Your humble contributor is an avid political enthusiast, science junkie, former small business owner, limited government, constitutionalist, and all around lover of liberty.
I make every effort to use logic and reasoning, not hate, ad hominem attacks, nor logical fallacy arguments.
(This is humor with a touch of truth to it. Please no hate mail if you were offended)
Hey there, my beloved Formula 1 racing. I know you added a waste gate exhaust this year to improve the noise coming from your latest crop of competitive machinery, but these cars do not in fact, sound any better. I fear you’ve lost your way.
So I have some suggestions, if you’ll indulge me a moment.
Add two or more cylinders to the current powertrains. No one has ever said, “I’m going to build the worlds most amazing supercar,” then followed it up with, “I know, I’ll put a V6 in it.”
A Toyota Prius has never been a race car, nor ever professed to be one. Modeling your powertrain after a Prius’ powertrain might have been a mistake. And I use the word “might” loosely. The Prius was designed with fuel economy in mind, not speed.
Toyota Prius
You had a problem in the 1980s with turbos driving up the cost of cars so high, no one but the top teams could compete. So much so, you banned them in 1989, and a significantly more competitive series ensued. Now, you’ve not only brought them back, but added an expensive electric motor too! Did you forget the lessons of the 80’s so soon? Or just decide you don’t want a competitive series anymore?
A car from over ten years ago, still holds most of your track records. The goal of Formula 1 wasn’t to make junky technology less junky. It was to make the fastest technology faster. If the cars of the current year aren’t consistently faster than the cars of the previous year, you’re doing technology wrong. At this rate, you’ll be racing electric wheelchairs by 2030.
Ralph Schumacher’s brother’s Ferrari F2004 car, and holder of several F1 records 12 years later
I get that Renault fought vehemently to bring this style powertrain into Formula 1 after they won a constructor’s championship in order to add road car relevance to the series. But Renault are French, and the French don’t build supercars. When have the French ever shown themselves to be a guiding force in motorsport? The Italians, the Germans, the British, the Americans; they’re all known for motorsports enthusiasm and expertise. But no one has ever thought, “I want to start a racing series, then knocked on the door of a Frenchman.” They don’t even host a Grand Prix anymore! Maybe, you should listen to your fans instead. They do kinda pay your salary after all. If you had listened to us, you’re current grid would look something like this. Fans would be dreaming about owning or driving one of your cars, instead of reminiscing about how awesome the cars were three years ago and counting.
Red Bull X2010 Concept Formula 1 Car
I love Formula 1, with a passion. And while I mean this as a somewhat humorous quip, please know that you have angered many fans, and we’re losing interest. A gussied up qualifying system isn’t the answer, the baddest car ever devised is. Leave the glorified Teslas to the Formula E series.
On a recent episode of Stossel, Neil Sroka; the communications director for Democracy for America came on the show. He is an ardent supporter of Bernie Sanders, and his ideals of democratic socialism.
Here’s a transcript of a portion I’d like to discuss. I’m not going to type out the entire interview, but since this was the first real question, there was indeed nothing preceding it that would leave you missing any context.
John Stossel – Fox Business Network
Stossel: Now socialism generally means that the government owns the means of production. Do you want that?
Sroka: Well, I think there is [sic] some antiquated views about what socialism is. I don’t think anyone’s calling for, you know, state ownership of the gas station down the street. But what we are saying is, is [sic] that the current system that we have right now isn’t working. Uh, you know, when over 40 million Americans are still living in poverty at the same time that, you know, a millionaire and billionaire class is trying to essentially own all political discourse in this country, that [sic] that’s problematic. And that’s what we have to work together to dismantle.
John did a pretty good job of debating the issues with Neil, I don’t need to belabor those further here.
But one thing that is often repeated that wasn’t addressed in the interview, is a claim by many on the left (and the right for that matter); the notion that whatever “it” is in America, “it” somehow isn’t working or is broken.
The United States of America is the single most powerful nation in the world—by a wide margin. Not just in military force, but in economic force.
Misleading Statistics
Neil argued that there are over 40 million people (It’s 45 million, in fact) under poverty in America, but that number is a bit misleading.
Neil isn’t ignorant when he uses that number, it’s such a large number, it sounds horrible—giving it quite the shocking impact.
While I feel for such people (I am almost one of them, so I really do feel for them), they are at the bottom 15%, and aren’t even close to the majority. Poverty is always a problem for people, and I don’t deny that. But America doesn’t have a poverty problem, I’d argue that the large majority of people under poverty have a personal problem—they’re not doing what is needed to get themselves out of poverty.
Still not convinced? Think about this. Imagine a random seven people you might meet on any given day. Then consider whether you think at least one of them, on average, is not really putting forth the kind of effort needed to be successful enough in life to be above the poverty level. I genuinely don’t feel like that’s a stretch by any measure.
In 2007, Obama didn’t start with a lot of money when he initially ran for president either. Hillary was the one with all the money behind her at the onset of that election cycle.
Presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt.
Socialists like Sanders like to create a cause-and-effect argument between money spent, and elections won, as if the money came first and drove the election results.
But it’s also entirely possible that instead; the money follows the person with the best ideas, and is therefore the effect versus the cause, which seems to be the case with Obama versus Clinton in 2007; assuming we can agree Obama is more charismatic and interesting than Hillary Clinton, and I think we can.
Stating that the system is broken and doesn’t work, appeals to people who are driven to have more, by exploiting the human tendency for confirmation bias. Americans know subconsciously that America is a strong and powerful economic nation. But many of these socialist supporters are unhappy with their own lives because of whatever their shortcomings might be, and it hurts to think of yourself as worse than average in any way.
So when someone points out that the system is broken, it gives such people a way to argue that their own inadequacies aren’t their problem after all; society, corporations, or rich people are actually to blame—just ask that guy.
So unless those of you in that $30k bracket or higher, who are behind socialists like Bernie, are ready to give up 80-90% of your salary to the rest of the world as many socialists suggest the richest 1% in American be forced to give to the rest of us Americans, you are indeed, quite the hypocrite—congratulations and #FeelTheBern.
So much so, that Google hired him as their futurist, to help guide their own corporate endeavors in the direction Ray predicts the future is going.
Ray’s singularity prediction is rather interesting, because what he’s ultimately arguing is that because of the advances in memory technology, computers will meet the human brain’s computing power in this time frame.
While I don’t profess to have the knowledge Ray has, one thing I would like to point out, is that humans are not just a product of our memory, we are also a product of our intellect. Let’s look at how we’re different from computers, as an example.
Kim Peek – Autistic savant; the man the movie Rain Man was based on.
Imagine a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet, with 1,000 rows and columns in size. Your computer remembers them flawlessly; every single character, like a mechanical Rain Man.
But ask a human to do this feat, and nearly no one can. So the argument that computers haven’t caught humans yet is somewhat misleading.
The average human brain has about 100 billion neurons, and many more glial cells. If we think of neurons as computer bits; the smallest level of computer memory, or the thing that is actually a one or a zero; then we can extrapolate how much memory a computer must have to match the human brain.
Four computer bits make a byte, 1,024 bytes make a kilobyte (KB). This 1,024 successive unit pattern then progresses as follows: megabyte (MB), gigabyte (GB), terabyte (TB), petabyte (PB)…and the list goes on.
This means, that the human brain has about 12.5 gigabytes of memory in the neurons alone. Add in the glial cells, and that number grows by at least double, since there are more of them. The above link references that opinions vary wildly about the real storage capacity of the human brain, but put it somewhere between 1 to 1,000 terabytes, the latter of which seems awfully high to me based on the number of neurons.
But the point I think that is missed in Ray’s hypothesis is that where computer memory is virtually flawless, the human brain seems to have mastered what it should and shouldn’t forget in a rather advantageous way. Where the human can’t remember the aforementioned massive spreadsheet data, it makes up for in its ability for inferring things not provided to it. This being the difference between memory (or knowledge), and computing power (intellect).
It’s this human ability to forget, that actually makes it better at processing information. For instance, you might talk to a co-worker all day, and entirely forget what color their shirt and pants are. Why? Because your brain has developed the ability to know that’s not important information, and immediately dumps it into your brain’s recycle bin.
But if your co-worker misspells a word in an email, your brain doesn’t crash and end its comprehension of the data like a computer might. Instead, you quickly understand what was inferred.
The fact is that there are computers with 1,000 terabytes, or nearly one petabyte already; they have the brains memory power. And one look at IBM’s Watson on Jeopardy, shows you that computers can already beat humans in knowledge alone quite easily.
IBM’s Watson
So how is it that a computer could beat Jeopardy’s best competitors, yet still cannot replicate human behavior?
One point to remember is that computers are digital, whereas the human brain is analog.
For instance, think of today’s modern digital cameras, which store a massive amount of mega pixels. We marvel in how much memory they can store, yet an analog camera from 50 years ago, effectively stores more, because it isn’t storing it digitally, as ones and zeros, but instead, as just one big picture on a film. Effectively, each molecule of film is one pixel, and that’s a significantly higher amount of data.
Blow up a digital picture, and eventually, you will see it displaying in its smallest constituents (pixels).
Example of a normal digital picture, when blown up, showing the individual pixels.
But if you blow up an analog picture, it never pixelizes, it just becomes so small of an area you can no longer make out what it is.
It’s this difference between analog and digital, that makes Ray’s prediction so uncertain for me. While he may be right, as long as computers rely on digital memory, I’m not convinced they’ll ever be on the level of humans. But instead, machines, and natural life, will always be somewhat separate.
A complete overhaul in the way computers memorize and process information will be needed, not the Moore’s Law doubling of memory in the digital realm.
But it is also worth noting, that Moore’s Law is inappropriately named. It is not in fact scientific law, nor even scientific theory, it is simply something Moore noted, and a pattern that has simply been repeated over the last 50 years, but is not by any stretch going to continue for eternity.
As the Journal of Nature reports, after fifty years, it may indeed be starting to break down. Whereas actual scientific law, such as gravity, and Isaac’s laws of motion; Moore’s “Law” almost invariably must fail at some point, once a transistor has been shrunk to its smallest level.
Speaking theoretically, a transistor, having two states (on and off), if it were shrunk down to one atom, with either one or two electrons depending on whether it’s “on” or “off;” making it smaller would likely prove impossible, and in that moment, Moore’s Law is no more.
Do I believe Kurzweil is crazy? Heck no, the man’s a genius. Do I believe he’s wrong? Not necessarily. More than anything, I would love to ask him about the things I pointed out, and just have an amazing discussion with an amazing man.
Instead, what I’m offering is that you should always be skeptical, and question everything. Whether it’s someone you respect and consider more brilliant than you, or someone you suspect is more likely to be wrong than you. It’s how you learn, and occasionally, it’s how they learn as well. Even the smartest of people can over-analyze something, and miss a simple key aspect, a lesser mind might have caught.
I, as most of you, was compelled by the Making a Murderer series on Netflix. The validity of the claims aside for a moment, it was certainly compelling TV, and Netflix deserves all credit for the entertainment value of it.
Also, like you, after watching it, I felt as though Avery and his nephew were wrongly convicted in both instances, not just the initial conviction of Avery we know was wrong.
Steven Avery: Making a Murderer on Netflix
But I’d ask you all to apply come critical thinking for a second.
Most of you who watched the documentary feel he’s innocent. I’d say a fair estimate is at least 11 out of 12 of you anyway.
Yet, in a court of law, where all the evidence was presented, 12 out of 12 people all came to the opposite conclusion and agreed Avery and his nephew were guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. Not the majority of them, but every single one of them. Such a large disparity cannot be explained away by a simple anomaly.
Clearly, they heard a different story than us Netflix viewers did. This story would be one where the prosecution and the defense presented their cases with equal opportunity.
I’m not saying a jury never gets it wrong, surely they do, and did in fact for his initial conviction. But let’s understand that the jury is made of people just like you and I. So if the majority of us think he’s innocent, yet all of them found him guilty, clearly we’re missing some info that the jury heard.
Here’s a link to some evidence that was left out of the documentary, in my opinion, somewhat shamefully if they intended to be fair. It paints a very different picture of Avery.
Let’s also remember that the car was found on Avery’s property. If Avery is entirely innocent as he claims, and was framed by the police, when they found Halbach’s vehicle, instead of investigating her murder in earnest, they immediately opted instead to use the opportunity to plant the evidence at Avery’s place, hoping that someone would find it. It’s pretty far-fetched.
Either way, let’s explore another possibility that fits with all the evidence, not just the evidence supporting Avery’s innocence.
It is entirely possible that Avery is guilty, but prosecutors and police didn’t have enough evidence to convict him, and thus planted evidence to get that conviction they needed.
If this is true, this means both Avery and Manitowac county are villains.
By all means, it was an entertaining series which in my opinion shows that the Manitowac county government has some serious ethics issues. When libertarians like me try to convince the populace to stop growing government, it’s because government has corruption issues like this throughout. We understand that the only way to lessen government corruption is to lessen the size and scope of government itself.
But let’s not assume Avery is innocent based on a documentary with a clearly biased agenda. While I don’t argue they presented false information, it is obvious they ignored presenting information that paints Avery out in a bad light; specifically all the evidence that led to his ultimate conviction. As well as the evidence that shows he exhibited psychopathic and violent behavior.
Avery being guilty, and Manitowac County being corrupt are not mutually exclusive hypotheses. Keep in the back of your mind that it is entirely possible both are true. Watch the series, find it interesting. Look at other sources and find them interesting as well. But no one should be asserting that they know one or the other is true. Question everything, and enjoy the journey.
Since my rather handsome one-eyed cat Gadget often tries to make the argument that I do not feed him enough, I decided to do some research. As it turns out, the portions I was providing him were spot on, but along the way, I discovered some interesting and disturbing stuff that I thought I’d share.
Cats are often overfed, and like people, get overweight and suffer health problems as a result. So don’t let your cat fool you with those sad “feed me” eyes that evolution has seen fit to equip them with over time. It’s a total trick! If you’re giving them approximately 6 oz., and they’re around 8 lbs. or so, you’re providing them what they need. All that being said, don’t just take my word for it, please consult your vet regarding your specific cat, as just like people, not all cats are the same, and yours may have unique dietary needs based on its weight or medical condition.
Random Fat Cat
Here’s the interesting bit I found. Cats aren’t really big into drinking water and rarely opt to do so unless really dehydrated. In their natural habitat, they get the water they need from eating the meat they catch, which of course has water in it.
However, if they’ve had the good fortune of not having to hunt because they have you for a provider, dry food has 5-10% water content, but canned moist food is about 78% water. If you don’t provide them moist food, dry food isn’t necessarily bad, just know that you need to be diligent about providing more water for them if you do.
If you currently give them dry food, and opt to switch them to moist, you’ll likely notice they don’t drink nearly as much water. I did. That’s entirely normal.
Now that we’ve covered the good stuff, let’s talk about the bad. This part really REALLY upset me while doing my research.
It turns out some vegan/vegetarian zealots have opted to put their cat on a vegan diet. If you’re one of those people, seriously, what the hell is wrong with you?
Cat’s are natural carnivores, not omnivores like us. You’re being a selfish and a self-righteous jerk. If you’re a biologist or veterinarian, you might be able to pull off supplementing their diet properly to get them the nutrients they need if you opted to go this route, but most do not have such knowledge.
The circle of life is that living organisms (plants and animals) all feed off other living organisms (plants and animals again) almost entirely. Almost everything you eat is either a life form, or a byproduct of a life form. It’s the NATURAL order of things. I get that animal life has a conscious mind, and can feel pain, and therefore eating animals seems heartless and unnecessary, but billions of years of evolution has made many animals, and even some plants into meat eaters.
Venus Fly Trap vs Black Widow Spider
If you choose to be less than natural in your diet; so be it. But how dare you be cruel to your animal by forcing them to comply with your unnatural diet that is rather unhealthy for them. I assure you that while they have unconditional love for you, your ideals about not killing or exploiting other animals is not shared by them one iota.
A cheetah has never caught a gazelle and thought to themselves, “you know, I feel bad for this gazelle, there’s got to be a better way.” and let it go. Like all animals, occasionally, they make social connections, which is why you see dogs and cheetahs befriend each other, or man and tiger. But when cats are hungry, their bodies are evolved to eat meat. Far more than omnivorous humans, and you’re being cruel and sadistic depriving them of it because you want to impose your unnatural views on them.
By all means, consume what brings you the most joy in life, but give your animal the same respect and provide them that which makes them healthiest and able to most enjoy life as well.
I found myself in a debate on Twitter with writer Sarah Benincasa. After the GOP debate, she had referred to all Republicans as “Shitheads.”
Your humble correspondent is a libertarian-republican. (Small L and small R). The small letters indicate I’m not beholden to either party, but just the principles of liberty and a constitution, the defining factors of being a libertarian and a republican.
Feeling somewhat insulted by someone I typically felt was fair and tolerant of other people’s opinions, I decided to respond by pointing out that some of the people on that stage had indeed shown that they were not your stereotypical Republican, and that ultimately the type of bigotry one uses to paint all people of a group with one brush, isn’t really fair. Below was my response followed by Sarah’s passionate counter-response.
This got me thinking about the issue a little deeper. I won’t point out more of the discussions that followed. They were mostly followers of Sarah attacking me or the candidates with contempt, instead of showing any interest in respectful debate. So I explained my position as respectfully as I could, and exited stage left.
But this exchange brings a couple of issues to light.
The first of which is the concept of being a one-issue person. I believe many of the pro-choice people are often pro-legalization of marijuana as well. Senator Rand Paul has worked with Democrat Corey Booker to accomplish exactly that. If that had been the one issue Sarah (if she is pro-legalization) opted to key on instead of abortion as an important issue to her, she might have painted him in a different light.
Senator Rand Paul (R)
The point being that no candidate will ever agree with you 100%; It’s that simple. As a voter, the best you can do is find common ground with candidates where you’re able, support them when you do, and dissent when you don’t.
You should certainly side with the person who most commonly aligns with your beliefs, but it’s silly to assume someone is all bad and treat them as if they’re evil “shitheads.”
As much as I dislike Bernie Sanders or Hillary Clinton, I don’t paint either one to be evil, or call them names. I just think they’re wrong, more often than not, and challenge their positions or their integrity when they are found to be disingenuous, a trait common in politicians of all parties.
But delving into the abortion issue, I first want to point out the flaws with the basic pro-life/pro-choice argument.
The converse of pro-life is not pro-choice, it’s anti-life. And thus the converse of pro-choice is not pro-life, it’s anti-choice. The two are slightly separate issues. So I’ll first explain my position and why.
As it is typically understood, I am pro-choice. I believe there are many understandable instances where a woman would choose to abort, that I compassionately cannot condone throwing her in jail on a 1st degree murder charge for, where I absolutely would if she killed the child the same child after birth. So I’ve always argued that viability is a fair cut-off in my opinion—emphasis on opinion.
But that being said, I’m also pro-life in an untraditional sense. I would encourage anyone who is pregnant and healthy, to bring the child to term and either raise it, or put it up for adoption if so desired. But that’s an issue between her and the father, not her and the government, also in my opinion.
Yet in my debate, despite being pro-choice myself, I ended up arguing the pro-life point. I suspect mostly because I believe in fairness over ideology.
Human Zygote development directly after fertilization. (Click Image for more information)
Being atheist, I don’t lend much credence to religion, so I won’t point out the religious component to all of this, it doesn’t matter. Whether you believe it’s a human life because God says so, or because science says so, you believe it’s a human life.
So then the question becomes when is it a life that deserves protection under the law?
I cannot say this with enough emphasis; that question can never be a matter of fact. It is pure opinion, and no one person’s opinion is any more valid than another’s, because with opinions, there is no scientific truth you can apply to make one argument better than the other, otherwise it would be fact. I believe in such situations, you can either respectfully agree to disagree, or you can behave intolerantly and attack your dissenter for having a differing opinion.
But the issue I take with many of my fellow pro-choice advocates, is that they call this a woman’s right issue, then argue that pro-life advocates are against women’s rights. This is where the pro-life/anti-life and pro-choice/anti-choice argument I made earlier becomes rather important.
If you are concerned about the woman’s rights, you will either be pro-choice or anti-choice. If you are viewing this argument from the embryo’s point of view, you are either pro-life or anti-life. The two are not interchangeable.
So when pro-choice people attack pro-life people for being against women’s rights, that’s a straw man argument.
The pro-life people believe it is a human life, with rights under the law. They believe that it’s not part of the woman’s body, but instead a separate body inside the woman’s body. As such, not believing it a woman’s rights issue whatsoever, or even framing it that way.
Logical Fallacies (Click to enlarge)
Pro-choice people however, believe that as long as the embryo resides in the mother, it is part of the mother, and therefore not a separate life, and not worthy of protection under the law, but instead, something a woman should have the right to remove, similar to a breast reduction to remove unwanted tissue to increase her quality of life.
I am not saying such people equate a fetus to a breast, so please no outraged response, understand I’m only saying they paint the procedures in a similar light, from an ethics perspective.
In either instance, again these positions as to whether it’s part of the woman’s body, or its own separate body within a body are matters of opinion, not fact, and can be argued either way. Tolerance dictates you must respect the converse opinion.
I have to point out that from a science perspective, the DNA of the embryo is unique from the mother’s, something that wouldn’t be true of any other organic substance inside the mother, she might opt to remove from her body; aside from a disease or another foreign invader of some sort anyway. So it’s hard to argue with science that the embryo is part of the mother’s body when it doesn’t share her exact DNA, but instead, a mix of her’s and the father’s.
Actual Image of Human DNA through an Electron Microscope. (Click image for more information)
I have a long history on this site of being all about science, so in theory, I probably should be what is traditionally thought of as pro-life and equate abortion to murder.
But I frankly know that if I had a daughter, and she had an abortion a month after fertilization versus a year after the birth, I cannot conflate the two as equally heinous. So despite all the evidence to the contrary, I remain pro-choice from a legal standpoint, and pro-life from a personal one.
As for Sarah and her followers, they are passionate about women’s rights, and that’s a good thing—I wish them well even if they think I’m a jerk.
I just wish they would embrace a little more empathy for those with differing opinions, and not conflate opinion with fact, because arguing someone is wrong, must revolve around facts, never opinions.
Donald Trump has recently announced that as president, he would use executive order to ban Muslims from entering the country temporarily.
As an atheist, I feel all religion can be dangerous if taken to extremes. But that being said, there can be no doubt that around the world, in the 21st century, the overwhelming majority of atrocities committed in the name of religion are committed by people of the Muslim faith.
Any time a tragedy happens, we as a people tend to believe we should try to analyze the problem that caused the tragedy and fix it. If the problem is too big for any one of us to fix, the non-libertarian population often feel government should fix it for them.
But let’s apply a little critical thinking to Trump’s idea of banning foreign Muslims from entering the United States.
How exactly do we go about banning all Muslims? If a Muslim applies to come to America, do the authorities ask that Muslim if they’re Muslim?
While an honest Muslim might answer truthfully, knowing it would preclude them from coming, wouldn’t a radical Muslim intending to kill Americans, or a desperate but peaceful Muslim hoping to flee a war-zone, just lie to get into the United States?
Quite similarly to the “If guns are outlawed, only criminals will have them” argument, if Muslims are banned from entering the United States, only deceitful Muslims will enter.
There is no DNA test that tells you what religion someone is—religion isn’t genetic. There is nothing science has to offer to detect one’s religion.
The 1st amendment states that, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
By the letter of the Constitution, the president could in-fact pass such an order, because it isn’t Congress passing a law, it’s the president passing an executive order.
So while some have put forth the constitutionality argument, I would have to argue it is a non sequitur.
U.S. Constitution: 1st Amendment
But, the Supreme Court continues to allow Blue Laws which are clearly an establishment of religion, proving the letter of the Constitution isn’t always their ultimate guide.
So it’s quite possible that the Supreme Court would strike such an executive order down based on the “principles” of the first amendment, versus the letter of it, as they tend to err on the side of secularism these days—something I typically appreciate.
The Supreme Court Of The United States
So now we understand that if Trump wrote such an order, there’s no way to know who is and isn’t a Muslim. Even if the Supreme Court didn’t strike it down as an executive order, if Congress tried to pass it as law, it would most assuredly get struck down then.
But also, it is important to consider that even if such a law did somehow evade the Supreme Court’s wrath, and scientists invented a Muslim detector that really worked; when exactly is “temporary” over?
We’ve been fighting the war on terror since 2001, and it’s not like there are any fewer radical Muslims killing people. While the radicals may be a small minority at best, if he’s passing such an order to eliminate the threat, the threat won’t be eliminated until all Muslims are dead—an idea I assume most people would not support.
Because much like it’s impossible to identify a Muslim with any certainty if they choose to hide it, it’s equally impossible to identify a radical Muslim hell-bent on killing innocent civilians they deem to be infidels deserving of death.
Hopefully, Trump and his supporters will come to their senses and realize this isn’t a workable plan, and instead look for ways to better screen all people coming into the United States. But they should also understand that with freedom comes danger, as illustrated by our gun laws—something most Trump supporters do support, and anyone else who is serious about liberty.
So if we’re OK with one danger, we should be OK with the other, lest we be hypocrites.
While I don’t claim to have the answer; if we’re seeking one, I’d at least like to know there’s a bit of logic and reason behind the ideas being proposed, because this one has very little.
“If you see something, say something,” is a much simpler notion, it’s something we can all do to help government officials find these people. Exercising our 2nd amendment rights to arm ourselves so we can take down any would-be killers in our midst if we encounter one is pretty simple too.
Both are far more likely to be effective and far more doable than Trump’s entirely unworkable notion.
log·i·cal: capable of reasoning or of using reason in an orderly cogent fashion lib·er·tar·i·an: an advocate of the doctrine of free will; a person who upholds the principles of individual liberty especially of thought and action
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The Logical Libertarian™ 