitutionally endows and guarantees everyone in America unalienable rights to free speech. He is being ostracized and punished for simply asking a constitutional free-speech question. The Republican Party stripped him of his committee assignments, like denying a child cookies for jumping on a sofa. It was wrong to strip him of committee positions for raising a constitutional question.
The Des Moines Register asked Steve King to resign. It was justified in its demand because he wouldn’t be able to represent Iowa effectively without a seat on the Agricultural Committee. However, its demand based on political correctness was unjust. It said, “He has lost even the potential to effectively represent his Iowa constituents because of his abhorrent comments about white nationalism and white supremacy.” Those Caucasians who believe they are superiors to some other people should be free without fear to say it. The First Amendment, a nearly founding document, fortifying the Constitution, gives everyone, including Steve King and Bill Maher, the right to make abhorrent comments. It strengthened America’s claim to exceptionalism and greatness. Diluting it will waste away America’s uniqueness. To cater to political correctness, no American should be prevented from opining. Abhorrence is a relative term. To escape censure, reprisal, notoriety, and punishment, even the revoltingly racist and poisonously prejudiced will speak in public unprejudiced. Isn’t it better to know who is really prejudiced? Isn’t it better to know who is really racist? What is important is what they truly believe.
Let people freely express even the most abhorrent opinions. Restrictions on free speech imposed for political correctness will inevitably force people into covert racism, covert intolerance, and covert bigotry, leading to goaded radicalism, conflagration of nameless violence. Political incorrectness is infinitely more preferable to anonymous violence undermining the rule of law and endangering people’s safety. Free speech can be therapeutic. When people let out their angry steam, such anger will unlikely transform into violence. Suppressed anger will necessarily lead to vicious violence. Political correctness is coercive. It demands of people controlled dialogue. It demands of people circumspect discourse. It demands of people never-ending vigilance. People get arrested and prosecuted in Egypt and Turkey, in Saudi Arabia and Bahrain, for political incorrectness. As in Bahrain and Egypt, America cannot require Americans to be vigilant about what they say. In despotic countries, vigilance is a necessary survival necessity. Vigilance is Kafkaesque.
In 1775, Patrick Henry said, at the Second Virginia Convention, “Give me liberty, or give me death.” What is liberty without freedom of speech? Let Steve King and David Duke speak. Let Al Sharpton and Farrakhan speak. Let Pamela Geller and Ann Coulter speak. Let Bill Maher and Franklin Graham speak. Let Barack Obama and Donald Trump speak. Let everyone say outrageously abhorrent opinions. Let the Times and The Register mock those opinions. Let there be no censure and punishment. Let everyone freely express and opine. Let America not be more hypocritical.
Even corporate Democrats are moving away from their banal charade. “Speak like yourself, be a human. Close the gap between the blow-dried, poll-tested, bullet-pointed politicians and the people.” Authentic progressives are poised to primary phony progressives and corporate Democrats. The new crop of progressives is emboldened to speak ill of corporate Democrats. They seem ready to slur progressive wannabes Kamala Harris and Kirsten Gillibrand. Is political correctness becoming passé for progressives?
Progressives must rely on intellectual confrontation, not physical confrontation, against tribally prejudiced groups infected with tendentiousness. Progressives must be above pettily cultivated malice. Intellectual confrontation emboldens moral authority. Physical confrontation inevitably leads to violence, which is detrimental to human progress. Progressives should never organize a counter protest against a prejudiced group at the same time, same day, and same place. They should organize a much bigger march the next day.
Let everyone in America speak freely without fear of punishment. Political correctness forces people to be hypocrites and liars. In every racial, ethnic, and nationality group, some people unavoidably believe they are superior. Let them say that. Let them say it very loud. Let Steve King wallow in the glory of racism. Let Bill Maher wallow in Islamophobia. Let Spike Lee and Ava DuVernay make moving movies about inhuman slavery and primitive prejudice. Let people use their free-speech right to express their beliefs without fear of censure and punishment. If Steve King introduces a legislation perpetuating or augmenting unfairness to America’s powerless, every decent conservative and liberal must vote against it, as if a lamentation to America’s failure to offer justice for its powerless. The 2016 presidential election recorded people’s exasperation and disgust with political correctness. Many people who voted for very politically correct Barack Obama in 2012 voted for very politically incorrect Donald Trump in 2016.
Would any objective editor or pundit consider rightwing Steve King more politically incorrect than liberal Hillary Clinton? Hillary said, “You could put half of Trump’s supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables.” They are “racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic. And he has lifted them up.” Calling half of 58 percent of the Caucasian voters who voted for Donald Trump deplorables was infinitely more disgraceful, deplorable, abhorrent, and politically incorrect than racist Steve King’s question to the Times.
Deplorable means contemptible or wretched. Hillary was unseemly to call half of all Trump’s Caucasian supporters deplorables. Although liberal media champion political correctness, it did not condemn Hillary the way it condemns King and Duke. America’s national characteristic cannot be reshaped through the duress of political correctness. Like others, some Caucasians are racist bigots. But one-half of all Trump’s Caucasian voters cannot be rabid racists. Many of Trump’s Caucasian supporters are poor and underprivileged, with genuine grievances, needing support.
It would be better for America if CNN’s Wolf Blitzer and NBC’s Chuck Todd, instead of wallowing in silly political incorrectness and wondering who Kim Kardashian’s surrogate is, focus on how America’s poverty can be eliminated, how America’s homeless problem can be remedied. Every day in America almost 400 women are raped. Those high-priced journalists should devote time to explain repeatedly, every single day, how heinous rape is, how cruel murder is, how ruinous corruption is, and how wasteful prejudice is. They should be devoting primetime to explain repeatedly how enlightened nonviolence is, how enlightened altruism is, and how enlightened tolerance is. If journalism could be revamped and reorganized into an idealistic mission, rather than a money-making enterprise like 7-Eleven, its free-speech and free-press privilege would be justified. If it is after money, then Donald Trump has a point when he repeatedly speaks of fake news.
Who Is an African American?
Andrew Young is African American. Jesse Jackson is African American. Maxine Waters is African American. Barbara Lee is African American. Tim Scott is African American. Cory Booker is African American. Colin Powell is not African American. Barack Obama is not African American. Kamala Harris is not African American. They are not African Americans since they have no link to America’s slavery. African American is a heritage, a legacy, a birthright. It could only be bequeathed by an American slave ancestor to an heir.
Every American citizen of German ancestry is a German American. Every American citizen of Japanese ancestry is a Japanese American. But every American citizen of African ancestry is not African American. Such profound distinction is uniquely warranted, as America’s slavery was unique, and it deprived and denied only African Americans. Despite their African ancestry, Jamaican Americans are not African Americans. Despite their African ancestry, Haitian Americans are not African Americans. Despite their African ancestry, Kenyan Americans are not African Americans. Only descendants of Africans imported to America as slaves using violence and against their will are African Americans.
Every American person with black skin color is not African American. A Nigerian American with black skin is not African American. An Indian American with black skin is not African American. A Saudi Arabian with black skin is not African American. Native Americans use specific criteria to determine who is, for instance, a member of the Apache Nation. Norms are used to decide membership to every Native American tribe. Elizabeth Warren’s claim to partial ancestry was rejected by the Cherokee Nation. The norm for African American is the link to slaves in America. Since Native Americans and African Americans were forced to endure unbearable injustice, their history is uniquely distinct from others. Their uniquely painful history separates them from others. Unlike Native Americans and African Americans, every other ethnic, national, and racial group in America was given legal, economic, and social support to prosper. Every other group in America was encouraged and assisted to achieve ongoing prosperity and privileges. None of them were forced to endure vengeful injustice for centuries.
Native Americans and African Americans were treated as odious and contemptible, outliers and outcasts. Victims of enslavement, segregation, and exclusion for near perpetuity were unable to conform to the standards of others who were given encouragement to pursue success. Prolonged inhuman and unjust oppression gradually build a discrete genetic mutation, causing distinct mindsets and behavior patterns. It is foolish to expect Native Americans and African Americans to behave overnight like Swedish Americans and German Americans.
The oppressed cannot promptly conform to the oppressors. Government policies and social systems, which forced Native Americans and African Americans to become losers, encouraged other Americans, like Danish Americans and English Americans, to become winners. Once a loser mindset is exogenously installed, it goes into an autonomous drive, a default mode, making people incapable of building attitudes crucial to win. Foisted loser mindsets result in torpor, laziness, hopelessness, indolence, inertia, and inferiority. Success gets lastingly erased from the losers’ vocabulary. Accomplishment gets lastingly erased from the losers’ vocabulary.
For four centuries, victims of slavery and segregation were legally excluded, barred, oppressed, denied, deprived, exploited, cheated, robbed, abused, raped, lynched, and murdered. They were barred from being free. They were barred from creating wealth. They were barred from earning fair wages. They were barred from learning about savings and investments, profit and loss, asset and liability, net benefit and net worth. Ancestors of each generation had nothing to bequeath. The only legacy, the only birthright they could ever bestow was the African American title.
Lately African Americans have become the Democratic Party’s especially reliable and overwhelmingly dominant voting group. So, Democratic presidential candidates who either look or personate African Americans become desperate to be accepted as African Americans. The crucial question is who should be considered an African American? What criteria should be used to decide who is an African American? Shouldn’t there be known criteria and benchmarks to determine who is an African American?
Andy and Jesse, Tim and Cory, are African Americans. Maxine and Barbara are African Americans. They were bequeathed the African American title by their ancestors, whose right to bequeath came from their endless suffering, caused by inhuman injustice, resulting from cruel slavery and segregation. Slavery was tyranny of oppression. Segregation was tyranny of domination. They were a continuum. Descendants of American slaves who were denied rights for life, liberty, justice, and dignity alone are African Americans.
It was exactly 400 years ago that the first Africans were imported to Virginia’s Jamestown colony. Even after 400 years, many daughters and sons of those who were brought against their will by violence weren’t given comparable opportunities and privileges. They have been unendingly denied and deprived, whereas plethoric opportunities and exceptional privileges were given to very recent European arrivals, like Arnold Schwarzenegger, who arrived 51 years ago, and Melania Trump, who arrived just 22 years ago. His heavy Austrian accent notwithstanding, Arnold became California’s governor. Her awkward Slovenian accent notwithstanding, Melania became the First Lady.
Victims of slavery and segregation were allowed neither humanity nor justice, neither dignity nor fairness. In their waking hours of torment and sleeping hours of nightmare, they sang blues to overcome their daily blues. They were forced to sell their pride, pawn their souls, forfeit their dignity, and hock their humanity. The slave men were inhumanely forced frequently to share their wives with their masters. Their suffering was borne through never-ending violence. After centuries of nonstop poverty, anguish, sorrow, and misery, pathological discrimination against them continues. While victims of slavery and segregation earned little wealth and little dignity, as if as an offset, as if a recompense, they earned a sacred right to christen their daughters and sons African American.
To qualify as African Americans, their ancestry must be traced back to slavery in America. Their ancestry must be traced back to the victims of American slavery’s inhumanity and indignity. Their ancestry must be traced back to the victims of slavery’s indigence and privation. Their ancestry must be traced back to the victims of slavery’s denial and deprivation. As a monument, history, and testament to the existential poverty and indignity slaves bore for generations, they earned the right to bequeath their offspring the African American title. No intruder should be entitled for that hallowed legacy.
Every Caucasian-looking woman cannot be a member of the lineage-based organization, The Daughters of the American Revolution. To get membership, she is required to have directly descended from a person who played a role in the blood-shedding American Revolutionary War. The fathers of those present-day daughters paid costly dues. Likewise, the slave ancestors of today’s African American children paid very costly dues. Did Barack Obama’s and Kamala Harris’s ancestors pay such costly dues to qualify them as African Americans? Ancestors of neither Barack Obama nor Kamala Harris were abused and robbed by American slavery’s inhumanity. Their ancestors had not suffered American slavery’s and segregation’s injustice and indigence. Since their ancestors did not powerlessly endure slavery, no costly dues were paid. Neither Barack Obama nor Kamala Harris are African Americans. Barack looks like Andy and Jesse. Barack looks like Tim and Cory. But Barack is no African American. Kamala looks like Maxine and Barbara. But Kamala is no African American.
There is nothing in Barack Obama’s ancestry, either maternal or paternal, connecting him to the shame, hardship, and indignity of slavery and segregation. Neither of his maternal nor paternal ancestors were oppressed and deprived by slavery. Barack Obama’s mother was a Kansas Caucasian. None of his mother’s ancestors were victims of slavery’s brutality. They suffered no costs and paid no dues. Alas, a few of the ancestors of Barack’s mother and his grandparents were slave owners. Barrack’s father was a Kenyan nationalist who chose Kenya’s meagerness over America’s abundance. His bond with Kenya was impenetrably constructed. The ancestors of Barack’s father were not touched by the evils of slavery. Obama’s father had no link whatsoever with slavery in America. His black skin color and African birth notwithstanding, a Kenyan-born father, with no link to slavery, cannot qualify his son as African American. Until he reached Chicago, Barack Obama was a mixed-race man with his father’s black skin color, birthed by a Caucasian mother, and raised as a Caucasian in a Caucasian world and culture.
Prior to reaching Chicago, Obama’s world and culture were exclusively Caucasian. He did not live African American culture. He had little involvement in the African American world. He might not have talked black talk or known Miss Ann and Mister Charlie. His only connection to slavery was his mother’s slave-owning ancestors. Americans of Honduran, Haitian, Jamaican, and Indian origin with black skin are not entitled to the African American title. Likewise, Obama’s black skin doesn’t qualify him as African American. Since Barack lacks any ancestral link to America’s slavery, he cannot be bestowed the African American heritage. That awesome title can only be bequeathed by ancestors who suffered the abomination, humiliation, subjugation, harshness, desperation, indigence, privation, desperation, and immorality of slavery and segregation. That ancestral suffering is the dues paid to be qualified as African American. Mixed-race people cannot be considered African American unless one of their parents descended from an American slave.
Until he reached Chicago, Obama was a European American with black skin. He knew his political future in Chicago would be decided by whether its African Americans would accept him as one of them. As a prologue to building a bridge with Chicago’s African Americans, Obama launched two astutely smart moves. Though in the past he had few romantic links with African American women, he married Michelle Robinson, an African American, a Harvard graduate, and a very resourceful woman, as his first and most crucial step toward getting accepted by Chicago’s African Americans.
Marriage with African American Michelle Robinson did not qualify him as an African American, not unlike his African-born father with black skin did not become a Caucasian after marrying his Caucasian wife. However, Michelle was able to give him an invaluable and influential introduction to Chicago’s African American power brokers. Michelle introduced him to the city’s elites. Michelle also helped him gain access to very powerful and important African Americans like Jesse Jackson, Louis Farrakhan, and Oprah Winfrey.
His father was a nominal, passive Muslim. His mother was an agnostic-atheist. Until he reached Chicago, he had little interest in churches. Once he reached Chicago, however, he joined Jeremiah Wright’s 8,500-strong African American Trinity United Church of Christ. With African American Michelle Robinson as wife and membership in Jeremiah Wright’s African American church, Obama achieved his goal to get accepted by Chicago’s African American community and help him pass as an African American. Blackness, Michelle, and Trinity Church gave him the break he coveted so badly.
Is Kamala Harris African American? She is not. Her father, Donald Harris, came from Jamaica. Regardless of whether they live in Jamaica or America or Britain, few Jamaicans identify themselves as African Americans. The subjects of Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom, Jamaicans consider themselves a tad superior to African Americans. Former Prime Ministers Michael Manley and Edward Seaga and reggae prophet Bob Marley and reggae pioneer Peter Tosh would never consider themselves African Americans. Jamaicans are vocally nationalistic, cherishing their island nation’s unique identity.
Kamala Harris’s mother, Shyamala Gopalan, was a Dravidian born in India. Her mother’s black skin notwithstanding, nothing ever connects a Dravidian from India with the descendants of America’s slaves. Although the Aryans who invaded India oppressed Dravidians, few Indians, whether Aryans or Dravidians, would ever consider African Americans equal in any way. Entrenched notions among Indians have always been that they are rather superior to Africans and a tad inferior to Europeans. That is India’s bent.
Kamala Harris’s parents came from foreign countries. Her ancestors, maternal and paternal, have absolutely no connection whatsoever with slaves in America. Neither Jamaica nor India had any physical, social, or spiritual connections to America’s unconscionable slavery. The space between Kamala’s Jamaican-born father and African Americans was packed with shadows of sparsely opaque grayness. The space between Kamala’s Indian-born mother and African Americans was crammed with shadows of densely opaque darkness.
Despite their common African ancestry and skin color similarity, there is little connection between Jamaicans and African American descendants of America’s slaves. They are two different people with two distinct history, nationality, and experience. Despite skin color overlap, very little connection ever existed between Indians and African Americans. Those two races stand apart like oil and water. Caste-, bigotry-, and tradition-controlled Hindu Dravidians are virally distant from historically fluid, signally artistic, socially atypical, and culturally daring African Americans. While the Indians are overwhelmed by the rigidity of the caste system and the rigor of tradition, the African Americans are stirred by the elasticity of change and the flexibility of tolerance.
Since her ancestors had little biological connection to America’s slaves, Kamala Harris has no identifiable racial connection to African Americans. Neither her maternal nor paternal ancestors had any relation to slaves in America. She grew up in her Hindu mother’s household since she was seven with limited participation from her Baptist father. Her mother’s Hindu faith was decreed by its cruel caste system. Her mother’s Hindu faith was founded on the dictum that some people are born superior while others are born inferior. Her years in Canada limited her true assimilation into African American culture. Her father was non-African American. Her mother was non-African American. She has an Indian Hindu name. She grew up in an Indian Hindu household. She is married to a non-African American. She has little connection to the African American ethos. Thus, Kamal is devoid of any biological, sociological, and cultural connection to African Americans.
Occasional attendance at a black Baptist church, occasional singing in a black Baptist choir, living a short period in black neighborhoods, attending an African American university, or dating an African American man wouldn’t make Kamala African American. Her half-Indian and half-Jamaican ancestry denies her a true connection to American slavery. Her pretense as an African American is no different from the Caucasian woman Rachel Dolezal’s posturing as an African American.
African American identity is not determined by percentages, collateral association, or sheer audacity to posture or tenacious attempt to purloin. There is only one determinant. There is only one reference. There is only one tracer. That is whether the claimant has an eloquent and epochal connection to America’s slavery. Heritage of American slavery alone qualifies an American as African American. Kamala Harris is inarguably bereft of an eloquent and epochal connection to African American reality. Her raucously audacious attempt to act as an African American notwithstanding, Kamala Harris is no African American.
Hindu Indian American Deception
India is a sham. It is a farce. It is the epitome of injustice. It is an incorrigible violator of human dignity. It is devoid of humanity. It is retrograde. It is boorish. Its very existence is dictated by its caste system. India’s caste system totally degrades and demeans humans. Its caste system unapologetically and unendingly divides people into born superior and born inferior. The divide between each caste is inalterable, irremediable, irreversible, and everlasting. The caste system is an odious, inhuman, and diabolic system. It degrades humans into groupings of born superior or born inferior. It insists all people are created unequal. How do Hindu Indian Americans reconcile their caste belief that all people are created unequal with the American ideal that all people are created equal? That American ideal is antithetical to the caste system’s ideology that people are born unequal.
The inviolable rule governing the caste system stipulates that people are born superior and inferior. Each of the four castes is hierarchically organized in descending order of importance. Brahmins are on the top. Then comes the Kshatriyas. The third in the descending hierarchy is the Vaishyas. At the bottom is the Shudras. The castes are destined to be mutually exclusive. Each caste lives in exclusion and isolation, prohibited from interweaving, intermingling, and intermarrying. Below the castes are the Untouchables whom the Hindu religion considers human waste and commands to carry human waste.
Hindu Americans use their caste names as their last names. Iyer and Sharma are Brahmin names. Chopra and Deshpande are Kshatriya names. Aggrawal and Chettiars are Vaishya names. Patel and Pillai are Shudra names. Some of the common surnames of Indian Hindu Americans are Bose, Chopra, Desai, Gupta, Iyer, Menon, Modi, Pai, Patel, Reddy, Sen, Shah, and Varma. The FCC Chairman Ajit Pai’s last name is a caste name. Guru Deepak Chopra’s last name is a caste name. Nobel Laurite Amartya Sen’s last name is a caste name. Journalist-neurosurgeon Sanjay Gupta’s last name is a caste name. Former Governor Bobby Jindal’s last name is a caste name.
As in Europe, in America, the last name is the name in common by members of a family. It has no reference to one’s class or religion or status. It is just a name to distinguish one family from other families. In the case of Hindu Indian Americans, their feigned last names are not family names like those of other Americans. Their feigned last names are their caste names. The caste name indicates in what layer an individual belongs in the caste hierarchy, on the top or at the bottom or in the middle. The constituents of the hierarchy are mutually excluded, permanently separated, eternally divided, lastingly unbridgeable, forever remaining apart. A Brahmin at the apex is invariably secluded from a Shudra at the base. A Rao who is Brahmin is immutably separated from a Patel who is a Shudra.
About two million Indian Hindus live in America. Almost all of them carry their caste names as their last names. Their voluntary use of their caste names as their last names affirms their subscription and submission to the commands of the caste system. Their last names tell their caste and their caste’s ranking. Their last names summarizes their everlasting duties, powers, privileges, and prerogative. Their caste commands are infinitely more binding than Muslims’ Sharia laws. Regardless of whether the Hindus were immigrated to or born in America, their use of caste names as last names is a voluntary commission. Their use of caste names as last names tells their voluntary submission to the caste system’s commands. Their use of caste names as last names affirm their belief in the caste hierarchy. Their use of caste names as last names affirm their belief in the caste system’s dictum that people are born superior and inferior. Their use of caste names as last names affirm their belief that people unalterably and everlastingly divided and remain superior and inferior. Their use of caste names as last names affirm their belief that people are born unequal and remain everlastingly and immutably unequal. Their caste names are their sole mark that identities their position, their status, their dos, theirs don’ts, their destiny, and their reality. The use of their caste names as last names affirm their acceptance of their caste-destined human reality.
Everything about the Hindus is their caste. Their lone option is their caste. Their caste defines their rights, duties, occupation, and lifestyle. Neurologist-journalist Sanjay Gupta cannot intermingle with Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen. They are required to be separated, insulated, and ensconced. Like Canton de Genève’s control de l’habitant card, they are required to carry and bear their caste name, which lists their dos and don’ts, privileges and prohibitions, entries and exists.
According to the caste system, which is the core tenet of the Hindu religion, people are born superior and inferior. Nothing can ever change it. The Brahmin caste is superior to the Kshatriya, Vaishya, and Shudra castes. A Kshatriya can never become a Brahmin. A Vaishya can never become a Kshatriya. A Vishay is always a Vaishya. At the bottom are Shudras. They are forever tagged as people of the lowly caste. As they were born to the lowly caste, they are fated to be servile. Caste defines each person’s inborn rank. The caste system’s irreversible and irremovable doctrine is that everyone is born unequal. Inequality is immutably imposed. Inequality is everlastingly enshrined.
Most Hindu Americans became quintessential Americans without altering their adherence to their caste. Their willingness to carry caste names as their last names tethers them to the caste ideology and hierarchy. The caste system propagates and perpetuates human inequality. Regardless of whether naturalized citizens or born citizens, every Hindu Indian American who carries a caste name is a believer in the caste system’s doctrine that people are born superior and inferior. That is diabolically antithetical to America’s novel and innovative Jefferson doctrine that all people are created equal. Can an Indian American with a caste name be any different from a Caucasian supremacist?
America became unique and exceptional when Thomas Jefferson’s maxim “all men are created equal” was made into a founding ideal in the Declaration of Independence, which became the guiding spirit of the Constitution’s construction. Every evolutionary change in America was prompted and driven by that ideal that all people are created equal. Italian Americans were elevated by that ideal. Jewish Americans were elevated by that ideal. African Americans were elevated by that ideal. Since he believes Caucasians are superior to everyone who is not a Caucasian, David Duke is considered racist and a Caucasian supremacist. He failed to become an important leader because he was considered a racist who believes some people are born superior and some people are born inferior. Not unlike the Caucasian Supremacists, Hindus believes humans are born superior and inferior. They believe people everlasting remain unequal as they were born superior and inferior.
Brahmins believe non-Brahmins are inferior. Neomi Rao owns and bears her caste name, Rao, a regional name for the Brahmin caste. As a Brahmin who uses her caste name as her last name, she must believe in her born superiority over the members of other castes. Being a conservative Republican, she was hired as Trump’s administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs. Recently, she was confirmed as a Federal Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. As her caste makes her believe in her superiority, she cannot grasp the importance of justice and treat others as equals to her. Since she is a follower of the caste system and a Brahmin, her belief is akin to Nazism, which insisted on the exclusive superiority of the Nordic and Germanic people and everyone else’s inferiority. Despite Senator Tim Scott’s vote to confirm her, as a believer in the caste system, the Brahmin Neomi Rao cannot consider African American Senator Tim Scott equal to her. Despite Senator Marco Rubio’s vote to confirm her, the Brahmin Neomi Rao cannot consider a non-Aryan Cuban American Senator Marco Rubio equal to her.
Neither conservatives nor progressives need to become ideological extremists, resorting to reversion. As human awareness aided by technology progress grows, the human outlook must change to modernity. Maybe two hundred years ago most people, including women, thought women were intellectually inferior. Today, even Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh would readily agree that there is no genetic difference between men and women in intellectual power. Women could easily take over the world if they stop allowing patriarchal dominance.
What kind of humanity, idealism, or principle does Mitch McConnell have? Blinded by his bigoted hatred against the politics of liberalism and a vendetta to win at any cost, Mitch has neither idealism nor honor. Confirming a woman who believes in her born superiority to the nation’s second-highest court, he forced the admired leaders, Washington, Jefferson, and Lincoln, who believed that all people are created equal, to turn in their graves. Since not unlike Nazis, Brahmins consider “Yellows” inferior, Mitch might have unnerved his own wife, the Honorable Elaine Chao.
Kshtryas are just below the Brahmins. Tandon is a Kshatrya name. Since Neera Tandon bears a caste name, she must believe in the caste system, and that she is a Kshatrya, and she is superior to Vaishyas and Shudras. To Kshatrya Neera Tandon, Dalits are untouchables. She is an attorney and a Democrat. She was a Clinton confidante and an Obama aide. She is the president of the Center for American Progress, cofounded by corrupt Democratic Party fixer John Podesta. Since she is so influential and connected in the Democratic Party, it is very likely she could be a Cabinet member in the next Democratic administration. There is an eloquent irony about Neera. She wants to make America more egalitarian. Her posturing resembles putting a round peg in a square hole. She lacks basic humanity since she follows the inhuman caste system, which inhumanly denies equality to humanity. Hinduism treat the Dalits, the untouchables, even more inhumanely and harshly than America treated its slaves. She lives American politicians’ inimitable hypocrisy, which her patrons, Hillary, Bill, and Barack, have elevated into an immutable inevitability, turning America into truly callous, inhumane, and untruthful.
Belief in the caste system and belief in human equality are irreconcilable. Since the caste system’s central belief is that people are born unequal, none who belong to and believe in it could accept human equality. Neomi Rao, Neera Tandon, and other Hindu Americans who boldly bear caste names are true believers in the caste system, which forbids them from subscribing to the maxim that all people are created equal.
David Duke irreversibly failed to become important in America. He has been censured nonstop for being a Caucasian supremacist. Rao’s and Tandon’s names reveal their belief in the caste system, which posits that people are born superior and inferior. Despite their incorrigible belief in the inhumane caste system and their impervious belief in human inequality, Neomi and Neera, unlike David Duke, were given unlimited openings to climb to power. It happened because of Americans’ intellectual disinterest in learning about India’s caste system.
Intellectual disinterest is America’s national pastime. Although many Americans pretend they are intellectually superior and most Americans reveal which side of the political spectrum they are on, conservative or progressive, there is nevertheless never-ending apathy toward intellectual inquiry and exploratory curiosity. There is infinite disinterest for investigative enquiry. There is little evidence of America’s intellectual curiosity and commitment to truth. Nancy Pelosi parades her ignorance as she conflates criticism of Israel’s apartheid policy with anti-Semitism. Anti-Semitism is abhorrent. Condoning anti-Semitism, racism, Islam-hating, Caliphate or Caucasian supremacy is callous. Saying Palestinian leader Abbas is corrupt is not being anti-Palestinian. Saying the Hamas is insane is not being anti-Palestinian. It is a criticism against the Palestinian leadership. Saying Netanyahu is corrupt, bigoted, and inhumane is not anti-Semitism. Saying Israel’s apartheid policy against Palestinians is immoral is not anti-Semitism. Saying America’s blatant prejudice against Palestinian Christians and Muslims is immoral is not being anti-American. It is a criticism against Israel’s and America’s policies, neither anti-Semitic, nor anti-Jewish, nor anti-American. Human beings are separated from animals by curiosity. If leaders of the superpower America cannot pursue their curiosity, their vested endowment, to analyse and discern issues, it would lead to a deplorable insufficiency, which would inevitably entail an unbearable economic and moral cost.
Violence Exemplifies Human Nature
Humans are violent. Genetically and temperamentally. People are autonomously inclined toward violence. Violence is human embodiment. It is biological, emotional, and environmental. Violence is humans’ indivisible quintessence, a part of human nature, a measure of human disposition. It is indivisibly embedded in human makeup. Violence is an innate reality, a permanent feature of the human landscape, a part of the human essence, a mark of human nature, an aspect of human environment. Everyone is violent. There are no exceptions, exemptions, or exonerations. It is innate. It is immanent. It is inherent. It is inborn. It is inherited. Its inseparability and innateness fashion in people an inescapable draw toward violence. The excitement and thrills of violence set forth its dominion, which inevitably coerces people into an irremediable dependence.
Violence exemplifies human nature. Violence is humanity’s embodiment and essence. Everyone is born with an inclination for violence. Violence occurs when one’s inborn inclination is actualized. It is heightened or lessened by one’s environment. It began at the birth of humanity when Adam’s son, Cain, killed his brother, Abel. It is universal, ubiquitous, and unending. Violence constructs barbarity. Violence is the medium of cruelty. It is humanity’s eternal scandal. Violence makes humanity lastingly uncivilized. Violence keeps humans forever uncivilized. It causes inevitable destruction, entailing an unbearable economic cost. It causes poverty. It perpetuates poverty. Its power to destroy unavoidably engulfs humanity in lasting impoverishment.
Violence drains humans of humanity. It depicts humanity’s inhumanity. It marks human savagery. It pronounces human cruelty. It bridges the space between human disposition and animal traits. It measures the human capacity for brutality. Violence epitomizes human emotion. Everyone is preset for violence. All are prone to violence. Babies scratch mothers. Children routinely fight. Adults thrive on violence, which is an inevitable medium of excitement and thrills. It is an embedded human reality. Violence defines human environment. Human environment intuits, invent, and incarnates violence. It inescapably insinuates violence.
Violence has been continuing nonstop ever since Cain killed Abel. It kills and injures people. It destroys and damages properties. Deaths, injuries, destructions, and damages cause unbearable economic and social costs. Deaths, injuries, destructions, and damages wreck wealth. As violence kills, injures, destroys, and damages, it causes unmitigated and undeniable wealth destruction, which inevitably causes poverty. Violence prevents ongoing improvement in people’s standard of living and quality of life. Through wealth destruction, violence dispossesses and impoverishes people. Violence ruins nations. Iraq is ruined. Syria is ruined. Yemen is ruined. Since violence is barbarism, brutality, and savagery, humanity can never become civilized as long as violence is perpetuated. Violence permanently prevents humanity from becoming civilized. It thwarts humanity’s wish to climb to the mountaintop. Since it is barbaric, it causes dehumanization. Violence’s inevitability and inescapability had thrilled people into cruelly crucifying Jesus, the prince of peace, and maleficently murdering Gandhi, the prophet of nonviolence.
Violence is universal and endemic. Violence causes ruin to every country, regardless of its level of prosperity, its stage of development, or the nature of its economy. Violence is the primary cause of the poverty in poor and rich countries, alike. It destroys a good part of the wealth that poor backward countries own and receive. The poverty in rich advanced countries and the wealthy oil baron nations explains violence’s unavoidable cost and tragedy. In rich America and poor Haiti, violence inescapably cuts economic growth and unavoidably worsens poverty.
Violence kills and injures people. It destroys and damages assets. It ruins the environment. Living and healthy humans are wealth. Undestroyed and undamaged assets are wealth. Dead people and destroyed assets cease to be wealth. Dead people and destroyed assets will no longer be available to increase production, output, and economic growth. As injured people and damaged assets become less productive, their contribution to economic growth is curtailed. Costs to heal the injured and repair damaged assets reduce wealth. Reduction in wealth cuts investments and cuts in investments cut economic growth that inevitably worsens poverty.
Violence causes deaths and injuries. It causes destructions and damages. It reduces resource supply, resource efficiency, and resource productivity. It distorts allocation efficiency. It reduces wealth, investments, economic growth, and social progress. Reduction in economic growth and social progress curtails economic development. As a result of violence, achieved prosperity is destroyed and achievable prosperity is thwarted. Such destructions unavoidably bring about transcended economic ruin. Such ruin entails huge economic costs, and worsening poverty, reducing the standard of living and quality of life, which propagates human indignity. As violence proliferates, barbarity and brutality abound, keeping people forever uncivilized and impoverished. Its innateness notwithstanding, violence causes to people irreparable sadness.
Since violence is universal, endemic, and unending, it causes endless and infinite deaths and injuries. No one knows how many people were killed since Adam landed on the Earth. It must be billions. During World War II, about 85 million people were killed. About 24 million Russians were killed. Six million Jews were killed. About 500,000 Americans were killed. About 30 million soldiers were wounded. Reliable data on civilian deaths and injuries and property destruction and damage are not available. Wars destroy everything previously built. They cause widespread ruins to human accomplishments. Violence destroys monuments of human civilizations, human history, and human evolvement. Violence causes only losses, never any profits.
Despite the glut of history of such encompassing ruins, violence continues nonstop. Every day, everywhere, individuals commit violence. Groups commit violence. Countries commit violence. People are killed and maimed. Wealth is destroyed and damaged. Nations are ruined. Development is arrested. Progress is stunted. Nonetheless, everything about violence is hyped, glorified, exalted, and deified nonstop.
Entertainment is wrapped in violence. Entertainment does up violence in enthralled excitement. It deifies violence. Entertainment’s intent is to entice people into paying billions to watch gory violence, grisly violence, and ghastly violence. It peddles violence to mint billions. It mints millionaires. Peddler Clint Eastwood is rich. Peddler Arnold Schwarzenegger is rich. Peddler Bruce Willis is rich. Peddler Sylvester Stallone is rich. Sport is violence. It imitates and portrays violence. It personifies and exemplifies violence. Boxing is violence verbatim. Wrestling is literal violence. Football is violence, often causing fatal brain injuries. Sex is violence. Its process is penetration, symbolic of marauding. Childbirth is violence. Humanity is inescapably encased in violence.
Violence is as endless as ignorance is seamless. Violence epitomizes human ignorance. Excitement about violence is stirred by human barbarity. Violence’s glorification is built on an uncivilized mindset, intellectual uncouthness, a surfeit of unawareness, a paucity of discernment, and a dearth of deliberation. Attraction to violence is built on people’s disinclination and inability to become civilized. Recurring conflagrations of violence cause unending ruination of wealth and perpetuation of poverty. Violence deprives humanity of both nobility and dignity. As people unendingly tend to their greed and thrive on their prejudice, they let the cost of violence sink them to the depths, the bottom, and the void. Humanity allows the surfeit of violence to force it to wallow in the misery of poverty.
Humans are animals. Violence exemplifies humans’ emotional makeup and environmental setup. The human environment, comprising of society and culture, has evolved through violence. Consequently, people are both emotionally predisposed to and environmentally conditioned by violence. It is caused by people’s innate inclination. It is actuated by people’s inborn disposition. Violence is a part of human essence. In people, it is instinctual. It is organically ingrained. It is emotionally entrenched. It is an embedded predisposition. Everyone is born with an inclination for violence. The disposition for violence is built from the barbaric notion of self-preservation.
Everybody is prone to violence because everyone is violent. Babies are violent. Children are violent. Men are violent. Women are violent. Nonbinaries are violent. Transgenders are violent. Heterosexuals are violent. Homosexuals are violent. Farmers are violent. Factory workers are violent. University presidents are violent. Everyone is violent. No one is excluded.
Nobody had ever successfully prevented the uninterruptedness and continuousness of violence, the wickedness and heinousness of violence. It was violence that cruelly killed Jesus of Nazareth, the prince of peace, and Gandhi of India, the prophet of nonviolence. Narendra Modi, who is India’s current prime minister, and Nathuram Godse, who killed Gandhi were members of the same religious-political-terrorist party. Pronouncing their affinity for violence, Donald Trump and Joe Biden issued a challenge to duke it out, as if they were confirming their readiness for rendering a miniature of the Burr-Hamilton duel. Violence is everywhere. It is universal. It is ubiquitous. It is widespread everywhere, in rich and advanced England and in poor and backward Yemen. It is universal because violence is an inborn feature in human existence, an inseparable human reality, an indivisible human essence.
Everything about and around human beings is inseparably and inevitably tied to violence. Nothing about human beings enlightens them on nonviolence. Nothing about human beings entices them toward nonviolence. Nothing about human beings confirms the human commitment to nonviolence. Nothing is ever said, nothing is ever shown, and nothing is ever done about promoting nonviolence. No one is taught about the merits and benefits of nonviolence. No one talks about nonviolence. Seldom are movies made on the glory and benefit of nonviolence. Seldom are television shows created on the merit and benefit of nonviolence. Seldom are documentaries made to narrate the untold benefits of nonviolence. Seldom are daytime talk shows created to discuss the immenseness and infiniteness of the benefit of nonviolence. Seldom do preachers give sermons on the beauty and virtue of nonviolence. Seldom do politicians campaign on the importance of the economics of nonviolence. Seldom are textbooks written on the splendor and grandeur of nonviolence. Seldom do scholars write essays on the nobility of nonviolence. Seldom do journalists report on the advantages of nonviolence.
Men are especially violent because they are primed for violence. Their existential embodiment is violence. Their rite of passage is violence. Bravery, boldness, and courage are defined and viewed as manly characteristics. Bravery is defined to refer to man’s daring in the face of extreme violence. Boldness is defined to refer to man’s fearlessness in the face of extreme violence. Courage is defined to refer to man’s readiness to face extreme violence. Sissy is a term for a nonviolent man. Yellow is also a term for a nonviolent man.
Man is groomed to be violent. He is molded to be violent. He is coached to be violent. He is required to be violent. He is expected to routinely resort to violence. He is primed to be bold. He is directed to be brave. He is urged to be courageous. His vocation is to defend and protect. His role is to be a valiant knight, a brave soldier. He is molded to be imbued with valor and daring. Heroism is the indelible attraction for women’s attention. Women are thrilled by man’s readiness to defy violence. Women desire fearless men, daring men, and brave men. Every woman wants to be with a superman. History is a narrative of men’s pursuit and quest for violence.
As women emerge at a snail’s pace from the patriarchy’s shadow, they are being primed for violence. Women’s eagerness for violence is steadily rising. More women are cast as terminators. More women want to become boxers, wrestlers, and football players. More women are joining armies whose vocation is to kill and maim, dedicating to violence. More women are abusing children. More women are killing. Women are ready to earn honors like “womasculinity” and “womachismo,” paralleling masculinity and machismo.
Domestic disputes and romantic despair cause violence. Susan Eubanks and her boyfriend had a big fight. She became enraged. After slashing his car tires, she locked him out of the house. She made an ominous phone call to the father of one of her sons. As revenge against her lover, she committed an unspeakable evil, a filicide, depicting her extreme cruelty, marking her extreme callous inhumaneness. She shot and killed all four of her sons. She killed 14-year-old Brandon, seven-year-old Austin, six-year-old Brigham, and four-year-old Matthew.
Diane Downs had an affair with a married man. He left her to go back to his wife, as he did not want any more children. Diane stalked him and pleaded with him. He rejected her entreaties. To entice him back, she decided to offer herself free of her motherly obligation and human responsibility. She decided to kill her three children. She shot them while they were sitting in her car. Her daughter, Cheryl, was killed; her son, Danny, was paralyzed from the waist down; and her daughter, Christie, suffered a stroke that left her disabled. Diane Downs celebrated her violence’s callous cruelty. Unlike Susan B. Anthony and Eleanor Roosevelt, in 2019, women teem with a growing passion for violence and abound with an infatuation for cruelty.
Unfathomable Human Barbarity
Routinely, people sexually assault little children. Routinely, people brutally kill little children. People’s readiness to sexually assault and kill kids shows their true embodiment of barbarity and brutality, savagery and inhumanity. Those predators are peddlers of unmitigated evil. Grownup animals do not attempt to use baby animals for sexual gratification. Unfathomably, growing numbers of mothers are abusing and killing their children. Unfathomably, so many fathers are abusing and killing their children. An ever-growing number of strangers are abusing and killing children. Since humanity is obsessed with Game of Thrones and The Avengers, it sadly cannot find time to civilize itself. There is no worse inhuman and uncivilized trespass than abusing and killing little children. People who resort to unforgivably heinous abuse of little children might find a possible coincidence of intersection and overlap of sameness with peddlers of violent entertainment for children.
Little Asifa was eight, adorable, sweet, and beautiful. Her lovely big eyes dominated her steeply cascading nose. Delight on her dimpled cheeks whispered her secret dreams to her rosy lips. The melody of her serene smile streamed a calming rhythm. In her purple dress decked with golden leaves, she looked as if she had been born a Disney princess. Her poise suggested a gifted grace fostered by the luxury of opulence from being born to seamless wealth. In reality, she belonged to a nomadic tribe, barely subsisting in indigence.
She was born to Muslim parents in Hindu India. Her tribe moved from place to place, looking for pastures to graze its horses. It was a soft sunny January winter day. Her last stop was Kathua, in India’s Jammu. She was alone, lost in her happy wonderment, delighted with her horses. Suddenly, a gang of bigoted Hindutva men emerged. The mission of those bigoted Hindus is to enforce the Hindu hegemonic beliefs and culture on India’s Jews, Christians, and Muslims. They lured Asifa into darkness, within the adjacent forest, into the callousness of cruelty.
For the sin of having Muslim parents, the bigots kidnapped the eight-year-old girl, drugged her, and starved her. As though her presence in Kathua incensed the local Hindu deity, they locked her in the temple as an offering to appease the angry deity. The little eight-year-old girl was raped by a gang of men for three consecutive days, furnishing a voyeuristic sacrament to the depraved deity of a dystopian temple. One of the rapists insisted on raping her one last time before she was killed, as if it were the lone path to his salvation.
As though the child rapist was performing a diabolic ritual, a juju, sorcery, he sacrificed the little girl as devotion to Hades. His wish was granted. He got the deity’s blessing for his satanic ritual on a child. A gang of wicked men raping an eight-year-old girl for three days before killing her was a one-off reality. Was it truly a one-off reality? It was an evil crime, a diabolic crime, a wicked crime, committed by vicious Hindutva men, as if to please a deity of depravity and prejudice. Gang raping a little girl for three consecutive days to please a wicked god marked man’s scandalous fiendishness.
Gang raping a child before she was strangled to death marked man’s savagery. Gang raping, drugging, and starving a child before killing her marked man’s unfathomable barbarity. Since little Asifa was bereft of any trace of sexiness, it was not a sex crime. It was crime of prejudice, insinuated by their extreme Islamophobia. Did Nazis ever gang-rape little girls? Precedents are irrelevant when Hindutva men revel in Muslim hatred. The team the bigoted India chose to investigate Asifa’s rape and killing included some of her rapists and killers.
Since Asifa was a child of Muslim parents, many local Hindus rooted for the child’s rapists. A mob of Hindu attorneys barricaded the police from entering the courthouse to file the charges against the accused. A Hindu woman supporter of the child’s rapists said that if the accused men weren’t freed, “we will burn ourselves.” Despite so much public anger and disgust, for three long months, India’s prime minister, the bigoted Muslim hater, Hindutva Narendra Modi, did not mention the inhuman crime against a child.
The Hindutva bigots kidnapped, locked up, drugged, starved, tortured, and consecutively gang- raped eight-year-old Asifa for three days. Then she was strangled to death. Their motivation for the heinous crime was their hatred for Muslims. Their bigotry made them consider the eight-year-old Asifa a Muslim. True, she was born to Muslim parents. But she was not a Muslim. At the age of eight, Asifa did not have the maturity and awareness to understand and choose a religion, or grasp distinctions between religions.
A person can choose a religion only after he or she reaches mature adulthood after making a conscious and reasoned decision as to what religion he or she wants to follow. Asifa’s birth to Muslim parents notwithstanding, she could have decided when she became an adult to join any religion or no religion. She could have become a Hindu, Christian, or Jew. How can any person of common sense consider an eight-year-old girl Muslim or Mormon, atheist or Amish, Hindu or Hebrew? Ignorance is human travesty.
Bexar County is in Texas. Jose Nunez was a deputy and had been with the Sheriff’s department for 10 years. On June 17, 2018, before he committed suicide in August, he was arrested for sexually assaulting a four-year-old child. He was charged with a felony of super-aggravated sexual assault, as the victim was less than six years old. Nunez thought he wouldn’t be in any legal danger. He believed the fear of deportation would prevent the child’s undocumented immigrant mother from daring to report him to the law.
Nunez was alleged to have touched the girl’s genitals and hurt her. The child cried out when she was assaulted. The mother quickly reported the crime in spite of her undocumented status. The abuse might have been happening for months or even longer. Rumor was that there could have been other child sexual abuse charges against Nunez. Could there be any more inhuman behavior than a 47-year-old law-enforcement officer sexually abusing a four-year-old child? Aren’t humans instinctively barbaric? Is molesting a four-year-old child a one-off reality?
The Shenandoah’s juvenile detention center in Virginia houses immigrant youths 14 years and older. Routinely, they were beaten while handcuffed. Routinely, they were locked up for long periods in solitary confinement. Routinely, they were abused. They were stripped of their clothes. They were left naked in cold concrete cells. They were suffocated while strapped to chairs with bags with no holes placed on their heads. They were handcuffed to a chair and strapped all the way from their feet to their chests in order to restrain them.
A female child development specialist told investigators the youths at the Shenandoah center told her they heard voices telling them to hurt themselves and others. They did not have any violent thoughts before they came to Shenandoah. She was told by the youths that they were physically and verbally abused by guards regularly. One guard broke a youth’s foot. Others committed violent tackling. She saw youths with bruises, injuries, and broken bones. Youths were secluded for months over trivial infractions.
In America, child sexual abuse is widespread. The overview of various surveys is that about one in seven girls and one in 25 boys are sexually abused before they turn 18. The overarching consensus is that, in America, one in 10 children is sexually abused before they turn 18. Child sexual abuse includes any sexual act between an adult and a young child, regardless of whether force or coercion is used.
Massacres Prior to Twentieth Century
Human history is a narrative of violent conflicts between one group and another group, one country and another country. Massacres, rebellions, civil wars, and wars are the neatly organized chapters of history. Nations have always been preoccupied with invasions and occupations, defenses and offenses, defeats and victories. Wars and conflicts have always been an ongoing reality. Invariably, some country is at war with some other country, some group is in violent conflict with another group or its government.
During only 270 years out of 3,400 years, 8 percent, of recorded human history, there was no war, a nation was not fighting another. During only 20 years out of 242 years, 8 percent, of America’s history, have there been no wars. During the past seven decades since the end of World War II, there has hardly been a pause in wars and conflicts. Man is addictively inclined and devoted to violence: killing and maiming, destroying and damaging. As inevitably as a crescent moon grows to become a full moon, humans are routinely inspired, enthused, excited, and thrilled by violence.
Ongoing scientific discoveries show that mass murders started soon after Cain killed Abel. They increased as population size and density increased. In 2013, investigators found the remains of 30 early human skeletons buried at the bottom of a shaft inside a Spanish cave called Sima de los Huesos. Those cadavers were found to have been dropped down the shaft after they had been killed somewhere else. Those victims of a massacre, maybe the first massacre, occurred 230,000 years before early humans appeared in Africa.
On record, the second-known mass murder took place at Nataruk, west of Kenya’s Lake Turkana, some 10,000 years ago. The mass murder victims were a group of African hunter-gatherers. The Nataruk killing was the earliest-known mass murder of the ancestors of present-day humans. The victims, no less than 27 people, included men and women, young and old, even a pregnant woman and children. They were brutally and mercilessly killed. The killings had signs of an orchestrated violent attack.
In 390 AD, a mindless massacre occurred in Thessalonica, a part of then Roman Greece. Theodosius I was the Roman emperor. Like other large cities, Thessalonica was home to a hippodrome, where people went to watch chariot races, animal hunts, and public executions. The commander of Thessalonica’s Roman garrison was Botheric, a Goth. He arrested the city’s well-known charioteer, who was greatly admired by the Thessalonian people for attempting to rape a very handsome slave who was Botheric’s gay lover. When the people of Thessalonica learned the fate of their beloved charioteer, they demanded his immediate release. Botheric refused. The mob exploded into a violent frenzy. Botheric and his aides were killed, torn limb from limb. The charioteer was released. When Theodosius heard about the riot, in his quick rage, he ordered the army to punish the inhabitants of Thessalonica. The army indulged in an orgy of mass killing, plundering, and pillaging. It killed 7,000, including many children and women.
The Granada massacre occurred on a Sabbath day in 1066. Jewish Sh’muel was the vizier to the Muslim Berber king, Badis. Joseph was the eldest son of Sh’muel. Upon his father’s death, Joseph was chosen to be the king’s vizier. King Badis was habitually under the haze of alcohol. He was a weak king. As he was usually drunk and had implicit trust in Joseph, Badis allowed Joseph to control him. Joseph was averse to humility. He was arrogant and ostentatious. He believed neither in the Jewish faith nor in any other faith. Although Jewish Joseph was the vizier of a Muslim king, he openly called the Muslim faith absurd. Muslim leaders accused Joseph of disloyalty toward and conspiracy against Badis. The Muslims’ hatred for Joseph grew as the rumor spread that Joseph was planning to kill King Badis, deliver the kingdom to the king’s arch enemy, and then kill the new king to make himself king. On December 30, 1066, Muslim mobs crucified Joseph. In the ensuing massacre, they killed more than 4,000 Jews from 1,500 families.
The Latin Massacre occurred in April, 1182. The Eastern Orthodox Christians massacred the Roman Catholics—the Latins. Byzantium gave the Italian city states trading concessions, including permission to set up businesses in Constantinople. The Italians’ influence grew, while the naval impotence of Byzantine had worsened. Soon the Latins gained a virtual monopoly in Byzantium’s maritime trade and financial industry. The overbearing dominance of foreign Italians and local big landowners fueled popular discontent. Upon the death of Empress Eirene, Emperor Manuel of Byzantium married the tall, blonde, exceptionally beautiful Latin princess, Maria of Antioch, who was the daughter of Constance of Antioch and Raymond of Poitiers. Maria’s beauty was favorably compared to the beauty of the Greek goddess Aphrodite. After the death of Manuel in 1181, Maria became the unofficial Regent to her son, the heir to the Byzantine Empire. Her secretive, scheming, and strange activities as the Regent led to her eventual arrest and execution.
The religious differences and the Italians’ arrogance inflamed the Byzantines’ anger. The celebration of the overthrow of Maria of Antioch in 1182 turned into a frenzy against the Italian Latins. It ended in an indiscriminate brutal massacre of 60,000 Latins, including women, children, and even the sick. Many were forced to flee. Some 4,000 Italian Catholics were sold as slaves to Muslim Turks. After his beheading, Cardinal John’s head was dragged through the streets attached to the tail of a dog.
The Stockholm bloodbath was carried out by King Christian II at the instigation of Archbishop Gustav Trolley. During a three-day period in November 1520, more than 100 anti-unionist Swedes were executed. The Kalmar Union included Denmark, Finland, and Sweden. The union was dominated by Denmark. It was controlled by Denmark’s King Christian II. On November 7, 1520, many Swedish leaders were summoned by King Christian II to the palace for a conference. The invitation was a ruse, a deceitful plot. The next evening, the Danish soldiers arrested many of the king’s guests. The arrestees included the Swedish anti-unionists and Archbishop Trolley’s opponents. The next day, a council headed by Trolley sentenced the arrested men to death. At noon, two anti-unionist bishops were beheaded. Another 52 people, including 14 noblemen, three mayors, 14 councilors, and 21 commoners were hanged or beheaded. The executions continued to the next day. Buried bodies were dug up and burned.
The St. Bartholomew’s Day massacre of French Protestants by French Catholics was committed in August of 1572. Most of the prominent Protestants were in Paris to attend the wedding of the Catholic king’s sister, Margaret, to the Protestant Henry III of Navarre. Bigoted Parisian Catholics were violently anti-Protestant. The king issued an order to kill a group of Protestant leaders. The list included Protestant military and political leader Gaspard de Coligny who his enemies considered a threat to Christendom. The king’s order fueled the Catholic hatred for Protestants into a frenzy of revulsion. It turned into an orgy of rage, ending in a massacre. From Paris, it spread to 12 other urban centers and the countryside. Death estimates vary from 10,000 to 70,000. The century’s worst religious massacre included the forcible conversion of many Protestants to Catholicism. It caused the end of the Protestant power in France. It exposed the Catholic thirst for blood and joy in deceit. Pope Gregory XIII considered the massacre an act of divine retribution.
Canada’s French Catholic Acadians had lived in Nova Scotia’s Port Royal since it was founded in 1604. The independent-minded French Catholic Acadians had little connection to France. They became friends and allies of the indigenous Mi’kamaq. Despite their declared neutrality, the Protestant British considered them suspect. When 270 members of the Acadian militia were found among the French soldiers, the Acadians were asked to declare full allegiance to the British. The proud and independent Acadians refused the British demand. With the support of the settlers from New England who coveted the Acadians’ fine fertile land, Governor Lawrence ordered the expulsion of the Acadians. It was an undisguised ethnic cleansing. Everything the Acadians owned was confiscated. Between 1755 and 1763, about 10,000 out of 13,000 Acadians were expelled. They left reluctantly, crying, praying, and singing. An estimated 1,650 died by drowning or of disease. For a long time, they wandered, searching for a home. Some went to Louisiana and developed the “Cajun” culture.
The greater Manchester town of Bolton was known as the “Geneva of the North,” a reference to the Calvinist Swiss city. The Bolton massacre occurred on May 28, 1644. It was carried out by the Royalist army at the pro-Parliament town of Bolton. During the massacre, the Royalists slaughtered about 1,600 Bolton defenders and inhabitants. It was every bit as brutal as any other atrocity in Europe. The Bolton storming—the initial attack—was led by the king’s nephew, Rupert. It was beaten back with 300 casualties. Subsequent to the first attack, one of the Royalist soldiers was hanged by the Parliamentarians, who thought he was an Irish Catholic. The hanging enraged the Royalists, fueling their sectarian anger. As revenge, the Royalists attacked Bolton again. This time, the town was subdued quickly. The Royalists did not stop the killings and rapes, even after the town’s surrender. As a reward and incentive, the soldiers were given permission to plunder, steal, and destroy. Their atrocities were especially merciless, brutal, and vengeful.
China’s Yangzhou massacre started on May 20, 1645. The Qing troops, led by Prince Dodo, killed some 800,000 people. The around-the-clock merciless barbaric atrocity continued for 10 days. Killing was indiscriminate. Rape was widespread. Dead babies were strewn about. The defending commander, Shi Kefa, was executed. The purpose of the cruel barbarity was both to punish the resisters and give a warning against further resistance. People were herded like sheep. Anyone who lagged was flogged or killed. Brutality defined the Yangzhou massacre. Cruelty named the Yangzhou massacre. Viciousness described the Yangzhou massacre. Savagery delineated the Yangzhou massacre. Women were bound together by the neck with a rope. Streets became cluttered with cut-off human heads, arms, and legs. Gutted entrails and remains were mixed with dirt. Roads were filled with wailing and dead people. Canals, ponds, and gutters were filled with corpses. Human blood changed the color of streamlets to a greenish-red. Thatched houses were set on fire. Those who fled were instantly killed. Those who stayed were burned to death. The Yangzhou massacre delineated cruelty, delineated savagery, delineated inhumanity.
The Moravian massacre occurred on March 8, 1782, in Ohio’s village of Gnadenhutten, during the American Revolutionary War. The slaughter was carried out by a heavily armed Colonial American militia of 160 from Pennsylvania’s Belligerents. The militia killed 96 religious Christian Native Americans at the Moravian mission. It was a racist revenge killing. A few of the killers had lost friends and family in Native American raids against the land-grabbing settlers. Thirsting for blood, parched by racism, the militia was primed to kill Native Americans in spite of their innocence. The Christian Native Americans who were killed by the militia were completely innocent. They were peaceful spiritual people. The Christian Natives were wrongly blamed. They had no part in the raids and killings of the land-robbing settlers by tyrannized Native American bands. The Continental Army failed to convince the Colonial militia of the innocence of the Christian Native Americans. After rounding the Natives up, the militia voted to kill them. Soon after the militia voted to kill them, the peaceful Christian Natives asked the militia permission to have the night to sanctify them for death. Soon they began priming for a violent death.
The Native American Christians spent the entire night praying, singing hymns, and getting ready to face the violent Christian militia to suffer a tortured death in the morning. After being tied up, the spiritual Native Americans were inflicted with mallet blows to their heads and then killed with fatal scalping cuts. A total of 28 men, 29 women, and 39 children were killed by scalping and tomahawking. After killing the Native Americans, the militia piled their bodies in the mission buildings. Soon after it, the militia went on a looting spree. Afterward, it burned down the entire Moravian village. The militia murderers needed 80 horses to carry their plunder, which included everything that the Native Americans saved and stored, such as furs, pewter, tea sets, food, jewelry, and clothing. Although many settlers were outraged by the massacre, the frontier residents, who were embittered by the war between the settlers and the Native Americans, generally supported the militia’s killings. Despite the talk of bringing the murderers to justice, no criminal charges were ever filed. No sincere effort was made by the government to deliver justice.
The September Massacres, sometimes called the “First Terror” of the French Revolution, took place in 1792. It occurred during a six-day period from September 2 to September 7. The pro-revolutionary group believed that royalists and foreigners were about to attack Paris. It claimed political prisoners would be freed in order to undo the three-week-old Revolution. In the beginning, the killings were done without any due process. Afterwards, the killings were carried out by popular ad hoc tribunals after summary trials. The political climate in Paris was highly unstable and unnerving. Pro-revolutionary groups broke into nine Paris prisons. Many other French cities carried out their own massacres, killing 1,200 to 1,400 prisoners. The victims included many women and boys. Among those killed were 233 priests who refused to obey the Revolution’s demands. A great majority of the murdered were common criminals. Although the pro-revolutionary killings were done without proper due process, no one was ever prosecuted for those anarchic murders.
The Massacre in the Pass was a skillful accomplishment of the Afghans. It occurred in January, 1842, while Major William Elphinstone led a column of 16,000 British and Indian soldiers and civilians from Kabul to the provincial town of Jalalabad. The incompetence of Elphinstone and the shrewdness of the Afghan leader, Akbar Khan, were the principal factors that determined the catastrophic outcome. Elphinstone started the journey in the worst winter month when the Hindu Kush terrain was extremely difficult to pass. Foolishly, Major Elphinstone was unwilling to return to Kabul even after the journey’s difficulty and danger became evident. Proving his idiocy, Elphinstone continued to trust the Afghan leader even after he knew he was outsmarted and misled. He did not adequately prepare for dire eventualities nor did he adequately arm to protect his column. Except for one British and a few Indian soldiers, everyone perished. Most of them were killed by the Afghans. Many died of exposure, frostbite, and starvation.
The U.S. army committed the Bloody Island massacre on May 15, 1850, near California’s Clear Lake. It killed as many as 400 Pomo, including many old men, women, and children. The indiscriminate killing included 75 non-Pomo Native Americans in addition to 400 Pomo along the Russian River. Settlers Andrew Kelsey and Charles Stone routinely forced the Pomo workers of the Big Valley area of California to endure slavery, starvation, loss of pride, loss of dignity, and loss of freedom. Routinely, Kelsey and Stone had interned and abused Pomo. Regularly, Kelsey and Stone raped Pomo women. They often beat and occasionally killed fathers who refused to bring their daughters for sex. As a result of Kelsey’s refusal to feed his 50 Pomo indentured workers, 48 of them died from starvation in the fall of 1849. When they couldn’t take any more abuse, two Pomo men of the Augustine band killed Kelsey with an arrow and Stone with a rock. When the army failed to find the Augustine band members, it killed every innocent Native American bystander it could find.
Louisiana’s Colfax massacre was the bloodiest racism-motivated violence during the Reconstruction period. It took place in the wake of the 1872 Louisiana election for governor. Between 1868 and 1876, widespread violence and unrestrained fraud were common features of Louisiana elections. The Colfax massacre occurred on Easter Sunday, April 13, 1873. A total of 153 African Americans were massacred by a paramilitary group of 300 Caucasian Americans who were members of the Democratic Party. The paramilitary killers, besides being Democrats, were members of white supremacist groups called the White League and the Knights of the White Camellia. The killers were armed with rifles and a small cannon. Through the night, the racist Caucasian Democrats on horseback chased the fleeing African American Republicans who were shot as they jumped into the river. Most were killed on the spot. The survivors were taken prisoner. Later in the night, the captors summarily killed the captives. The bodies were dumped in the Red River or in common graves.
The Batak massacre was perpetrated by the Ottoman troops as they crushed the 1876 April Uprising. It killed an estimated 15,000 Bulgarians. The Turks reneged on their promise of no reprisal against the Bulgarians. Once the rebels disarmed themselves, the Ottomans resorted to a cruel retribution. Literally, everyone in Batak became a captive. Batak was burned and destroyed. The brutality of the heinous crime was unparalleled. Impaling and beheading were widespread. More women and children were killed than men. Brutality and cruelty were the hallmarks of the Batak massacre. Women were raped. Men were tortured. Children were burnt alive. Before they were killed, people had their eyes gouged out, teeth pulled out, arms, ears, noses, and shoulders cut out. People were roasted alive. Impalement was done slowly. Babies were impaled on swords. Unborn babies were ripped out from their mothers’ wombs. Women were forced to kill men. Mothers were forced to watch children tortured. The stench of cruelty outlasted everlastingly the stench of rot.
The Wounded Knee Massacre was carried out on December 29, 1890, near South Dakota’s Wounded Knee Creek. About 300 Native American children, women, and men were killed by U.S. army soldiers. Among the 51 injured, 47 were women. The U.S. government endlessly stole the Native Americans’ land, their existential means. The Native Americans were forced to fear they had nothing but despair. Sitting Bull’s death worsened their fear. Despair forced Sitting Bull’s and Big Foot’s bands to flee to seek shelter at Red Cloud’s Pine Ridge Reservation. On December 28, the U.S. army intercepted Big Foot and his 350 band members on their way to a meeting at the Pine Ridge Agency. They were ordered to camp near Wounded Knee Creek. On the morning of December 29, the army went to disarm the campers. When one blind camper’s rifle accidentally went off, the army started shooting the disarmed campers, starting a merciless massacre. It was carnage in captivity. In 1990, both houses of the U.S. Congress passed a resolution expressing “deep regret” for the bloodbath.
It is known by three names: the Hamidian massacres, the Armenian massacres of 1894–1896, and the Great Massacre. Its multiple names might have been to alert people to its extreme cruelty. One estimate said the Ottoman army and the Kurdish irregulars killed as many as 300,000 people. More than 50,000 children became orphans. More than 600,000 children became destitute. It caused cruel famines. It started as a response to the Armenians’ 1894 Sasun resistance. Initially, its sole target was the Armenians. As time went by, the extremely brutal assault became terribly indiscriminate. At Diyarbakir, 25,000 Assyrians were killed. Children and women were viciously killed. It ended up in unleashing unbridled cruelty, horrific torture, and dreadful carnage. Skins were peeled off with knives. Heads were cut off. Faces were smashed in. Arms were chopped off. More than 2,500 villages were destroyed. Forced conversions were common. Churches were desecrated. Many were converted into mosques. Every one of more than 3,000 who took refuge in the Urfa cathedral was burned alive.
Those were some of the inhuman, cruel, and barbaric massacres humanity had committed against the humanity prior to the 20th century. Don’t those inhuman, cruel, barbaric massacres confirm humanity’s enduring uncivilized conduct? Don’t those inhuman, cruel, barbaric massacres confirm humanity’s extreme evilness? Don’t those inhuman, cruel, barbaric massacres confirm humanity’s inborn violent disposition? Don’t those inhuman, cruel, barbaric massacres confirm humanity’s manifest excitement for violence? Don’t those inhuman, cruel, barbaric massacres confirm humanity’s evident urge for extreme violence? Don’t those horrific massacres confirm humanity’s inhumanity, barbarity, cruelty, and savagery? Don’t those horrific massacres confirm humans’ never-ending readiness to kill and maim humans? Didn’t those stories recount in detail the pre-twentieth century humanity’s shameful history of endless extreme violence that started when Cain killed Abel? Now, the question is, whether the twentieth century humanity had acted any more civilized than the first century humanity?
Twentieth Century Massacres
The Namibian genocide, the first in the twentieth century, occurred between 1904 and 1908. Germany was the perpetrator. It carried out a racist blitz of extermination. It indulged in collective punishment. The Namibian freedom fighters were fighting for liberation from Germany’s colonial rule. The German General Trotha’s goal was to completely destroy Namibia. His actions were cruel and callous. Twice, in 1904, the German army drove the rebels into the desert, where most of them died of dehydration and starvation. Germans killed more than 110,000 Namibians. They did not allow the defeated Namibian rebels to retreat. Thousands of Namibian rebels died in concentration camps from disease and violence. Captured males were executed. Collapsed men were killed by shooting or bayoneting. Women and children were driven into the desert to die without food and water. Water wells in the desert were poisoned. In 1985, the UN determined that the German intent was racist extermination. In 2004, Germany admitted it was genocide and “part of a race war” and apologized.
Fearing the rumor of impending extermination by American soldiers, 1,000 Moros fled to the Moro crater called Bud Dajo, where spirits were believed to have flocked. The Moro Crater Massacre was committed by 540 American soldiers, part of a naval detachment, in March 1906, during the Philippine-American War. The massacre was exceptionally cruel and barbaric. During the callous and criminal attack, American soldiers killed 994 out of 1,000. The Moro killing was one of the worst crimes a democratic government has ever perpetrated. Writer and humorist Mark Twain said, “We cleaned up our four days’ work and made it complete by butchering these helpless people.” The murder victims with myriad wounds included large numbers of women and children. Corpses were piled five feet deep. It was a “wanton slaughter” of defenseless people. It was a cruel massacre. It was a brutal killing. It was done mostly with machine-gun fire. In their machismo bravado, American soldiers posed with the corpses, staring, as if amorously, at a dead woman’s exposed breasts, earning yet another infamy of shame for American democracy.
In 1908, the Ottoman Empire’s Young Turks came to power in a bloodless coup. The new regime gave the Armenian Christians equal status to the Muslims. Their new status encouraged them to act uppity. Bravado and insults from armed Armenians provoked the conservative Ottoman Muslims into launching a counter coup in 1909. It brought the Hamid regime back to power. The Adana massacre occurred during the countercoup. Ottoman Muslims killed 20,000 to 30,000 Armenian Christians and 1,300 Assyrians. The rioting Armenian Christians killed many Muslims and Greeks. The Adana massacre and pogrom were considered a “holocaust.” Soldiers terrorized Adana. Shooting, looting, and burning were widespread. Nearly 4,500 Armenian homes were torched. Killings were carried out in Tarsus, Alexandretta, Mersin, Marash, and Hadjin. Slaughtering took place in Kirikhan. Burning occurred in Dortyol. Massacres took place in Antioch. Rioting fell upon Birejik. Humans continued their proclivity for dehumanizing humans.
During the Pacification of Libya, also known as the Second Italo-Senussi War, Benito Mussolini’s Italian army committed the Libyan genocide. Actions of Mussolini during 1923–1932 to subdue the Libyans led to mass killings and displacements. More than 60,000 Libyans were killed. In 1931 alone, about 12,000 people were executed. Italy used chemical weapons against Libyan civilians. Mussolini summarily executed the surrendering Libyan freedom fighters. Italy’s motivation for expelling 100,000 Bedouins was to achieve its goal to complete its ethnic cleansing campaign. Mussolini’s army kicked out Bedouin women, children, and seniors from their settlements to find space for the Italian settlers. The Italian army forced the Bedouins to march across the desert to various Benghazi concentration camps fenced with barbed wire. The army summarily shot and killed stragglers unable to keep up with the march. In 1933, when the camps were closed, it became evident that 40,000 of 100,000 internees had died. In 2008, Italy apologized for its crime and the cruelty caused by its horrible massacre.
The Japanese started the Nanking Massacre, the Rape of Nanking, in December 1937. It lasted six weeks. After Prince Asaka gave the order to “kill all captives,” the Japanese unleashed a reign of terror, opened a season of brutality, cast a spell of bestiality, created a frenzy of cruelty, and committed endless murders, rapes, lootings, arsons, and thefts. About 300,000 Chinese were killed, 100,000 in cold blood. More than 30,000 women were raped. Many were gang-raped. Many were raped to death. Many were killed soon after being brutally raped. Rape became a prologue to killing. Japanese men killed Chinese women by puncturing vaginas with bayonets, sticks, bottles, or other objects. One man counted 1,000 rapes in one night. To make raping children effortless, vaginas were cut open. Noda and Mukai made a wager on who could kill the first 100 people by sword. Noda killed 105 and Mukai killed 106. A boy of eight was bayoneted five times. Fathers were forced to rape daughters. Sons were forced to rape mothers. Fleeing civilians were shot from behind.
Germany’s Nazi Party decided in 1939 to execute the “Final Solution” for ethnically “purifying” Germany. In the pursuit of Germany’s purification, the Nazi regime committed the Holocaust. It pursued an unimaginably ruthless extermination campaign. The ensuing genocide caused the deaths of six million Jews and another five million Slavs, Roma, Jehovah’s Witnesses, the disabled, homosexuals, and political and religious dissidents. The formal start of Jewish extermination occurred on “The Night of the Broken Glass.” Jews were forced to live in designated areas called ghettos. On “The Night of the Broken Glass,” the Nazi Party orchestrated and executed hateful barbarity against the Jews. It burned down many synagogues. Some 7,000 businesses were looted and destroyed. Some 100 people were killed. Some 30,000 men were sent to concentration camps. To execute quick killings, Jews were sent to special showers in the extermination camps that spat out poisonous gas. At the peak of the extermination, 6,000 Jews were murdered per day.
The 1971 Bangladesh genocide lasted nine months. It was committed by the Pakistani army and its collaborators pro-Pakistan Bangladeshi Islamists and Behari Muslims. They killed about three million Bangladeshi men, women, and children. They committed arson and looting. They raped more than 400,000 women. It was a “systematic campaign of genocidal rape.” Islamists declared women public property. Women had their breasts torn off. Eight-year-old girls and 75-year-old women were raped. Women were repeatedly tortured and raped. They were made sex slaves. Ten million Bangladeshis fled to India. About 30 million were internally displaced. Many Beharis were killed. Pakistan’s president said, “Kill three million of them, and the rest will eat out of our hands.” In one night, 7,000 were killed. Soldiers set sections of Dhaka on fire. They machine-gunned those who tried to escape. America helped Pakistan receive weapons from Iran, Jordan, and Turkey, giving material support to carry out the genocide.
From 1975 to 1979, Kampuchea’s Khmer Rouge regime of Pol Pot committed a horrific genocide. Estimates show Pol Pot killed 1.5 to 3 million people. Imitating Mao’s Cultural Revolution, Pol Pot relocated Kampucheans from cities to countryside labor camps to educate them on socialist ideology. Mass executions, forced labor, physical abuse, malnutrition, and disease were common in the labor camps. The forced population transfer of Pol Pot resulted in the deaths of one-fourth of Kampuchea’s population. Pol Pot’s 196 labor camps came to be known as “the killing fields.” In Tuol Sleng Center, one of the killing fields, only seven people survived out of 20,000 who went through it. In the killing fields, people were killed with pickaxes to save bullets. They were buried in mass graves. They were forced to commit atrocities. Children were abducted and indoctrinated. Subsequent to the ousting of Pol Pot, 23,745 mass graves, containing 1.3 million bodies, were mapped out. Of the dead, 60 percent were victims of brutal execution.
The Rwanda genocide was perhaps the quickest killing spree humanity has ever witnessed. In about 100 days, a carefully orchestrated ethnic cleansing campaign by Hutu extremists killed 800,000 Tutsis and Hutu moderates. Hutu extremists raped 500,000 women. During the civil war, which began in 1990, Tutsis attacked Rwanda from their base in Uganda, exacerbating the conflict between minority Tutsis and majority Hutus. The genocide started soon after Tutsis killed the Rwandan president. After attending a meeting to achieve peace between the Tutsis and Hutus, the Rwandan president was returning from Tanzania on April 6, 1994. He was killed when the president’s plane was shot down near Kigali, the Rwanda capital. Within hours of his death, Hutus took over Kigali. Within a day, they had eliminated Rwanda’s moderate leadership. Detailed lists of Tutsi and Hutu moderate targets were broadcast on government radio. Those broadcasts asked Hutus to murder, rape, plunder, and displace their neighbors, the Tutsis and their sympathizers. Hutus killed, maimed, raped, plundered, and displaced with total abandon, with horrifying inhumanity, with appalling barbarism.
The Srebrenica genocide of 1995 killed more than 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men, women, and children. The motive for the Bosnian war was ethnic cleansing by removing from Bosnia the Bosnian Muslims and Bosnian Croats. The Serbs carried out a systematic and methodical campaign to achieve their goal of a total ethnic cleansing. They expelled 30,000 Bosnian civilians. The ethnic cleansing campaign used every imaginable evil and cruel act of violence, including murder, rape, torture, beating, robbing, displacing, and deporting. The Serbs plundered and confiscated. They routinely raped women. They destroyed homes, businesses, and places of worship. They committed illegal confinement, dreadful shelling, and mass expulsion. They planned to exterminate 40,000 Muslims. They created concentration camps and detention centers. Flaunting their religious hatred, Christian Serbs killed, raped, tortured, and displaced Bosnian Muslims. On the basis of their spurious religious beliefs, Christian Serbs divested the Bosnian Muslims of their possessions and humanity.
Twentieth century humans were equally uncivilized as first century humans. In reality, the twentieth century humans were even more cruel and brutal than the people of previous centuries. Since humans are immanently inclined and prone to violence, the intensity of their cruelty, brutality, and savagery has remained unchanged. The technological progress helped faster killings. Regardless of the century in which they lived, they were equally inclined and prone to violence. Since they were unable to understand the unbearable cost of violence and the untold benefits of nonviolence, they failed to compare the cost of violence with the benefits of nonviolence. Does the twenty first century augurs well for humans to become a bit more civilized than in the twentieth century? Does it have the humanity, empathy, and insight to learn how to curb its inborn inclination for violence, for cruelty, for brutality, and for savagery?
Twenty First Century Massacres
The twenty first century’s first genocide, a horrifying ethnic cleansing, occurred in Sudan’s Darfur in 2003. The UN estimate of 2013 showed that the Sudanese government killed 300,000 people. The revised UN estimate of 2015 showed the number of violent deaths probably were as high as 400,000. More than one million children had been victimized. Thousands of children were killed. Thousands of children were raped. Thousands of children were wounded, displaced, and traumatized. Thousands of children were made orphans. Thousands of children were deprived of family protection. The Sudanese government had knowingly perpetrated ethnic cleansing and population clearance. Cruel atrocities like murder, rape, and abuse, were tasked to government forces and paramilitary groups called “Janjaweed,” “devils on horseback.” Rape and abuse of women was widespread. Abuse of children was widespread. Infants were bludgeoned to death. Children were tortured. Women and girls were sexually mutilated. Villages were burned. Water sources were poisoned. The government killed, raped, and plundered its innocent citizens.
The Rohingya genocide and displacement was started by Myanmar’s army and police in October 2016. Its purpose was to achieve ethnic cleansing. The attack was confined mostly to the Rakhine State. The horrifically cruel killing and forcible displacement were carried out by Buddhists of beige skin color against the Rohingyas of dark skin color. The Rohingyas consisted mainly of Muslims and some Hindus. Myanmar’s government used genocide and displacement to cleanse Myanmar of Muslims. The Muslim presence in Myanmar went as far back as the eighth century, Nonetheless, Myanmar government’s racist contempt and racist hatred provoked it to resort to cleanse Myanmar of Muslims, through murder, maiming, and expulsion. The brutal atrocities included every imaginable inhumanities such as indiscriminate killings, gang rapes, infanticides, expulsions, arsons, lootings, robberies, arbitrary arrests, and displacements. Children as young as 10 were arrested. Murders of little children were widespread. Young children were thrown into burning houses. Babies were stabbed to death in their mothers’ arms. Boats carrying escapees were sunk with gunfire. Nearly 400 Rohingya villages and one-half of their homes were destroyed. Schools, markets, shops, and mosques were destroyed by arson. Many farms and businesses were destroyed.
As many as 2,000 Rohingyas were killed. The military used helicopter gunships to shoot and kill unarmed civilians. Thousands were forcibly evicted from their homes. About one million Rohingyas were displaced. Fear of murder, rape, beating, and abuse forced about 750,000 Rohingyas to flee to neighboring Bangladesh and Malaysia. The Myanmar government’s actions were purposely planned and carried out as they undertook unconscionable human rights abuses and crimes against humanity. Aung San Suu Kyi is Myanmar’s de facto ruler. She was a Nobel Laureate and recipient of other awards. She was admired by the European leaders and Barack Obama. Like her army and police, she is a beige-colored Buddhist. Like her army, she loathes the poor black-colored Muslim Rohingyas. Myanmar Buddhists consider Muslims inferior. Once Buddhists believed in ahimsa, nonviolence toward living things. Notwithstanding, those Buddhists now believe in virulent violence and abominable apartheid. Myanmar Buddhists cruelly killed, maimed, raped, expelled, and segregated Rohingya Muslims whose ancestors have lived in Myanmar since the eight century.
Human Thrill for Violence
Africans committed massacres. Americans committed massacres. Asians committed massacres. Europeans committed massacres. Prehistoric people committed massacres. People of ancient days committed massacres. People of modern days committed massacres. Authoritarian countries committed massacres. Democratic countries committed massacres. Rich countries committed massacres. Poor countries committed massacres. Advanced countries committed massacres. Backward countries committed massacres.
There were no exceptions. Humans are primed to commit violence. They are inclined and prone to violence. Humans are excited by violence. They are thrilled by violence. By nature, humans are violent. By essence, humans are violent. By embodiment, humans are violent. People are cruel and brutish. Violence excites people. Violence thrills people. Violence offers people a medium to launch their dominion and invincibility. People are neither moral nor ethical. People are neither idealistic nor principled. Seldom are people ethical.
Torture of 9/11 Terrorist Detainees
America has always professed dedication to democratic values and human rights. However, it committed horrifyingly cruel torture on many 9/11 terrorist detainees. The terrorists were inhuman peddlers of inhuman violence. Their vocation is cruelty. Nevertheless, since it claims to be democratic and principled, America cannot allow itself to descend to the terrorists’ level of inhumanity and cruelty. The tortures America inflicted on 9/11 terrorists were crueler than the horrific tortures some brutish despots allied with America have committed. Those tortures were crueler than the tortures U.S allies, like Chile’s Pinochet and Egypt’s Mubarak, had committed. They were crueler than the tortures America’s friends, Egypt’s el-Sisi, Saudi Arabia’s Salman, and Bahrain’s Al Khalifa, commit.
Taking cues from other governments, the U.S. government generally sees human rights through a prism of profits, ideology, and prejudice. It decries and punishes its adversaries, like Russia, China, and Iran, for their human rights abuses. It condones and justifies human rights abuses of its allies, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Egypt, and Israel. It punishes UN organizations for their impartial judgments on human rights abuses. It justifies, tolerates, and excuses its law enforcement officers who commit endless human rights and civil rights abuses on minorities.
In words, Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren are less corrupt and more progressive than Joe Biden. They want to remedy America’s unconscionable and unjustifiable economic inequality. Nonetheless, like Biden, they support America’s unholy alliance with Saudi Arabia’s al Saud regime. The al Saud regime is brutally tyrannical, incorrigibly bigoted, and profanely misogynic. It knowingly allowed its citizens to hate America so much as to cause 9/11. It bribes America in return for American protection. It gives cheap oil, buys weapons, and supports America’s Middle East supremacy. It might even secretly funnel big money to America’s corrupt politicians.
Some of the 9/11 detainees were subjected to oral and anal force-feeding, waterboarding, and rectal dehydration. During waterboarding, some detainees nearly died, some nearly drowned, and some became nonresponsive. One prisoner was subjected to waterboarding 83 times, and another 183 times. Hypothermia killed one. Some were doused in ice-cold water. A naked man was wrapped in a plastic sheet after being doused in ice water. Some detainees with broken feet, sprained ankles, and amputated legs were forced to stand long hours.
One prisoner’s eye was surgically removed after torture had irreversibly damaged it. For a long time, as long as eight days, detainees were kept awake. Threats were made to rape and kill their family members. They were threatened with power drills and guns. They were warned no one would know what happened to them. They were told the only way they would be allowed to leave the prison was in a coffin. They were forced to live in total sensory deprivation. They were subjected to mock executions. They were forced to use waste buckets for toilets and carry them out themselves.
Some 9/11 detainees were kept in total darkness. Many were assaulted with a constant stream of loud noise. Many were shackled to the floor and wall. One prisoner was kept in a coffin-sized box for more than 11 days. They were forced to stand with hands over their head for as many as two and a half days. While they were tied and strapped, loaded pistols were placed next to them. Stiff brushes and ice water were used to bathe the detainees. Many were forced to stand uninterruptedly and without sleep as many as three days. Cruel and barbaric torture of 9/11 detainees lasted for as long as seven years.
It was not a Lone Ranger American adventure. It was not a solitary American government effort. It was done in partnership and collaboration. Many countries around the world, including several European countries, willingly collaborated and partnered with America for a profit. With its foreign collaborators’ help, America used notorious dungeons in various countries as secret places to torture detainees without Americans’ knowledge.
The willingness of several European countries to allow America to use their secret dungeons to torture 9/11 detainees proved that those European countries are as equally inhumane and uncivilized as America. It showed those nations’ readiness to partake in human torture for a profit. Just like Judas Iscariot, they sinned for cash. Torture is more barbaric than killing. Torture is more vicious than killing. Torture is crueler than killing. Torture inflicts excruciating pain. It inflicts prolonged agony. Continued torture is a continuing hell. For many death by gun or hanging is preferable to protracted torture.
Terrorist Mass Murderers
Human history, awash in mass murders, variously referred to as bloodbaths, butchery, ethnic cleansing, extermination, genocide, or slaughter, confirms that violence is a human embodiment, intrinsically innate to human beings. Massacres began not long after the start of humankind, maybe great many millennia ago. It continues unabated. It happens everywhere. However, mass murder by terrorism is a new phenomenon and on the rise. Among America’s most recent four mass killings, , three — Oklahoma killing in 1995, New York’s World Trade Center killing in 2001, and Las Vegas killing in 2017 – were mass murders committed by terrorists. The Waco killing in 1993 was done by the federal government.
Born in New York’s Lockport, 27-year-old Timothy McVeigh, with the help of Terry Nichols and Michael Fortier, committed the horrific 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, killing 168 people, ranging from three months to 73 years old, including 19 children and three pregnant women,. It injured more than 680. The loss from property destruction totaled $700 million in 1995 money. It was the worst violence perpetrated by a born American. His excuse for cruelty was revenge against the federal government’s tyranny, like the 1993 Waco killing and 1992 Ruby Ridge siege. McVeigh reviled the U.S. government. He reviled its foreign policy. He reviled America’s foreign wars. He reviled its brutalities. He reviled its domestic policy, especially its oppression of its citizens. The Waco siege against the Branch Davidians killed 76 people, including 25 children. During the 11-day siege at Ruby Ridge, white supremacists Randy Weaver, wife, Vicki Weaver, and son, Sammy Weaver, were killed. The U.S. Marshall William Degan was killed in the fight. McVeigh was executed in 2001. In the name of his dissent on the federal government’s tyranny, he unleashed his own cruelly brutal tyranny. He willfully embodied evil.
A Saudi elite. Osama bin Laden was born and raised in America’s incongruous ally, Saudi Arabia. He was an evil incarnation, devoid of humanity. On September 11, 2001, using airplanes as weapons, his 19 minions caused unbearable devastation, horrific catastrophe, apocalyptic cataclysm. He caused deaths to 2,996 and injuries to 6,000 and more. Subsequently another 3,000 died from the toxic exposure. The total cost of the deaths, injuries, and destruction was uncountable. To allay the nation’s inevitable fear, more costs were paid for setting up increased protection that inevitably limited people’s choice. Then there were the costs of two wars. All totaled in excess of $10 trillion. Among Bin Laden’s minions, 15 were from Saudi Arabia, one from Egypt, two from the UAE, and one from Lebanon. Their assignment was to get killed to kill. Bin Laden’s measure of triumph was number of deaths. He was a fiendishly wicked desperado with an iniquitous imagination to improvise an apocalyptic catastrophe. No one had ever planned or perpetrated a novel mode of destruction with such precision. He used airplanes as weapons of mass destruction. Four passenger planes were hijacked to commit a series of four coordinated attacks. Two were flown into the World Trade Center’s North and South 110-story towers, causing instant collapse. The shock of the quake damaged other buildings. The third crashed into the Pentagon. The fourth crashed into a field in Pennsylvania’s Somerset County. America killed him in 2011, and his son in 2019. He willfully embodied evil.
Nidal Hasan, a major and psychiatrist in the army, killed 13 and injured 32 innocent humans. Since he spent years studying to become a doctor and psychiatrist, he was considered educated. True, he was educated to become a psychiatrist. He claimed he was a Muslim. True, he knew how to read the Quran and say prayers. However, he surrendered his privilege as educated and religious when he defiled his morality and humanity. He ceded his privilege as an educated and religious person when he committed inhuman violence. Hassan was unaware of the cost of his violence as he lacked probing insight and
edified humanity. Had he had the basic humanity to envision his violence’s cost to his victims or to himself, would he have committed such a heinous crime? He used violence for expiration. He forever perished and wounded humans filled with hopes and dreams. The dead lost everything. The wounded suffered inordinately. He destroyed himself. As his lack of humanity enveloped him in extreme barbarity and inhuman hatred, he unforgivably expired his peers while letting the law to expire him. Hassan
willfully embodied evil.
New York–born Omar Mateen was 30 when he was killed after he killed 49 and injured 53 people. His actions confirmed his thrill to kill and maim as he showed his inbred affinity for inhuman cruelty. With a marine look, Mateen marked his misanthropy by rejoicing in violence. He was unschooled in the cost of violence. He was unschooled in humanity. Had he been taught about the cost of murdering and maiming, despite his evil inclination, Omar could have recalibrated his misanthropy that furnished him a cause for seeking thrill from violence. Before he was killed, he declared he was a terrorist, a supporter of
ISIS, and a soldier of god. Whichever god hired him to kill and maim innocent humans cannot be a caring god. The elated joy of the gods of Aztecs, Mayans, and Hindus attest that, by and large, gods seem to love human sacrifices. Jews, Christians, and Muslims cite that their God asked Prophet Abraham to sacrifice his only son. Recently, in India, as an offering to appease their Hindu deity, some Hindutva men killed an eight-year-old little girl after gang raping her for three consecutive days. Omar willfully embodied evil.
Stephen Paddock was affluent and 64, a professional auditor and businessman, a resident of Nevada’s Mesquite. He had no criminal history, even though his father, Benjamin Paddock, was a bank robber on the FBI’s most wanted list for nine years. Paddock came to Las Vegas solely to kill. He came to Las Vegas to kill as many people as possible. He came to Las Vegas to commit a mass killing. His goal was to excel history’s every other killer. He came to cause mass murder, cruel killing, inhuman cruelty, inordinate chaos, extreme mayhem, a wickedly inhuman eruption. He chose the location to triumph. He chose the weapon to triumph. His triumph was to inflict infinite deaths. His target was a crowd at a country music festival. He used bump stocks to convert semiautomatic rifles into automatic rifles. On the cursed night, he fired more than 110 rounds a minute. In 10 minutes, he fired 1,100 rounds. In 10 minutes, Paddock killed 58 and injured 851. Soon after he completed his evil mission, reveled in his odious thrill for cruelty, triumphantly killed and maimed many, he killed himself. Paddock willfully embodied evil.
Motivation doesn’t cause violence. It might provoke violence. The inclination for violence causes violence. Large-scale violence occurs when an inclination for violence becomes a thrill for violence. The transformation of inclination for violence into a thrill for violence causes wholesale violence. What provoked Osama bin Laden was America’s Middle East policy. He resorted to wholesale violence as his inclination for violence became an existential thrill for violence. Mass violence is not an instant action. It is a rational act inspired by thrill. America’s Middle East policy that was seen as detrimental to Muslims was Nidal Hassan’s motivation. It provoked him. What caused his wholesale violence was the transformation of his inclination for violence into a thrill for violence. Omar Mateen’s motivation for violence was his hatred for America’s prejudice against Muslims. It provoked him. But what pushed him into committing wholesale violence was his readiness to transform his inclination for violence into a thrill for violence. It was a meditative process. It was not an instant decision.
Timothy McVeigh was privileged with the Caucasian American legacy. America’s foreign policy, the Waco killings, and the Ruby Ridge siege were his motivation. Those events greatly provoked him. The cause for his wholesale violence was his delight in bombing and thrill for violence. Like Timothy McVeigh, Stephen Paddock was a privileged Caucasian. He was affluent, and apparently normal. His hatred for America for unknown reasons was his motivation. His cause for wholesale violence was his excitement and thrill for mass killing.
Bin Laden was a Saudi-born Muslim. Nidal Hassan and Omar Mateen were American-born Muslims. Timothy McVeigh and Stephen Paddock were American-born Caucasian Christians. And each had different motivations, religious and secular, personal and social, political and ideological. Their coinciding reasons for wholesale killings were their inborn inclinations for violence, which were adapted and converted into a thrill for violence. Their thrills were rationally and methodically built up.
Lynching and Bareknuckle Fights
Lynching is an epitome of hate. Noose became an enduring symbol of hate toward African Americans, as Swastika became a symbol of hate toward Jews. Lynching is diabolic, an unvarnished barbaric act, an act of bigotry, which was initially connected to slavery. It is a gruesome punishment. It is killing by hanging, committed by a vindictive mob through extrajudicial measures. Lynching became common after the Civil War. Although it had largely petered out by the 1920s, it continued into the twenty first century. Lynching was widespread in the South, where the cruelly hateful mindset of slavery was so pervasively ingrained in the underpinnings of its predominantly Caucasian culture. Lynching was also not uncommon in the Midwest and the Border States and the Wild West.
Racism and bigotry were the motivation for lynching. Furthermore, lynching was especially thought up to confirm Caucasian males’ dominion and African American males’ weakness. Victims of lynching were mostly African American men. Occasionally, African American women were lynched. To further expand the political power of Caucasian males, people of various other minorities were also lynched. Lynching of Hispanic Americans was especially common in California and elsewhere in the Old West. Native Americans and Asian Americans were also lynched. Extending the power of prejudice even further, a few individuals from less-dominant European American groups were lynched. As if to catalogue old America’s deep-seated anti-Semitism, occasionally Jews were lynched. Infrequently, Finnish Americans, Irish Americans, and Italian Americans were lynched. Lynching is done by a powerful group against a powerless group. People get more excited when watching a person being hanged than killed by a gun.
About 4,743 people were lynched between 1882 and 1968. About 3,600, three-fourths, of the lynched were African Americans. The remaining 1,300, one-fourth, were non–African Americans. Some of them belonged to the less-powerful European American communities. Some were Native Americans, Jewish Americans, Asian Americans, and Hispanic Americans. About three-fourths of all lynching was committed in the Southern states. Lynching was most frequent from 1890 to the 1930s, with its peak in the 1890s.
During the past five years, since the Hinduvta bigot, Narendra Modi, and his Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party assumed power in India, hate crimes against minorities, especially against Muslims, have been steadily rising. A growing number of Muslim men have been subjected to hate crimes, especially lynching by Hindu mobs. One of the commonly alleged motivations for the hate crime is slaughtering cows for food. Cows are holy for Hindus. Not unlike people over the rest of the world, non-Hindu minorities, like Christians, Jews, and Muslims, consider cow meat just another food, like cow milk and broccoli.
In June 2019, in India’s Jharkhand state, a young Muslim man was lynched by a Hindu mob for allegedly stealing. The Hindu mob tied the victim to a pole and mercilessly beat him with sticks. Later, he succumbed to death from the brutal beating. While being beaten, he was begging for mercy, as he was forced to chant his devotion to Hindu gods. Two days after the Jharkhand state lynching, another Muslim man in West Bengal state was pushed off a moving train, when he refused to chant his devotion to Hindu gods, as demanded by Hindu men in the train. During the past three years, in the Jharkhand state, ruled by the Modi’s Hindu nationalist party, no less than 13 minority men, mainly Muslims, were lynched.
America’s annual report on international religious freedom, released in June 2019, said religious intolerance was increasing in India and extremist narratives had “facilitated an egregious and ongoing campaign of violence, intimidation, and harassment against non-Hindu and lower-caste Hindu minorities.” Lynching is a new incarnation in India. Maybe India’s growing mindset to look up to America as a paradigm of progress might have persuaded India’s Hindus to copy America’s infamous history of inhuman lynching, especially of African Americans. India’s growing lynching hysteria among bigoted Hindus tells of its sad relapse to its notorious primitiveness, despite its planned visit to the moon. What a sad retrogression lynching is to India, which birthed Gandhi, the nonviolent prophet.
The year 1889 deserves to be remembered for some truly interesting anecdotes. It was in 1889 that the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche had a mental breakdown from watching a horse-flogging show. The Eiffel Tower was opened. Frau Christine’s first modern brassier was patented. On July 08, 1889, in Mississippi’s Richburg, the first bare-knuckle fight was staged in secrecy without a license. It was witnessed by some 3,000 people. The real notoriety prize for 1889 was awarded for staging history’s first-ever bare-knuckle fight.
The bare-knuckle fight was staged in such great secrecy that people from Louisiana were asked to come by a night train. It was brutal and barbaric, lasting 75 rounds. Its first repeat, after 129 years, took place on June 02, 2018. That wild barbarity was staged in the Wild West Cheyenne. It was a licensed event. A raucous crowd of 2,000 whooped it up, offering more standing ovations as the fight got bloodier. Regardless of the Internet, iPhone, and no-strap-no-wire-no-tag bra, human excitement for brutality remains unchanged.
During the 258 years, between 1769 and 2018, America endured 471 school shootings. They killed 618 and injured 948 people. Santa Fe High School student Paige Curry said, “It’s been happening everywhere. I felt—I’ve always kind of felt like eventually it was going to happen here, too.” In the 2018 Santa Fe shooting, eight students and two teachers were killed. The 17-year-old shooter was on the honor roll and a football player. Until the end of July, in 2019 there have been a total of 22 school shootings in America. In 2018, there were 323 mass shootings in America, in which 387 were killed and 1,274 were injured. As of August 31, 2019, there were 297 mass shootings in America, killing 335 and wounding 1,219 people.
Barbarity Continues at Tree of Life
People inevitably act prejudiced against anyone who looks, speaks, or acts differently. Prejudice is an inborn inclination, an innate disposition. Jews were the world’s most-victimized people. Anti-Semitism is the world’s oldest religious prejudice, enduringly continuing as an encompassing bigotry, persecuting Jews evermore. Since Jesus’ crucifixion, Christians plotted pretexts for abusing Jews. Their bigotry misrepresented the portrayal of the prophecy of Jesus’ blessed crucifixion in the Calvary.
With their perennial oppression of Jews, the Christians have owned anti-Semitism, consigning the Jews to endless prejudice and persecution. The routineness of Jewish persecution forced the Jews to perennially endure despairing tragedies and malevolent tribulations. Anti-African bigotry is race-biased. Anti-Islam bigotry is faith-biased. Anti-Semitism was sparked by both faith-biased and envy-biased bigotry. The religious bigotry toward the Jews was exacerbated by envy of Jews’ inimitable excellence and diligent endeavors.
Since the Caucasian supremacists are pathologically prejudiced against Jews, they loathe them. Since they are extremely prejudiced against Muslims, Caucasian supremacists loathe them. Pittsburgh Jews were killed while praying. Christchurch Muslims were killed while praying. In the West, Muslims are considered wicked intruders. Religious Muslims look unlike Caucasians. In the West, not long ago, Jews were considered wicked intruders. Prior to their en bloc enrollment in the Caucasian culture, Jews looked exceedingly and holistically unlike Caucasians.
Not long ago, Jews were considered equally uncivilized to live in the Caucasian West. Now the Caucasian West considers Muslims equally uncivilized and unfit to live in the West. Extremely bigoted Caucasian supremacists often find little distinction between Jews and Muslims. Their imbedded ideology considers Jews and Muslims similar cults. The Pittsburgh synagogue killer’s meme echoed the similarity that filthy, evil Jews bring filthy, evil Muslims into our America. The Caucasian supremacists often aim their crosshairs at Jews and Muslims for not being born Caucasians.
Today’s Jews in the Caucasian West have a nobler duty. As they are more accepted, better educated, and more affluent than Muslims, Jews have a human obligation to champion the Muslim cause. It is to remind themselves how unbearable it was to endure degradingly demeaning discrimination for so long–especially until the 1960s. A person who once suffered migraine headaches would understand the pain of a person who now suffers migraine headaches. Humans have moral obligations to help the underdogs, the poor, and the powerless.
In today’s West, Muslims are infinitely more abused and vilified than Jews. To ersatz liberal British scientist Richard Dawkins, Islam is cancer. To fake liberal American comedian Bill Maher, Islam is the Mafia. While Caucasian supremacists vilify and abuse Jews almost as much as Muslims, conservative Jews in America vengefully vilify and spread fear about Muslims. Bigoted Muslims foolishly vilify Jews. To escape prejudice’s predatory hate, infamy, and ruin, victims of prejudice, yesterday’s Jewish victims and today’s Muslim victims, must help each other.
Hindus never persecuted and killed Jews. Buddhists never persecuted and killed Jews. Rarely, only, were Jews killed by Muslims, though they unconscionably flourished in discriminating against Jews, as they were blinded by bigotry. The true culprits of anti-Semitism were Christians. For no less than two millennia, Christians inhumanely persecuted Jews. The unimaginably cruel Holocaust was committed by European Christians. To expiate their guilt, those guilty Christians underwrote the creation of Israel, unforgivably depriving and displacing the hapless Palestinian Christians and Muslims. Those refugees who were displaced by Israel’s creation had as much right to their homeland, Palestine, as the Palestinian Jews. Notwithstanding, those Palestinian Christian and Muslim refugees are forced into an indigent subsistence in various refugee camps, as victims of injustice Jewish prejudice causes.
In America, the sweep of anti-Semitism has been shrinking, as Jews have confirmed their readiness to be absorbed into Christian Caucasian culture. To encourage the Jewish migration to Christian Caucasian culture, evangelical Christians have lately been using a newspeak on Judeo-Christian heritage. Though Christians have been the principal persecutors and killers of Jews, incongruously, conservative Jews are colluding with evangelical Christians against Muslims. Those evangelical Christians and conservative Jews are now colluding in their pursuit to tyrannize poor Palestinian Christians and Muslims.
As if by divine command, persecutor Christians and persecuted Jews now work in tandem to persecute poor Palestinians. Human nature is such that over time when the persecuted become powerful, they soon become persecutors. Persecuted Jews became persecutors. Discriminated African Americans become discriminators. Oppressed Hispanic Americans become oppressors. While caste Hindus discriminate against both Muslims and Dalits, ironically, India’s Dalits and Muslims discriminate against each other.
On October 27, 2018 a Caucasian supremacist Christian killed 11 and injured six Jews at Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life Synagogue. It was a reminder of humans’ never-ending thrill for violence and savagery, confirming the human inability to empathize. Humans are incorrigibly and everlastingly uncivilized. Pittsburg Jews were killed just for being Jewish. Religious Jews’ faith was taken by taking their lives while they were beseeching their God. The despising of the Pittsburgh Jews was part of a continuum of despising, like the despising of Copts, despising Dalits, despising Shiites, or despising Yazidis.
The Tree of Life was meant to evoke thoughts and emotions about everything ideal and noble. Maybe it was meant to broadcast the need to shun violence, corruption, and prejudice. Maybe it was meant to tell of the need to embrace nonviolence, altruism, and tolerance. Maybe it was meant to convey the magical delight of human dignity. Its meaning is tendered by its symbols of its serenity giving leaves, its beauty bestowing flowers, and its delight offering fruits. Its artless maxim and idealistic motto beckon humans to court charity, court empathy.
Six million Jews were killed during the Holocaust. For 75 years, everyone has been rightly talking about the Holocaust’s horror of inhumanity, almost as if by rote. However, no one ever wanted to know the cost of six million murders, the economic cost to the victims’ families, the economic cost to the Jewish race, the economic cost to major Holocaust settings, like Germany, Hungary, Lithuania, Poland, Russia, and the Netherlands, the economic cost to Europe, or the economic cost to the world. Its costs were infinite.
In Europe, millions of Roma were killed. No one knows the economic cost of Roma murders. The Israeli government killed many more Palestinians than Palestinians had killed Jews. No one knows the cost of those Jewish and Palestinian deaths. India’s caste Hindus killed many Dalits and many Muslims. No one knows the cost of those Dalit and Muslim deaths. The settlers and American governments killed millions of Native Americans. No one knows the economic cost of those Native American murders. The Caucasians and their governments killed many African Americans. No one knows the economic cost of the murder of those African Americans. Every murder has a cost. A huge cost. An unbearable cost.
A seven-year-old girl, Jakelin Caal, from Guatemala, died December 8, 2018, at an El Paso children’s hospital. Her death occurred two days after she and her father were detained by the U.S. Border Patrol Agency. Later that month, on Christmas Eve, an eight-year-old boy, Felipe Gomez Alonzo, from Guatemala, died at a New Mexico hospital after becoming ill while in U.S. custody. Two little children died 16 days apart after they became ill in detention. What was their crime? They were born to poor parents in a poor violent country.
America is rich. It is a democracy. It nonstop espouses the sanctity of human rights and human values. It spends billions to prevent abortion, which kills unborn fetuses. Shouldn’t such a country offer needy living children help to live, even if they are from Guatemala? Isn’t it a sin to let those Guatemalan children die of neglect? Isn’t it a sin to discount their humanity? Would a fetus feel pain similar to a living child? If America were as benevolent as it claims, would it separate children from their parents just for being poor?
Barbarity Continues at Christchurch
On February 22, 2011, Christchurch, a hallowed name, experienced an unblessed natural catastrophe, an earthquake, killing 185 and inflicting inordinate destruction. It caused unimaginable suffering and intolerable losses. Natural catastrophes are caused by confluences of drives, convergences of movements, and interactions of forces. Natural catastrophes cause inordinate deaths, injuries, and destruction. They are unplanned and coincidental, just random, chance incidents. They are neither barbaric nor vengeful doings by humans.
Neither vengeful nor vindictive, neither malevolent nor malicious—nature doesn’t know hate, evilness, or wickedness. Nature is devoid of a mindset to start or unleash hatred or badness. Such premeditated emotions and intentions are due to human nature. Inescapably, humans personify evil. In forlorn screaming and woeful wailing, Christchurch was forced to witness human savagery and human cruelty, epitomizing human wickedness.
One bigoted man brought to Christchurch indefinably cruel barbarity. From Australia, which is infamous for Islamophobia, he went to the town with a blessed name, eulogizing the Son of God, prince of peace and goodwill to inflict malevolence and cruelty. Professing his superiority for being born Caucasian, he brutally, unmercifully, inhumanly killed 50 and injured 45. He chased after the horrified people, running away from cruel death, in order to kill them the way hunters chase after animals. The dead were dead forever, unfulfilled, incomplete, and unfinished.
The killer overtly espoused his racist hatred. He openly owned racism as his true passion for committing the heinous massacre. The killer said he settled on the Christchurch mosque because its prominent golden dome makes it look more distinctively foreign and its apparent crowdedness offered more folks to kill. As he was poised to appear like a licensed, accredited killer, he attired himself in a black paramilitary outfit. As he was determined to let everyone know the cruelty of his deed, and the devilish brutality of his cherished resolve, he commenced an Internet live stream as he started his cruel killing.
As if at a football game, maybe an orgy of predation, as he began his brutal killing, the killer nonchalantly and callously said, “Let’s get this party started.” While he was killing, he was listening to the song, “Fire,” the first proclamation being “I am the god of hellfire.” In a myriad of ways, the killer showed how thrilled he was about his mission of killing innocent people who had done nothing to him. In a myriad of ways, the killer acted as if he was evil incarnate devoid of mercy and compassion, enveloped in a diabolical hallucination with vengeful hatred toward Muslims.
While wearing a subdued smile, a measured grin, as if contemplative, he conveyed his awareness of the gravity of his mission. Was he wondering about the evils of his deed, despite his methodical resolve to kill, kill mercilessly, kill brutally, kill cruelly? His expansive forehead overshadows his wandering eyes, wandering between the conceit of his race and the hate of his ideology. Those not-so-large but wide-open eyes were sharply focused on the future’s obliqueness, its noxious darkness, its dead end, its nasty termination, its sheer waste.
His invented introspectiveness and his postured pensiveness, as if he was gazing at his own life, which is forever checkmated by his own move, a move he was forced into by a hate ideology of visceral void. His Caucasian supremacist ideology constructed from his own built-up ignorance prevented him from seeing human beings as human beings, regardless of their look, faith, or birth. Seconds later, however, he did let his gaze tell that he was aware of the visceral limitedness, vainness, and futility of his hate mission stirred by an ideology learned from Google.
His name was Mucaad, God’s Gift, a three-year-old boy. He seemed immersed in inquests and inquiries, as if musing on his own mystery. He effused nothing but innocence. He loved to play and played for love. While playing for love, he was killed by an evil grownup, who unleashed inordinate hatred toward a three year old simply for being born non-Caucasian. Mucaad did not choose his parents. He was a random reality. That randomness became the cause of his death. Such is human evilness and vileness, killing a three-year-old little boy, who was delightedly playing for love, playfully exploring the serenity of love, imploring the beauty of consecrated love.
Killing a three-year-old boy was an unforgivable inhumanity, an unconscionable cruelty. While the news of the wicked tragedy of the cruel carnage, the savage slaughter of 50 and maiming of 45 innocent people began to spread, an extraordinarily uncommon reality was concurrently conveyed. She rose to the sad solemnity, forlorn gravity. Her proud and bold recital made the people and leaders alike around the world realize and reckon with her true humanity. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern showed no hesitation or embarrassment in publicly baring her grief, her true grief. She grieved the loss. She owned the loss. She owned the pain as if she was truly a family member of every victim.
The prime minister vindicated New Zealand. She made it the world’s lone humane nation, contemplative nation. She declared she would do everything in her power to deny the accused killer’s infamously twisted Caucasian supremacist ideology from receiving any publicity. Exhibiting her boldly unique leadership, she said, “We can absolutely deny him” the fame he covets. “One thing I can assure you, you won’t hear me speak his name.” She urged the people to follow her lead and to avoid giving the killer the fame he so badly sought.
The prime minister said, “I implore you: Speak the names of those who were lost, rather than the name of the man who took them. He may have sought notoriety, but we in New Zealand will give him nothing, not even his name.” She then said, “We cannot simply sit back and accept that these platforms just exist and that what is said on them is not the responsibility of the place where they are published. They are the publisher, not just the postman. There cannot be a case of all profit, no responsibility.”
Jacinda Ardern is a remarkable woman. No head of state or head of government, whether a man or woman, had ever shown such inimitable humanity and courage. No emperor, king, president, chancellor, or prime minister had ever shown such truly revolutionary and indomitable courage. She became uniquely exceptional because she showed extraordinary chutzpah by confessing true empathy for and solidarity with Muslims, who are the Western world’s most vilified and abused tiny minority.
Sadly, the bigoted Sri Lankan Muslim haters did not understand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s message or her humanity. The Sri Lanka killing told of the human inability to renounce violence and embrace nonviolence. It was Easter Sunday, April 21, 2019, the day of rebirth and rejoicing. On that day, in Sri Lanka, seven Sri Lankan Muslim citizen terrorist suicide bombers belonging to a nefarious militant Islamist group bombed three churches and three luxury hotels in a series of coordinated bombings, killing 258 and injuring more than 500. Those Muslim killers commiserated with that Christian killer, uniting in inhumanity, blending in cruelty.
Economics of Violence
Unavoidably and inevitably, violence causes wealth destruction. Reduction in wealth causes cuts in investments. Reductions in investments unavoidably reduce economic growth. Reduction in economic growth causes reductions in social progress. Reduction in economic growth and the consequent reduction in social progress unavoidably curtail economic development. Reduction in economic development necessarily causes reductions in people’s standard of living and quality life, inevitably worsening the country’s poverty.
Violence Curtails Economic Development
Violence kills and injures people. Violence destroys and damages assets. Killing entails an unbearable economic cost. Since murder ends murder victims’ lives forever, murder instantly destroys its victims’ efforts and skills, which id wealth. Death is termination. Death is expiry. A dead person no longer generates production. A dead person produces zero output. A dead person no longer can add to economic growth. A dead architect can no longer design buildings. A dead physician can no longer practice medicine. A dead plumber can no longer do plumbing. A dead cook can no longer cook. A dead pole dancer can no longer entertain. A dead engineering student cannot become an engineer.
Murder instantly ends the power of the murdered to produce goods or services. Murder reduces a country’s wealth, economic growth, and social progress. Murder thus reduces economic development. It reduces a country’s wealth equal to the lifetime value of a dead person’s effort and skill. Since murder destroys the victim’s effort and skill, a murder victim’s ability to produce is forever expunged. The productivity loss a murder causes is murder cost. A dead person’s productivity loss is murder victim cost.
Violence injures people. Injuries cause disablement, possibly even disfigurement or dismemberment. Injuries cause temporary or permanent disablement, preventing output creation temporarily or permanently. Injury invariably causes productivity loss, either temporary or permanent. An injury’s severity determines whether the injured might return to work sooner, later, or never. The severity of an injury determines the size and duration of productivity loss. Loss of productivity an injury causes is injury cost. An injured person’s productivity loss is injury victim cost.
Rape is violent coercion, inevitably culminating in physical assault for sexual gratification. Since the start of mankind, men have been raping women. Occasionally, women rape boys and women. Infinitely more girls are raped than boys. Rapists generally are much stronger than their victims. Rape is a game of physical power. Rapists often wear weapons. Sexual assault on little girls is pure evil. Rape of women is the most heinous crime. Assaulting a weaker person for sexual gratification is an unpardonably uncivilized act.
Rape is an injury. Rape is like cutting a person’s throat. Nonetheless, rape is more burdensome than an injury. Rape inflicts emotional injury, in addition to causing physical injury. Not unlike war injuries, rape might cause temporary or long-term post-traumatic stress disorder. The inability of rape victims to utilize their efforts and skills until they are fully healed causes a reduction in their output, reducing the country’s prosperity. Rape’s physical and psychological injuries reduce a rape victim’s contribution to economic growth. The reduction in output of a rape is rape cost. A rape victim’s output loss is rape victim cost.
Violence causes property destruction and property damage. Violence destroys or damages capital, organization, and environment. Capital includes land and manmade assets like buildings, equipment, machinery, furniture, and supplies. Violence destroys or damages capital. Destruction of and damage to capital brings about productivity loss and a reduction in economic growth. A factory destroyed by arson can no longer generate output. An office building damaged by an explosion cannot be used until it is repaired. A machine tool damaged by an angry worker cannot create any productivity until it is fixed. A damaged truck cannot be utilized to transport goods until it is repaired. Capital’s destruction entails a reduction in wealth and productivity and contributions to economic growth. Capital’s damage entails a reduction in wealth and productivity and contributions to economic growth. The cost of capital destroyed is capital destruction cost. The cost of capital damaged is capital damage cost. Together the cost to repair damaged capital and the cost of output lost while damaged capital is repaired are capital damage cost.
As a catalyst and accelerator, organization increases the efficiency of labor, capital, and the environment. It helps incubate a process that augments productivity by accelerating the efficiency of labor, capital, and the environment. Organization reduces unit cost. It increases unit profit. When violence brings about ruin to organization, productivity is reduced. When violence ruins organization, its ruin by violence diminishes the productivity of labor, capital, and environment. Output loss due to the ruin of organization is organization destruction cost.
Environment includes water, air, and climate. Fresh water, clean air, and good weather help increase economic growth. Violence causes ruin to water, air, and climate. Pollution and global warming injure Mother Earth. A poisoned river and lead-filled water injure and kill people. Nuclear fallout or carbon monoxide emission caused by violence makes air unbreathable. Automobile pollution kills. Output loss from ruin to the environment caused by violence is environment destruction cost.
Effect of Violence on Economic Growth
Economic growth is achieved by innovatively assembling labor, capital, organization, and environment. Violence will unavoidably destroy and damage resources. Violence will inescapably kill and injure labor and destroy and damage capital, organization, and the environment. As violence kills and injures labor, and destroys and damages capital, organization, and the environment, it reduces wealth, productivity, output, economic growth, social progress, and thus economic development. Reduction in economic development decreases the standard of living and quality of life and worsens poverty.
When violence reduces economic growth, due to a reduction in wealth, it necessarily cuts economic development, which results from the reduction in economic growth and the consequent reduction in social progress. Consequently, people’s standard of living and quality of life are decreased, which inevitably worsens poverty. Until people become aware of such inevitable outcomes, they will continue to commit violence and remain barbarous and uncivilized, thereby perpetuating poverty. Education on the costs of violence will unequivocally help humanity modify its inborn inclination toward violence. Without education, humanity cannot change so as to refashion its inclination toward violence.
An increase in economic growth, which alone could facilitate social progress, is a prerequisite to achieving an increase in economic development. The economic resources necessary to create economic growth make up a nation’s wealth. A nation’s wealth represents its economic infrastructure. A well-endowed economic infrastructure, including plenty of skilled people, state-of-the-art technologies, abundance of capital, innovative organization, and a suitable environment, will speed up economic growth. An inventive economic policy could further help accelerate economic growth.
Ongoing economic growth could offer the needed funds to increase social progress if a country’s economic policy so desires. Concurrent growth in economic growth and social progress allow economic development. It will produce a socially profitable prosperity. It will furnish an ongoing increase in the standard of living and quality of life. Aided by a rational economic policy, a nation with more wealth will assuredly achieve more economic development, creating an ongoing improvement in people’s standard of living and quality of life.
Violence curtails economic growth. Reduction in economic growth decreases social progress. Decreases in economic growth and social progress reduce economic development. The ruin violence causes to economic development is determined by its costs to victims, costs to perpetrators, costs to governments, costs to bystanders, and thus costs to the country. Reduction in economic development due to violence decreases the level of prosperity achieved and prosperity achievable. Such outcomes happen because violence kills and injures people and destroys and damages capital, organization, and the environment.
Among the various ways that violence causes reduction in economic growth, the most burdensome one is victims’ losses. While losses to perpetrators of violence are self-inflicted, they nonetheless cause a serious reduction in economic development, often as serious as the losses to victims. Losses to governments entailed by costs for law-enforcement, judiciary, and correctional systems drastically decrease economic development. Governments’ failure to reduce violence is a huge obstacle. Bystanders’ share of losses from violence drastically reduces economic development. The sum of those losses makes up the country’s loss.
Each act of violence unavoidably causes wealth destruction. Every increase in violence brings a corresponding decrease in economic development. In turn, it inescapably decreases people’s standard of living and quality of life. Wealth ruin caused by violence concurrently reduces economic growth and social progress. Wealth ruin caused by violence concurrently worsens the standard of living and quality of life. Wealth ruin necessarily worsens poverty. As violence unavoidably destroys wealth, it inescapably curtails economic growth and social progress.
The assets destroyed and damaged by violence are required to be rebuilt and repaired. Had there been no violence, resources spent to rebuild and repair assets that violence had destroyed and damaged could have been used to build entirely new projects. Resources spent to rebuild and repair assets that violence had ruined could have been used to build new factories to produce, for example, windmills and solar panels. They would have created added jobs, economic growth, and social progress, improving the standard of living and quality of life and remedying the climate change.
Economic growth is a function of wealth. Wealth sizes up achieved prosperity. Driven by a rational economic policy and employment of all its available wealth, a country would gain maximum economic growth. Year after year, economic growth adds to economic prosperity, helping to increase the country’s wealth. At any point in time, while a small part of a country’s wealth is idle and having no impact on economic growth, the rest of its wealth is working nonstop to generate additional economic growth.
A newly built unopened airport is an idle asset. An operating airport is a working asset. Destruction of an idle airport, a nonworking factory, or a shuttered store causes a serious reduction in wealth, a part of the achieved economic prosperity. But it has no immediate impact on economic growth—achievable prosperity. However, destruction of an operating factory, an employed engineer, or a working carwash reduces both economic prosperity and economic growth—prosperity achieved and prosperity achievable.
Various Costs of Violence
Violence entails human cost and property cost. Victim cost and perpetrator cost make up human cost. Property destruction cost and property damage cost make up property cost. Property cost includes replacement cost, repair cost, and nonuse cost. Every act of violence entails victim cost, perpetrator cost, government cost, and bystander cost. Perpetrator cost, government cost, and bystander cost are common with both violence on humans and violence on properties. Human cost comprises murder cost and injury cost. Murder cost includes victim cost, perpetrator cost, government cost, and bystander cost.
Injury cost includes victim cost, perpetrator cost, government cost, and bystander cost. Property cost includes destruction cost and damage cost. Destruction cost includes the loss entailed by a property that is entirely ruined. It covers property cost, perpetrator cost, government cost, and bystander cost. Damage cost totals losses caused to partially ruined property. It includes asset cost, perpetrator cost, government cost, and bystander cost. Together, the murder cost, injury cost, destruction cost, and damage cost make up the cost of violence.
Murder victim cost consists of the sum of income a murder victim would have lost from both formal employment and informal employment between the date of murder and the date of normal retirement. The injury cost to a victim includes the sum of a victim’s benefit losses at both formal employment and informal employment between the date of injury and the date of complete recovery. The healing cost includes expenses for medical treatments and therapies necessary to achieve a full recovery.
Perpetrator cost includes earning loss and legal cost. Earning loss includes loss of benefits for a perpetrator’s effort and skill. Earning loss includes losses at formal employment and informal employment during the charge, trial, and incarceration period. Legal cost includes attorney fees, court costs, expert fees, and appeal costs. The earning loss for a perpetrator of murder who was given the death penalty extends from the date of arrest until the age of normal retirement. For non-death defendants, the earning loss covers the duration of their incarceration.
Government cost includes the costs incurred by law enforcement, the judiciary, and the correctional system. A major part of government cost is preparatory cost for evidence gathering, arrest, trial, and appeals. Cost of incarceration covers expenses to keep perpetrators caged during the disposition period and punishment period. In every incident of violence, the government is inevitably required to incur very sizeable expenses. Law enforcement is required to conduct investigations on every alleged and actualized incident of violence.
Bystander cost covers the sum of the losses that bystanders suffer from murder, injury, destruction, or damage. The loss of a murder victim’s family is bystander cost. The loss of a perpetrator’s family is bystander cost. The loss to service providers like landlords and grocers as a result of spending reductions due to income reductions caused by a murder or injury is bystander cost. The loss to an owner of a building adjacent to a burned-down building, a very common collateral damage, is another bystander cost.
Destruction cost consists of the sum of all the costs necessary to replace a completely ruined property. It comprises, for example, the needed total cost to build a new building to replace a ruined building. Damage cost includes costs to repair a partially ruined property. Repair cost includes two parts: the required funds to cover the cost to fully repair the damage and the loss of income borne by a business as a result of its inability to use a damaged asset during the repair period.
Concepts outline contours. Hypotheses lay foundations. Beliefs guess realities. Narratives elucidate clarity. Graphics proffer rendering. Illustrations exemplify ideas. Illustrations help explain saliency. They are relied upon to explain how violence entails economic cost, how violence curtails economic growth, how violence cuts social progress. Illustrations are used to explain how violence and poverty are concomitants. They are used to explain how violence inevitably worsens poverty. Simple illustrations are used to show how the economic costs of various genres of violence are measured. Illustrations are used to describe how indispensable it is to educate people about violence’s unbearable cost in order to persuade them to end violence so as to civilize humanity and erase poverty. Illustrations are relied upon to explicate and elucidate hypotheses, design templates, graph perspective, display discernment, sketch upshots, and show limits.
Illustrations are relied upon to show the enormity of the cost of violence. Illustrations would tell how the cost of murder, rape, and aggravated assault are measured. They would show how violence would necessarily lead to a reduction in a country’s economic growth and social progress. They would explain how an injury to an Iraqi veteran from Chicago would affect the welfare of a Quaker pacifist in Ojai. They would show how a police officer’s brutality would reshape a university student’s future.
Since economics has abdicated its commonsense obligation to recognize the reality of human behavior, it has failed to define and explore the economics of violence. No models and methodologies have been developed to explain how to define and estimate the economic costs of violence. Lack of existing explorative analysis necessitates the use of simple illustrations to introduce and explain how the cost of violence is defined, explained, and measured.
Measuring the Cost of Violence
Retirement age is assumed to be 70 years for formal employment and 75 years for informal employment. Formal employment refers to a person’s professional job, like the carpentry of a carpenter. Informal employment refers to a person’s nonprofessional responsibility or off-time obligations, like domestic chores, community work, or helping neighbors.
Several illustrations are presented to explain how the economic cost of violence is measured, provide costs of different genres of violence, and give a realistic grasp of the magnitude of the cost of violence.
Illustration 1
Stockbroker Stephen murdered architect Alan. Stephen was convicted to life without parole. Since Alan was killed and Stephen was convicted to life without parole, their productivity and thus input to economic growth were forever terminated. The loss of their productivity at their formal employment was measured by their remaining lifetime income. Their productivity loss in their informal employment likewise was determined by their remaining lifetime income loss.
Alan was 40. He was making $250,000 a year. Victim Alan’s remaining lifetime income in formal employment amounted to $7.5 million. Alan’s output loss at informal employment amounted to $3.5 million. The murder victim cost thus was $11 million.
Stephen was 35. He was making $300,000 a year. Perpetrator Stephen’s lifetime income in formal employment came to $10.5 million. His nonprofessional output loss came to $4 million. His total productivity loss thus was $14.5 million. Stephen’s legal cost was $1 million. Murderer Stephen’s perpetrator cost thus was $15.5 million.
The sum of losses at formal employment to victim Allen and perpetrator Stephen thus totaled $18 million. Together, Alan’s and Stephen’s nonprofessional output loss totaled $7.5 million. Their total productivity loss was $25.5 million: $18 million from formal employment and $7.5 million from informal employment.
The cost to governments for prosecution and incarceration was $3 million. Bystander cost came to $9 million. The losses to all concerned parties totaled $38.5 million. It included $11 victim cost, $15.5 million perpetrator cost, $3 million government cost, and $9 million bystander cost. In addition, governments lost taxes. Allen was killed. Stephen is perishing in prison. Allen’s and Stephan’s families became government wards. Nobody made a gain. Everyone lost. America lost most.
Illustration 2
Journalist Chuck O’Reilly burned down Electrician Wolf Todd’s house in Santa Monica’s 2nd Street. The house’s appraised value was $2 million. Wolf’s insurance paid him $2 million. However, the actual resources initially invested to build Wolf’s now ruined house were destroyed forever. New resources, worth $2 million, were used to rebuild a house to replace the ruined house. The replacement made no new addition to America’s wealth. The supply of houses remains unchanged. Arsonist O’Reilly was convicted. He received a 20-year prison sentence.
O’Reilly was unable to use his journalism skill to generate income for himself for 20 years. His loss of income totaled $1.5 million. O’Reilly spent $100,000 for his defense. The government spent $400,000 for his arrest, prosecution, and trial, and another $2 million for O’Reilly’s incarceration for 20 years, totaling $2.4 million. The total loss of O’Reilly’s arson came to $8 million. It included the insurance company’s loss of $2 million, O’Reilly’s loss of $1.6 million, the government’s loss of $2.4 million, and bystanders’ loss of $2 million. O’Reilly lost, the insurance company lost, the government lost, and bystanders lost. And America lost hugely.
Illustration 3
Seventeen-year-old Justin Armani was a good student and an excellent football player. He often bullied 16-year-old Robert Heath, an honor student and a great pop musician. Robert lost his cool when Justin resorted to physical abuse on a cursed day in 2011. Robert shot Justin, causing complete paralysis to Justin. Robert was tried as an adult and convicted for life. His imprisonment ended his chance to become a famous artist. Paralysis prevented Justin from becoming a famous NFL player. Violence terminated the prospects for both. It deprived and denied many others.
Violence caused Justin a $400 million fortune from his football career. Violence prevented Robert from becoming a famous pop artist. He lost a fortune of perhaps $800 million. Both Justin and Robert became the state’s wards. The government lost $400 million in taxes. They spent $20 million for Justin’s and Robert’s upkeep, healthcare, and legal costs. Affluence was denied to their families. The public was denied the joy of Justin’s excellence in sports and Robert’s talent in music. Violence deprived everyone. It caused poverty. Nobody gained from it.
Illustration 4
Supermarket cashiers, Mary Benin and Susan Lazarus, were close friends. Bored with the routine of their unexciting jobs and middle-income life, they decided to do something to spice up their lives. They persuaded each other into committing a carjacking. Things did not happen the way they had planned. The driver of the car, Nicole Smith, was injured and the car was totaled. It took one year of therapy to heal Nicole. Unable to work, Nicole lost $60,000 in income. Her insurance had to spend a total of $400,000 on her care. A year after Mary and Susan injured her and destroyed her car, Nicole was fully healed and her car was replaced by her insurance, and she was able to resume a productive life. Mary and Susan were found guilty. They got a 20-year imprisonment. Their imprisonment deprived them and America of 20 years of their productivity. They became penniless, as they used their savings to pay legal bills. They failed to prosper after they returned from prison. They lost everything. Their violence totally ruined their future. What they did to themselves had ruined them.
Murderer Stephen, arsonist George, shooter Robert, and carjackers Mary and Susan were convicted. Each one of the perpetrators was ruined by the violence they committed. They lost as much as and in some cases even more than their victims. The car owner Nicole succeeded in getting herself healed and her car replaced by insurance, but carjackers Mary and Susan lost all their savings and went to prison for 20 years. The profound distinction is that the perpetrators were ruined by their own deeds, which they could have avoided. Their eschewal would have saved themselves, their victims, bystanders, governments, and their country.
It is most likely that if perpetrators understood the enormity of the economic cost they would be forced to pay for the violence they committed, they would have avoided their violence. Their violence certainly destroyed their own prospects, their victims’ well-being, and their country’s economic prosperity. Similarly, if America had understood the unbearable cost of violence, it could have avoided the immense cost of its wars against Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq. Without wars, America’s prosperity would have been much greater.
Illustration 5
Attorney Othello killed endocrinologist Horatio for having an affair with his wife, Desman. Horatio’s killing entailed a huge cost. Had he not been killed at the age of 40, he could have continued his productivity creation, practicing medicine, for another 30 years, and 35 years of informal employment, like routine family tasks, consulting and volunteer work. His annual income from his practice averaged $500,000. For 30 years, his total income would have been $15 million. Horatio spent on average five hours a day on his informal work, including consulting and volunteer works, at $100 an hour. For 35 years, it was $6.4 million. His productivity loss in both formal employment and informal work totaled $21.4 million.
The cost of Horatio’s death to his wife and three children for their emotional deprivation and loss of love amounted to $10 million. At the time of his death, he had a total of 300 patients. The cost of the services denied to them until a substitute endocrinologist was found came to $1.6 million. All losses from Horatio’s death totaled $33 million: an income loss of $15 million at his formal employment, $6.4 million at his informal work, and $11.6 million loss to his family and patients.
America and Horatio together spent $2.5 million on Horatio’s education and training as an endocrinologist. The benefits of his education and training were entirely wiped out instantly by his murder. His built-up expertise during his 10 years of practice was valued at $5 million. Horatio’s death caused another $7.5 million loss of investments that was made to help him get his education and expertise. The total loss to America thus increased to $40.5 million. Upon Horatio’s death, Ophelia took over his duties. Had Horatio not been killed, Ophelia would have used her endocrinology study to serve additional diabetic patients, which would have added to America’s prosperity. That loss amounted to $4.5 million. Thus, the total loss from Horatio’s death to America came to $45 million.
Had Horatio not been killed, America could have saved $45 million. The savings could have been used to start a scholarship program for 400 youths from financially disabled and educationally deprived families to study engineering. Their annual $80 million productivity would have increased America’s affluence, and helped improve its social progress and thus its standard of living and quality of life. Horatio’s death has denied America the additional productivity of 400 engineers. It denied 400 deserving youths an opportunity to build productive and affluent lives.
Horatio’s death brought a sense of finality, an irrevocable and irremediable termination. His education, expertise, and experience were destroyed forever. With the killing of Horatio, the wealth embodied in him was destroyed. The wealth destruction violence caused was wholly terminal. Since what is destroyed is irreplaceable and cannot be resurrected, violence caused irreversible destruction, curtailment, and termination. Since destruction causes diminution, violence caused ruin. America became worse off. Its economic growth was reduced. Its social progress was reduced. Its economic development was reduced. Nobody gained from Horatio’s death—only losers and losses.
Illustration 6
Entrepreneur Scott attacked designer Joseph, inflicting a serious shoulder injury, causing serious physical challenges. Joseph’s injury prevented him from using his designer skill until he was fully recovered. Full recovery took 180 days. During the recovery period, Joseph was not able to work or be productive. He was deprived of his monthly $12,000 income until he returned to work. In the meantime, he had to find $15,000 a month to pay his regular bills and pay for his treatment. His total loss during those six months came to $162,000, including his $72,000 income loss, and $90,000 bill payments.
During Joseph’s absence while healing, his employer incurred a serious financial loss, as it failed to meet its production target. Delivery delay caused a loss to clients. And the government lost taxes. Joseph’s inability to work prevented him from creating output, income, and economic growth. An injury from violence caused wide-ranging losses, impacting everyone adversely. The injury to Joseph has entailed a cost to the injury-causer Scott, the victim, employers, vendors, governments, and America. Violence reduced everyone’s affluence.
Illustration 7
Ann was an enlisted Air Force officer. She got injured in Iraq, losing both legs above her knees and her right arm. Plagued by constant pain, partial paralysis, and post-traumatic stress disorder, she was vexed with despair. Her disability prevented her from generating any productivity or income. Her input to economic growth and social progress ended forever. Ann’s expected lifelong $4 million income at 100,000 a year for 40 years was lost forever. Her opportunity for affluence was axed. Her ambition for a comfortable life was aborted.
Before her injury, Ann always gushed with dreams and ambitions. She worked hard to realize them. Now an inescapable specter of poverty envelops her, and a never-ending despair intrudes upon her. Veterans’ benefits gave her meager maintenance. Her physical and psychological disability forced her to remain forever the state’s liability. She became a cost. She signed off on her reality of remaining on government handouts. Dependence thwarted individuality. Disability thwarted affluence. Despair thwarted dignity.
Illustration 8
Sarah was twenty-five, a university-trained software engineer, working for Dream Software in Los Angeles. Her colleague, Wolf, brutally raped her at Chuck’s Halloween party. During the struggle, Wolf broke Sarah’s jaw. Sarah was laid up for six months. She was emotionally impaired forever. She was unable to regain her pre-rape, bubbly, happily positive personality. For six months, she had no output. Her lifetime productivity was truncated. She became lastingly unable to resume her pre-rape excellence. Before the rape, Sarah was exceptionally innovative, creating consistent productivity growth. After the rape, Sarah failed to maintain her productivity. She failed to achieve any noticeable productivity growth, as she was unable to improve her performance due to her lack of focus. She has less drive and purpose. She failed to acquire any new expertise. Dream Software did not offer her significant promotions nor opportunities. Sarah’s income did not increase greatly. She couldn’t save enough. She couldn’t buy a home. She couldn’t invest. Sarah lost inordinately. America lost greatly.
Illustration 9
In 2015, the GDP of country Venus was $50 billion. Its wealth included a million square miles of land and water, $300 billion in capital, and skilled labor valued at $100 billion. Its population count was 1.2 million, with 500,000 economically active and 700,000 economically inactive people. An extremist group, Horizon Warriors, bombed Venus’s only port facility, causing $10 billion of wealth loss—$8 billion in capital and $2 billion in labor. It killed 200 and injured 400 skilled workers. Venus’s hardship multiplied. Venus’s wealth destruction reduced its GDP from $50 billion to $45 billion in 2016. Destruction of $10 billion of wealth, consisting of $8 billion in capital and $2 billion in labor’s effort and skill, caused a $5 billion GDP reduction. The per capita income fell from $41,700 to $37,500. Everyone’s income declined by $4,200. The violence perpetrated by Horizon Warriors made everyone in Venus worse off. The dead lost the most, as they were dead forever. Horizon Warriors were caught and convicted. They lost hugely.
Illustration 10
Country Pluto is an island state. Recently, it experienced a murder. Anti-abortionist Anthony killed Dr. Brutus, who, as Country Pluto’s only specialist in gynecology and obstetrics, also provided abortion service. Brutus’s death made his family poor. With Brutus’s death, a part of Country Pluto’s wealth was destroyed. His precious service, education, training, expertise, and experience were destroyed forever. It was Country Pluto’s women who bore the brunt of the deprivation and were forced to bear a huge cost from Brutus’s death. Subsequent to Brutus’s death, Pluto’s women were left with no specialist for gynecological and obstetric services for 180 days until a replacement was found. With Brutus’s death, no birthing services were provided. Pluto’s women paid a heavy price, as two women died from childbirth complications. Dead Brutus was no longer able to create income to support his family or wealth to enrich Pluto, making them poorer. Nobody gained from the violence. Brutus lost. His family lost. Women lost. The killer lost as the anti-abortion fanatic Anthony was found guilty. Government lost. Pluto lost.
Illustration 11
Saudi Arabia–inspired Mujahideen Warrior League blew up Country Jupiter’s Dome Bridge. It forever destroyed the entire resources that went into building the Dome Bridge. Dome’s destruction caused huge traffic delays. It caused huge productivity loss. It deprived individuals, businesses, institutions, and governments. Between the old bridge’s destruction and the new bridge’s completion, Country Jupiter’s productivity loss totaled $650 million. The new bridge’s construction cost came to $350 million. Thus, the total loss to Jupiter was $1 billion. The new bridge’s construction did not create new wealth. No new wealth was created. Resources to build the new bridge went to replace what was destroyed. The new bridge’s productivity was equal to that of the old bridge. Had the new bridge’s $650 million outlay been invested to start a new renewable energy industry, it would have offered Jupiter additional economic growth and social progress. It would have unavoidably created additional employment and productivity, guaranteeing everyone a better standard of living and quality of life. The new renewable energy industry would have helped in the effort to remedy climate change.
Illustration 12
Tucker Tower, an office building, in Houston, Texas, was destroyed by arson by six members of the Hitler Militia. The tower’s replacement cost totaled $80 million—arson victim cost. Six arsonists received 20-year prison sentences. It caused an average yearly earning loss of $150,000, $100,000 from formal employment and $50,000 from informal employment for each arsonist. At $3 million for 20 years per arsonist, the total loss to the six was $18 million. Legal costs, including the expert fees, came to $6 million. Perpetrator cost totaled $24 million. The government spent $10 million for the trial and $24 million to keep six people in prison for 20 years, totaling $34 million. Bystander cost came to $50 million. Arson destruction cost totaled 188 million, $80 million replacement cost, $24 million perpetrator cost, $34 million government cost, and $50 million bystander cost. Had there been no arson, America would have saved $188 million, which could have been used for feeding healthy lunches to children of poor families, feeding hungry adults, and housing the homeless.
Illustration 13
One of Tanya Transport trucks was vandalized by a former driver, Mark Vandal. Its repair cost came to $35,000. It took 15 days to do the repair. During those 15 days, Tanya Transport was not able to use the damaged truck. The cost of the truck’s nonuse came to $65,000. Repair cost and nonuse cost together totaled $100,000. Mark Vandal was found guilty and went to prison for four years. His earning loss for four years came to $600,000. His legal cost was $100,000. The perpetrator cost thus totaled $700,000. The government cost for the arrest, charge, trial, and incarceration came to $800,000. The total cost of Mark Vandal’s vandalism that caused damage to the truck totaled $2.1 million, including the $100,000 victim cost, $700,000 perpetrator cost, $800,000 government cost, and $500,000 bystander cost. Had there been no vandalism, America could have saved $2.1 million. The insurance company would have saved $100,000. Mark Vandal would have saved $700,000. The government would have saved $800,000. And the bystanders would have saved a total of $500,000.
Illustration 14
Rob Slayer, a 25-year-old journalist, murdered a 40-year-old construction contractor, John Death. Murder cost includes victim cost, perpetrator cost, government cost, and bystander cost. Victim cost to John is loss of his life. Perpetrator cost is a loss to Rob, the murderer. Government cost includes all the costs to various governments. Bystander cost is the losses of people who played no role in Rob killing John. Victim cost totaled $15.5 million. John lost $12 million at his formal employment as John was unable to work, build houses, and create wealth because he was killed. While alive, he was making $400,000 a year. If he had not been killed, he would have worked 30 years until he was 70. He lost another $3.5 million at his informal employment at $100,000 a year for 35 years until he reached 75. Dead John was unable to do his regular chores at home and his community work building for Habitat for Humanity.
The perpetrator cost came to $16.5 million. Rob was sentenced to life imprisonment without parole. His incarceration prevented him from working as a journalist. His earning loss from formal employment was $10 million at $200,000 a year for 50 years. His loss from informal employment at $100,000 a year for 55 years came to $5.5 million. They totaled $15.5 million. His legal cost was $1 million. The perpetrator cost totaled $16.5 million. As the perpetrator cost exceeded the victim cost, Rob suffered a greater monetary loss than his victim. The government cost came to $14 million. It included a $3 million preparatory cost, which included expenses for investigation, filing charges, arrest, trial, and appeal on the murder case against Rob Slayer. To keep Rob in prison until he died, the incarceration cost came to $11 million for 55 years at $200,000 a year. The government cost nearly equaled the victim cost and perpetrator cost. The bystander cost was $15 million, using a yardstick of one-third the total of victim cost, perpetrator cost, and government cost.
Bystander loss includes loss to John’s customers from the sudden death of their contractor, which caused some to delay their projects. Had he been alive, building houses, and making $400,000 a year, John would have spent a major portion of his income to buy goods and services that would have helped increase employment and economic growth. His death deprived his community of his volunteer service. His death deprived his children of his love, his presence, and his guidance. His death precluded him from saving part of his income that he would have used to buy Apple stocks that would have helped increase investment and thus economic growth. John used to have his nails done every week. His death deprived his manicurist of a good customer who was generous with tips.
The total cost of Rob Slayer killing John Death came to an unbearable $61 million. It included a $15.5 million victim cost, $16.5 million perpetrator cost, $14 million government cost, and $15 million bystander cost. Had Rob Slayer not killed John Death, America would have saved $61 million. Patriotism should dissuade people from committing violence. Had Rob not killed John, America’s $61 million loss could have been averted. That $61 million savings could have been used to build a housing project to house probably 3,000 homeless people. Alternatively, America could have sent $61 million to Honduras to build housing for its poor.
Illustration 15
Every single day, in America, thousands of women are raped. In 2017, average 3, 112 women were raped as there were 135,755 rapes during the year. More rapes were committed in 2017 than in 2016. Such a heinous crime on such an abominable scale is committed in a country that assiduously claims that it is civilized. America has a great educational system, renowned leadership in science, excellence in the arts, unrivaled technological leadership, and unequaled wealth. Notwithstanding, such an abominable number of rapes confirm that America is no less uncivilized than any poor backward country. Often the barbarity of rape causes more emotional wound than physical injury even when extreme violence has been used to subdue a victim. In rape, threats of violence are as grievous as violence. In rape, coercion is as grievous as violence. Rape is unalloyed violence.
Costs of rape include victim cost, perpetrator cost, government cost, and bystander cost. The rape victim’s productivity loss makes up the victim cost. Productivity loss often lasts over the rest of the victim’s life. Usually, the decline in output is large during the initial years. In calculating the average rape victim cost, it is necessary to take into account the victim’s profile and rape’s brutality. The victim’s age and earning power must be considered. The brutality of violence, the severity of the injury, the healing time, and the torment of despair must be accounted for. A less brutal rape’s economic cost will be less than a more brutal rape’s cost. An average brutal rape on a more vulnerable woman would cause more economic cost than an average brutal rape on a less vulnerable woman. Use of a weapon increases the cost.
James Rapist raped Rebecca Prey when she was 30. When the rape occurred, Rebecca’s yearly formal employment income as a finance manager was $150,000. Had there been no rape, her yearly average income between the ages of 30 and 70 would have been $250,000, totaling her lifetime earnings at $10 million. After the rape, her output declined from $150,000 to $100,000, for the first 10 years. Her productivity averaged at $150,000 for the next 10 years. During her last 20 years of work, her productivity averaged at $200,000. As a result of the rape, her lifetime income fell from $10 million to $6.5 million. Her net loss was $3.5 million.
Rebecca’s loss in her formal employment was $3.5 million. Before the rape, her yearly output in informal employment was $100,000, totaling $4.5 million for 45 years. After the rape, her yearly output declined to $60,000, totaling $2.7 million for 45 years. Her loss was $1.8 million in informal employment. The total loss from the rape was $5.3 million, including $3.5 million in formal employment and $1.8 million in informal employment. Rape victim cost totaled $5.3 million. America’s loss from one rape to its rape victim came to $5.3 million. Perpetrator cost of the rape came to $1.5 million. Government cost for Rebecca’s rape was $1.3 million. Bystander cost was $2.1 million. The cost of Rebecca’s rape to America totaled $10.2 million.
Illustration 16
Plumber Ken Attacker assaulted carpenter James Hurt and broke his hip. James needed 30 days of hospitalization and 90 days of home therapy. He was unable to work for 120 days. The injury cost totaled $0.9 million. His wage loss for four months was $50,000. His hospital cost was $400,000. His home therapy cost was $300,000. His home care cost was $150,000. His recovery cost totaled $0.85 million. His injury cost was $0.9 million, adding his income loss of $50,000 to his recovery cost of $850,000. Had Ken not assaulted James, there would have been no such cost and no such loss.
Ken Attacker received five years in prison. His annual income from formal and informal employment was $200,000. His five-year earning loss was $1 million. His legal cost was $100,000. Total perpetrator cost was $1.1 million. Government cost was $1.4 million: $400,000 preparatory cost and $1 million incarceration cost. Bystander cost was $1.4 million. The total cost of an aggravated assault was $4.8 million, consisting of a $0.9 million victim cost, $1.1 million perpetrator cost, $1.4 million government cost, and $1.4 million bystander cost.
Illustration 17
John Robber robbed Kansas City’s Dollar Bank. He took $50,000. During his robbery, he injured a guard and a teller. Victim cost, including the bank’s $50,000, which he took, and the cost of two injuries, which he caused, totaled $750,000. Perpetrator cost came to $1.25 million. Government cost to prosecute and incarcerate him for eight years was $1.75 million. Bystander cost was $1.25 million. The total cost of his robbery was $5 million. Had John not committed the bank robbery, America would have saved $5 million to pay for better education.
John took $50,000 from the Dollar Bank. While he was being chased by the police, he threw away the money bag to avoid getting caught with the loot. An hour later, he was arrested. He was at the county jail for three months. He was given an eight-year prison sentence. John’s reason for robbing the bank was to make easy money without working for it. Unfortunately, John got no money and had to remain caged for eight years and three months. His enterprise made no profit; he lost badly. His own deed made him a felon and poorer and deprived him of freedom.
Cost of Violence in America
In 2016, America had 323 million people and 1.25 million violent crimes. Americans committed an average of 3,425 violent crimes a day. Those crimes included murder, rape, aggravated assault, and robbery. There were a total of 17,250 murders, averaging 47.3 murders a day. Every single day 48 human beings were killed. There were a total of 130,603 rapes in 2016. Every day, 358 women were raped in America, which pretends to be civilized. Wikipedia reported that in Afghanistan in 2012, 160 rapes were reported. It is true that Afghanistan’s societal backwardness and religious orthodoxy encourage the underreporting of rape. Nevertheless, it appears the primitive Taliban men did not commit as many rapes as so-called sophisticated American men. A total of 803,007 aggravated assaults were committed, averaging 2,200 a day. Robberies totaled 332,198; every day, 910 robberies were committed. Those crimes fleeced America, bleeding America dry.
The estimated cost of America’s 1.25 million violent crimes in 2016 was $4.5 trillion. There were 41 million individuals living in poverty with an average income of $11,880. Had the $4.5 trillion cost of 1.25 million violent crimes been avoided, that $4.5 trillion saving could have been given to those 41 million poor. If so, each person would have gotten $41,000 a year. Adding $41,000 to their $11,880, then their individual income would have been $52,880, making them affluent. Ending violent crimes would have entirely purged America’s poverty and made America less uncivilized.
In 2017, in America, 17,284 people were murdered; this was 34 murders more than the previous year, averaging 47.4 murders a day. From one murder, as illustrated, America’s loss was $61 million. The cost of a murder, shown in the illustration, is edited down from $61 million to $30.5 million, to get an exceedingly deflated average cost of a murder, with appropriate representation to various income and age groups of victims and perpetrators. At the $30.5 million cost per murder, 17,284 murders have cost America a $527 billion loss. Preventing those 17,284 murders could have saved America $527 billion.
America had 40 million poor people in 2017. Their federal legal poverty-line income was $12,060. Should $527 billion saved from ending murders have been given to America’s 40 million poor people, each person would have received $13,175. When $13,175 is added to poor people’s 2017 poverty-line income of $12,060, their per capita income would increase to $25,235. The addition of $13,175 will move the poor out of what is legally defined as poverty to the middle-class category. Just ending murder alone will eliminate forever America’s unconscionable poverty.
In measuring average rape victim cost, different weights must be given to the victim’s profile and the rape’s brutality. So, the rape victim cost of Rebecca was marked down from $5.3 million to $3.2 million. The average victim cost of a rape is thus fixed at $3.2 million. For 135,755 rapes, the victim cost at $3.2 million for a rape is $434 billion. Perpetrator cost of 135,755 rapes at $1.5 million a rape is $204 billion. Government cost at $1.3 million per rape is $176 billion. Bystander cost at $2.1 million was $285 billion. The total cost of 135,755 rapes was $1.1 trillion. Had that $1.1 trillion loss been avoided and the saving of $1.1 trillion been distributed to America’s 40 million poor people, each poor person would have received $27,500. When each poor person is given $27,500, adding to their current poverty-line income of $12,060, their individual income would have gone up to $39,560, elevating them to a better than middle-class status. As if a miracle, the abjectness of poverty is eliminated while the barbarity of rape is ended.
By ending murders and rapes, America could have saved $527 billion and $1.1 trillion, respectively. This totals $1.63 trillion. With $1.63 trillion, America could have eliminated its poverty by elevating its 40 million poor to middle-class status, its homeless problems by giving housing to its 555,000 homeless, and a major part of climate change’s impending disaster. By ending murders and rapes, it could have ended poverty, homelessness, and a good part of the global warming. Ending murders and rapes, America could have ended its two heinous crimes and essentially remedied the impending climate change catastrophe.
In 2017, America had 810,825 aggravated assaults. To build a realistically deflated average, the $4.8 million loss from Ken’s assault on James was reduced to $2.4 million. At $2.4 million, 810,825 assaults entailed a $1.95 trillion loss for America. America can save $1.95 trillion a year if aggravated assaults are prevented. If $1.95 trillion were to be spent to improve America’s infrastructure, it would accelerate its economic growth exponentially. Increased economic growth would have provided increased funds for social progress. An increase in economic growth and social progress would increase everyone’s standard of living and quality of life.
There were 319,356 robberies nationwide in 2017. The average dollar value of property stolen per reported robbery in 2017 was $1,373. Robberies accounted for a total monetary loss of $438 million. Banks suffered the highest average dollar loss at $3,483 per offense. Victim cost of a robbery, including both money loss and injury, was estimated at $100,000. Victim cost for 319,356 robberies at $100,000 a robbery, including injury cost and money loss, was $32 billion. Robbery victim cost came to $32 billion. Perpetrator cost of a robbery was $1 million, including a $200,000 legal cost and an $800,000 income loss during incarceration. Perpetrator cost for 319,356 robberies totaled $319 billion. Government cost, consisting of preparatory cost and incarceration cost, was $1.3 million. For 319,356 robberies, government cost totaled $415 billion. Bystander cost was $255 billion. The total loss from 319,356 robberies came to $1.02 trillion. Had there been no robberies, America could have used $1.02 trillion to lower middle-class taxes.
Violent crimes in America included murder, rape, aggravated assault, and robbery. In 2017, America bore a loss of $527 billion from 17,824 murders, $1.1 trillion from 135,755 rapes, $1.95 trillion from 810,825 aggravated assaults, and $1.02 trillion from 319,356 robberies. The cost to America from 1.3 million violent crimes was an unbearable $4.6 trillion. It amounted to one-fourth of its $19.39 trillion 2017 GDP. Had there been no violent crimes, America’s GDP in 2017 would have been a whopping $23.99 trillion.
Furthermore, America endured 7.7 million property crimes, consisting of 1.4 million burglaries, 5.5 million larceny-thefts, 0.8 million motor vehicle thefts, and 41,171 arsons. The FBI considers that the victim cost of 1.1 million burglaries was $3.4 billion, 5.5 million larceny-thefts was $5.6 billion, 0.8 million motor vehicle thefts was $6 billion, and 41,171 arsons was $641million. Victim cost of 7.7 million property crimes was about $16 billion. The FBI doesn’t include the cost of nonuse of stolen and burned-down properties while being rebuilt and repaired. The nonuse cost of 7.7 million property crimes at $10,000 per crime came to $77 billion. Victim cost thus came to $93 billion: $16 billion for property loss and a $77 billion nonuse cost. Perpetrator cost, including income loss and legal costs, at $100,000 per crime, was $770 billion for 7.7 million property crimes. Government cost, including preparatory cost and incarceration cost, at $150,000 for a burglary was $1.16 trillion. Bystander cost was $667 billion. The total cost for 7.7 million property crimes in 2017 came to $2.67 trillion.
America’s loss in 2017 from 1.3 million violent crimes was $4.6 trillion and from 7.7 million property crimes was $2.67 trillion. The total loss from violent crimes and property crimes was $7.25 trillion. America’s loss of $7.27 trillion was 37 percent of its $19.39 trillion GDP. In the absence of the $7.25 trillion loss, America’s GDP, in 2017, would have been $26.64 trillion, 37.5 percent more. So much could have been done with an extra $7.27 trillion: eliminating poverty, homelessness, and global warming, upgrading infrastructure, and helping to solve world poverty. In the process, Americans’ barbarity could have ended, making America a less uncivilized country.
America’s Cost of Vietnam War
For the Vietnam War, the U. S. government spent $200 billion. Everyone thought the total cost of the Vietnam War to America was $200 billion. Everyone was wrong. That $200 billion was a tiny part of the war’s total cost. America’s total cost was $2 trillion. It was 10 times greater than the $200 billion the government spent. The war’s intolerable cost was the cost of young Americans’ deaths and injuries. It claimed 60,000 deaths and 450,000 injuries. Another unbearable cost was the deprivation for the dead and injured veterans’ children. Yet another painful cost was the losses from the antiwar activities caused by the prolonged 20-year war. The 20-year war cast poignant doubt about American humanity. It convulsed and consumed America. It emptied its invincibility. It led to an unending nightmare. It sapped and humbled America. It beset its spirit, sullied its soul, wedged its unity, and blotted its honor.
It is reasonable to assume the average age of the 60,000 martyrs was 25. Had they not been killed, they would have professionally worked for 45 years, making an average of $120,000 a year. For one year, America’s loss was $7.2 billion. For 45 years, it was $324 billion. Each martyr would have worked for 50 years at informal work doing domestic chores and community work. The loss of output for 50 years at $80,000 a year was $4 million. For the 60,000 dead, it was $240 billion. The total productivity loss of 60,000 martyrs that America had to bear was $564 billion.
The war caused 450,000 injuries. The average cost to heal an injury was $220,000. The average yearly cost to the government to heal 450,000 injuries came to $99 billion. The average healing time of an injury was five years. The total treatment cost for 450,000 was $495 billion. While healing, a veteran’s average output loss in professional work was $120,000 a year. For five years, one veteran’s output loss was $600,000. For 450,000 veterans, for five years, the output loss at formal employment totaled $270 billion. Each veteran’s output loss at off-time domestic and community work came to $80,000 a year. For five years, for one veteran, it was $400,000. Off-time output loss for five years for 450,000 injured veterans came to $180 billion. The output loss at professional work and off-time work was $450 billion. The total cost of 450,000 injuries was $945 billion: $495 billion for treatment, $270 billion output loss at formal work, and $180 billion at informal work.
America’s loss from 60,000 deaths was $564 billion. Its loss from 450,000 injuries was $945 billion. They totaled $1.51 trillion. A portion of the war’s human cost, or nonmonetary cost, was $1.51 trillion. It becomes $1.71 trillion when the $200 billion government expenses were added to $1.51 trillion. America wasted $1.71 trillion on the war, which included a $564 billion death cost, a $945 billion injury cost, and a $200 billon government cost. Americans foolishly thought the Vietnam War’s total cost was just $200 billion. The total cost of deaths, injuries, and government spending, $1.71 trillion, was 8.5 times greater than $200 billion.
Nations get into wars by reckoning only their budget cost, ignoring the actual total cost. A nation’s total cost includes both budgetary and non-budgetary cost. Budgetary cost of the war was only $200 billion. But a part of the total cost covering death cost and injury cost totaled $1.51 trillion. If the leaders of nations have a sense of economics or a grasp of simple arithmetic, they wouldn’t start a war.
Policymakers must diligently learn and measure the enormity of the non-budgetary costs of a war. To find out the total cost of a war, such unstated and unmeasured human costs should be translated into economic costs. A realistic calculation of the Vietnam War’s total cost must also include the cost of antiwar activities like bombings, subversive actions, marches, trials, and incarcerations of protesters, as well as antiwar protestors fleeing America.
Another cost is the deprivation of the dead and injured veterans’ children. Since those children were deprived of their father’s love, security, and support, they might not have been able to give maximum love, security, and support to their children. Lack of parental love can inhibit and curtail their eventual productivity when they grow into adults. There might be some exceptions. In general, children who were brought up with the love, security, and support of two parents would be more productive and better-behaved citizens. As adults, they would be more productive than children who were deprived of two parents’ ongoing love, security, and support.
Realistically, the cost of antiwar activities and especially the deprivation of the dead and injured veterans’ children would approximate to $350 billion, making the total cost of the war $2.06 trillion. That $2.06 trillion was $1.86 trillion more than the budgetary cost of $200 billion. The total cost was in excess of 10 times of the government cost.
When the Vietnam War ended in 1975, America’s GDP was $1.69 trillion. Had there been no Vietnam War, America’s GDP in 1975 would have been $3.85 trillion, including a $1.69 trillion GDP and a $2.06 trillion war cost. With additional $2.06 trillion, America could have eliminated its poverty and homelessness entirely and prevented the mushrooming growing of climate change. It could also have helped reduce world poverty. Those 60,000 dead young Americans would have lived a great life. Those 450,000 injured veterans would have lived a healthy and affluent life. America would have been a tad nobler.
The total cost of the Vietnam War included a $200 billion government cost, $564 billion, the cost for 60,000 deaths, and $945 billion, the cost of 450,000 injuries. The cost of antiwar activities and the deprivation of veterans’ children was $350 billion. They total $2.06 trillion, 10 times more than $200 billion the government spent for the Vietnam War. When $2.06 trillion in 1970 dollars are converted to 2018 dollars, it amounts to $13.4 trillion, which equals 69 percent of America’s 2017 GDP. In the absence of the Vietnam War, America’s 2017 GDP would have been $33 trillion, not $19.39 trillion. With $33 trillion, America would have had unimaginable affluence. With $33 trillion, America would have had zero poverty. With $33 trillion, America would have had zero homelessness. With $33 trillion, America would have had so much less climate change. With $33 trillion, America would have much better infrastructure. With $33 trillion, America could have given everyone a dignified standard of living and quality of life. With $33 trillion, America would have helped poor countries in the Americas and thus discouraged the influx of refugees and undocumented immigrants. With $33 trillion, everything in America would have been truly hunky-dory.
By avoiding the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, America could have saved a minimum $7 trillion, including budget cost, death cost, injury cost, and deprivation cost. In the absence of Afghanistan and Iraq wars, America’s 2017 GDP would have been $40 trillion. In the absence of the Vietnam War, Afghanistan War, and Iraq War, America’s 2017 GDP would have been $40 trillion, which is $21 trillion, or 110 percent, more than the actual $19.39 trillion. The total cost of those three wars was $21 trillion. There was so much more America could have done. America could have done so much more with the additional $21 trillion, so much more for its people and others.
The total savings that could have been achieved by avoiding the Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq wars would have been $21 trillion in 2018 prices. A small part of it could have been used to end America’s poverty. Maybe $10 trillion from it could have been used to start New Age energy industries to absorb those Americans currently working in fossil fuel industries, eliminating the entire fossil fuel industry. It would have thus helped to avoid the impending climate change catastrophe. A climate change catastrophe would create a hell on earth. Maybe the entire $21 trillion savings could have been used to pay off 96 percent of America’s $22 trillion national debt.
America’s Never-Ending Violence
America witnesses recurrent mass shootings—more than any other country. Since 2000, America has suffered 129 mass shootings. Those 129 mass shootings killed 896 and injured 1,217 people. In a year, an average of 45 people was killed and 61 people were injured. The Las Vegas shooting killed 58 and injured 851. The Orlando night club shooting killed 50 and injured 58. The Virginia Tech shooting killed 33 and injured 23. The Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting killed 28 and injured two. The Sutherland Spring church shooting killed 27 and injured 20. The Stoneman Douglas High School shooting killed 17 and injured 17. The San Bernardino shooting killed 16 and injured 24. The Fort Hood shooting killed 14 and injured 33. The Binghampton shooting killed 14 and injured four. The Washington Navy Yard shooting killed 13 and injured eight. The Aurora shooting killed 12 and injured 70. The Geneva County shooting killed 11 and injured six. Shooting continues. Innocent Americans are continuously killed and maimed.
Civilians killed 64 police officers in 2016. Police officers killed 1,093 civilians. Police officers killed civilians 17 times more than civilians killed police officers. Victims included 574 European Americans, 266 African Americans, 183 Hispanic Americans, 24 Native Americans, 22 Asian and Pacific Island Americans, and 22 people of unknown race. African Americans suffered the worst police killings. They constitute 13.3 percent of America’s population and suffered 24 percent of total police killings, confirming America’s entrenched racism. Native Americans were forced to endure 2.2 percent of the total police killing, while their share in America’s population was 1.3 percent. As if channeling America’s darkest history, police killed African Americans and Native Americans with abandon and callous disregard for equal protection from arbitrary state killings. The goal of democracy is better served when police officers show true devotion to the meaning of their celebrated motto to protect and serve.
Police violence against non-Caucasians is an American tradition. Police routinely kill African Americans without justifiable provocations. As if to renew America’s past racist justice system, police in recent years have killed 22 African Americans. For those killings, no police officer has been punished. No charges were filed against 13. The charges against two were dropped. One is pending. Six were found not guilty. Three victims were children. Four were females. Two were mentally ill. Police killed seven-year-old Aiyana Jones, 12-year-old Tamir Rice, 13-year-old Tyre King, 18-year-old Ramerly Graham, 18-year-old Michael Brown, 22-year-old Rekia Boyd, 22-year-old John Crawford III, 22-year-old Stephon Clark, 23-year-old Sean Bell, 23-year-old Amadou Diallo, 23-year-old Korryn Gaines, 25-year-old Freddie Gray, 26-year-old Patrick Dorismond, 28-year-old Sandra Bland, 32-year-old Philando Castillo, 36-year-old Jerame Reid, 37-year-old Alton Sterling, 38-year-old Jason Harrison, 40-year-old Terence Crutcher, 43-year-old Eric Garner, 43-year-old Keith Scott, and 68-year-old Kenneth Chamberlain. Police killed a seven-year-old child and a 68-year-old man.
Violence ruins its victims. Violence ruins the perpetrators who cause violence. Even though they are not directly involved, bystanders are forced to bear big losses from violence. Violence impoverishes governments. Violence imposes a huge cost on the country. The total cost to victims, perpetrators, governments, bystanders, and the country is intolerable. Violence hugely curtails the country’s economic prosperity. Nonetheless, no one talks about the economic cost of violence. No one talks about the victims’ economic cost. No one talks about the perpetrators’ economic cost. No one talks about the economic cost to governments. No one talks about the bystanders’ economic cost. No one talks about the intolerable economic cost to the country. Violence’s cost is entirely neglected, while violence imposes unbearable costs that inordinately prevent people from improving their standard of living and quality of life.
The original settlements were the beginnings of the United States of America. Violence was the makeup of the New World settlements. Violence was the first recourse. Violence was the last resort. On violence, the settlers’ fate rested. Violence was the medium for survival. Violence was the medium for expansion. The European settlers practically exterminated the Native Americans. The tamed intruders killed so many “wild natives.” The “wild natives” killed a few tamed intruders. The colonies’ survival and expansion were gained through violence. The revolutionaries and Colonialists killed each other. The Patriots and Loyalists killed each other. The Unionists and Confederates killed each other. The nation’s unity was preserved through violence. America’s global power was gained through violence. Its superpower title was gained with the specter of violence, and the threat of a readiness to unleash untold violence. Virtually all nations have been born out of and evolved through violence.
Jamestown was the first permanent English settlement, founded in Virginia, in 1607, 13 years prior to the Pilgrims’ arrival at Plymouth, Massachusetts. In its hurry to find gold, England dispatched the Jamestown settlers without any planning and preparation. Lack of skill to grow and store food soon caused food scarcity. A severe drought and winter made the situation worse. The leader’s sudden death further worsened the situation. Trade relations with the powerful Powhatan Native Americans deteriorated after the Jamestown settlers started stealing food. The extreme winter of 1609–1610 brought on “Starving Times.” Soon, the settlers started eating horses, cats, rats, and shoe leather. Hunger forced them to defy the worst human taboo by resorting to cannibalism. After slaughtering his pregnant wife, one settler salted and stored her flesh. Forensic studies confirmed that the settlers ate the body of a 14-year-old girl named Jane.
In May 1846, a group of 89 settlers, called the Donner Party, left Springfield, Illinois, for California in a wagon train. They followed the well-known trail up to Wyoming’s Fort Bridger. Then they took a shorter route, on an untraveled trail, heading for Weber Canyon through the rugged Wasatch Mountains. The terrain’s extreme difficulties forced them to change routes twice. Mistakes and mishaps exacerbated hardships. They were three weeks late when they passed through the Wasatch Mountains. The Donner Party arrived at the Great Salt Lake weeks later than they planned. When they reached the Sierra Nevada, at the beginning of November, an earlier-than-usual snowstorm stranded them in the cold wilderness, further darkening their luck. Left with little food, they ate rats and horses. They resorted to cannibalism. They survived on the corpses of Dolan, Antonio, Graves, and Murphy. Only 48 of 89 settlers reached California.
The Revolutionary War of Independence became a lasting illustration of humanity’s indivisible affinity for violence—extreme violence, dreadful violence, violence often opportunistic and sadistic. Cruel violence was both sides’ trademark. Uninhibited cruelty was the hallmark of Patriots, Loyalists, and the British. The British soldiers killed the Continental Army soldiers while sleeping. Prisoners were cruelly tortured and brutally killed. Women were raped. Violence was encompassing. Each side splurged in equal cruelty. Patriots and Loyalists were no less inhumane to each other than the British. Patriots were tortured and abused. Loyalists were debased and defiled. The British were humiliated and dehumanized. Loyalist John Malcolm’s torture was an inhuman infamy. Pouring hot tar on living people was not uncommon. It offered a context for the cruel torture and killing that India’s Hindus, Sikhs, and Muslims readily embraced in 1947.
The Revolutionary War, which went on for seven years, was violent, gruesome, bloody, and traumatic. Its actors consisted of a collage of nationals and foreigners. It included Patriots, Loyalists, and Hessians, French and British recruits. In 1775, the Colonies included 2.5 million people, two million Caucasians and 500,000 slaves. More than 50,000 Continental Army soldiers, constituting 2 percent of the Colonies’ population, died from injuries and war-related diseases. Five percent of the able-bodied Caucasians died in action. More than 25,000 Continental Army soldiers were injured. More than 24,000 British soldiers were killed. More than 100,000 Loyalists were forced to flee. The Continental Army had soldiers as young as 10 gifting a precedence to the child soldiers in today’s Afghanistan, Myanmar, Syria, Democratic Republic of Congo, Yemen, Iraq, Nigeria, Somalia, South Sudan, and Central African Republic.
The Civil War was an irreparable tragedy. It was cruel, brutal, catastrophic, and wicked. About 850,000 were killed in action. More than 1.3 million were killed, wounded, captured, or simply went missing. Violence at Shiloh, Antietam, Stones River, and Gettysburg was gruesome. Thousands were killed in captivity. Thousands more died of diseases. One in four who went to the war never returned. Many lost one or more limbs. The Civil War attested to the human capacity for hatred—extreme hatred, unmerciful hatred. Unimaginable violence, indescribable cruelty, and unprecedented brutality pitted man against man, humanity against humanity, between people of the same race, color, religion, culture, and nationality. The Civil War epitomized hatred against hatred. It exemplified vengeance against vengeance. It was imbued in savagery, saturated with viciousness, devoid of humanity, bereft of empathy, engulfed in brutality, and consumed in cruelty, while delighting in killing.
At the time the settlers started arriving, there were 10 million Native Americans. In 1900, there were only 300,000 Natives. Disease, malnutrition, dispossession, and oppression killed many. But the decline’s foremost cause was brutal killings. Greed killed. Enmity killed. Cruelty killed. Racism killed. Hatred killed. Battles killed. Wars killed. Forced labor killed. Servitude killed. In 1775, England’s King George II asked his American subjects to avail themselves of every chance of “pursuing, capturing, killing, and destroying all and every aforesaid Indians.” Colonists were paid to kill the Natives. The rates were £50 for a man, £25 for a woman, and £20 for boys and girls. Forcible removal was routine. To help cotton growers, 100,000 Natives were moved to Oklahoma, causing “The Trail of Tears.” It killed 4,000 Cherokees. California celebrated the extreme cruelty against the Natives. It made their slavery legal. It made buying and selling them legal. It made displacing them legal. Its governor Burnett said in 1851, “A war of extermination will be continued to be waged between the two races until the Indian race becomes extinct.”
The California genocide occurred subsequent to the U.S. conquest of California. Between 1848 and 1870, California’s Native American population declined from 150,000 to 30,000. By 1900, the count had dropped to just 16,000. Settlers were aided in killing the Natives at their choosing. The State of California aided settlers to rob the Natives. The State of California aided settlers to dispossess the Natives. The State of California aided settlers to displace the Natives. The State of California methodically and meticulously pursued a racist pogrom against its Natives. The State of California, in essence, prosecuted a pogrom. The State of California’s goal was to exterminate the Native Californians. The State of California assiduously bolstered settlers’ rights over the Natives’ rights. Between 1850 and 1900, state and federal governments jointly encouraged, helped, and financed miners, settlers, ranchers, and militias to abuse, rape, displace, enslave, kidnap, and murder the Natives. At the start of the Gold Rush, more than 100,000 Natives were killed. California expounded its inhumanity by committing more than 370 massacres, deliberate killing of five or more disarmed Native men and women and children.
One of the worst massacres of Native Californians was perpetrated by the U.S. army. It occurred on May 15, 1850, near Clear Lake. It was called the Bloody Island Massacre. It killed as many as 400 Pomo, including many old men, women, and children. It also killed 75 other Native Americans along the Russian River. Settlers Andrew Kelsey and Charles Stone had routinely enslaved, interned, abused, and starved Pomo in California’s Big Valley area. Kelsey and Stone routinely forced Pomo to endure starvation, loss of pride, loss of dignity, and loss of freedom. Kelsey and Stone regularly raped Pomo women. They often beat and occasionally killed fathers who refused to bring their daughters for sex. As Andrew Kelsey refused to feed his 50 Pomo indentured workers, in the fall of 1849, 48 of them died from starvation. Since they couldn’t take any more abuse, two Pomo men of the Augustine band killed Kelsey with an arrow and Stone with a rock. When the army failed to find the Augustine band’s members, it killed any innocent Native bystander it could find.
Germany’s Palatinate, which runs along the Rhine, is north of the German-French border town of Alsace. Religious persecution and natural disaster forced the Palatine Germans to become refugees and flee to the New World. Since they were Protestants, they were forced into an interminable and hateful religious conflict with French Catholics, especially from Alsace. The extreme harshness of the 1709 winter, freezing the river Rhine, impoverished the Palatine Germans. The Palatine German diaspora started arriving in New York in 1710 on ships that Queen Anne of England had arranged. To pay off their passage, the Palatine Germans worked for years in work camps along the upper Hudson River in Robert Livingston’s Livingston Manor. In 1723, some 100 Palatine Germans were granted land just west of Little Falls in Mohawk Valley. The Palatine Germans thus became the initial settlers of Schoharie in upstate New York. The protestant English settlers readily accepted the protestant Germans who had a reputation for diligence and industry.
Since the English believed the Germans would be a great help in developing the colony, New York’s English settlers warmly welcomed the Palatine Germans and granted them land to the west of their own settlements. The Palatines came with farming expertise and experience. Not long after they built their first settlement, they founded other settlements in the Mohawk Valley. Through their hard work, they built Schoharie into a prosperous agricultural community. Its population consists almost entirely of Caucasians. The prosperous Schoharie were forced to endure a preventable disaster. On August 28, 2011, Hurricane Irene brought ruinous devastation. It was flooded as Schoharie Creek rose to an unprecedented level, causing the worst flood in 500 years. It caused colossal destruction, extreme economic ruin. It ruined roads, crops, farms, barns, homes, and businesses. It drowned many cows and horses. The New York state government’s unfathomable corruption, ineptitude, and inertia prevented it from protecting Schoharie from recurring floods.
Everyone knew the recurrence of floods is as certain as the sun sets in the west. However, no enduring flood prevention system was built. To make their future secure, Americans must learn how to stop nature-made and manmade resource destruction, abuse, and waste. To make their future secure, Americans must stand against unending wars and politicians’ never-ending corruption.
Due to New York State’s callous indifference, 20 people were killed in Schoharie on October 6, 2018, in a limousine accident. The disaster struck on a serene October day, when Schoharie was subliminally engrossed in its joyous preparation to serenade the imminent arrival of the splendor of autumn color. The small town’s stillness on a Saturday afternoon played up the quietness of a fall day. Ebbed human chaos and panic had embellished nature’s unflustered majesty, beckoning Schoharie inhabitants to a more placid reality. Unaware of the impending catastrophe, people were led artlessly to merriment by the onset of autumn serenity.
They were excited about the birthday party, dressed up, made up, and sweetly scented. Poised in small-town reserve and dignity, filled with anticipation, they were ready for the celebratory gathering. They were thrilled about surrendering to uninhibited laughter, excited about festive food and favorite music, eager to show off their skill in dancing, elated about life’s blessings, but minutes later, they were dead—dead forever, gone forever. But it was no fault of their own. The system killed them.
As the driver failed to stop at the intersection, the limo knocked down the stop sign, plowed into a parking lot, killing two pedestrians, crashed into an unoccupied vehicle, and careened down a slope before plunging into a muddy ditch in the woods. Instantly, 20 people died, wrecking their dreams, their joys. To remedy the dangerous history of the intersection, an attempt was made to redo it in 2008. It was an ineffective redoing. Accidents continued. Corrupt officials continued their habitual neglect. No one was held accountable.
The corrupt and inept politicians and bureaucrats who failed to remedy the intersection’s danger failed even more. The limo company was not in compliance. The limo did not meet safety standards. The driver was not licensed to drive a limo. The officer in charge, New York’s governor, Andrew Cuomo, failed the good people of Schoharie, albeit he was paid handsomely, given perks, provided power, feted lavishly, and idolized profusely. His government killed 20 young people of Schoharie. Andrew’s government killed 20 people, while thriving on transcended corruption, delighting in a corrupt political agenda, wallowing in corrupt politics, and splurging in a corrupt alliance. Corruption caused the catastrophe, causing untimely deaths to beautiful young people, romantic dreamers and explorers.
Rebellions destroy countries. America was impoverished by the Civil War. Lebanon was destroyed by its multilayered sectarian feuds. Religious, caste, and provincial conflicts prevented India from escaping its pernicious poverty and never-ending hate. Violent upheaval between East Pakistan and West Pakistan impoverished them. The conflicts between the Sinhalese and the Tamils have impoverished Sri Lanka. The battle between the Islamists and the military have stagnated Algeria. The hatred between the Catholics and Protestants has destroyed Northern Ireland. Conflicts in poor African countries, like Angola, Ethiopia, Rwanda, and the Congo, have made them poorer. Ongoing conflicts in Sudan and Somalia wrecked their prospects. Riots in America’s inner cities have stymied their prosperity. Rebellions unmercifully destroyed Afghanistan. Upheaval ruined Iraq. Sectarianism devastated Syria. Conflict decimated Yemen. Poverty is perpetuated. Dignity is usurped.
The world had 7.4 billion people in 2016. Violence killed a total of 560,000 people. Interpersonal violence killed 400,000. Wars and conflicts killed 160,000. Syria took the crown for shame. It was followed by El Salvador, Venezuela, Honduras, and Afghanistan. Of the 23 countries with the highest rates of violent killings, nine were involved in armed conflicts. Firearms were used to murder 38 percent of the victims. Latin America and the Caribbean countries disproportionately relied on guns to kill. They were followed by a few African countries, and Albania, Thailand, and America. Intentional killing accounted for 80 percent of the murders. Boys and men accounted for 84 percent of the victims. Girls and women accounted for 16 percent.
In Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria, violence killed, injured, and displaced an inordinate number of people. Between 2001 and 2017, in Afghanistan, more than 55,000 civilians were killed and 100,000 civilians were injured. Afghanistan’s civilian casualties were mostly caused by the Taliban. The rest were “collateral” killings by the Afghan government and American and NATO allies. Iraq’s violent death estimate ranges from 500,000 to 1.12 million. The 1.12 million estimate includes both violent deaths and avoidable deaths. Those killings were caused by a combination of American invasion, Iraqi insurgency, the Islamic State’s inhumanity, and societal breakdown. In Syria, more than 500,000 were killed, two million were injured, six million were internally displaced, and five million became refugees. Syria’s economic loss totaled $500 billion. Its life expectancy declined from 70 to 55.
A non-partisan group has recently produced a detailed study that estimated that between January 2016 and October 2018 in Yemen no less than 56,000 people have been killed. The total number of violent deaths is increasing by more than 2,000 a month as fighting intensifies around the Red Sea port of Hodeidah. It is expected that the total number of violent deaths will reach 80,000, when all such killings from the start of the war in Yemeni in March 2015 and the latest figures from October 2018 to May 2019 are included. More than half of those deaths are estimated to be civilians. The new estimate of the likely 80,000 killings does not include a large number of deaths from malnutrition and diseases like cholera. The ongoing famine in Yemen has already killed about 60,000 people. It was the brutal, bigoted, and despotic Saudi Arabia that committed the abdominal killing, obscenely aided by corrupt America.
Human Vengeance for Retribution
Since 9/11, during the past 18 years, American counterterrorism attacks have killed and injured thousands and thousands of innocent civilians. The immoral and inhumane killing of civilians is brazenly called collateral damage, which is an offensive and callous term. The United States reported that its 2017 counterterrorism attacks in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, and Yemen killed 499 and injured 169 civilians. These figures will go up when the remaining 450 civilian casualty assessments are completed. They do not include the civilian deaths and injuries in Somalia and Libya. Nongovernmental organizations reported many civilian deaths and injuries in Somalia and Libya. In Somalia, the United States has killed 10 civilians, including three kids in August 2017. The American-led coalition in Iraq and Syria reported 892 civilian deaths, but an NGO report says that the coalition killed 6,259 civilians. Huge discrepancies are common between the reports of NGOs and the U. S. government, which thrive on alternative facts.
People are as excited to watch cruelty as they are excited to commit cruelty. People get thrilled about cruelty. The attraction to cruelty is an embedded human instinct. Capital punishment is legal in 31 of America’s states. The federal government carries out its own death-penalty killing. The clamor for capital punishment demonstrates mankind’s makeup, nature, and inclination for cruelty. The clamor for punishing someone, anyone, guilty or not guilty, is evidence of mankind’s makeup, nature, and inclination for cruelty.
In ancient times, people paid to watch public executions. This is not unlike today’s people who are ready to pay handsomely to watch bare-knuckle fights, even dog fights and cock fights. People pay liberally to watch human cruelty. People everywhere will line up to pay to watch public executions. People will pay more money to watch a more gruesome beheading than a less grisly lethal injection. In Saudi Arabia, men excitedly gather to watch beheadings. In America, victims’ relatives are invited to watch executions.
People always demand that someone, anyone, guilty or not guilty, is punished. Finding the guilt of a person is irrelevant. What matters is punishing someone. It is a tribal justice, cruelty for cruelty. It started with Hammurabi’s Code, “An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth.” The Mesopotamian legal and cultural system, which created Hammurabi’s Code, flourished soon after Adam was sent to the Earth. Humans love cruelty. Cruelty excites people. Revenge propels people. Retribution drives people. Fifteen-year-old Martha Moxley, of Greenwich, Connecticut, was killed in 1975. No physical evidence, eyewitness, or forensic evidence was found connecting a person to the crime. With weak circumstantial evidence, Michael Skakel was found guilty of Martha’s murder. Although there was no physical, forensic, or eyewitness evidence linking him to the crime, Martha’s supporters insisted that Michael was the killer. Human love for vengeance is inspired by human love for retribution.
Catastrophes like earthquakes, hurricanes, and typhoons are nature’s splurges. Like human violence, they cause death and destruction. However, they are not sired by malevolence. Deaths, injuries, and destructions that humans inflict are caused and motivated by wickedness. Human wickedness is triggered by human inclination for violence. Animals are violent, causing deaths and injuries. Dogs are violent, though they are considered humans’ best friends. Humanity’s affinity for animals is symbolic of its affinity for violence, which manifests its animal trait.
Over time, violence triggered by humans’ innate disposition was transformed into social and cultural traits. The universality of violence evidences the irrefutability of humanity’s social consent and cultural approval. Since humanity lives by hypocrisy, it is loath to admit that violence is an organic socio-cultural human trait. Falsely, humanity considers itself civilized and rational. Falsely, humanity maintains violence is incidental, isolated, and sporadic. Human history is a chronology of violence. At the start, Cain, the son of Adam and Eve, killed his brother, Abel. Every Hindu god was incarnated to use violence to promote virtuous causes. To test his unconditional obedience, God had commanded Abraham to commit violence on his only son. Moses had to part the Red Sea to save Jews from the Egyptians’ violence.
Violence is a human essence and embodiment because humans are born with an affinity for violence. People are inclined toward violence. They thrive on violence. They sell violence. They profit from violence. Violence fascinates, thrills, and arouses people. Violence excites people and gives people pleasure. Affinity for violence has shaped human history into a timeline of unending violence. The dictum “an eye for an eye” justifies violence. The crucifixion of Jesus underscored the human capacity for extreme cruelty. Mohammed who waged wars to spread Islam had to flee Mecca to escape violence. The killing of Gandhi affirmed the human passion for violence. The nonstop murder of civilians in the guise of political justice is evidence of the human dedication to violence. The nonstop killing of children shows humanity’s diabolical and satanic need for violence. Timothy McVeigh and Osama bin Laden highlighted violence’s seductive power. Andres Breivik and Adam Lanza showed violence’s diabolical spell. Stephen Paddock and Omar Mateen showed violence’s power of delight. The Christchurch killer confirmed violence’s evil dominion. Readiness to pay $100,000 and more to watch a boxing show, two pugilists punching each other to submission, has elevated a licensed cruelty into an exalted event for elites in tuxedos, depicting the human excitement for violence.
Violence is a dominant constituent of every nation’s construction and continuation. Every government routinely relies on brutal violence to stay in power. To continue the al Saud tyranny, despotic Saudi Arabia depends on brutal violence. To continue its dominance in the world, democratic America relies on brutal violence. Violence is the means by which law and order is maintained. Rulers use violence to force the ruled to obey law and order. People who are ruled resort to violence to express their dissatisfaction. People routinely use violence to pursue their criminal activities. Governments’ need for a huge militarized police force is necessitated by people’s readiness to resort to violence. Governments cannot dismantle their militarized police as people are predisposed to violence. Capital punishment is a part of the criminal justice system in democratic America and in despotic Saudi Arabia. Cutting off people’s limbs and heads is routine in Saudi Arabia. Injecting poison to kill is routine in democratic America.
Religions use violence to flourish. Religious groups routinely kill each other. The victory in the Battle of Badr helped the spread of Islam. During the Crusades, Christians waged prolonged and brutal wars against Muslims. German and Polish Christians killed European Jews. In Switzerland and France, Catholics and Protestants killed each other. India’s Hindus and Muslims kill each other. In the name of religion, the Islamic State brutally perpetrated indiscriminate killing. Egypt’s Muslims kill Christians. Israeli Jews kill Palestinian Muslims and Christians. Sunnis kill Shiites. Tribes in Africa kill each other. In Rwanda, Hutus committed genocide against Tutsis. Nigerian Muslims and Christians killed each other. Bosnian Christians massacred Bosnian Muslims. Myanmar Buddhists killed Rohingya Muslims and Hindus. Sri Lankan Buddhists killed Hindus and Muslims. Sri Lankan Muslims killed Christians. Every Lebanese religious group killed every other group. Darfur Muslims killed Darfur’s African Christians. God lets people kill people.
Judaism, Christianity, and Islam are connected in continuity and commonality. They claim their mission is to ensure and endure peace on earth. They consider the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea their Holy Land. Since their God covenanted it to them as the Promised Land, Jews consider it the Holy Land. Since Jesus was born, preached, and was crucified and resurrected there, Christians consider it their Holy Land. Since it was from Jerusalem that Prophet Mohammed was taken to heaven, where he witnessed the signs of God and met with all previous prophets, Muslims consider it their Holy Land. Jews, Christians, and Muslims have been using violence to stake their claim for the Holy Land. From the beginning, the Holy Land has been a cause of wars and conflicts, savagery and brutality, hatred and hostility. Despite their connectedness and commitment, they never showed their readiness to cherish and share the holiness of the Holy Land. Lately, an unholy alliance of Israeli Jews and American Christians work to divest Muslims of their claim.
In 1947, India became a chasm of untold cruelty and savagery. Convulsed by consuming fear, it became an epithet for hatred and cruelty. It was allowed to be gripped in anger, engulfed in frenzy, devoured in terror. Hindus, Muslims, and Sikhs allowed themselves to descend into a deep desperation to kill. Once they got trapped in this bottomless gorge, they were unable to climb out. India was pervaded by darkness, devoid of rationality. Driven by cruel savagery, they burned children and they beheaded to kill, splurging in brutal savagery by slitting throats and cutting stomachs open. Women were gang-raped. Their breasts were chopped off. People maimed people. People inhumanly brutalized people. People savagely tortured people. They burned dwellings. They drove people out. They spilled the blood of neighbors, and the blood of friends. They committed inhuman mayhem, unthinkable upheaval, indescribable cataclysm, unspeakable calamity. It was an apocalyptic catastrophe, an irremediable tragedy. There was no return, and no recovery. India was slain. It was a call of Hosanna to the British treachery, hallelujah to the British prejudice, an epitaph for Winston Churchill’s malevolent racism.
In 2016, 40,000 rapes were reported in India. Maybe a million rapes were unreported because in India rape is infamy with social stigma. Responding to the recent run-up in rapes and killings of girls, as young as eight years old, the Indian government approved the death penalty for people convicted of raping children under the age of 12. Even the newly constructed disapproval of rape and increased penalty for rape did not prevent two men from forcibly taking a 16-year-old girl to a nearby forested area and brutally raping her, while her parents were attending a wedding. Upon learning about the horrible rape, the girl’s parents made a complaint to the council of village elders. The council imposed a fine of about $770 on the two accused men. To avenge the complaint and fine, 18 alleged suspects, friends and relatives of the alleged rapists, beat up the girl’s family members and set the girl’s house ablaze when the girl was alone. The girl who was raped was burned alive.
Personal efforts and societal support are crucial needs for humans to build the ability to wean themselves from their inclination, environmental enticement, and cultural persuasion for violence. Without seriously dedicated efforts, people cannot become civilized, and shun violence. To become civilized, to become nonviolent, people need to end violence. To end violence, they need to recognize the intolerable costs of violence. People cannot become civilized until they are systematically educated about the untold benefits of Civilized Citizenship.
