Open letter to President Obama about Standing Rock

The current attacks on Standing Rock Protests are being shot at by the Army Corps of Engineers right now. This is a violation of the rights of the Standing Rock Sioux and allies. The construction of the pipeline across native land which was illegally stolen from the Standing Rock is a violation of their treaty rights and our constitution. Treaties signed under the United States are laws under our constitution Article 1, and the Army Corps of Engineers is being improper in their current action. Our constitution and the courts exist for a reason, to prevent massacres which are happening right now. Please use your action to block the Dakota Access pipeline to the best of your ability right now and save the lands of these people. I know that you were raised UU like me and I frequently see you refer to the values your mother raised you with. What would she and your grandmother say today if they saw you stand idle as the rights of Native People are being infringed by the Army Corps of Engineers. I know that our church has come out in opposition to the current actions against Standing Rock protesters and that you know better. You have the power to stop them. Do it.

Europe's refugees

The current crisis in the middle east, while toppling dictators in Tunisia and Egypt, and getting women the right to vote in local elections in Saudi Arabia (bringing the total number of countries where women can't vote to 0) has also created the war in Syria. Combined with the destabilizing of Iraq which was caused by the United States invasion the emergence of ISIS was almost inevitable. Looking further back the entire situation in the Middle East was created by the carving of international borders is a consequence of colonialism which was done by Europe particularly the United Kingdom. The only fair response to the current crisis in Syria given the United Kingdom's role and the carving of artificial boundary lines is to bring in refugees and help create the stability and peace in the Middle East with respect and for human rights and science. Europe has an obligation given their colonial history and their support of dictators since then to help rebuild the Middle East. While it is true that the current leaders in Europe today we're not themselves individually responsible for what occurred a hundred years ago what is happening now as a consequence of their national action and I believe it would be the right thing for European countries to work on peace building in the region and make it so human rights are respected. Even if we hold that individuals are not responsible for their ancestors actions but for their own alone Europe has the resources and the wealth to help people in the Middle East and it is the moral action if you see someone needing help you help then there is no exception to this principle in my opinion given Europe's moral fiber and given that nobody else except the United States, Canada, and probably Japan as well have the resources to make a significant impact in the Middle East it is only the right thing to help bring peace to the Middle East and support refugees. Canada in particular is a very interesting situation Stephen Harper has made it so, this reduces rolling peacekeeping around the world significantly this action is completely unethical and contrary to all the values that make him Canada a very special country. United States being the richest country in the world tied with China, makes it so that the United States has would suffer almost no cost relative to the size of our overall economy to help people in the Middle East. Such the porch would be seems like bringing in advisors and helping to draft good constitutions with the big with the cooperation of intellectuals in these countries, building up the systems of education healthcare which these countries currently black, and helping to build a framework for liberty and human rights is in the form of a bill of rights to be respected by the government to make it to all people are respected.

The current situation with the refugees in Europe shows this underline conflict which is buried deep inside the Europeans conscience. It is surprising that Angela Merkel turns out to be the one who has been one of the most liberal members of the European Council on this issue but I am glad none the less even though her policy with Southern Europe has been far from diplomatic, reasonable, or fair.

Current steps to undo the damage which has been done by ISIS would be supporting the building of refugee camps, unfortunately some military action is necessary, as well as helping to build a democratic framework, along with the quality of government. There has to be rule of law as opposed to rule of man which will protect the freedom of these people if they have an election where the right wing win for one or two election cycles. The biggest hurdle in doing this is of course Russia which supports us on but I believe that given time we can achieve this goal of helping freedom grow in Syria.

While foreign countries can help, at the end of the day is up to the people of the Middle East to secure their face this is what we saw with the Arab Spring. For the first time in hundreds of years we are seeing the people of the Middle East call for a better system for themselves. Hopefully this is going to lead to a system which will see in the emergence of of Science in Middle East there is some science being done currently, but the quantity is nothing compared to where they should be given their history. With better education for all and governments respecting the freedom of speech which is necessary for our society to prosper this is going to hopefully lift hundreds of millions of people out of poverty and into a better life.

Black Lives Matter

After Senator Sanders was interrupted the other day by a Black Lives Matter supporter, I have been seeing a lot of rhetoric, some of it true, most of it not, from people on my Facebook account and across the internet. In all of the anger, confusion, name calling, misinformation from most media, and sadness with the interruption of Bernie Sanders, if you haven't checked out the basic demands of Black Lives Matter on their website, please do, they are really clear, to the point, and there is no way any decent person could disagree with any of them.

I have found it quite confusing with a lot of information from many sides around the issue, over half of which is from people not affiliated with BLM and misinforming people. This is no way to support Black lives, and is a wonderful way to alienate them. Such behavior only makes this work harder to do. Support them by offering your ears, offering them your hearts, and offering your thoughts and support. This is what I am trying to do in order to help my friends.

Black Lives Matter is a single-issue movement focused on the police violence which is inflicted on African Americans every day across the United States. If you believe people have the right to life, than you should be behind this movement. The most important parts of their website is pretty small and to the point, please explore it at blacklivesmatter.com if you haven't already to educate yourself on the issue. If you are already involved and know their demands, than excellent!

They also make it abundantly clear on their front page that they are looking for allies in solving this problem. No matter who you are there is room for you in fighting for human rights, and please do what you can. Lives are being lost, and people are not being given a fair shot at life. This is completely immoral and it is up to all of us to end racism in its steps. It doesn't matter what your opinions are about welfare, social security, affirmative action, or any other issue. If you believe that everyone deserves a fair shot at life you should get involved in Black Lives Matter and help end police violence.

Viva la Europa

We are currently witnessing the biggest play of fools in the history of the world in Europe. These mistakes happened 100 years ago when trade broke down across Europe leading to one of the largest wars the world had seen to that point.

In international politics there are some major theories which talk about how to bring peace to the world. One which has some support is the Democratic peace theory which (as the name implies) is the theory that democracies don't go to war with each other.

However, the theory which has very solid support is the interdependent peace theory. The idea is that if you trade with other countries you will not go to war with them. The strength to this theory is it explains why Europe doesn't go to war with Russia while given tensions democratic peace theory predicts war. European leaders have no incentive to go to war because of the imports and exports they have with Russia.

Now when it comes to the ongoing austerity crisis and depression in Greece, this theory implies a lot for the future. If Greece severed it's connections with the European Union they will very likely find another ally. Given their treatment by the EPP I don't see too many short term incentives for them to stay in the EU.

Putin is currently very interested in expanding his power and we have seen him reach out to Greece in particular as being his next target in his power grab. Given the human rights records of the other countries he has close relations with,  Kazakhstan, Iran, Belarus, Syria, and North Korea being the most impressive examples, I find no reason to believe this change in international relations will bring anything good to Greece or Europe. If this pattern were to continue than than I see no reason Putin would then try in a carrot and stick approach to expand to Italy, Spain, and Portugal. Adding over 50 million people to his alliance is something I can see him do.

Now, this is far more than just a shift in power relations and who the biggest ally of these medium sized nations will be. I expect that as Putin grows his relationship with these countries we will see the same pattern of a reduction in the validity and transparency of elections like we see in Russia today. This will be a massive reduction in the human rights in those countries just like the Franco regime. I see nothing besides EU membership standing in the way.

We also see another trend in the EU today which is already eroding their rights. What is happening today in Hungary is very disturbing and hopefully won't expand to other countries. The current prime minister of Hungary has been accused of undermining human rights by multiple human rights organizations. https://www.hrw.org/europe/central-asia/hungary The EPP is not willing to hold their member accountable to the laws of the European Union, further proof of their true intentions of undermining liberalism and the EU. This was never about Greece's debt from the start. It was about undermining the largest barrier to fascism in Europe.

Before the EPP gained power in the EU we did not see the problems in Greece and Hungary that are happening today. I love Europe and don't want to see an erosion in their liberties or a failure of one of the greatest political experiments in human history. None of this was inevitable and it was all artificially manufactured. It is time for those who love Europe to stand up to the EPP and Putin and save the EU.

The last two breakdowns in trade was in the years prior to the first and second world wars. The current erosion of trade and human rights is a threat to world peace and must be stopped.

The largest genocide in history

I have done reading in the past about the history of Native Americans in the past, and from what I have learned I think it qualifies as a genocide. The actions of all the major colonizing powers, England, France, Spain, and Portugal (along with the United States and successor countries) actions constitute at the very least ethnic cleansing. In 2000 the Head of the BIA came out and used those very words to describe the actions of his agency in a public apology for the history on this continent. http://www.tahtonka.com/apology.html I also can find evidence of Native Americans being sold into slavery in California and North Carolina: http://nahc.ca.gov/califindian.html and www.gilderlehrman.org/history-by-era/origins-slavery/essays/indian-slavery-americas

While it is not in the United States, the extent of brutality expanded as far as downright hunting in Tierra del Fuego of the Selknam people. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selknam_Genocide

The actions of the colonial powers against the Native Americans at times were in response to Natives stealing the goods of the colonizing powers. The reaction unfortunately frequently became collective punishment against the entire group. This further emphasizes the overuse of military against Native Americans. The Navajo Wars started when a single Navajo man stole a horse from a white settler. In response to the actions of a single individual the American military massacred numerous Navajos. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Navajo_Wars

Of course, the most famous case is Andrew Jackson's movement of the Cherokee to Oklahoma in the Trail of Tears. This forcible deportation which killed thousands of Cherokee on par with other genocides definitely qualifies.

Raphael Lemkin invented the word genocide and defined it as thus: "Generally speaking, genocide does not necessarily mean the immediate destruction of a nation, except when accomplished by mass killings of all members of a nation. It is intended rather to signify a coordinated plan of different actions aiming at the destruction of essential foundations of the life of national groups, with the aim of annihilating the groups themselves. The objectives of such a plan would be the disintegration of the political and social institutions, of culture, language, national feelings, religion, and the economic existence of national groups, and the destruction of the personal security, liberty, health, dignity, and even the lives of the individuals belonging to such groups."

To be completely clear, this issue is far from settled. A massive proportion of Native Americans were killed as a result of disease. Some of this was intentional, but most of it wasn't. The movement of Europeans acting as vectors for smallpox and malaria into different areas of the Americas was possibly the most devastating part of what happened on this continent in the first 400 years or so after Europeans first settled in massive numbers. This case in history is extremely difficult to fully untangle in a way which leaves us with a clear answer, which is why the population estimates for the pre-Columbian era for the Americas vary extremely widely. Despite all of this, I think the actions which were taken on top of the transfer of malaria, smallpox and other diseases is still sufficient for a verdict of genocide.

Given how the assimilate, die, or be impoverished policies of all the governments of the Americas were all regarding the destruction of the institutions of Native Americans and they destroyed all of those rights which Lemkin outlines, it would a great insult to all Native Americans to call the actions of all the countries towards Native Americans as anything but genocide.

Open call for evidence of Russian protests

I am aware there are protests going on in Moscow regularly against the dictatorship of Vladimir Putin. Given the significant restrictions on freedom of the press, it is not safe for Russians to post pictures of the protests without becoming the next target of the FSB (the successor to the KGB).

Because of this unfortunate reality, if you have evidence of the current protests and you want to make sure the world can know about what is going on please send pictures to stidmatt@gmail.com so I can post them here so the world can know what is happening today. The world needs to see as many pictures as possible, and the people who are protesting against the status quo need to be as safe as possible, so posting with your own name is not safe. If there are protests in other authoritarian states and you want to make sure the world knows, please feel free to send me those pictures as well.

You will remain anonymous if you don't give me your name and I will not ask for your name for your safety.

If you send me a photo that is not from where you claim to be I will find out and you will be blacklisted. Don't even try to recycle old pictures.

Warning: I have a virus scanner so don't even try to send me any bad code. If you send me one bad email you will be forwarded directly to spam forever so don't even try.

Beware the pigs

In the 1880s the British South Africa Company moved into what is modern day Zimbabwe and got a concession from the King for mining rights in the region in 1888. The British started to enslave Zimbabweans and established settlements of Englishmen. The natives no longer had any sovereignty and over the next 60 years until the 1950s they were in a feudal system. The colonial era saw the resources of the people of Africa be stolen by the colonial powers. This ended when the Africans grew tired of their colonial oppressors and formed independence movements to have more rights. In 1963 Rhodesia gained independence along with other African nations in that era, after which they were led by Ian Smith until 1979. Rhodesia was set up so there were separate voter rolls for people based on property (not indifferent from the United States when we were founded where you had to own land to vote) which effectively gave the landed white settlers most of the political power despite being a minority. In this era the government reserved a majority of seats in Parliament for whites and made it almost impossible for African political parties to get enough power to represent the majority. The way Rhodesia was set up was being decreed as racist by the rest of the world. (Source: Wikipedia) Of course, we can't blame Ian Smith completely because he was merely a figurehead of a massive governmental organization which was nominally democratic for those who had land, and was outspoken on supporting Mandela while the United States and Israel maintained good relations with the Apartheid regime, and he had started to work to try to bring majority rule to Rhodesia before 1979. It is easy to demonize him given that he was president of a country with minority rule (and while I started writing this article I found myself falling into the same trap given similarities between him and other African leaders who led for such long periods of time) but it is important to look at an individual with the context of his time and place and the power dynamics at play to diagnose the entire system as being racist and not blaming everything on the head of state when there is a congress or parliament with considerable power.

In 1979 however Mugabe came to power, under the guise of freeing Zimbabweans from their white oppressors. He promised progress and change, but his economic reforms quickly turned the country into one of the poorest and most backwards in the entire world. He has established a one-party rule where anyone who speaks against his regime is arrested or killed, frequently landing near the bottom of the rankings of all freedom indexes. He did not become as so many hoped a figure for freedom for all Africans and has frequently committed crimes against other tribes, and the white minority who are for the most part disenfranchised and have left Zimbabwe as refugees. He tries to portray himself as black empowerment and given how Africans have been abused for so many generations many see this as a good thing, but no one chooses the color of their skin and even though it isn't in the order we usually think of when it comes to racist regimes Mugabe is indeed a racist and continues to pursue policies which have made Zimbabwe a backwards state for all Zimbabweans, including targeting certain tribes of natives disspelling any notion of him being a freedom fighter for Africans.

This is in comparison to South Africa where after the truly brutal racist regime that lasted almost 50 years Nelson Mandela rose to lead South Africa to become the most economically advanced nation in Africa whose speed of economic development is close to that of China. He did this not by looking at it in terms of an us vs. them mentality but as a real liberal tried to bring all South Africans to a place where they could leave peacefully without creating a refugee crisis. They are now the freest nation in Africa for native Africans and all people compared to all other nations on the continent. The rights of people in nations in Africa where they didn't look for a multilateral liberty-based approach but instead a Marxist relativist approach where it is seen as a conflict between different classes (which were deeply aligned with people's ancestry being either European or African for the most part) have not improved since decolonization and their standard of living is the worst in the world.

When trying to advance rights for one group of people, be it Africans in Africa, women across the world, homosexuals, transsexuals, and other groups it is paramount to not turn it into an us vs. them mentality but attempt to make the value of all men being created equal a reality. A rising tide raises all boats.

Freedom in the world does not have a limited quantity and the amount of freedom in a society goes up and down over time. When one person gets the ability to speak freely this does not mean another person cannot publish their thoughts as much. My writing this blog without my government cracking down on me if I say something they do not like does not prevent another person from writing a blog of their own. This is how the world works and the great thinkers of liberalism, John Locke, America's founding fathers, and John Stuart Mill all understood this. When Europe passed the Schengen treaty the average amount of freedom in the world increased, but the amount of freedom that Americans had did not decrease because the border between Germany and Poland was opened. This is also of course what happened in Animal Farm by George Orwell who noticed this in the USSR and ended with one of the greatest quotes of modern literature, "The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which." which is applicable in Zimbabwe.

When expanding the rights of one group we need to ensure that we don't also make it harder for one group to have what they deserve. When we continue to expand rights for African Americans across the United States so that those who live in poor communities (because not all African Americans are poor) have police services that respect them we need to deal with the problem directly by implementing laws that hold police accountable for their actions so that they keep their actions within the law which doesn't always happen which is a great shame on our entire nation. Decreasing the quality of police in majority-white areas will not make people in majority-African American areas more free, in fact I would expect it would have the opposite effect. We need to write laws that directly address the issue along with caveats which will inevitably occur so that we can have programs that work effectively.

If we don't we will end up being no better than Robert Mugabe who talked about a Zimbabwe where Africans would be free only to turn back on his progress and make it worse for all Zimbabweans. We must be true liberals and focus on the rights as the end goal and divorce ourselves from the notion of one group always being the oppressor and one group always being the oppressed, because roles can and at times have switched in brutal fashion. When we realize this we can have freedom.

Relativism as subjugation

In my political theory classes there is a big discussion about liberalism and relativism. Liberalism is of course the idea that focus should be on individual liberty as opposed to social class (Marxism) or ethnicity (Fascism) in a nutshell. Sometimes I will hear left-wing people (who aren't really that liberal) think of liberalism and the expanse of democracy as cultural imperialism or something like that. These people will argue at times that expanding democracy and overthrowing existing governments hurts their culture. I think this analysis is misguided.

I do not think that any major culture (which I would define as music, language, literature, art, etc.) is inherently better or worse than another in general within certain limitations. These limitations are very important however, because we also need to value people, and there are some times and places (The Deep South is a dishonorable mention here) where societal norms have encompassed treating other people unequally. The return of voting regulations that disproportionately hurt African Americans across the Old Confederacy is a big argument that racism is not dead, and research has shown hate tweets are far more common in the Old Confederacy than anywhere else in the United States. Some countries mercilessly hurt women and girls in things like female genital mutiliation, allowing husbands to beat their wives where the woman has no recourse, and for men to beat women on the streets with no legal prosecution possible. These are not cultural differences, this is an individual abusing others, and it doesn't matter where the person lives it is still abuse. These sorts of statements from relativists are not support for culture but support for abuse which is opposed to the idea of respecting other people, are deeply misguided notions, and illiberal. We need to stand up and oppose governments that hurt their own people. No culture on Earth has a tradition of abuse like what we observe in Eritrea, Saudi Arabia and North Korea among others, the current abuses from their governments are just abusive and not cultural.

Another feature that people will frequently look to is governmental systems as a form of cultural relativism. They seem to think that countries adopting democracy is a form of colonialism by the US, at least that is the interpretation I get from them.

There is a very big problem with this, and that is that democracy has been chosen by people in many countries that are not European and it has worked extremely well. Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and Botswana are the best examples of where Democracy has been the most successfully implemented outside of Europe, none of which have European roots. Other regions still have progress and they are better now than they were 50 years ago. Countries that have seen their people stand up for democracy and individual liberty are wealthier (or at least see their economies grow much faster) than countries that are non-democratic. They see lower corruption in their government, and lower barriers to ingenuity. The most successful implementations and improvements were done not by being forced on them but through the people themselves without foreign involvement.

A few case examples:

• North Korea is an excellent example of how tyranny is not a function of culture because before the Kim Dynasty came to power North Korea was even more advanced than what became South Korea, and South Korea is a fully developed nation where people are free. The situation in North Korea and other places is not a function of culture but a function of tyranny.
• China is perhaps the most traditionally communal culture in history, and even China sees the idea of questioning and individuality in the writings of Mozi, and if it weren't for the suppression of his writings which are problematic for tyrants it would have a much larger impact on Chinese culture. The ides of Mozi were about as liberal as one can get, and if he wasn't killed by the government Chinese norms would be very different. China's emperors were more successful at keeping strains of thought that threatened their tyranny. Confucius also taught tyrants should be dethroned if they were abusive to their people, but he also argued from a more communal perspective so the Chinese emperors used those ideas to further their cause of absolute power to get people to be part of the whole. The existence of people like Mozi and events like Tiananman Square shows China has a long undercurrent of the people desiring more freedom, which has been able to flourish in Taiwan (which shares a similar culture and language) where people can speak freely and has led them to extreme economic growth and stability.
• There is no other explanation for such contagious support of liberalism in every country with a free press and how millions of people stood against the USSR in the early 1990s to implement democracies, 3 of which have been able to meet the EU acquis which are very strict and now enjoy the highest quality of living in the former USSR. If the systems put in place by the Czar and Communist Party were merely cultural there would not have been such a wide revolt across so many different cultures that have almost nothing in common besides being human, yet the majority of people in all areas agreed they preferred liberal democracy over communist tyranny.

If it were culture than there is no way to explain Machiavelli was able to move his area to be the most prosperous nation on Earth in his time through economic and social reforms which then were adopted across parts of every region of Earth.

The idea of America's "spreading democracy" as spreading democracy is inherently flawed. When the US goes around claiming to be "spreading democracy" they always tend to come in with big guns when the people elect someone the US government doesn't like. This is not spreading democracy. This is spreading imperialism. This is highjacking the name of democracy like neocolonialists have stole the term capitalism from liberals. Social liberals need to reclaim the capitalism of Adam Smith, which was most certainly not completely laissez-faire given his support of government in non-competitive public goods, and use it in the way that it was intended in the first true masterpiece of economics, The Wealth of Nations, which is as far from an imperialist document as one will ever find. Realizing this will help liberals (if they are truly liberal) understand how different actions effect people and what we can best do to advance human rights throughout the world.

We need to look at how we think of foreign cultures and not be overly judgmental to cultural differences, but also not be overly sympathetic to governments that abuse their cause which is what happens when many people start talking about cultural relativism. They have confused democracy and colonialism which are diametrically opposed to one another, and democracy is the best solution to colonialism. Amnesty International comes I think the closest to what it means to be a true social liberal, but speaking out against governmental abuses veiled in culture as many governments use. No child truly wants to work as opposed to go to school. No woman wants to beaten on the street with no legal protection. No culture historically supports this, except when an insane leader forces it on the people of a region.

I am a relativist only as far as it recognizes that different cultures have many lessons to tell, and no language is necessarily superior to another, but also balanced with reason and respect for the individual. To excuse every societal norm as culture, as I have demonstrated with North Korea, China, and the USSR forgets history and is the easy path of supporting the status quo, which when that is your only objective frequently becomes lacking in ethics and hypocritical. We need to stand with people around the world for them to be able to find their way, no matter what their local tyrant says.

A New Democracy Index

I created an index of my own I haven't published after not being fully satisfied with any democracy/liberty index based primarily in social issues anywhere, and made it based on several existing indexes and easily measured features. The biggest problem I see with human rights indexes is they usually measure only one variable, when there are many different aspects that go into determining whether a country is truly free or not. I looked at government policies in 8 benchmark ways that are concrete, and weighted all 8 equally on a scale of 0-5 (it was an arbitrary decision to choose 5 but I found I could get enough differences in each policy where 5 works nicely, I also start at 0 as opposed to 1 because it makes a difference in the math). The indexes are Freedom of the Press standardized to the same scale from Reporters Without Borders, gave a score of 0-5 for religious freedom based on official government policies, 0-5 on access to healthcare, 0-5 on gay rights policies, 0-5 on access to courts and their quality, 0-5 on women's rights from The Daily Beast, 0-5 for the quality of elections and their methods, and 0-5 for visas rewarding countries for having more open borders through lower visa requirements. This is going to be a major judge for me determining whether the country is free or not and will be my judge for high-quality leaders. The way I ranked didn't take into account whether the potential violations are for citizens or non-citizens which hurt the United States in particular.

All of these indexes can have ties and if every country improved to have full freedom of the press, absolute freedom of religion, complete access to health care, full equality for gays, court systems that have no barriers and are completely free, fair and impartial for all people citizen or non-citizen, women have full equality to men, they use Single Transferable Vote and/or Instant Runoff voting for their elections, and all foreigners can freely travel to their country.

Leading with a score of 4.436 is Sweden, their worst score is on visas, and their women's rights score is a 4.96 out of a possible 5. The top 25 are the following:

1. Sweden, at 4.436 has 4 5s, their worst score is visas.
2. Denmark, at 4.425 has 4 5s, their worst score is visas.
3. Finland, at 4.414 has 4 5s, their worst score is visas.
4. Norway, at 4.404 has 4 5s, their worst score is visas.
5. Netherlands, at 4.381 has 4 5s, their worst score is visas.
6. Ireland, at 4.339 has 4 5s, their worst score is visas. They don't have gay marriage, which is hurting them severely. Gay marriage will give them first place. They use single transferable vote which is the least error prone of all election methods which moves them from #15 to # 6.
7. Belgium, at 4.325 has 4 5s, their worst score is visas.
8. Portugal, at 4.312 has 4 5s, their worst score is visas.
9. New Zealand, at 4.306 has 4 5s, their worst score is visas.
10. France, at 4.284 has 4 5s, their worst score is visas, their freedom of the press is 3.92 which is hurting them.
11. Switzerland, at 4.261 has 3 5s, their worst score is visas. They don't have gay marriage, which is hurting them severely.
12. Luxembourg, at 4.251 has 3 5s, their worst score is visas. They don't have gay marriage, which is hurting them severely.
13. Spain, at 4.242 has 4 5s, their worst score is visas. Their press score is hurting them at a 3.98.
14. Andorra, at 4.236 has 3 5s, women's rights are missing data, visas are their worst score. Gay rights are limited.
15. Uruguay, the highest ranked country in the Western Hemisphere at 4.219, has 4 5s, and their worst score is visas.
16. Germany, at 4.206 has 3 5s, their worst score is visas, and gay rights are hurting them.
17. Iceland, at 4.196 has 5 5s, they rank number one on women's rights, their election system is killing their score, and their worst score is visas.
18. Slovenia, at 4.147 has 3 5s, their worst score is visas, gay rights are lacking, and press is below a 4.
19. Czech Republic, at 4.140 has 3 5s, their worst score is visas, women's rights is below a 4, and gay rights are hurting them.
20. Costa Rica, at 4.102 has 3 5s, their gay rights are hurting them, and visas are their worst score.
21. Malta, at 4.094 has 4 5s, their elections are the best, gay rights are lacking, visas are their worst score. Their press is below a 4.
22. Liechtenstein, at 4.089 has 3 5s, lacking data on women's rights, their visas are their worst score.
23. Estonia, at 4.088 has 3 5s, gay rights are lacking, their worst score is visas.
24. Australia, at 4.084 has 4 5s, gay rights are lacking, their worst score by far is their very conservative visa policy.
25. United Kingdom, at 4.081 has 4 5s with the recent passage of gay marriage, their elections are their worst score. They have better visa policies than the rest of the EU.

(When I say gay rights are lacking I mean they don't have full equality, they are all doing way better than every country in the middle east.)

The losers of the Democracy index are the following:

1. North Korea in dead last at 201st placewith a score of 0.401, with 0s in 5 categories, and their highest score is a 2 on health care which signifies limited access. A living hell.
2. Sudan, with a score of 0.607 has a press score above a 1 which keeps them from beating North Korea. 3 0s.
3. Syria, with a score of 0.623 with a women's rights score of 2.29 which is over twice that of their other score above a one. 4 0s.
4. Eritrea, with a score of 0.629 with 3 0s, is another country I would qualify as a living hell, only their women's rights score keeps them from falling below North Korea.
5. Yemen, with a score of 0.643 with 4 0s, has an election score of 2 that keeps them out of 200th place, instead they're at 197th.
6. Oman, with a score of 0.698 with 5 0s, has freedom of the press ans women's rights keep them slightly elevated.
7. Turkmenistan, with a score of 0.980 with 3 0s, has a relatively high women's rights index.
8. Saudi Arabia, with a score of 1.132 with 4 0s, has universal health care which significantly elevates their score.
9. Nigeria, with a score of  1.146 has only 2 0s, but has a poor visa score, and their press score is their highest at 3.29.
10. Pakistan, with a score of 1.210 has 2 0s, has health care a their highest score at a 3, but poor human rights scores in other ways along with a poor election score with an electoral college.
11. Uzbekistan, with a score of 1.254 has 3 0s, no freedom of religion, the only reason they have such a high score is their health care and women's rights.
12. Burma (political statement intended), with a score of 1.592 has 1 0  but their highest score is women's rights at 3.33 and have poor elections.
13. Afghanistan, with a score of 1.319 has 2 0s, their elections are high quality, and their press score is over 3, but with poor freedom of religion, women's rights and health care keeps them at a low score.
14. Somalia, with a score of 1.464 has 2 0s, their elections have a high score, but everything else is poor. They have a gay rights score of 2.
15. Chad, with a score of 1.505 has 3 0s, their women's rights visas, gay rights, and health care are abysmal. They have a relatively high press score.
16. Vietnam, with a score of 1.530 has only 1 0 in the election department, have a relatively high women's rights score but everything else is lagging. Gay rights is 3.
17. Mauritania, with a score of 1.760 has 2 0s in Gay rights and visas which hurts it significantly. It has a good election score however.
18. China, has a score of 1.709 due to poor visa policies, horrible court systems, non-existent elections, and lagging freedom of the press. Women's rights and health care rank well.
19. Bangladesh, with a score of 1.715 lags on visas and has low scores across the board. Their highest ranking is in elections.
20. Iran, with a score of 1.747 has 2 0s in gay rights and justice, has a better election score than they would have had prior to the last election, and have a low religion score.
21. Bahrain, with a score of 1.763 has 0s in gay rights and justice
22. Kiribati
23. Cuba
24. Comoros

These are the winners and losers in the democracy race. Other notable countries are:

• The United States ranks at 92 out of 200 with a score of 3.076 due to the Electoral College, lack of access to courts for non-citizens, and one of the most restrictive visa policies in the world with only one truly non-visa country being Canada. I do not count the "Visa-Waiver Countries" because they require pre-registration and a fine which by my very narrow definition makes them count as a visa (and the countries that have a so-called visa waiver have a higher bar than some foreign visas, so they are a visa for simplicity sake), and are more restrictive than the so-called visas of many other countries, which is why the US has a low score. Our gay rights are currently lacking as well. I gave us a 5 in health care since everyone is required to have access.
• Brazil ranks at 60 with a score of 3.466 due to poor health care, a lacking visa score, lacking justice, and lagging women's rights.
• India (who I am thinking of as the giant in the Diplomatic room given their potential for economic growth and international influence in the near future) comes in at 143 with a score of 2.348, have court problems, an electoral college, an average press score and a restrictive visa policy. There is a lot of room for improvement.

I think this is a much more useful tool because it is calculated, measures very fine differences between countries, pulls from reputable sources, and most importantly is across a wide variety of issues which corrects for bias and fixes the problem that a country could have excellent freedom of the press, but poor gay rights which hurts Jamaica a lot. I hope this type of index can be used by political scientists in the future to give politicians the tools they need to see how they are doing compared to other countries, and give more accurate pictures on how free countries are. I am currently in the process of updating with information on slavery and privacy rights, which will make an even more accurate picture, especially when it comes to privacy, but given how this work could take me months to get accurate data I will publish now.

Feel free to view my work at: here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1xxIDdw_1SKYuTa8_0AP54fFvtfFf6H6owa8n8Mqw1Yw/edit?usp=sharing

The Ethical Investor

Across the world, there are easily 100 million people who try to be ethical in their decisions. They are environmentalists, support human rights, and want to make a difference. There are many ways to make a difference, and they vary widely in their effectiveness. I consider myself one of these people. I favor legislation allowing unions to form, protecting workers, and regulations for businesses that strike a balance between protecting the environment and workers and allowing for innovation. These are based on the idea of equal opportunity for all, and the idea to not take advantage of people in callous ways, and pay people for their work.

When it comes to implementing these values, there is a lot that can be done to further these goals, and by far the easiest and theoretically most effective method to implement them would be to use our financial capital to improve working conditions at companies that abuse workers by buying them out. It will help us, and we can then use our power to help the world.

History has shown only investing in ethical companies (while they are on average more profitable) doesn't have the same zing as ending the unethical practices in companies which I believe if practiced would make a tremendous historical difference in how the world works.

Take the world's most profitable publicly traded company in the world, Exxon Mobil, which made over $32.6 billion in 2013 alone. This implies immense power, and if we chose to purchase their shares we could redirect company decisions to be more ethical for their employees and better for the environment. The decisions would have an immense impact. Their Market Cap (for people who don't know, Market Cap = number of shares x current price) is currently around $437 billion. No one on Earth could afford to buy every share of Exxon Mobil, but if 100 million ethical investors decided to gather together and purchase half the shares each investor would only need to put in $2,200 to own half the shares as a group. If they formed a mutual fund, or just purchased the shares themselves one by one, they could vote out Rex Tillerson and change the company in large ways to help the environment and average workers. Merely standing by the sidelines won't make such a large change, but literally replacing the CEO and Board of Directors with people who care about the world and holding them accountable by keeping our shares will make a radical change in company policy that will impact the world.

Other companies would work the same way. Buying out Apple ($511 billion Market Cap) and Nike ($63 billion Market Cap) to pressure them to monitor their factories more closely would make a significant difference. These companies could have pressure in China to blackmail them to increase human rights protections or move their factories to another country that improves worker's rights. We could buy out large banks, such as Bank of America ($157 billion Market Cap) to stop their predatory lending and force them to start lending the cash they are sitting on to small businesses. This would make an immediate difference to human rights that would require no regulation and be effective very quickly without needing to even consider political reprecussions in the next election that could unravel the progress.

This is the power of capitalism practiced ethically, which no other system in the world can do as well. This is direct action that could work in a matter of months, as opposed to centuries, and increase opportunity to all. This is what is possible, as soon as we realize how we can use the system we are in to improve human rights while improving our own well-being. We just have to realize how the system works.

We don't need radical change that hasn't succeeded despite being tried many times over (the definition of insanity according to Einstein is trying something again and expecting a different result). We need rational change that will work.

Assange, Manning, Snowden, and the privacy state

I was today reading about the details of Manning's leak to Wikileaks and caught on to the section 1.4f which includes information on the passwords of the United States Nuclear Arsenal. I haven't read the details of the leak before, but have heard parts of it that are the most disturbing, like the times when warcrimes were created in Iraq and Afghanistan and similar instances, which I feel are perfectly legal and safe to disclose. But when it comes to releasing passwords to nuclear weapons I draw the line. I need to continue to analyze where I get my information from news sources and be quicker to read the details of what happens in these types of instances when information is released because I was wrong to defend Manning to my friends. There is no doubt he is a traitor and there is no doubt he put everybody in danger by releasing those passwords.

When it comes to Assange and Wikileaks' role in releasing the cables they were instrumental at being so destructive and should have prevented them being leaked. The other cables that Manning released were not as destructive but that Wikileaks was willing to publish the one on the nuclear passwords makes Assange equally guilty because he participated.

When it comes to Snowden, he was doing a very different leak. It is limited to the unwarranted surveillance of Americans and foreigners by the United States National Security Agency. This is not going to give anyone access to nuclear weapons passwords, or anything else that could literally destroy people, it is a report on a major violation against the 4th Amendment that is despicable. No one is going to get access to weapons, and the only way someone could get killed is if the American government executes someone. (probably Snowden, which would be amazingly reminiscient of Third Reich whistleblowers)

We need to revise the PATRIOT ACT and Espionage Act to make certain the people have their privacy and security, and that whistleblowers can do their job. If we don't protect our freedom America stops being special.

Information wants to be free.

Them

"They did it again those no-good, ungodly, sinning Thems. Can you believe as a good Christian American what They did? They want to take Our jobs, leaving Us out on the street. They are going to marry and then rape Our women, They are going to take over Our government, and to top it off They are going to become the leading class leaving Us to the dogs. They are going to be elected President. They are already in Congress. If you ask me, I think we should deport Them all. Send Them back to where They came from I say, and if We want Their land We will take it and They will have less because They are not God-fearing. Not only that but They have already taken over entire cities, entire states that We used to control. They don't even speak the same language as Us with all of Their culture's nonsense words that We don't use. For the sake of Humanity, They must be destroyed."
~ Leader of the West Secure Klan Inc.

Sound familiar? Good, you read your history. Sound familiar? Good, you have been watching the news.