Steve’s Barking; What’s worse than not knowing your own history?

 We must know our history in order to avoid making the same mistakes. What’s worse and not knowing your own history is knowing false history.

Steve's barking; Who's responcible for ISIS?

Who's responsible for ISIS? I hear commentators on the boob tube and even in the e magazines and newspaper that I read blaming the current president. He's not doing enough. We should have staid in Iraq. We should give arm to the Kurds and the Syrian rebels who aren't allied to our enemies.
Who's to blame for ISIS, that easy, my country. Specifically the events that took place prior to the current president taking office.
Whose weapons are they using? US weapons that were given to Iraq after the war.
Who are the best soldiers and commanders in ISIS? The soldiers and commanders who were part Saddam Husain's military that we ignored and didn't let them protect their country when it was heading toward chaos.
There really isn't much this administration can do except give air support to people on the ground.
If we give weapons to the Kurds how would we make sure they wouldn't be used against our ally Turkey?

We interfered in Libya which is a disaster. Egypt, didn't turn out too well. Tunisia? Syria, still a civil war going on.2 million refuges and counting.
So in conclusion stay out of the Middle East, we only make things go from bad to worse.

Steve's barking: Are bombings really incentives for people to join terrorist?

The question  for the day is bombing and fighting monsters in the Middle East a good tool for recruiting of terrorist as has suggest by so many on the idiot box?
When one see the inhumanity of Isis on the tube isn't that a good recruiting tool for those who are prejudice against Arab, and Muslims?
Isn't a greater recruiting tool fantasy of doing something for the greater good?
Doesn't history show that winning or being on the winning side brings out the desire to join a warrior group?
Isn't there a large group of people who enjoy inflicting pain? Isn't that a great recruitment incentive?
My best guess is that those who want to act as terrorist will do it whether we have a military involvement or not. Sorry experts.

Steve's barking at the world in revolt

Every time I turn on the news it seems that an other country is having an insurrection with in it hborders. It doesn't matter if the country had an revolt three years ago and had a democratic elected, like Egypt. It doesn't matter if there is strong leadership or weak leadership.
It wouldn't surprise me if Western nations with strong democratic traditions are in the lines for violent  
demonstrations.
When and if this happens the explanation  from some will probably be income inequality.
Me, I'll just say promises not kept. I'll leave the other explanations to those smarter then me.

Through out history there has been violet upheaval, some good has come from it some times bad, even though just after the upheaval there has been bad. (Some of you who just read this probably have no idea what you just read).

Steve's barking bit coin, blame it on NIxon

The debasing of the currency as the no nothings would say, getting the US off the gold standard was Nixon doing.
Is anything wrong with not having our dollars backed by gold? Not at this moment and probably not in the near future. Those gold bugs had a case when we had stagflation, it was wrong but they had a case not having the dollar backed by gold.
Not having the dollar backed by gold give the idea that the FED can print money out of thin air just by buying government bonds with dollars it doesn't have (kind of like the American consumer does by buying items with the credit card) .

Now I can just imagine some mischievous nerds, just sitting around and having a little bit too much Sherry deciding that if the FED can print money why couldn't they create digital money and call it bit coins. They would make government backed money by selling this cyberspace created money.
Well as all money is, it's only as good as the seller of goods and services except it. If sellers of goods and services except this form of money though not backed any government  a new form of money has been created. If it's not excepted we have a  monetary pet rock.
So you see kiddies, you can blame it on Nixon.

Steve's barking we don't use leaches anymore

We don't use leaches anymore when some one is sick, why do we use outdated economic models?
I've read stuff (whole reports) from the Cato institute and the Heritage foundation that are so incomplete they wouldn't pass the mustard of a fifth grade class yet the conclusions are relegated to facts. Are we that lazy?
I saw a debate between Ron Paul and Paul Krugman on You Tube with Ron Paul. Ron Paul stated that the Byzantine Empire lasted as long as it did because it didn't debase it coins and didn't have a large fighting force. I believed this Bull Sh*t  till I did a little research and presto nothing could be further from the truth. The Byzantine empire many a time change the gold and silver in it's coinage. The empire expanded and shrunk many times during it's existence and it fought a lot.
The people of my great, great grandfathers day believed in a lot of things and they were the norm of the time, but now we have to move on.

Steve's barking some of my best friends are not politicians

I've met several politicians and most seemed like nice and intelligent people.
I have nothing against an assembly person who wants to fund the local senior citizens center and the daycare center down the block. I have nothing against the senator or congressman who fights for money for public transportation systems so that those who needed it the most can afford it. I just wounder why do these same people that I'm saying nice things about when you put a microphone in front of them sound like an idiots?
Is it because they need an extraordinary amount of money to run for office and they have to dumb down to the dummies to get their dough, maybe but they turn off.
Can one state that politicians are an abused minority?
I see on the boob tube some congress people talk about letters that they get from their constituents complaining that they are losing their health care because their insurance company stated they don't meet the standards for the affordable healthcare act. If the congress person was honest he (or she) would state that the constituent was lucky, the lowest tier on Obamacare is lame and probably not worth the money so one can only imagine a plan that doesn't meet those standards.
There are over 330 million Americans with ancestry from all over the world, I'll bet that our founding fathers couldn't fathom that.

Steve's barking at Stalinst Americans

Ok, what the f*** are Stalinist Americans? Let me start over , who the f*** are Stalinist Americans?
To answer that question let's start out with those blokes who complain about that woman or man who they claim was buy candy and soda ( beer, cigarettes) with food stamps. Let's do away with food stamps because there are people who misuse the system. That statement goes along with Stalin's statement better nine innocents be jailed then one guilty be free.
Who else can be called Stalinist? How about those people who keep say a big lie over and over again till the lie becomes excepted as the truth, kinda like those anti Affordable Healthcare Act people.
Would you believe that I heard on the boob some capitalist sound like Stalinist. How may you ask can a capitalist be a Stalinist? Well if they say the same lie over and over again they too can be a Stalinist. If you want to do away with most rules because a few rules are wrong and stupid, then you too can be a Stalinist.
If you bully your way to get what you want (like some Tea Party favorites) politically then you too can be considered a Stalinist.

Steve's barking who's speaking up for the Isrealis who come from Arab countries

I hear on the boob tube and read in the paper about this group and that who want to boycott Israel because of what they call Israel and the occupation of Palestine land. There is even an ex-president who calls what's happening in Israel apartheid. It seems that everybody speaks for the Muslim Arab, the Christian Arab, and every other Arab who has a religion except the Jewish Arab.
Now the Jewish population of Israel is over 50% of those coming from Northern Africa.
Didn't they come because they were second class citizens in their old countries?
Didn't they come out of fear for their lives?
Weren't they afraid of what happened in Nazi Germany would happen to them?
It would appear to me that those who criticize Israel are really talking about European Jews (Askenizey) and when you take sides in a conflict were you're not involved one should look at the whole story.

I used to hear the stories of the Russian Jews, very rarely did I hear of the Iraq Jews, or Syrian Jews or for any of the Arab countries. I heard some stories after they escaped.
I read about them now from the Jewish agency only when they what to rebuke the claims of the Palestinians.
There should have been  ongoing information blitz from the beginning of the state of Israel till now.

I have the desire to boycott the boycotters of Israel because of there ignorance of the plight of the Arab Jew and if they didn't call Jordon and Egypt occupiers.

If Aljzeera wanted to win points on honest reporting they would report on the Arab Jews of Israel and how they were treated in their counties of origin.

Steve's barking Can this be the end of the nation state?

The large nation state and even some of those smaller nation states seems to be in danger of imploding. Some for the reason that they seem to think that having draconian measures put on their people to enforce the rules of outside forces ( think Greece, Ireland and Portugal ect).
Some because of what those pesky talking heads like to call sectarian violence.
Is the world going back to prehistoric times that instead if the nation state we had a loss confederation of tribes?
The end of the rule of nations can be looked on as a call for freedom and the tribes of the world demanding that they be ruled the way they want to be ruled.

The reason that makes the United States different from most nations is the tolerance of  the differences of the different tribes, even though we don't quite understand this. Though out the United States' history we've had conflict because of intolerance of some of our tribes and their demand that
their intolerance be the rule of the land, all this in the name of democracy.

*I look at the Middle East and see nations of minority rule, even when with a democratic process that happened in Egypt before the latest upheaval. The democratic elected government didn't think of the other tribes and truth be told they are a minority.
In Israel  a truly minority of the populace runs the government and they don't even get a very large vote.

** Hopefully those who read this blog have a understanding as to what I've just written.
It's not the usual.

Steve's barking Oh no I didn't write that or I really like being a curmudgeon.

I've been reading from some libertarians due to the disclosure by Snowden of domestic ease dropping they quote Ben Franklin.
Those who would give up liberty to purchase safety deserves neither liberty or safety.
The actual quote is
Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserves neither liberty or safety.
With those 3 extra words the quote by Ben Franklin does not have quite the same meaning.

I don't have the same worries as some have about income inequities, I worry more about life inequities.
Too many of those high money types worry that the poor will get enough to eat, have a decent place to live and heaven forbid cable television and smart phones, like it's going to change the life style of the rich and famous.
Some times I suspect that there are people in the world who would be happy if the less fortune in the world turned into cows.

  
Why are we so worried about athletes who cheat when our bankers have a greater percentage of cheaters then baseball?

Steve's barking, I'm shock there's gambling in the back of Ricks

I'm shocked there's gambling going on in the back of Ricks, or as the EU might say America is bugging our conversations, we're shocked. Germany taking the lead saying US you g ot some (ex)plaining to do.

I always thought it was the right of passage between nations, even ones that are allies to spy on one another.
Hay look at the US and Israel. Every five or so years we throw a Russian diplomat out of the country and they do the same to us for spying. We want to know what our NATO allies are doing and I'm sure they want the same from us.

In the late fifties and early sixties the CIA had so many goofs that some one gave them the nickname certified incompetent agency, what will the NSA be called? The not (very) smart agency.

We had Bradley Manning in the Army and Edward Snowden volunteering to do the glamorous yet tedious work of looking at  and or ease dropping on telephone conversation and e-mails. They knew what  they were doing yet they were shocked ( were they naive) at the carrying on of the government.

I was in the park the other day and this child maybe 9 or ten starting to annoy this senior citizen. The senior got angry and the child laughed at her. The senior started to chase the child, which made the child taunt the senior more. This incident made me think, perhaps these leakers were going after there iner-child and if we    ignored them that would be there greatest punishment.

Steve's barking as good as isn't good enough.

We ought to hire more (name your gender, race or ethnic group) for top executive positions for they are as good as White Males.
Now with the idea that I may sound prejudice, I wouldn't hire ( name your unrepresented group) if there only as good as, I would hire them if they had a chip on their shoulders that they had something to prove. If they were more hungry then those White Males or they had proven to be better then. Because that what I want to run a company or even a lesser entity called a country. I want better then the rest.

When I look around this globe I see health care that's not good enough, we tend to compare ourselves to other societies instead of looking at what is needed and making an effort to get it done.
All the counties of the world need better health care systems.

We tend to compare our education to other counties and all countries are lacking in some form or other.
I ask myself in the United States are we catering our education to what we believe would make us stand out (this being the most likely scenario)?
Our we trying to have our education meet what is believed the education needs of the future?
What were not doing ( an impossible task) is meeting the individual student's need.

If any country is trying to be as good as the United States, they are making a terrible mistake, that's not good enough, just as the United States keeps saying that were number one, that's not good enough. The countries of this planet have got to strive to be better tomorrow and even better the next day.

Striving to be better then the best is what it's all about.

    
 

Steve's barking, the US lost out because of the end of the Cold War

We in the US have this mistaken belief that the end of the Cold War was an important economic and social win for the United States. I Ofcause beg to differ. With the collaps of the Soviet Union we lost one of our greatest competitors. When one has no comtition one tends to get fat and lazy with innovation few and poor just like Microsoft when it destroyed it competitions programs.
With the Cold War America was more socially just, we just had to prove that our way is better then our competion, now our politicians just don't give a --- .
During the Cold War you would hear of the great deficit, but reasonable people just ignored it. Now reasonable people make like it's the most frightening thing since the atomic bomb. Every time they hear the words public deficit they want to duck under their desks' and cover thier heads never mind the other terrible bombs out there, pension and social security. Oh I almost forgot the aging of America and the Medicare bomb.

Now I ask you my friends and enemies if the Soviets hadn't left Afganistan would we have been attacked by Islamist extremists on Sept 11th 2001? I don't think so.
It maybe true that America may have won the Cold War but lost the peace.

Steve barking at putting his 2 pence in on the NRA

The NRA or the national (w)rong association is fighting fighting against gun controll.
Their argument is the second amendment wrongly asserting what the meaning of a well regulated militia means. No you nimrods a well regulated militia does not mean individuals do not have the right to bear arms. Now I know that there are quotes from some of  our beloved writers of  our constition that claim that individuals have the not just the right to bear arms, but have a duty so as not  
to have a tyrannical government. Now I've checked google images to see if those quotes are accurate and I have yet to see any written quotes that our imaged from our founding fathers. Not letters, not newspaper accounts from our founding fathers on speaking about weapons. Show me the images as I have seen from other subjects that pretain to what our founding fathers believed in. NRA show me the images. Anybody can make up quotes to justify their prejudice.

What I do know is the most compelling reason we have a constition is because of a little thing called Shayes Rebellion. One of the most scary thing that happened was that the militia had to break into the Massachusetts armory to get it's guns.
The act of rebellion scared the sh*t out of our founding fathers. Most of our founding fathers decided that it might be a good idea to have one strong central government then a loose federation of thirteen different states.
Now lets look at another reason that those who state that our founding father's did believe that a well regulated militia was not that all it's armed citizens were part of a militia. There was this armed ins erection in Western Pennsylvania, know in history as the Wiskey Rebellion, Were President Washington brought in Militias from other states, and not one word from the other founding fathers about the rights of those in rebellion.

Now if one can't talk some sence into the gun lobby about what the real purpose of the second amendment, there is always the threat of a repeal.
No there is no real threat of  a repeal of the second amendment or the taking of guns from gun owners. The fact of the matter is that there are 300 million plus reasons why this will not happen.

Now I wouldn't be writing this if the NRA had done a better job teaching and insisting on gun safety.
The  tragity a Newtown probably would not have happened if the guns had been locked up.
If I'm not mistaken Columbine the guns that were used were stolen from the parents.

I'm not so convinced that having a gun at home stop home invasions, studies before 1996 suggest that
having a gun a home doesn't protect the home like is claimed by the NRA and the stories that are told of how those who killed, wounded, or scared away invaders are really dog bites man stories.

Steve's barking, why nobody truly explained to me, why it's Clinton's fault

It's President Clinton's fault that we had this housing bubble that screw up the economy, or so many of the US economic pundits explain, after all he wanted to have everyone citizen to own a house no matter how credit worthy they were. He even forced the banks (according to these pundits)to give mortgages with little or no money down.
What I don't understand how come the compassionate conservative who ran the White House didn't put a stop to this economic foolishness. Nobody has explained to me why the banks (who were making money hand over fist) tell the president that it wasn't prudent to lend everybody who walked in the door money to buy a house.  I also seem to recall Fed Chair Alan Greenspan talking about a bubble, and nobody listening to him, including himself.
So bottom line to these economic pundits, it all those muddle headed liberals in the Clinton's administration fault that we had a housing bubble, without explaining to me what was everyone doing  
the seven and a half years after he left office.

Steve's barking at the privilege of gun ownership

Gun ownership in the United States is a privilege not a right.
There is no federal law in the United States that states that the citizens of the United State has the right of gun   ownership.
Now I'm looking at my handy dandy copy of the American Constitution, so I'll copy the second amendment to the Constitution. The amendment that reportedly states that a citizen has the right of gun ownership.
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.   
Now reading these words, I don't see the were it is stated that any citizen who wants a firearm could have it.
It does say pretty clearly that if you are part of a well regulated that you can keep ( Not necessarily own) arms.
I looked in my dictionary to find out what is the meaning to bear arms. It stated to bear arms was to carry.
Well regulated means the same today as it did in the 1780s, like the banks are supposed to be regulated now but are not, well at least not well regulated.
Now I know that there are many of my countrymen who claim that the founding fathers of my great nation meant that a guns were a protection against the nation becoming tyrannical and guns should be used to protect the citizens from tyrants. We even have those claim the second amendment was put in place for the protection of one person and home, they do this by quoting some scholarly that was either written or purportedly said in some speech. Nonsense , if the framers of the second amendment wanted any of that verbiage in the amendment they would have put it in. Unfortunately we will never know what the real reason for the second amendment for  there is no recording of the debate. My guess the second amendment was sent to the states as an answer to Shay's rebellion were the soldiers had to break into an armory to get their weapons to put the rebellion down.
Now to make things a little more complicated, Any law that is passed now will be just a feel  good law, though it may save lives the laws will not stop massacres.

Now I'm going to write something that going to really bewilder any reader of this blog, gun violence will only decrease very little if the powers that be realize that the second amendment does not give anybody the right to own a arms. There over three hundred million guns in the US and no one in their right mind will try to take them away.
Perhaps if enough gun owners understand that gun ownership is a privileged not a right, they will help put together gun laws that will reduce gun violence in this country.

* If gun ownership stop tyrants from ruling a country how did the Taliban rule Afghanistan?
* If having a gun protects you from violence how come police are attacked?      

Steve's barking at Mitt Roosevelt

Who the h**l is Mitt Roosevelt?
Is he the guy who like Franklin Delanor Roosevelt complains about the present day president and the balancing of the budget then goes about giving the greatest stimulus package ever saving the nation.
Any BS to win  an election, then does right thing. Or is he really Mitt Reagan, dogmatically conservative (Ronald) the man who almost destroyed the economy (in the forgotten Wall street panic).
Who is the real Mitt Romney?

Steve's barking at the 10 amendment

The powers not delegated to the the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people. 
That's the exact wording of the tenth amendment to to Constitution. This amendment just like ever other amendment and the original Constitution before the amendments is pretty straight forward. Well it was until lawyers and Jurist tried and found secret meaning to it.
The tenth amendment means that the state can set laws that aren't set in the Constitution such as trying some one for murder or robbery. Now I must be a fool but there is no way that the tenth amendment give states right over the federal government as long as it stated in the Constitution. Of cause 150 and years ago we fought a bloody civil war over this article and those who though that citizens of  one state could bring it's laws into the territories and the federal government had no say in the matter. Those states righter's  lost, or so the history books claim.

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 to peaceably assemble, and to petition the government to redress of the grievances.
That's the first amendment. Now the way I read this amendment, it limits what the federal government can do.
Now if Montana wants to limit the amount of money that be spent on an election it can do so, for there is nothing in the Constitution to prohibit them.


Do we really have freedom of religion, press and speech, yes from the federal government but states and local government can if not by fact then by the constitution.

Steve's barking at the union loss in Wisconsin?

Unions took a terrible loss in Wisconsin on Tuesday. They didn't beat Walker.
They might have change the make up in the   state senate, but that don't count, even though it can stop the governor from doing what ever the f**k he wants to do.

Heard Ron Paul several weeks back about the Byzantine empire and how they lasted so without debasing their currency and having no wars. I looked it up, boy did the congressman have it wrong.

I live in a area were I can make rough estimate that at least 60% of the 15000 family are currently civil servants or retired civil servants. They support 2 large supermarkets, 3 smaller ones, several garages not counting the five gas stations, local hardware store, numerous restaurants, a JC Penny and a K Mart, not counting a new mall that is intended in the spring of 2014. Almost all of these private enterprise businesses wouldn't be there if it wasn't for government workers and their paychecks and pensions.
( The circle of economic life).