I Believe
By this stage in the project, I am sure that many of my readers are wondering where I stand on a variety of issues. In this chapter, I will do my best to set forth my beliefs. I may amend this chapter, over time, as smarter minds than mine attempt to influence my views, but as of July 14, 2006, this is where I stand:
1. I believe that The United States of America, with all of its faults and problems, has the best system of government and the best economic system, of all of the countries in the World. The results speak for themselves.
2. I believe all media outlets should recognize that we must help Muslims disassociate their religion from criminal behavior by murderers and thugs. Just because a political party calls itself Islamic, and wraps its leaders in the symbols of Islam, does not make it Islamic. To the extent that media outlets continue to allow this confusion to exist, they play into the hands of the gangsters, who are making our World so treacherous today!
3. I believe that theologians must recognize and acknowledge that God has made everything on our fragile planet. God has dictated that we will worship in different manners. Who are mortals to claim that one way that God has dictated is less valid than another way?
4. I believe that God speaks to all human beings every day. Unfortunately, most of us fail to listen!
5. I believe in the Wisdom of the average man and woman.
6. I believe that we should start all negotiations with those things we have in common, rather than with those things we view differently. All human beings want the right to a decent life, with a standard of living commensurate with our willingness to work hard; we want the right to raise a family, and see our children and grandchildren prosper; and we want the right to grow old, and be respected in our later years.
7. I believe that politicians who use fear to manipulate their people should be invited to join the ranks of the retired. Let us face our problems full on and pragmatically, without being stampeded to one view or another.
8. I believe that the leaders of both Israel and Palestine are reprehensible for not having found a way for their people to live in peace over the last 100 years. Within the past few days, I have heard pundits urging the USA to send a “high powered delegation,” to find a solution to the problems there. But isn’t that what Joseph Sisko and Henry Kissinger were doing with their “shuttle diplomacy” post-1967. Have we (human beings) learned nothing in the past 40 years?
9. I believe that Islam is a valid World View, which supports the spiritual needs of approximately 1.3 Billion human beings.
10. I believe that politicians in many countries impoverish their people, by failing to open their eyes to what works and what does not work economically, and the results for the standards of living of their people prove my point. One of my favorite pet peeves is the idea that there must be 51% or greater local ownership of an investment, in order to accept investment from abroad. This discourages investment from abroad! Why would a company invest all of its intellectual capital and money into an operation from which it can take only 49% percent of the profits, or less. Any business executive worth her salt can do better than that in almost anything in the USA. So why should they take their know how to the developing country? Japan is an example of a country, which made the change, and benefited from it hugely. About 1970, Japan began allowing 100% investments from abroad. Let me give an example of what that meant economically, in just one small case, where I was directly involved. I created an American subsidiary in Japan in 1979, 100% owned by the USA parent. Over the next 5 years we built a $10 million annual business, we employed 100 Japanese citizens, and my company never took any money out of Japan. Instead, it continued to reinvest. I was the only American, who earned anything from that venture, during that period. Since I lived in Japan, most of my earnings were also spent in Japan, thereby further enhancing the Japanese economy. How is that bad? In the United States, we accept foreign investment from almost anyone. Indeed, The People’s Republic of China owns a very large proportion of our United States Treasury bonds.
11. I believe that Diversity is The Glory of God, and that the Diversity we have accepted in North America, now The United States of America, is the fundamental factor, above all others, which makes the American economy the driving force of the World economy, and which gives us a far higher standard of living than any other country with a population larger than 10 million people. We temper (strengthen) our economy by adopting every good idea from the best and the brightest of all societies (they export their brains to the USA, because of their own inept economic policies, which do not provide sufficient opportunity for their smartest citizens), and, over time, we pound all bad ideas out of the system. The only countries with higher per capita GDPs, and there are 5 of them, are less than 2% the size of the United States, and most have some special circumstance, that gives them their position. Here are the per capita GDP standings of some major countries, for comparison of the performance of their economic systems:
#6 United States $41,800
#14 Canada $34,000 (The next country with over 10 million people.)
#34 Qatar $27,400
#43 Bahrain $23,000
#56 Kuwait $19,200
#72 Oman $13,200
#75 Saudi Arabia $12,800
#117 China $ 6,800
#160 India $ 3,300
12. I believe that we must bridge the gap between the bubble of the Muslim World and the bubble of the Western World. As Words Matter, LLC has been demonstrating, over the past year, people throughout the World believe in peace and mutual respect in almost the same manner. We must find ways for all of our citizens to understand that.
13. I believe that the Muslim community throughout the World must become much more successful in getting its message of Peace heard throughout the World. It seems to me that many Muslim Americans are reticent, because their families became American very recently. But this reticence leaves the stage to murderers and gangsters, who shout loud enough to drown out the decent Muslims in the World—greater than 99% of all Muslims are not being heard.
14. I believe that the greatest resource any country has is its people. To the extent that countries allow women to be ignored and marginalized, they freely squander ½ of the value of their human capital, any country’s greatest and only renewable natural resource. In my experience, women have at least as much brain power as men, which has nothing whatever to do with their sexual equipment. I believe that women should have absolutely equal rights to those of men in society at large. Where would we be without Madame Curie, Susan B. Anthony, and Madelleine Albright? Where would Islam be without A’isha, Barakah, and Nasibah bint Ka’b? God has dictated that women must bear children, so they carry an extra burden in the family, which puts them in a disadvantaged position vis-à-vis men in competing in society. But, who are mortals to say that their disadvantage should be any greater than what God has given them?
15. I believe in fighting murderers and gangsters, through the courts, if possible, but through our combined strength, if necessary.
16. I believe in compassion, tempered by wisdom. When I find a centipede in my house, I normally help it to walk onto a piece of paper, and then deliver it to the outside of my house. BUT, last winter my mother was overwhelmed in her home by field mice, which were getting into all foodstuffs in the house. It was not possible to help them out of the house. Indeed, my sister had attempted to use “live traps,” which allowed the trapping and removing of the field mice, without killing them. Unfortunately, they continuously found their way back into the house, creating a health hazard. I went to the hardware store and bought 10 mouse traps, the deadly kind. I killed 18 mice in 2 days, thereby restoring normal standards of human existence to my mother’s home.
17. I believe that Hezbollah is a criminal organization. On October 23, 1983, they exploded what was then called the largest non-nuclear explosion in the history of the World, killing 241 United States Marines and Sailors, who were peace keepers, trying to make it possible for the airport in Beirut to operate, in the face of various Lebanese killing one another. I do not think the fig leaf of having some members in the Lebanese Cabinet changes their stripes. I just now heard Prime Minister Fouad Siniora of Lebanon, in an interview with CNN (July 14, 2006), say that the Lebanese government allowed Hezbollah to continue to operate on Lebanon’s southern border “as a reminder.” I have no objection to a reminder, as long as it is a peaceful reminder. I favor letting the members of Hezbollah live in peace, not forgetting but regretfully accepting that nothing will restore the lives of those 241 Marines and Sailors, and so many others, and this is the only way to put down the weapons and establish peace. BUT, if Hezbollah cannot operate in a peaceful and appropriately diplomatic manner, respecting the Rule of Law, then I believe that the mousetraps should be used until the job is done. I do not condone what Israel has done in the past few days. There are good and bad people and behaviors on all sides, but I believe that the World community can have zero tolerance for gangster behavior. Canada would never allow the United States to condone a criminal gang operating along the northern border of Maine, making incursions into Canada. If the United States would not clean up such a mess, Canada would certainly defend itself and its citizens. When Debbi and I lived on Capitol Hill, only 14 blocks from The United States Capitol, there was a group of dealers operating a drug house only 4 doors from us. The street was always crowded with addicts, coming to get their fixes. There were multiple occasions when the FBI tried to raid the house, but informants within the police department, always caused the raids to come up dry. These people thought they were above the law entirely. They stopped paying their electric bill, so their electricity was stopped. The same happened to their water and sewer service. The smell became unbearable. The neighbor next door to the drug house called the Health Department, which found human feces in the bathtub, and bricked the doors and windows of that house that very day. The traffic on our street dropped in half instantly. In his CNN interview, Prime Minister Siniora was saying that, if only the Israelis would stop their attack, and withdraw from a certain peace of real estate, the reason for Hezbollah’s behavior would be gone, and they could begin to operate as a normal political party. I am sorry to say that since Hezbollah is still behaving as gangsters, 23 years after the attack on the Marine Barracks in Beirut, I find his argument difficult to swallow. I believe that if Lebanon expects to be treated as a nation state, with all of the rights, privileges, and obligations thereof, it must control gangster elements, within its own territory, never giving a free pass to such miscreants.
18. I believe that the United States was foolish to allow terrorist training camps to operate around the World. In the 1992 movie, Patriot Games, a scene takes place within CIA headquarters, in which one of over one hundred terrorist training camps acknowledged to be operating in North Africa was wiped out in a “black” raid. It was common knowledge, at that time, that such camps were operating in many countries. The United States did next to nothing to change that fact, perhaps because, without the 9/11 attack, there was not enough political will in Washington to solve the problem. Once 9/11 occurred, however, we can never again be so foolish (indeed no government can be so foolish), as to think that it is OK to allow gangster training camps, where illegal activity is the intention, in any part of the World, regardless of how remote. This is not the Boy Scouts!
19. I believe that there is enough blame to go around. I believe that the United States is at fault for the problems in the Middle East. I believe that Israel is at fault for the problems in the Middle East. I believe that the Palestinian government is at fault for the problems in the Middle East. I believe that the government of Lebanon has shirked its obligation to secure its own borders, and prevent a criminal gang from operating within its territory, to the detriment of its neighbor, Israel. I believe more blame could be passed on to other scapegoats. I believe it is time for nation states to do what nation states do, and solve their differences diplomatically. If Palestine wants to be a nation state, its government should behave responsibly, and prove it. Hezbollah is not a nation state, so it should stand down, and assume the role of concerned, but peace loving citizens of Lebanon.
20. I believe that the United States is reprehensible for eviscerating the United Nations. When I was twelve, I visited the UN in New York with my grandfather. I remember what high hopes we had that such an organization could bring World Peace, and solve the problems of famine and disease in the World. As I review the record of American votes at and payments to the UN, over 60 years, however, I am not proud of how the United States has met its own responsibilities. Thursday’s vote (July 13, 2006) at the Security Council was no exception! This does not fulfill the hope that my grandparents had; nor the hope that my parents had; nor the hope that I had as a boy. What can our leaders possibly be thinking? I expect United States diplomacy to be an example for the World; not a monkey wrench to be dropped into the Hopes of the World. As of 2001, the United States owed the United Nations $2.3 Billion. President Bush spends more than that every 12 hours in Iraq. Couldn’t we just stutter step for half a day, and pay the debt. I know there is more to it than that. Misguided politicians are using the debt as some sort of lever to make the UN buckle to some American point of view. I believe we should lead by example, rather than exercise the powers of a deadbeat!
