Torture at Guantanamo?

So, why are liberals causing such a stir with the "torture" and "abuse" at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo? Well, apparently they don't like Bush or anything connected to what he does, specifically this war. People write whole books to that, which is why I don't need to discuss it here. There is absolutely no reason why this issue of "torture" needs to be politicized. Obviously, those soldiers were wrong in doing it. Embarassing someone is never a good thing and I personally look down on unprofessional behavior. But take it in context of what's happening with the rest of the war: there should be more uproar about the terrorists beheading people than all this complaining about the rights of the captives. In fact, the US actually follows Geneva convention rules about taking care of the enemy. Those bozos who try to kill us are fed better than some poor people in the US and have been given everything they need to practice their religion and make them as comfortable as possible while being held. Then you have the other side who only follow their ideology of hate and can't even take care of themselves much less their captives. And the best way to keep rations is to behead another hostage. Of course you have to videotape it first to make it count for allah and send it to al-jazeera to display to the rest of the world. Must be a sub-section to the fifth pillar. There were reports of 15 detainees, some disillusioned by Islam, mishandling their own Korans using it as a pillow, ripping pages out of it, attempting to flush one down the toilet, and urinating on it. As always, the media gets it wrong and says that a US soldier flushed one Koran down the toilet (which was later disproved and was retracted) and, oh man, it's one of the worst of these atrocities against the misunderstood Islamists. When the leftist US media and al-jazeera blew it way out of proportion, it resulted in the deaths of 16 people in Afghanistan. I hope the average American citizen will notice the dissonance. The "average" blue PA citizen wouldn't necessarily agree with me, nor would they notice their own entrenched liberal programming. They seem to like being brainwashed by anything they listen to or watch, instead of making a well-informed, thoughtful decision based on different sources. I'm not even going to get started on political blogs. All I'm saying is their focus is wrong. Instead of blaming our soldiers, these people making their unnecessary ruckus should divert their energy to questioning their view of the world and do something constructive like getting their information right for a change. They seem to be ignorant of the true definition of "peace." They have this communistic utopian view of peace that is myopic at worst, callow at best. In their minds, peace is merely the absence of conflict. In truth, peace is the freedom won after conflict.

Dissent is healthy, spreading false reports and information isn't.

The Uganda Project

Back in the '80s, Uganda had one of the highest AIDS rates in the world for its population at 30%. Ugandan President Museveni couldn't afford to buy condoms from Western countries so he launched the ABC campaign: Abstinence until marriage; Be faithful in marriage; Condoms only for high-risk groups. It was a nationwide project with messages on billboards and various other ads about the dangers of sex outside of marriage. Over the next ten years, the AIDS rate in the country dropped down to 6%, still more than the US AIDS rate, but the drop was incredible. AIDS researchers were amazed and studied how it happened. One researcher, an epidemiologist named Dr. Stoneburner, was denied several times over a ten year period by U. S. Agency for International Development (USAID) from publishing his findings. Dr. Stoneburner found that condoms do not prevent the spread of AIDS. USAID and their financial partners kept him quiet. Years later, another researcher, a Harvard anthropologist named Dr. Green, found that the first two points of the campaign, abstinence and marital fidelity, played a greater role in AIDS decline than condom usage. When he and his co-researcher presented their findings to USAID and friends, USAID was embarassed and horrified. They didn't want to believe the findings because they wouldn't have a profitable market. In the mid-90's, Dr. Green advocated condom usage to control Third World population and poverty. He is no conservative, but because he prides himself as an objective researcher, he had to follow the evidence concerning AIDS even if he didn't like it. USAID didn't publish Dr. Green's findings because it wouldn't have made money for their friend Population Services International, a condom distribution company. Instead they demoted Dr. Green, hired someone else, and began to tout that condom usage leads to AIDS decline. Like in most things, follow the money and it'll uncover the truth.

Japan AIDS rate rises

"In a nation that has excellent healthcare and widespread condom use, many in Japan's health community are wondering why the disease is growing so rapidly..." - taken from a Health section article of The Express-Times Lehigh Valley edition.

This one's a no brainer: Condom use does little to prevent the spread of AIDS. Let's start off with a little basic science, shall we? Back in the early 1990s, a study was done to find out the effectiveness of condoms. Researchers found little pores that naturally occur in latex when it was produced. Industrial latex gloves had 1 micron wide holes. A condom, because it is used to prevent pregnancy, had holes that were 5 microns wide. The average diameter of a sperm's head is 3-5 microns (for those in the know, that's where the 97% effectiveness comes in). HIV's size is 0.1 microns and is both an intracellular virus and a free floating virus. Only in recent years did condom manufacturers try to heighten their standards by doing things like double dipping the latex to make the condom stronger. Quality checks showed better results than before and latex for condoms are better than industrial gloves now. Then again, only a few condom companies in America have those standards. And, by the time a shipment of condoms arrives at a retailer, most of the time the integrity of the latex breaks down because the transport standards aren't strict. Then the chances for breakage increase. At least that problem can be easily fixed. There are many other factors involved in the spread of AIDS like drug-use, inconsistency of condom usage, and other types of sexual activity like oral sex. Simply put, anytime there is an exchange of bodily fluid, there is the possibility to spread the virus. Sexually irresponsible people spread well-established lies about the benefits of condom use in AIDS prevention and are the most likely to spread the disease as well. They are also the same people who are the most active in complaining about the lack of research into the cure for AIDS. From studies done over the years, when a person with HIV has sex with someone without HIV, it only takes a year and a half of occasional sex until that partner is infected. And it takes AT LEAST 3-6 months for a person to be HIV positive, but USUALLY it will take close to two years before someone will truly know, that is if the person periodically gets a check up. The emphasis on condom usage with only little emphasis on abstinence and fidelity only encourages more sex and greater AIDS spread. If permission to have sex is granted with one exception, people tend to make that exception an option rather than a rule. Controlling behavior on the other hand by shocking people with information about consequences curtails rampant sex and decreases the odds for AIDS to spread. It's not about forcing people not to have sex, but giving people information about the results of uncontrolled sexual activity, thereby allowing them to make a thoughtful decision. So that should be simple enough to answer the question. The next entry will have specific evidence on what I just stated.

Volumes of Issues

Over the next who knows how long, I'll be writing about my stance on a number of issues being fought over in America today. Understand that the issues are merely the branches, leaves even, of something more important. So if you figure out the underlying theme throughout all these articles, you will find the trunk if not the root of the many challenges Christians face in today's culture.

Come on, Lucas!

George Lucas's greatest blunder to date is not Howard the Duck. No, it is in one of the last scenes in Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith. Obi Wan and Anakin are fighting in the lava world. Obi Wan, in an emotional fit, cries out to Anakin, "Only Sith lords deal in absolutes!" Whoa, the respect meter went down considerably on that instance. Either Obi Wan made a verbal fumble with his Force philosophy (since he was an emotional wreck at that point, not very becoming of a Jedi) or Lucas made a dialogue error (one of many or should I say the entire movie was filled with bad dialogue) and made a fumble in his Force philosophy. In fact it was quite the strange line for Star Wars. The very idea of having the Good side of the Force and the Dark side of the Force is based on absolutes. There is never the Gray side of the Force. From what I gather in the movies, the Gray side is the slippery hill where you slide down one side or the other. It's the "lop off Count Dooku's head" area or "toss the Emperor over" area. That's if there is the "Gray side." Lucas most likely confused the word "absolutes" with "extremes." There's quite a big difference. Simply put, an absolute is complete and unconditional while an extreme is fringe and outermost. Yes, extremism may need absolutes, but absolutes do not necessitate extremism. Extremism just needs one idea to go on, whether or not it's absolute. I'm sure Lucas thought that a person with absolutes qualifies him to develop into an extremist. And I'm sure he knows the difference, but he didn't seem to clarify it in that one instance. And yet there is that phrase in Empire Strikes Back where Obi Wan pretty much says truths are different for each person, or, to quote Bruce, your truth is not my truth. Hog-freaking-wash! Even some secularists agree on the inconsistency of relativism. There is only yes or no, true or false. Of course there is a "depends on the circumstance" but even then those decisions are based on working within the framework of absolutes, otherwise you'll be inconsistent. It's not just Aristotilean dichotomy, our minds are naturally binary. As Schaeffer puts it, it's either thesis or antithesis. Synthesis is sloppy when it comes to dealing with absolutes because it leads to contradiction and dissonance, a result of relativism.

Lucas, you either do or do not, there is no gray.