Integrity, Accountability, and Resolving Conflicts Within Dysfunctional Domestic Relations

DRAFT I've published this article a little early, before it's really done. I will be updating it as time permits. I'll update the time-stamp when I remember to, and will certainly do so when it's complete, so that it will refresh the syndication feeds... (Update, 2012-12-12: I'm sorry; I've been very busy, and have not completed this article. I promise I'll put some more time in on it as soon as I can...)


At the ACLU web site, we encounter an article entitled "Ending Domestic Violence Requires Holding Police Accountable."  I don't disagree with the assertion that Police, and Court officials, must be held accountable... Here in Utah, the State Constitution, Article IV, Section 10, mandates an oath of service which states that:

All officers made elective or appointive by this Constitution or by the laws made in pursuance thereof, before entering upon the duties of their respective offices, shall take and subscribe the following oath or affirmation: "I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support, obey and defend the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of this State, and that I will discharge the duties of my office with fidelity."

They are not in this boat alone. After all, we are all expected to be accountable for our own acts and omissions. Clearly, it is also the case that the courts and lawyers must also be held accountable... and certainly that the alleged "victim" as well as the alleged "primary aggressor" must be held accountable to truth, fair play, and good faith, since, as per Article I, Section 24, "All laws of a general nature shall have uniform operation." For the time being, I will assume that all 50 states have similar clauses in their constitutions.

So, once again, who watches the watchers? Who will hold them accountable? If you tell me, we'll both know.

The ACLU article claims that the woman obtained the protective order after the man assaulted her, etc... What I wonder is if that allegation was ever proven before a trier of fact or not, in a criminal court, where the standard of proof is "beyond a reasonable doubt," within the context of a presumption of innocence. Perhaps the article should more properly state that she obtained the protective order after alleging that he assaulted her. She could easily claim that he had assaulted her, when in reality it was her who had been the primary aggressor. I know for certain, from personal experience and eyewitness testimony, that this does happen relatively often. And does anyone, including the two of them, know for certain exactly what was said over the telephone during the call that Mr. Perez allegedly made to Ms. Valdez?

In this particular cherry-picked example case, he returned to commit actual violence, something that happens only rarely, overall... I think they are making an invalid attempt at moving from an existential generalization --- "Rover loves to wag his tail. Therefore, something loves to wag its tail." --- to a universal instantiation --- "All dogs are mammals. Fido is a dog. Therefore Fido is a mammal." What they are really saying is more like "Something loves to wag its tail. Therefore, everything loves to wag its tail." Obviously, not everything has a tail, and not everything with one likes to wag it. (Maybe yous should check my logic, just to make sure I'm not just trying to control your leg?... or you could just cut my tongue out and be done with it.)

It's really too bad that there was no diversionary program in place where they would, ostensibly, and potentially, be taught how to communicate effectively with one another, and to utilize some formal method of conflict resolution. Communication and conflict resolution skills would go a long way towards preventing the kind of angry frustration that leads up to that state of mind where people who think they're like a spring that's got to sproing when it's wound up "go postal" for lack of any other response in their repoire-noir...

I assert that exorcising gender bias is an important "civil liberty." How about exemplifying at least one case where it was the female who in fact attacked the male? I'm willing to bet that no advocates of these protective order laws have performed any honest studies regarding the statistical likelihood of actual violence per se, as contrasted with alleged violations involving mere communication... Or how often communication per se contains any actual threat of violence per se... vs expression of frustration and angst over specific resentments pertinent to their individual conflicts?.. They should also study the effects of even further frustrating communication between them through the imposition of no-contact orders, and the degree of alienation of affections and level of resentments that imposition creates. "Sir, you're not locked in jail because you're wrong. You're locked up so we can separate you from one another. And I'm sorry, but the Miranda law forbids me from taking your statement. And if you don't calm down and stop talking about it, we're going to have to lock you in solitary confinement, incommunicado behind a ream of boilerplate..."

What you're not saying here about these laws is that the courts are issuing these protective orders without requiring (or allowing) actual evidence of true abuse. The standard of proof is merely "a preponderance of the evidence," and I'd bet that quite often, there's not really any evidence, or anything, other than the woman's testimony, often obtained via an interview process conducted by a professional "victim advocate", which gets "heard" while the man's testimony, if ever solicited or presented, is essentially ignored. I think that what gets "prepondered" is often not actual "evidence" per se, but instead "prejudicial presumptions" such as that which are built-into the Utah "Cohabitant Abuse Act" itself, which presumes there is a "primary aggressor" and a "victim", offering no other model of the conflict's actual social dynamics. She is then given a "protective" order that allows her to call the cops and get the man arrested for merely sending an email or text message, and she can get them to arrest him for that even if the order has a modification allowing asynchronous written communication to occur! (If you follow this blog, you'll learn more about that later on, after I feel comfortable with publishing details of my Civil Rights Complaint.)

The protective order forms are standardized, and they contain wording that makes it illegal for the Respondent to contact the Petitioner, but not vise versa. So apparently the police and court officials think it's "legal" for her to send him a derisive text message that asks a rude leading question, but if he replies, she can complain and ask them to arrest him for it, and they'll follow through and actually arrest him. You see, they "have a professional responsibility to screen charges when a complaint has been filed." They seem to think that it's "legal" for her to come to his apartment and knock on his door demanding entry, but if he opens the door, he's violated one of the injunctional contract's boilerplate no-contact provisions?!

I've spoken with several other men who have also had very similar experiences with this. I was told about a man who's ex-girlfriend had a protective order against him. She called or sent a message to him saying that if he did not come and get his things, she would throw them out the door into the street. He went to get his stuff, and she called the cops and had him arrested. The court imposed a one year "mandatory" jail sentence on him. Another man said that the court imposed a no-contact order between himself and his girlfriend. She sent him a text message asking him if he was going to contact her anymore. He answered "No" -- two letters, N O -- and they arrested him and he spent a year in the Utah State Penitentiary. Certainly there may be material details not mentioned by those victims of protective order abuse during the brief conversations I had with them... but since those are the relevant details of actual events that they chose to focus on first, I must assume their complaints are valid and should be addressed by a finder of fact... It would be amazing if the police and his attorney would actually interview him and obtain that information.

I have personally witnessed Salt Lake County Sheriff's Department prisoner transport bailiffs confiscating evidence from a prisoner who had been transported to court in order to appear pro se (without representation by legal counsel) at a protective order hearing related to the charges they had him in jail on, pre-trial. The evidence they took from him was a letter sent to him in jail, written by his wife, who had been "advised" to obtain a protective order against him by the State. In the letter she told him that she did not want a protective order, and that he should bring that letter to court as evidence of that. At court, she was represented by a state appointed victim advocate lawyer, and was not ever asked or allowed to speak at the hearing. The man was not given much opportunity to speak either, and his evidence had been confiscated. The State of Utah imposed a protective order, and thereby separated him from his family. This happened in September or October of 2011.

In terms of police accountability, they need to listen and take appropriate action when the "Respondent" (the victim of protective order abuse) makes a valid counter-complaint. In Utah, 78B-7-115(3) is meant to create sanctions when either party acts in "bad faith" or "with intent to harass or intimidate." The Utah Cohabitant Abuse Act also mandates that certain statements be included on the standard boilerplate forms that warn the Petitioner (person applying for the protective order) that it's a felony to use false information to obtain a protective order, or to use one to abuse the judicial process. The statute makes that attempt at instantiating accountability, but in my experience, neither the police, nor the court officials actually do anything about it even in blatantly obvious cases of perjury or protective order abuse. They don't seem to care about due process, the rules of evidence, presumption of innocence, or the Constitution and pertinent statutes.

In the Valdez v. Perez case, how can we know for sure whether or not the man actually threatened her, or vise versa? It seems to me that in court, before a trier of fact, it would amount to her word against his. We're not told in this brief article whether he made or attempted to make any answer or counter-complaints. If he did, and they failed to react or investigate, that might explain the level of angst, frustration, and anger that, unchecked by appropriate early psychiatric intervention, led to his commission of the murder after the cockroach whispered in his ear "Just kill the bitch. She deserves it! (unspoken... That way we get two birds with one stone, you confused and oppressed Hispanic rival male... who will fail to realize that murder is not his own nor a very good idea and then assert that he won't be a columbine kid."

And what about cases where the woman threatens or attacks the man, and then calls the cops on him? The problem is that there is rarely a clear distinction such as "primary aggressor" and "victim." There are two people who don't know how to communicate with one another effectively, who were whelped under the auspices of a "dominant culture" that applied fiat through violence or other forms of imbalance of power, rather than influence through reason, as a means of getting one's way... They circumcise baby boys, inflicting excruciating pain and a lifetime of deprivation of normal pleasure. Thus applying the dynamics of power and control, they subjugate those males who have been given the "first rite" -- essentially an initiation into slavehood -- to "authority." This psychological conditioning continues with spanking, sending them to their rooms, expression of anger that carries with it an implied threat of violence or reminder of past violence, and so forth. It all comes down to an aggressive imposition of an imbalance of power, or bullying.

With regards to accountability to the integrity of uniform operation of the Rule of Law, there must not be a double standard that allows women to beat up men with "protective" orders based on hearsay and lies; that allows women to harass men with the threat of arrest for "crimes" like answering an email with the wrong answer; so she doesn't get her way, and gets him arrested for it... Nor may there be a double standard where police and court officials apply the law only when it punishes the male, or only when it punishes the out-group member.

I assert that protective orders are more often used to abuse men than they are used to actually protect women. Can you prove that wrong? Oh, but then I'm the one with burden of proof? I think that these laws need to be studied in terms of what they actually do, rather than in terms of the straw man arguments used to convince congress to vote them into law. These laws are the new "Jim Crow" laws. They create and encourage alienation of affections, splitting up families. They encourage "criminal thinking errors" on the part of the Petitioner, who can use the protective order to "close the channel" of communication, effectively preventing any actual resolution of their conflict.

It is no more morally acceptable for a woman to use a "protective" order to bully a man than it is for her to use physical violence to do so. If yous can claim that an email that contains no overt threats of harm is transitively a form of domestic violence, then certainly the "protective" order itself is one. When a woman can obtain one with little evidence or burden of proof, and then use it to have a man jailed for something that is not even remotely criminal, and is certainly not criminal in the absence of the "protective" order, then that imbalance of power being created by the "protective" order is no better than the imbalance created by difference in physical size or ability to win a physical altercation.

The accountability that is needed is to uphold that all laws of a general nature are to have uniform operation. That applies to police, to judges, to physicians, OB/GYN pediatricians, and women as well as men. Domestic violence can not be eliminated without treating the entire family unit. Violence against infant males creates resentments and PSD that will come back someday and bite you in the ass. Stop the cycle of violence by not beginning it with each new generation.

In the state of Utah, the state judges are required to attend ongoing education classes. I happen to know that one of the classes they attended was one taught by a psychologist who has studied the effects of childhood trauma on that child's adult behavior later in life. They are taught that one of the primary reasons to end domestic violence is to prevent that traumatization, to reduce future crime rates. I agree, since I know that people learn by example. If the only way somebody knows how to solve a problem is to... There are standard reactions to common situations that people pick up out of context in life. The first reaction is not always the best one. It is important that people who run into these kind of problems be diverted into "cognitive restructuring" therapy, or classes...

In one of those therapy sessions (if Medicare pays for it) or classes (if Pell grants can?) the attendees are taught about the "thinking errors." One of those, from a handout, is:

Justifying:  In avoiding responsibility for her own behavior, a person finds a reason for what she has done.  "He wouldn't do what I wanted him to do, so I yelled at him."  or  "They all did it, so why can't I?"

It would be despicably ironic if the Court's version of "Justice" works according to that, uhh, principle!  Another "thinking error" is called "closing the channel." It's when she claims he fails to listen to what she had to say, or when she shouts over him to prevent me him from saying something that might give an indication that he was paying attention after all... So, what good does it do when only one of the two people is "treated" with "therapy" that points out these thinking errors? It all comes down to communication skills and relationship dynamics, right?

It seems to me that the whole point of treating domestic violence as a societal illness is to eliminate bullying and violence as a means of conflict "resolution." How else can conflicts be truly resolved, if not through a formal process of some kind that necessarily involves communication?

[...|...]

The presumption of innocence stems from the idea that most people are not criminals. I bet that a careful study of these "Protective Order" cases would reveal that the majority of the complaints do not involve any actual violence, per se. Honestly, if the Respondent truly had committed a serious act of aggression against the Petitioner, then Petitioner could have had Respondent charged with a crime for it, right? Well, actually, often enough she can have him charged with a crime regardless of whether he's committed one... and certainly they issue these "protective" orders without either due process of law or true evidence... And then the Petitioner can have Respondent arrested for things that are not truly crimes, in the absence of a "protective" order. So then, Respondent can be jailed for something that's not truly dangerous... (no time to polish this now. Got to go, sorry.)

[...|...]

In Utah, from what I gather, the warrants issued to the peace officers who are charged with arresting someone do not contain very much information about what the person is accused of having done. It tells them the title of the crime the person is alleged to have committed, and it tells them the amount of the bail. It does not describe any details of what the person is alleged to have actually done that would constitute a violation of the law. The problem is that sometimes they have set the bail very high, which I think would tend to cause them to believe that the thing the person is accused of must be very serious or dangerous. Utah Code 76-2-404 defines the circumstances under which they are authorized to use deadly force.

If a warrant was issued for two counts of third degree felony violations of a protective order with the bail set at $100000, and that's all they officially know about it... they might go to arrest the man believing him to be very dangerous to either them, the public, or the woman holding the protective order. If the things the man is alleged to have actually done that supposedly violate that protective order are not truly violent in nature, or turn out to not truly be violations of the protective order, then what justifies the extremely high bail amount? You may think this scenario is unlikely to happen, and so would I have prior to my own experiences, which I promise to describe with more detail in a future blog entry.

The courts need to be held accountable to keeping bail amounts at levels that are not constitutionally excessive. Warrants must be required to contain a description of what the person is alleged to have done that would constitute a violation of the law. For example, if the offence is for "having written several emails that did not pertain to their child under a protective order that limits email to only those that pertain to the child" then that information ought to be available to the officers sent to arrest the "perpetrator". Certainly a crime charged for such an email, had the email been threatening in nature, would certainly feature that fact about that email. In that case, the exact nature of the threat ought to be included in what those officers are given to believe about the suspect.

Leaving that sort of information out, and then allowing them to extrapolate regarding the type or seriousness of the alleged actus reas based solely on the title and degree of the charges and the bail amount is a set-up for potential wrongful use of deadly force should the suspect panic and attempt to flee. And what would a man think, if all he really did was send a text message, under a protective order that allowed email, asking if his son has returned from a visit with his grandfather, but they have issued a warrant alleging a violation of the protective order, and then gone and set bail at $100000!?? This really happened! And what if, in his experience, they refuse to listen to his side of the story, and are known to keep people jailed for extended periods of time, pre-trial, despite that the alleged crime is non violent per se? He may feel that he is well within his rights to avoid being arrested, since the excessive bail renders the warrant illegal; especially if he needs time to gather exculpatory evidence to present in court.

[...]

When I attempted to post my comments to that article on the ACLU web site, their antispambot refused to allow me to do so. That is very annoying, and uncannily resembles the "channel closing" reactions to my attempts to communicate with women who advocate and exploit these laws with their one-sided rhetoric.

Several times when I've had things to say regarding the "Twofaced Women Who Act Like Violence has Been Done" law... on various news web sites... I've been censored unless I express a point of view copacetic with the mounted dogmatic rhetoric used to convince people that these laws are fair, effective, and necessary. I suspect that men who express opinions not in keeping with that of these women's advocate's straw man arguments are met with "adult voice" "ex-communication" admonishments and channel closing dismissals, if not outright shrieking, pinching, or slapping to stop them from saying it. It's amusing to think that a woman so quick to censor and so willfully ignorant could ever have learned to program an artificial intelligence that blocks these sort of remarks from being posted on the ACLU web site... She'd have held herself back and never graduated college, right?

Letter to US Global AIDS Coordinator, Washington DC

Office of the Global AIDS Coordinator
SA-29, 2nd floor
2201 C. Street NW
Washington, DC  20522-2920


Dear Global AIDS Coordinator,

I know for certain that many American and World Citizens are horrified and appalled by the thing that this article on your web log is talking about:

http://blogs.state.gov/index.php/site/entry/swaziland_pepfar

It reveals something about what you really are that you do not allow uncensored comments to be posted there. I guarantee there are links to that page with plenty of commentary by We The People whom you've been blatantly ignoring. You do not have our permission to use our tax dollars for any HIV prevention program involving genital mutilation. I am certain that I speak for a growing contingent of the American population. CDC statistics show that fewer and fewer Americans are allowing their son's penises to be mutilated. Many Americans no longer trust the corporate hospital birthing system. It's no wonder.

It is certain that circumcision does not prevent HIV, which is most famously caused by having intimate contact with an infected individual. I've read that iatrogenic HIV infection rates are very high in Africa. Teaching them to masturbate will do more for preventing HIV than amputating the men's foreskins will. Amputating the most sensitive part of their bodies in an attempt to make sexuality less interesting will not prevent them from ‘‘doing it.'' It hasn't worked here in the United States. Why would it work in Africa?

(Reuters) - Circumcision may reduce a man's risk of infection with the AIDS virus by up to 60 percent if he is an African, but it does not appear to help American men of color, U.S. researchers reported on Monday.
Black and Latino men were just as likely to become infected with the AIDS virus whether they were circumcised or not, Greg Millett of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found.
"We also found no protective benefit for a subset of black MSM (men who have sex with men) who also had recent sex with female partners," Millett told reporters in a telephone briefing.
Doctors believe circumcision protects men because of specialized cells in the foreskin of the penis, which is removed in the procedure. The foreskin is filled with immune cells called Langerhans cells, which are the immune system's sentinels and attach easily to viruses — including HIV.
In addition, sexual intercourse may cause tiny tears in the foreskin, allowing the virus into the bloodstream.
The data has been so clear that the World Health Organization now recommends circumcision as one of the ways to prevent HIV infection. But circumcision does not protect men 100 percent -- the studies in Africa have suggested it is 50 to 60 percent protective.
Millett's team studied 1,079 black and 957 Latino bisexual and homosexual men from New York City, Los Angeles, and Philadelphia. They filled out a computer survey and were tested for the AIDS virus.
"Overall, we found no association between circumcision status and HIV infection status among black or Latino (men who have sex with men)," said Millett, who presented his findings to the CDC's National HIV Prevention Conference in Atlanta.
Experts knew circumcision would not protect a female sex partner, nor the male sex partner being penetrated.
But Millett's study found no benefit of circumcision to any of the men. "We also found no protective benefit of circumcision among those men reporting recent unprotected sex with a male partner in which they were exclusively the insertive male partner," he said.
HIV is much more common among black and Latino men than whites and this may offset any protection offered by circumcision, Millett said. Black and Latino men are more likely to have sex with other black and Latino men, and thus may be exposed to HIV more often than white men.
The CDC is about to release new estimates of how many people become infected with the fatal and incurable human immunodeficiency virus each year in the United States.
The CDC estimates that more than 1 million Americans are infected, of the 33 million infected people globally.

The Langerhans cells probably prevent HIV. They bring the virus inside in order to destroy it, before it can affect the DNA of other cells it enters. So amputating the foreskin is likely to increase the HIV rate, not decrease it.

"Multiple logistic regressions were constructed separately to evaluate the role of circumcision in the acquisition of HIV and STI. Conclusions: [circumcision] is not associated with HIV or STI prevention in this U. S. military population."
Prevalence of male circumcision and its association with HIV and sexually transmitted infections in a U.S. navy population
Thomas AG, Bakhireva LN, Brodine SK, Shaffer RA; International Conference on AIDS (15th : 2004 : Bangkok, Thailand).
Int Conf AIDS. 2004 Jul 11-16; 15: abstract no. TuPeC4861. Naval Health Research Center, DHAPP, San Diego, CA, United States
Background: Lack of male circumcision has been found to be a risk factor for HIV and sexually transmitted infection (STI) in several studies performed in developing countries. However, the few studies conducted in developed nations have yielded inconsistent results. Policy regarding circumcision of male infants as a prevention measure against HIV/STI remains a controversial topic. This study describes the prevalence of circumcision and its association with HIV and STI in a U. S. military population.
Methods: This is a case-control study of male HIV infected U. S. military personnel (n= 232) recruited from 7 military medical centers and male U. S. Navy controls (n=516) from a general aircraft carrier population. Cases and controls completed similar self-administered HIV behavioral risk surveys. Case circumcision status was abstracted from medical charts while control status was reported on the survey. Cases and controls were frequency matched on age. Multiple logistic regressions were constructed separately to evaluate the role of circumcision in the acquisition of HIV and STI.
Results: The proportion of circumcised men did not significantly differ between cases (84.9%) and controls (81.8%). Prevalence of circumcision among men born in the U. S. was higher (85.0%) than those born elsewhere (58.1%). After adjustment for demographic and behavioral risk factors lack of circumcision was not found to be a risk factor for HIV (OR = 0.9; 95% CI: 0.51, 1.7) or STI (OR = 1.08; 95% CI 0.52, 2.26). The odds of HIV infection were 2.6 higher for irregular condom users, 5 times as high for those reporting STI, 6.2 times higher for those reporting anal sex, 2.8-3.2 times higher for those with 2-7+ partners, nearly 3 times higher for Blacks, and 3.5 times as high for men who were single or divorced/separated.
Conclusions: Although there may be other medical or cultural reasons for male circumcision, it is not associated with HIV or STI prevention in this U. S. military population.

There are many critiques of the studies that allege that circumcision prevents HIV infection. The fact is, amputating part of the body's integumentary system is obviously not a good way to prevent infection. It is quite the opposite. The United States has the highest HIV rate in the industrialized world, and also has the highest circumcision rate. You need to read more than just the few ‘‘studies'' written by the circumfetishists who enjoy amputating the most sensitive part of other men's bodies. They delight in rendering other men impotent. This circumcision campaign is a vaguely masked act of violence against males. It amounts to an act of war — a war of agression — against those nations. Sooner or later, they are going to learn the truth, whether you like it or not, even if you censor their Anatomy textbooks to cut the foreskin out of the picture. The mere use of anesthesia does not render the act ‘‘non-violent,'' nor does performing it in a hospital or clinical setting render it a ‘‘medical procedure.'' Using anesthesia adds insult to injury — he'll never feel a thing… after you amputate 50 to 80 percent of the sensitive nerve endings from his penis.

‘‘Circumcision'' is a deprecated euphemism for the atrocity that is more accurately referred to as ‘‘Male Genital Mutilation.'' It is the wanton amputation of a normal, healthy, functioning body part, which is certainly a second degree felony under Utah Statute 76-5-105, ‘‘Mayhem.'' Infant Genital Mutilation also certainly falls under 76-5-109, ‘‘Child Abuse''. In particular, the following definitions given under 76-5-109(1) can be easily shown to be applicable:

•  76-5-109(1)(f)(i)(B). ‘‘involves physical torture''
•  76-5-109(1)(f)(i)(G). ‘‘any conduct toward a child that results in severe emotional harm, [...] or severe impairment of the child's ability to function,'' and
•  76-5-109(1)(f)(i)(H). ‘‘any injury that creates a permanent disfigurement or protracted loss or impairment of the function of a bodily member, limb, or organ.''

Given the true and factual information about the anatomy and physiological function of the male prepuce explained by the D.O.C. Policy Statement, along with the above definitions from the Utah Statutes, Child Abuse 76-5-109(2)(a) makes Infant Male Genital Mutilation a second degree felony. Other illegal acts involved include the inchoate offense of Solicitation for Conspiracy to commit, Fraud by Deception, and Omission or failure to act. Genital Mutilation is not a ‘‘rite.'' It is a crime. Further, because this brutally harmful atrocity has seen such widespread and systematic practice in the United States of America, it truly fits the definition of a ‘‘Crime Against Humanity'' as defined by the Rome Statute Explanatory Memorandum, which defines the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court. The Rome Statute recognizes rape, sexual slavery, forced prostitution, forced pregnancy, forced sterilization, "or any other form of sexual violence of comparable gravity" as crime against humanity if the action is part of a widespread or systematic practice.

Crimes against humanity, as defined by the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court Explanatory Memorandum, ‘‘ are particularly odious offenses in that they constitute a serious attack on human dignity or grave humiliation or a degradation of one or more human beings. They are not isolated or sporadic events, but are part either of a government policy (although the perpetrators need not identify themselves with this policy) or of a wide practice of atrocities tolerated or condoned by a government or a de facto authority. Murder; extermination; torture; rape; political, racial, or religious persecution and other inhumane acts reach the threshold of crimes against humanity only if they are part of a widespread or systematic practice. Isolated inhumane acts of this nature may constitute grave infringements of human rights, or depending on the circumstances, war crimes, but may fall short of falling into the category of crimes under discussion. ''

The United States of America justified the invasion of Iraq, in part, by citing the crimes committed by Saddam Hussein's regime---e.g. the use of poison gas against the Kurdish people. If that war was justifiable, then perhaps it is reasonable to consider Male Genital Mutilation to be a threat to U.S. National Security. It does not require very many steps of reasoning to cross the border between U.S. actions in Iraq and forseeing a large posse entering within this country to do battle against these domestic violations of human rights. Fortunately, this is not a battle likely to be won with the use of destructive weaponry. Violence is the problem, not the solution. Furthermore, if our own citizens, law enforcement, and courts will not acknowledge Genital Mutilation as an atrocious crime, then certainly our ‘‘government'', guilty of selective enforcement of it's own laws, faces a very serious legitimation crisis. We can no longer live in denial of this obvious threat to our health and welfare. We need to look the serpent in the eye, see it for what it is, and help it to become entire and whole again. We must end the cycle of violence by refusing to continue to inflict pain and deprivation upon each new generation, and by protecting infants from those who would continue this atrocity.

I encourage you to do much more reading before you implement such drastic measures. What you are doing to those men in Swaziland is highly offensive to the majority of the population of planet earth. It is a violation of international treaties that prohibit torture and crimes against humanity. HIV can be more effectively prevented with sex education and condoms.

Invasion of the Snuggy-Snatchers

A Snuggy Snatcher getting high.

I was just thinking about how one would explain to a little boy why his penis has a "turtleneck" when his father's doesn't.

I think I'd say, pointing to his akroposthion,  "Jeepers, kiddo! That's your snuggy. Daddy doesn't have a snuggy because there was an evil regime in power during the year he was born who strategically posted snuggy-snatchers at every birthing facility in the nation..." And so, in spite of the fact that my family was ostensibly Catholic, my snuggy was snatched off. It was also cut out of the picture in every anatomy and physiology textbook available to G.P. They tried to disappear it; to make it never have existed. If you don't believe me, then visit your local libraries, and look for the male prepuce in the anatomy textbooks you may or may not find there.

Nature's Design Altered.

Snuggy Snatchers are quite vile beasties. They get high on the suffering of others. It gives them a rush in their gonads when they bite off a baby's snuggy. That's why they do it. They are very dangerous and especially clever at making up lies to explain away their Pederastic wrongdoings. They hang medical diplomas on their walls and pretend to know more about it than your mother... who had probably never been allowed to see one. Like wolves in sheep's clothing, these green meanies dressed as warm fuzzies will take the babies away to secret soundproof chambers where nobody can hear them scream. They strap the baby down on an infant sized crucifix (known as a Circumstraint) with Velcro straps, and only after locking themselves securely into that closet, do they grab the baby's snuggy with their evil implements.

My apologies to the artists who created the works shown here, that I photographed through the window of a downtown Salt Lake City art gallery, for I have not formally asked for their permission to publish photographs of their artwork. I hope they are okay with my having posted these, and with my interpretation of the beasties they had displayed that day.

Mitt Romney, the Law of Tithing, and the Words of Wisdom

Mitt Romney is a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. The Latter Day Saints (LDS) have some very important principles that seem relevant to issues raised by an email I just received that is soliciting campaign funds for the Democratic Party. It is telling me that:

Either Mitt Romney will win, give huge tax cuts to billionaires and Big Oil, and end the Medicare guarantee for seniors -- or we can elect a strong Democratic Majority to back President Obama and move America forward.

The LDS Church has a thing called the "Law of Tithing." It is what ensures that there are sufficient funds to pay for the human services that they provide. The LDS Church is one of the best human service organizations in the nation. They are very well organized, and they really get after it and things really get done that help people for real. It's not just a hand-out; it's a hand-up. Here in Salt Lake City, there is "Welfare Square," where there is a dairy, a cannery, and a bakery, as well as a "Deseret Industries" (Wikipedia) store and "Bishop's Storehouse." They feed, clothe, and educate a lot of people. If not enough members payed tithing or made fast offerings, the church would not have sufficient funds to maintain these programs.

Baptism is a symbolic re-birth into the Church "family." Upon baptism, the initiate takes on "the name of Jesus Christ." Thus, everyone in the collective agency has taken on this name as "their own..." (plural "their", not singular "his")  The Latter Day Saints believe that "The family is central to the Creator's plan for the eternal destiny of His children." We are all His children. Our Heavenly Father wants all people, of all races and nationalities, to co-exist with one another in peaceful love. The purpose of an organized church is to foster the maintenance of Tradition --- which has the same word-root as "trade" --- which is the handing down of knowledge and Lore from one generation to the next, from the Father to the Son, from the Mother to her Children, from the Master to the Apprentice, from the Professor to the Student, and from the Prophet to our Congregation. I was taught that the language of the bible is archaic, and that over the years a certain amount of "semantic drift" has occurred, and so many people often... misunderstand it... To "consult with the Lord" simply means ask someone who's thoroughly studied the subject matter when you need assistance in making a correct decision. The "Lord" are simply those who have been gifted and entrusted with the Lore.

Over the millennia, human civilizations have encountered each and several of a plethora of adversities, from ice ages, famine, disease epidemics, mortal conflict with other groups of people; technological advances and setbacks have occurred, and through all of this, the most successful civilizations, it stands to reason, must have always had to be the ones who were the most diligent at preserving their collective knowledge by taking great care to hand it down intact and in entirety, from one generation to the next. Technologies and behaviors become deprecated and eventually obsoleted when serious flaws are discovered, and in the process, better methods, materials, and ideals are developed; compendiums of "best practices" are generated; and as time marches on, We Evolve... but things we don't use often enough will essentially atrophy, or be forgotten. There are some things We should not allow to atrophy! There is knowledge We must not lose! There are lessons that, when forgotten, are at least as expensive to learn again as they are to learn the first time.

The government of the United States of America, and that of each of the states, also relies upon monetary contributions made by the citizens --- taxes --- for the funding required to pay government employees who staff the various agencies that provide governmental and social services. When there's insufficient funds, the government presently must borrow money from banks, and that means they need more tax revenue to pay off those debts... But if everyone payed their fair share of taxes, then --- assuming Good financial management, of course --- those debts could be paid, and the government could actually accrue savings or institute programs that could improve health, foster education, so we can raise our averages, and fund the reconstruction of our electrical energy and transportation infrastructure.

The Latter Day Saints also promote and live according to The Word of Wisdom, which strongly recommends against the use of alcohol, tobacco, caffeine, (and illegal drugs), and provides a brief guideline for healthy eating (and exercise) habits. The Latter Day Saints, among many others, are aware of the negative health impact of smoking tobacco and drinking alcohol --- essentially the negative health impact of polluting one's body's little "ecosystem." It follows that the Saints thereby do not want to expose themselves to toxins such as petroleum distillates, automobile exhaust, pesticides, herbicides, and nuclear radiation. Of course those things affect the health of Our Living Planet by polluting Her ecosystem, of which we are an integral part. Obviously the health of Our Living Planet's ecosystem affects our own health, as individuals, and as a collective society. Thereby, the Word of Wisdom naturally extends to strongly recommend against the continued use of fossil fuels.

So, what I'm saying here is that I think that if Mr. Romney is really a Latter Day Saint, then he's probably not in favor of allowing people who have more money than they need to selfishly and sinfully hoard it all to themselves; nor does it seem likely that he would be opposed to provision of Medicare; nor to the expedited deprecation of fossil fuels, along with the associated toxicity, resource contention, and armed conflict between nations. (Those are not necessary evils, they are evils, and thus they are not of God.)

Of course, when Latter Day Saints pay tithing and give fast offerings to the church, there is reasonable faith that it will be spent according to the laws embodied within the Gospel Principles; it will be invested "as advertised" on the things you can learn about via the LDS.org web sites. I think that many people, when they pay taxes to the government, are reluctant to do so, believing that the money is not being spent the way they would like. They would rather keep that money in their own pockets, so they can spend it on anything they want... They don't want "the government" spending it on military conquest... vs health care reform, education, and especially the long overdue improvements to our electrical grid and power generation system, and to the concomitant upgrades to our transportation infrastructure.

But if a disorganized mob of individuals are all out there today spending their own money on anything they want right now, then what are they going to be buying with it? Many small things disappear into the pores of consumerist society --- the divide and conquer competition of personal vehicle "separatist" transportation, gasoline to burn, widgets and do-hickeys, small frail plastic things that break, cosmetic surgeries, make-up, make-believe, closets full of more new clothing than they need, and no panacea for their ragged trousered affluenzia. If they were to pool their resources and work together, it could be argued... that same knot of people could move mountains, assuming the left hand knows what the right hand is doing, or anything.

If we pool our resources, and entrust our tax dollars to "the government", then presumably the money will be spent... And presumably it SHOULD be spent according to laws, not according to men... But if there's nobody else left but desk-chair pigeons in office, who allege to represent us, who then gamble our economic future on petroleum... Gamboling in our over-wintering hay-stack with burning money...? Then how can we sit back and have faith that the money is being thrown up on the feet of the proper agency, who will spend it according to rules they allege to follow?

"Faith" is not meant to be a passive term. Think about it. Can you just sit back, talk back, and hope that somebody else somewhere else is going to take action to do something you oil or we all need, if that other person has no reasonable assurance that you will eventually get out of the chair and perform actions that do something in exchange? Somebody has to do something. One person alone has very little power to affect  "the government" without quite a large knot of others all pulling (or pushing?) in the same or similar direction as ole Johnny Booker can do too, right?

Many of the Mormon pioneers who crossed the great plains to settle in Utah Territory carried their belongings here on hand-carts; that is, small horseless two wheeled wagons. If you push the cart, it's likely to run up against obstacles you can not foresee, since the wagon is blocking your view of what's directly right in front of it. If the wheels miss the stones and prairie-dog holes, you'll likely trip and fall over some, since you won't see them until they are right underfoot. But if you turn the cart around, and walk before it, looking at where you're going... pulling it behind you, you will naturally follow a course that avoids running it up against unforeseeable obstacles...

Democracy is it's own worst enemy, and sometimes, when not enough of us do our part, if we're not surrounded, we're at least up to our hocks in it. If it's up to a knot of fancy-pockets who think everybody else can just go git their own, they'll vote for no taxes, and sew poor old Uncle Sam won't have to squat for shine-oila, or anything... since they'll "probably" be stimulating the economy with that money, instead of letting "the government" waste it on banking fees and interest, right?

I believe that the two party system exists more to foster the dialectic than anything. Granted, on some issues, they seem to be polar opposites. On some things, they warm up to one another quite a lot... There's got to be an optimal solution, but the "equation" does not always "balance" the way somebody else would like it to, since they see "variables" and "reasons" not included in (or excluded by) the "consensus" model.

I don't believe that God wants us to form "consensus" by excluding dissenting opinions... Let me put it to you this way: There is a Theory of Cognitive Dissonance which "proposes that people have a motivational drive to reduce dissonance by altering existing cognitions, adding new ones to create a consistent belief system, or alternatively by reducing the importance of any one of the dissonant elements." But when the problem creating that dissonance is based in physical reality, we can't make it go away by gripping a wallet and injecting the tar sand into our heads.

The problem is that dependence on any kind of fossil fuels, at all, is the problem, along with the associated negative health effects of breathing, or drowning in, it's filthy offal. And the problem's not going to go away on it's own. It's T=Totally golden-spiked into our subconscious. Hmmm. There must be an answer out there... blowing on the wind.