Three worst arguments one can make

Three worst arguments one can make
In general logical fallacies tend to pop up in conversations or arguments you have with people. Ranging from naturalistic fallacies to false dichotomies, sometimes you occasionally have people arguing from standpoints that logically, are just obviously wrong. The one's I encounter the most frequently that people believe proves their point when it clearly doesn't that they feel support their arguments the strongest when in reality it is opposed to them tend to be more frustrating. I call these the three worst arguments one can make, there are no coincidences, everything is universal, and "it's like, my opinion man". Essentially, causation is not correlation, not everything can be treated in a universal way, and you should not take refuge in your ignorance about a topic and default towards your opinion. The facts are what they are regardless of what you know about them. Saying "we can never really know!" and then choosing to make up reality is absurd. It's best not to assume anything extreme on many topics, not just make up reality as you want. These three I encounter a lot and people think it supports their arguments, when it clearly does not. Outlining these more in detail below, you can see the issues with them. 


1. "There are no coincidences"- Correlation is not the same as cuasation
The basic premise is like this; someone say "this happened, and then this happened after the fact. Therefore, they must be connected." What this ignores though is that some times coincidences do actually exist. Not everything is connected in a way that suggests A necessarily lead to B, and sometimes random things do occur. The logical fallacy here is formally known as "correlation does not imply causation", implying that because the two random numbers or figures line up statistically, they don't necessarily have to be connected, let alone in the way presented. An example of such a fallacy would be for instance emergency personnel showing up to help after a hurricane, so a person accuses the emergency personnel of themselves being responsible for the hurricane since they always show up during and after hurricanes. Or soldiers show up after a war when hundreds of thousands of people die, so therefore it is now the soldier's faults or the military's even if they were not a direct cause of the conflict in the first place. "Coincidence? I think not!"

It's also often used to connect two random ideas together, such as Christians and Towels, for instance. Clearly, the increase of towels in the world happened irregardless of Christians, but with more towels has come with more Christians. Does this mean that if we made a billion new towels, we'd have a billion new Christians? Probably not. Yet the two things are connected statistically. Or that criminals are more likely to wear red when they commit crimes. Or that the economy has risen and fallen with the number of Nicolas Cage movies. What does this mean? In reality, it means nothing. It isn't that two things are connected all the time, or perhaps they are even connected in another way than is being presented. In other words, the fact there is a connection is not proof that the connection is what someone thinks it is. A criminal is likely to show up at the scene of a murder, but so is a police officer or a family member. A does not necessarily lead to B or mean B, as there are more potential causes, meaning that while a person could say you are a murderer, or a racist, or a thief etc. it also just as much could be an accident or a mistake rather than done on purpose. Assigning motive, purpose or a cause to a set of phenomena based solely on the fact that a connection of some unknown kind merely exists, is a logical fallacy. A simple correlation is not proof without first demonstrating causative factors. It should be assumed at first that there may not be a connection rather than jump to conclusions with clearly incomplete evidence. 



2. "Why didn't you donate to every charity, huh?"- Exclusionary fallacy.
While not as common, it is no less stupid than other three arguments, which is why it deserves to be placed as number 2. This argument essentially goes "Well, if you chose a cancer charity over an AID's charity, you must have done so out of personal preference". It's a way to make charitable people look selfish by suggesting that if you didn't solve all of the world's problems, through magical powers, you are somehow now inherently bad. Or, it's an exclusionary argument, suggesting that if something is not A, then it cannot be B, when A does not necessarily mean B. Another potential name for it is, "everything is universal", as in everything is the same and should cost the same amount of money, time and resources to invest in to, when in reality things are often more complex. Money often isn't the solution at all, but a better design. 

What this ignores however is three key things, that A- a person can't be expected to solve all of the world's problems given the physical limitations of doing so, B- that doing some good in the world is better than doing no good and C- that a person can have multiple motives at the same time. This is essentially a form of a false dichotomy, another logical fallacy in and of itself where it assumes that if you do something for good and moral reasons, you could not also have a personal reason as well. We all have our biases and place our trust in different areas, and to suggest that this means we are automatically acting out of selfishness is beyond ridiculous. Outside of moral issues, the exclusionary fallacy is often applied to prove a negative, suggesting that because of a lack of something, or a lack of a something being effected in it's entirety, this issue must not exist. This one ignores the fact there is often an exception to the rule or extenuating circumstances that might prevent something from occurring, such as gravity existing in space but being hard to observe, or situations where a seatbelt did not save lives, therefore indicating seatbelt must be bad because some of the time they failed to do their job. Another argument could be that if someone didn't go work today, that they don't normally go to work, or that they are not a hard worker because they missed a day, when ordinarily they could be hard workers and show up to work at higher rates than other employees, or work hard while at work even if they are often not at work. There is more than one way to be a hard worker, and in the same way there is more than one way to be a moral person, as a person or even government cannot reasonably be expected to do all things. Sometimes factors might block the person from performing a task, such as the threat of a nuclear war when trying to make peace with a country, or a lack of resources and being stretched thin.

Often applied to the war in Iraq or other wars in general, the basic premise is that because you didn't do everything that exists in the world, or solve all the world's problems, you are somehow bad or must have been out for profit or other nefarious reasons. Other than the incredulous nature of this by itself, when applied to any other form of thinking it quickly falls apart as a bad idea. The idea that doing nothing is some how more virtuous than doing something is quite frankly very bizarre, and an argument that doesn't hold up anywhere else in life.


3. "Well we can never really know, therefore I am right automatically and don't need pesky things like facts or logic to back up an incredibly important world-altering decision."- Default bias, taking refuge in ignorance

Everyone is entitled to their opinions, and people are attacked more and more for not agreeing to some kind of public consensus as if this is necessary or matters. We don't all have to be on the same page or agree on all things, people are entitled to their own opinions. To get on my soapbox, more and more these days people aren't okay with people having better opinions, and I find this to be a rather annoying trend in modern culture, what with people being cancelled or destroyed over tweets or other dumb social media posts. That being said, facts themselves do not change and neither does logic. You don't get to just default to whatever your opinion is if you refuse to accept the facts on something. Your opinion on an event does not actually change that event, so if your opinion is that someone is a murderer but all the evidence shows they weren't even in the same country at the time and another guy with bloody fingerprints at the scene confesses, then the facts still are what they are. It's not fair or moral to continue asserting something you know that is false because you take refuge in ignorance, you are still wrong. You still have a moral obligation to be right, to be factually correct, to the truth, not out of an abstract reason but for your fellow man. Your fellow man does not deserve persecution or harm that will come from your own stupidity. You should not double down on ridiculous bullshit, but instead should try to be empathetic and moral and try to be right. You cannot be morally correct without being factually correct. If you convict an innocents person, you did something wrong. The reason why the justice system places such a premium on DNA evidence, fingerprints, forensics etc. is to avoid convicting innocents people. The Truth is tied to morality, and if you deliberately choose the wrong thing you are a bad person no matter how you try to rationalize it to yourself. 

Don't CHOOSE to do the wrong thing, admit when you are wrong. You don't get to just make up reality. Lives depend upon us being correct, and you don't get to just  choose to hurt others out of stupidity. You might think to yourself, oh but I'm only doubling down on this idea, or that idea, it won't kill anyone! But if you are the type of person who does this sort of thing, and train yourself to do it, you will do it when it counts for you not to. Few people rise to the occasion and break a bad habit when they need to. You don't get to just "bend reality" on this one issue, or another issue, reality never bends, and you should never do this, no matter how small of an issue you think it is. Become a good person and admit when you are wrong and don't take refuge in your ignorance while others suffer. Lives depend upon us being correct. 

Clearing up some discrepancies about the wars in the middle east

The war is not over oil
The oil from Iraq is not going to U.S. companies, but predominately to China, Russia, and France. [1][2] The most powerful military in the world and the region just decided, without any external pressures, to allow it to go to other countries. That by itself is more or less evidence that the U.S. did not ever want the oil invading, unless you suggest that they secretly wanted it but for some unknown reason but didn't act on their ability to do it with literally no other possible obstacle in their own way but their own choices, likely influenced by their morals or just a lack of desire not to obtain oil. It makes sense that it was going to Russia, France and China, as they were the three main countries violated the U.N. oil embargo and illegally sold Iraq weapons to begin with, and were the three companies opposed to the war. [3][4] In fact as the U.S. was the country that lead the charge to put the embargo on the oil, so if they wanted the oil so bad, they could have just traded with Iraq and bought it, forgoing or removing the Embargo and being done with it. The idea that a war was needed to gain access to the oil is more or less, silly. [5]

So, the U.S. isn't getting the oil and doesn't seem to want the oil even though it could in theory, acquire the oil. But the concept of U.S. oil companies infiltrating the U.S. government, manipulating the entire country and 36 others in to going to war for that oil, and somehow trying to profit off of Iraq oil is not only a stretch in and of itself, but it also doesn't make sense. There's really no point to opening up foreign oil reserves for local, American companies to compete with. Not only would these people likely have known that they couldn't just overtake the oil reserves of another country due to international mineral rights (oil companies having billions of dollars from knowing how the oil industry works), but more oil introduced in to the market in and of itself isn't always a good thing. You'd rather your resource be scarce and you be the only supplier, than have too much oil on the open market. When selling a resource, the value generally comes from two things; rarity and demand. You can't exactly change demand without lowering prices, so essentially all you have to control is the rarity of the oil. When we look at the oil glut in the 90's, with oil prices dropping so low it nearly bankrupted the businesses, this was a result of a production of too much oil. Because too much oil was being produced, it's value decreased as the surplus of oil robbed the oil companies of the ability to sell it at higher prices. Just like how price gouging occurs during a hurricane or after a disaster (that is, increasing the prices when consumers absolutely must have it), too much oil decreases the price since it's so available consumers know they have more options, where as too little increases it's price. The demand for oil isn't going away anytime soon; people need it to drive their cars, power oil tankers and even in some cases run their homes. If oil becomes more expensive, people will be forced to buy it at higher prices since they simply cannot do without it; much like water or food, as a necessity oil will be bought irregardless of high prices, unlike say a movie ticket or art. As a fundamental need for modern society, people will continue to pay for it irregardless. If American oil suddenly became the only supply of oil tomorrow, American oil then would profit off of  the fact they could increase the prices and no-one could really do anything about it. If American oil became more rare, it's value would go up, and thus so would the profits. Introducing foreign oil, even if it was in control of by American companies, would actually be a bad thing, as the price of oil would go down, without an appreciable increase in demand. Simply pumping out more oil without an increase in demand for that oil would create another oil glut, which would only be harmful for American oil companies. They have no vested interest in acquiring Iraq oil, they want to sell their own oil.

This isn't just a common sense thing, it's the fundamentals of business that any billionaire oil investor would know about. If anything, these oil industries if acting purely in the sense to make money would have opposed the war, instead of supporting it. The fact that George Bush, who had ties to the oil industry supported the war is literally the exact opposite of what one would expect if he was trying to benefit the oil industry. And this man and these companies wouldn't have taken over the U.S. and dozens of other countries to do something someone with any common sense would know was a bad idea. It's even more far fetched to believe they were so intelligent to be able to take over the world's governments, but so stupid to think that it would make them any money to do so. The literal experts in making billions of dollars off of oil making this colossal of a mistake.

This all of course under the assumption that acquiring oil at all would somehow mean that the war was over oil. Even if American companies profited off of the oil, how would this prove that the war was for profit? Doctors make profit from what they do, the red cross and so on, but if you simply make money that doesn't automatically make you evil. You would do it because it's the morally right thing, but if you can make money in the process you'll try. Money is needed to run the operations, purchase equipment and finance operations in any business or industry, be it charity or for profit. The idea that making money automatically makes them bad people or means that they did it for the money or even for those oil companies is just as far fetched. The only argument you can make is that they are guilty of "thought crimes" for wanting to invade for oil but for some unknown reason decided not to. And if they wanted to steal the oil but chose not to, doesn't that make them better people as a result? The entire argument is ridiculous in it's own right.

In any case, there's no evidence to support the idea that the war was over oil, or that it would even make sense to be. Not only is there not a shred of proof, but no logic. For anyone who still believes it, my question is, out of the thousands of potential reasons with no evidence and that  equally make no sense, why this one specifically, especially with the counter evidence available? The only reality is a refusal to admit that you are wrong ,rather than any real concern for the truth. And if you come up with a new reason to hate the military after the fact, you're just backpedaling and trying to reinvent a new reason to hate them, which is where the problem lies; in nothing but pure bigotry.


Other information
WMD's were found in Iraq in 2006, contrary to the idea that WMD's were never found or used by Saddam. The Taliban was created 6 years after the Russian-Afghanistan war, by Pakistan, contrary to the notion that the U.S. was responsible for their creation, or Al-Qaeda, during the Russian-Afghanistan war. [1][2][3] In fact the Mujahdeen in Afghanistan remained diametrically opposed to the Taliban up until and past the American invasion, being the first individuals the U.S. were allied with when fighting the war and using their airfields to initially land american aircraft in the region. Even if it were true that America did create these organizations, it would only be more of a moral obligation to invade and clean up our mess, not really being a good logical reason to oppose the war. Over 30 countries were involved in the war, meaning it wasn't a uniquely American war. The war was going on long before the U.S. and the international coalition got involved, meaning that the hundreds of thousands of people dying was occurring before and after the invasion; it's not right to assume that the American invasion was responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths, when Saddam committed the atrocities and we invaded in response to that. Hitler for example killed millions of jews after the Americans invaded in WWII, but that is not proof that it was ever our fault.

While the U.N. estimate is that the U.S. killed 500 innocent civilians by accident, even if we killed 15,000 that's still far less than the hundreds of thousands killed by Saddam and likely that would have died (such as the 4.5 million refugees) without out intervention. Drones have at most killed less than 20 innocent people compared to at least 1,200 terrorists and while tragic, suggests that we are doing far more good than harm. Iraq threatened their neighbors, including Israel, Pakistan and Iran, countries with massive militaries and possibly nuclear weapons, which could have lead to the beginning of the third world war; a nuclear war. Stopping Iraq from plunging the already unstable middle east in to such a war possibly saved not only the entire middle east, but the world. Iraq had the 5th largest military in the world, only behind North Korea, China, Russia or the U.S., making them a considerable threat with or without WMD's. The humanitarian crisis had escalated to a point where the 4.5 million+ refugees and internally displaced persons would have died as the food and water provided by humanitarian forces could not reach the civilians as Saddam stole them. This necessitated a ground invasion rather than simply a no-fly zone, and thus a ground invasion became inevitable when ground forces were need to distribute food and water to the local kurdish population that the Iraq government was waging a war of genocide against.

Finally, we're down to the exclusionary fallacy. The argument that because we weren't involved in dozens of other wars (even though in most cases we were), this is an indication that this particular war must have been for profit is a bit odd. "Oh, you donated to a cancer charity? Why not AID's, as well? What a monster, you must have a personal reason for donating to a cancer charity!" The argument that if we pick to dedicate our resources to one thing, we must have not being doing it out of the goodness of our hearts because there are thousands of other potential ways we could have helped people. An individual can still be good and moral for trying to solve as many problems in the world as they can, even if they themselves cannot solve all of them, and the same is true with governments. The argument that by helping anyone you are guilty of not helping some people is ridiculous as those who help no-one help even less people by this mentality. Even when we do nothing, we are still guilty of not helping anyone, rather than some people. This argument rests on the idea that people are perfect and could choose to help everyone if they wanted, and that if they can help one group of people that they could help all of them. The sad reality is, this simply isn't true, but doing what's best in the world requires acting on occasion.

As well, most of Iraq's military equipment came from Russia, France, and China, with roughly 90% being from these combined sources, and very little coming from the U.S.

Is the U.S. justice system racist?

Is the U.S. justice system racist?

A number of topics I'm not too fond of, prison and racism, I've heard this a lot in the news and from other sources. That, because there are more black people in prison, disproportionately than white people, that the U.S. prison system is racist. While it is true that there are more black people in prison than white people, proportionally, (37%, compared to 12.6% of the population, or 2.93 times higher than the average [1]) the reality is often more complex. Simply suggesting that the higher presence of a particular demographic makes the system prejudiced against them, seems a bit far fetched. Roughly 90% of prisoner's are male, but few people argue that the prison system is sexist. Furthermore, a higher percentage of black people are currently incarcerated in prison (37%) now than in the 1920's (21%) (Page 5), so does this objectively mean then that we are more racist than we were, then in the 1920's? We merely accept this as the way things are; not that men are inherently violent or criminally minded, blacks, Hispanics, whites etc. but just that, sometimes statistics are skewed or even arrest rates due to random factors. Culture, poverty, economics, law enforcement effectiveness, technology, and the general well being of the people all have considerable influence on crime rates, as well as the successful nature of the criminals themselves. Criminals who are particularly good at what they do will boost crime rates, and obviously criminals are more important to crime rates than anything else.

The primary issue I find with this argument is a false dichotomy. The argument being that, either black people are inherently violent and criminally minded, or the prison system is racist. Both of these arguments, in my opinion, are wrong. While some people will produce asinine or worthless arguments about the so called "warrior gene", this is not only generally considered wrong, but also not relevant in all black communities. Some places predominately made up of black people have less crimes, and even certain countries, say in Africa, where white's commit the majority of crimes. The trend is not always the same. So, if racism isn't the root problem, nor genetics, what is? For obvious reason's, you can't simplify or bring to terms all the reasons crime happens the way it does or police arrest the way they do based on just a handful of factors. A myriad of potential reasons exist to explain the discrepancies, and jumping to conclusions on either side with little information tends to lead to inaccurate conclusions.

Brass Tacks - Statistics

So, more black people are in prison, proportionally, than white people. Are crime rates higher among people who are black? According to most sources, yes. It's no secret in this country that poor black communities have unusually high crime rates, such as Detroit or Chicago, (a murder rate of 43.5 and 15.1, compared to 4.5 for the national average), and it's relatively well known that poverty stricken areas tend to have higher crime. According to the FBI's figures, the UCR data published is representative of those cases cleared by arrest, or the number of cases solved via identifying the suspect. According to the 2013 data, out of 9,014,635 crimes, 2,549,655 were committed by people who were black (different from black people, since black people do not collectively decided to commit crimes). This is approximately 28.2% of crimes, while black people make up 12.6% of the U.S.'s population. This is roughly 2.23 times higher than the average population. Still perhaps not enough to compensate for black people being 3-5 times more likely to end up in prison; however, roughly 50% of crimes committed by those in prison are, violent crimes, which are disproportionately more likely to land you in prison, especially with lengthy prison sentences. According to the 2013 figures, approximately 53.8% were in prison for violent offenses. 4,379 out of 8,383 cleared murders were committed by people who were black, or roughly 50%. With a population level of 12.6%, that's over 4 times the amount. [1] However, poverty seems to have a stronger correlation; Poor urban blacks (51.3 per 1,000) had rates of violence similar to poor urban whites (56.4 per 1,000). [2] In the same poor communities, black and white people are just as likely to commit crimes and be victims of crimes, which suggests that the issue is more related to poverty, rather than prejudice against any particular race in and of itself. 

Black people, are unfortunately, more likely to be poor, and end up in these poor urban communities, than white people, which explains why black people are more likely to commit crimes. Black people are also, more likely to be the victims of these crimes, as well; despite making up 12.6% of the population, they make up roughly 50% of victims, or are four times more likely to be victims of crime, as well. [3] The problem tends to be more correlated with an epidemic of poverty, rather than prejudice by police. In most of these communities, those police are also predominately of the same racial make-up, as well, and the majority of individuals shot by police are also shot by people, of the same race, or approximately 2/3rds. [4] This isn't a case of white police simply being racist and deciding to blame crime on black people more commonly, so much as it is a system of poverty exacerbating the conditions and exponentially increasing the crime figures. By arbitrarily blaming the police, who do not control the economy, we not only attack people who are not responsible, but we ignore the very real problem of the high crimes and the underlying conditions that cause the crime in the first place. In order to solve the problem, we will need to help out these communities which are suffering, rather than simply blame the problem on someone else. 

Another important thing to consider is the definitions, of which the term white "excludes persons of Hispanic or Latino origin and persons of two or more races." That means mixed race individuals are automatically considered non-white, which automatically will boost the statistical numbers, beyond what the actual crime rates are. Hispanic is an ethnicity and not a race, so thus many whites are accounted for, in the Hispanic criteria. In fact, white Whites make up over half of all hispanics (8.7 % of 16.4 %, or 53%), shifting the numbers even more. This means that the number of people who are incarcerated and would be considered white by the average population is different from the statistics, per say. It is however, still much higher. 

Possible Explanations

So, if it's not blatant racism by the government, what is it? The first key issue is poverty, which is unfortunately rampant among many minority groups, but more importantly, urban areas. In fact, poverty and urbanization correlate exactly with violent crime and crime in general, with poor whites just as likely to commit crimes as poor urban blacks. What is responsible for this phenomenon? There are a number of issues, the key one being that these poor communities get little help. While we could largely say that racism is fairly uncommon in the U.S. today, the lack of oppression doesn't fix racism of the past. While many people have succeeded and overcome their conditions, many more have not. Having a black president, a population accepting of all races, does not eliminate years of systematic oppression that can trace it's roots to nearly 400 years ago in the U.S. Simply leaving people to the wolves and hoping for the best doesn't solve the problem, it just stops the oppression. Thus, these communities, and poor communities in general, need our support to get out of these conditions. When Detroit looks like this, it's no wonder crime is high there.

An additional factor to consider is organized crime. Roughly 48% of violent crimes are proven to have been committed by organized criminal organizations, and roughly the same amount of murder. While estimates are higher, it is generally much higher in urbanized communities (which black people are also disproportionately in). Despite making up less than .5% of the population, they make up roughly half of violent crime, making organized crime nearly 100 times more likely to commit violence, than the average person; in fact, because their figures are so large, and consume half of the "average", it's over 200 times more likely than someone not in a gang. Gangs naturally congregate where they are large numbers of people, as criminals can become connected and network, compared to rural or suburban areas, where it is much more difficult to run in to like minded individuals. Furthermore, the extreme poverty makes them a natural breeding ground for desperate people and makes it easier to evade law enforcement, which allows them to continue their operations. The subculture of violence generated by these organizations, who value it like currency, and even have their own music generated to propagate and encourage these forms of behavior, drastically increase the violence, making it exponentially higher than it otherwise would be. This is in large part why crime in poor urbanized areas is so high. Even worse, organized crime is much more sophisticated and well funded than ordinary criminals, possessing smuggling operations with illegal weapons and contraband, making money in the billions. It's no secret for instance that the Los Zetas were formed when over 30 special forces soldier defected and took over the cartels, effectively bringing with them more ex-military individuals in their cartels than the active Mexican military (100,000 compared to 90,000). Or that after the fall of the soviet union, war criminals fled, and ex-KGB and Russian military tried to take over entire countries, such as Kosovo, or perhaps even modern day Russia. On top of this, many have legitimate support from governments, such as the Taliban which was formed by Pakistan in 1994, or Hezbollah with support by Iran, the Taliban which controlled roughly 90% of the heroin at one point. The Cartels are often thought to have infiltrated even the highest level government of many south american countries, and the Colombian cartels have known connections to Cuba. 

All of this paints a worrisome picture, and shows that organizations which deal with american gangs drastically worsen crime. It's no wonder why organizations that consider themselves like and even are in some cases military organizations commit so much violence. At one point, the demographics of Chicago and Detroit were not were they were today, despite having roughly similar crime rates over the years. It's well known that other minority groups, such as Italians or the Irish, were once responsible for the crime in these areas, but this has shifted to new demographics. In 1950, the black population of detroit was 16.2%; by 2010, it was 82.7%. It's no secret that the rise in black crime has paralleled the fall in white crime, mostly due to the shift in power from mafias to urban street gangs. Thus as a result, we can more aptly blame the high crime rates in these areas on the presence of organized crime, and less so on the potential for police misconduct. Not only is organized a huge problem in and of itself with many of these organizations possessing intricate global connections responsible for fueling some of the worst paramilitary organizations in existence, but it also increases crime exponentially among the poor, and thus more so among minorities. Focusing on the problems at hand rather than shifting blame on to an imaginary boogeyman or scapegoat will do far greater to help this country than constantly pushing it off on to someone else. Fundamental issues are present, which have little to do with the police or even the government, that need to be remedied. From education to general infrastructure, we need to invest in to these people, and help them out of their situation; many of them are not begging for free hand outs, but jobs, so they can work hard to get pay. It's sad that we live in a country that has hard working people seeking opportunities, that we can't provide to them. 

Other problems include drugs and smuggling, in general. While shutting down smuggling would drastically hamper the profits of organized criminal organizations, who largely operate transnationally, drug users in general make up a disproportionate amount of criminals. Approximately 50%, or 46.7% and 48% in 2004 and 1994 respectively (Page 4), (Page 7), of violent criminals were drug dependent, and roughly 25% were on drugs, at the time. This is vastly disproportionate to the percentage of Americans who actually take illegal drugs chronically, or about 5%. Drugs tend to impair people's critical thinking skills, which tends to make them more reckless and not consider the consequences of their actions. As a result, crime tends to be higher among drug users, which is not surprisingly, also heavily connected to organized crime. One's psychological state, is far more important ot determining crime than any single factor. Poverty is correlated with crime, but poor tribal communities in various places of the world don't commit as much crime as urban poor. Rich people with billions sometimes murder their spouses in a fit of rage. Understanding the in depth and deeply rooted psychological issues that causes irrational behavior, from the desperation that comes from poverty, actual or perceived, to the subculture of violence in this country, are far more important than any other single factor. Thus, understanding crime is as much about understanding people, as it is about individual factors. Only if we work together to solve the underlying issues, will we truly solve problems related to crime, and our other pressing issues.

Comprehensive Overview of Political Ideas

Comprehensive Overview of Political Ideas
While each and every single belief I have and the resulting policies to create the changes are ideas that can stand on their own, many of them do in fact bleed over in to each other. While I don't necessarily think that every idea is connected, many of them are, and tend to blend in to each other in regards to actual implementation. For instance, I believe that nuclear power should be the future power system of the United States, be it from Uranium power or Thorium, but that funding or subsidization should come from the government, through the use of low-interest banking loans, which would in turn necessitate a national banking system or something similar to it. I believe we need to solve the housing crisis, which lead to the subprime mortgage crisis, which lead to other economic problems in the U.S. now known as the great depression of '08, which also ties back to the idea of a national banking system, and ties in to cheaper building methods for homes such as concrete or rammed earth structures. Initiatives to promote companies or even the U.S. government to start building cheaper homes so people can afford them more easily would obviously blend in to the loans they would require, so in essence many of the ideas are connected. While not as much and for different reasons, there is no denying a fundamental overarching connection between many of the ideas. Part of the reason I believe we should switch to nuclear power sources is because they are cheaper, up to 6 times cheaper than traditional coal, and when coal is switched over to Uranium we can create cheaper advanced materials, such as carbon fibers, lithium titanate batteries and computers. When carbon fiber and batteries are cheaper, electric cars with a practical range of 300 miles and that can be recharged in 10 minutes will become a practical reality without being 100,000 dollars each, and thus we as a country can switch over to electric cars, which is now perhaps ironically powered by the cheaper electricity as well. Cheaper electricity doesn't just lend itself to the immediate benefits of lower prices for heating and air conditioning or less prices to pay for your computers and lighting, but also benefits to manufacturing processes, and in turn our manufacturing industry. For instance, it costs more purely in electricity costs to produce U.S. marbles than the entire cost of Chinese marbles all together, meaning that our energy cost is one of the largest barriers for competing against trade internationally. [1][2] For both industrial and electronic manufacturing in the U.S., the prices could be severely decreased if the price of energy and more specifically electricity was reduced. While switching over the U.S. infrastructure to be entirely electrical has it's own benefits, such as stopping using natural gas to warm homes or cook food, it isn't truly a practical reality without the cheap electricity, first. All of these things necessarily lead to the other, and as a result are inter-dynamically connected and need to be done, together.

When discussing a single idea it's important to keep in mind not only it's individual merits but also the potential benefits to society as a whole. That each thing when connected can create exponentially more benefits than just the impact it would have immediately. For instance, if we were to make homes cheaper and promote loans with lower interest rates, then this would lend trillions of dollars, potentially between 2-3 trillion, in to the economy every year. Just like how the economy fell like Dominoes when the housing bubble popped and the housing market collapsed, sucking out the money of other areas in our economy and funneling it towards the banks, by helping this area of our economy we help our economy as a whole. Cheaper houses isn't just a good thing in it's own right, but it also can prevent another great recession and possibly even reverse it's effects, providing the same level of boost to our economy as it did in collapse. A cheaper housing market could mean huge boons to other areas of the economy that would then benefit from the money that could be diverted to other markets, and provide incredible benefits to our economy. An extra 2-3 trillion in other areas of our economy would be a huge boost, and better than any economic surplus provided by any president in history. As a result it's not just it's own benefit, but also could benefit the economy as a whole. Understanding the connections between the ideas and the rest of the economy and keeping it in the back of our minds when discussing the best way to reduce the price of the average house or housing loan, or the best reasons to implement certain power sources and so on, well help us shape the resulting policies in the direction they are intended for. This in turn will allow us to keep things in perspective, when pushing forward for change.


General Ideas
-National Banking system- essentially a way to provide low interest loans for cars and houses to individual consumers. This would be a government ran bank that took over the loans from the banks, instead of bailing them out for trillions of dollars, and put the same money in to low-interest loans designed to simply run the country. Because interest rates account for roughly half of the housing prices in this country, removing this cost or reducing it substantially could provide between 2-3 trillion dollars to the economy, which would both a substantial boost in growth every year, and also directly combat the causes of every great depression in American history.

-Concrete and Rammed Earth homes- If done correctly, rammed earth and concrete homes can be cheaper and safer than regular wood construction houses, and as a result could help benefit the housing market with all the same results as lower interest rates, further boosting the economy nad preventing a depression. Furthermore, rammed earth and concrete homes are incapable of having a structure fire, are more protected against floods and strong winds (say, from a hurricane) and are potentially bullet proof, giving them protection against crime in crime-high areas such as Detroit or Chicago. Not only are they stronger in construction, but they can also be half the price or lower when compared to traditionally built houses, and even have cheaper air conditioning costs.

-Adding regulations from the SEC- The Gramm–Leach–Bliley Act essentially removed regulations from the SEC that prevented "shadowing banking", or basically a parallel banking system whereby banks could trade with other banks that didn't have to follow any regulation rules, thereby eliminating the need for any banks that followed rules set by our regulatory commission. Without this bill being removed and the old SEC rules put in to place, any new banking regulations will have close to no impact on banks as there is essentially a loophole around them, acting a bank to act through another proxy bank to eliminate it's own restrictions on loans. Often cited as a cause for the 2008 recession that laid the groundwork for exploitative banking habits, it simply needs to be removed in order to help avoid another economic recession in the U.S.

-Nuclear Power- Nuclear power is already the cheapest power source in the U.S. when subsidies aren't included, and is among the cleanest and safest alternative power sources to fossil fuels available. Both for practical concerns, long term energy requirements, and lowered price, Nuclear power, be it Thorium and Uranium, is the best option for providing the country's energy needs. There has never been a melt down on U.S. soil, and newer reactor designs such as CANDU reactors or Thorium molten salt reactors are literally incapable of having a melt down at all. Furthermore if a melt down occurs even in our older reactors, it would simply destroy the reactor rather than explode or leak our radioactive waste, due to the superior designs required in the U.S. Nuclear waste isn't much of an issue as it only lasts 50 years, compared to the reported millions of years, and there is ample room to store it in various mountains and caves in the U.S., as well as in the locations we originally dug up the uranium from. Given it's potential to be up to and over 6 times cheaper than current electricity prices, and the resulting cheaper electronics and cheaper electric cars, it seems paramount to switch to Uranium, both to replace our aging energy infrastructure and for it's practical benefits.


Crime and other social issues
-Focus on inner cities- Direct efforts to relatively poor areas of the U.S., specifically the inner cities which have the most violence and some of the worst living standards in the U.S. Poor Urbran environments not only tend to have the worst crime rates, and exponentially higher rates of violence, but also have some of the worst education systems. While national systems are important, we shouldn't deny the local impact that's needed, as well. If we focused on the 60 worst off cities in the U.S., millions could be helped while simultaneously curbing spill over crime and poverty issues.

-Mandatory psychological screenings- Mandatory psychological screenings could not only help to catch criminals early and put emphasis on the people who are more likely to commit violent crimes or go insane, but also help them in general. Mentally ill people are 6 times more likely to be victims of crime, significantly more likely to end up as homeless, and commit suicide. Approximately 90% of suicidal people have a mental illness, so if mental illness was identified and these people were helped many years prior to the culmination of their psychological issues, thousands of lives could be saved, far more than the murders or mass murders that could be prevented.

-Easier access to medical training- EMT training for both students and subsidized by the government should be available, so more people can be trained to treat injuries and how to respond A lot of deaths could be prevented if people simply knew some very basic medical skills, and the widespread adoption of these skillsets could potentially save more than any anti-crime measure, given that accidents cause far more than 10 times more deaths a year than murder.

-Streamlining immigration- Currently, approximately 50% of illegal immigrants are simply those who's visas have ran out, as the immigration process is so complicated the majority of legal immigrants have to become illegal immigrants, commit the law, before they can become law abiding citizens. Streamlining the process from over 7 years to 2 years, focusing on skillsets like learning the English language and what the various traffic signs mean rather than when George Washington's birthday was, and generally an emphasis on practical abilities to make the process simpler and allow legal immigrants to distinguish themselves from illegal immigrants more easily, and help us focus on the real threat of smugglers and international crime.

-Border Wall and organized crime- Organized criminal organizations commit approximately 48% of the violent crime in America, including murders, and that's what is proven. As most of these organizations are connected to global or transnational organizations such as cartels or the Russian mafia, focusing on them could help prevent a large bulk of the most severe crimes in the U.S. A country's laws don't matter if smugglers can bring in or out drugs, guns, or even people with impunity. A border wall, combined with some efforts of border monitoring (such as radar systems to catch aircraft, underground tunneling detectors, and security guards) could be fairly effective in stemming the tide of illegal good across the border.

The war is not over oil

The war is not over oil
The oil from Iraq is not going to U.S. companies, but predominately to China, Russia, and France. [1][2] The most powerful military in the world and the region just decided, without any external pressures, to allow it to go to other countries. That by itself is more or less evidence that the U.S. did not ever want the oil invading, unless you suggest that they secretly wanted it but for some unknown reason but didn't act on their ability to do it with literally no other possible obstacle in their own way but their own choices, likely influenced by their morals or just a lack of desire not to obtain oil. It makes sense that it was going to Russia, France and China, as they were the three main countries violated the U.N. oil embargo and illegally sold Iraq weapons to begin with, and were the three companies opposed to the war. [3][4] In fact as the U.S. was the country that lead the charge to put the embargo on the oil, so if they wanted the oil so bad, they could have just traded with Iraq and bought it, forgoing or removing the Embargo and being done with it. The idea that a war was needed to gain access to the oil is more or less, silly.

So, the U.S. isn't getting the oil and doesn't seem to want the oil even though it could in theory, acquire the oil. But the concept of U.S. oil companies infiltrating the U.S. government, manipulating the entire country and 36 others in to going to war for that oil, and somehow trying to profit off of Iraq oil is not only a stretch in and of itself, but it also doesn't make sense. There's really no point to opening up foreign oil reserves for local, American companies to compete with. Not only would these people likely have known that they couldn't just overtake the oil reserves of another country due to international mineral rights (oil companies having billions of dollars from knowing how the oil industry works), but more oil introduced in to the market in and of itself isn't always a good thing. You'd rather your resource be scarce and you be the only supplier, than have too much oil on the open market. When selling a resource, the value generally comes from two things; rarity and demand. You can't exactly change demand without lowering prices, so essentially all you have to control is the rarity of the oil. When we look at the oil glut in the 90's, with oil prices dropping so low it nearly bankrupted the businesses, this was a result of a production of too much oil. Because too much oil was being produced, it's value decreased as the surplus of oil robbed the oil companies of the ability to sell it at higher prices. Just like how price gouging occurs during a hurricane or after a disaster (that is, increasing the prices when consumers absolutely must have it), too much oil decreases the price since it's so available consumers know they have more options, where as too little increases it's price. The demand for oil isn't going away anytime soon; people need it to drive their cars, power oil tankers and even in some cases run their homes. If oil becomes more expensive, people will be forced to buy it at higher prices since they simply cannot do without it; much like water or food, as a necessity oil will be bought irregardless of high prices, unlike say a movie ticket or art. As a fundamental need for modern society, people will continue to pay for it irregardless. If American oil suddenly became the only supply of oil tomorrow, American oil then would profit off of  the fact they could increase the prices and no-one could really do anything about it. If American oil became more rare, it's value would go up, and thus so would the profits. Introducing foreign oil, even if it was in control of by American companies, would actually be a bad thing, as the price of oil would go down, without an appreciable increase in demand. Simply pumping out more oil without an increase in demand for that oil would create another oil glut, which would only be harmful for American oil companies. They have no vested interest in acquiring Iraq oil, they want to sell their own oil.

This isn't just a common sense thing, it's the fundamentals of business that any billionaire oil investor would know about. If anything, these oil industries if acting purely in the sense to make money would have opposed the war, instead of supporting it. The fact that George Bush, who had ties to the oil industry supported the war is literally the exact opposite of what one would expect if he was trying to benefit the oil industry. And this man and these companies wouldn't have taken over the U.S. and dozens of other countries to do something someone with any common sense would know was a bad idea. It's even more far fetched to believe they were so intelligent to be able to take over the world's governments, but so stupid to think that it would make them any money to do so. The literal experts in making billions of dollars off of oil making this colossal of a mistake.

This all of course under the assumption that acquiring oil at all would somehow mean that the war was over oil. Even if American companies profited off of the oil, how would this prove that the war was for profit? Doctors make profit from their deeds, the red cross and so on, but if you simply make money that doesn't automatically make you evil. You would do it because it's the morally right thing, but if you can make money in the process you'll try. Money is needed to run the operations, purchase equipment and finance operations in any business or industry, be it charity or for profit. The idea that making money automatically makes them bad people or means that they did it for the money or even for those oil companies is just as far fetched. The only argument you can make is that they are guilty of "thought crimes" for wanting to invade for oil but for some unknown reason decided not to. And if they wanted to steal the oil but chose not to, doesn't that make them better people as a result? The entire argument is ridiculous in it's own right.

In any case, there's no evidence to support the idea that the war was over oil, or that it would even make sense to be. Not only is there not a shred of proof, but no logic. For anyone who still believes it, my question is, out of the thousands of potential reasons with no evidence and that  equally make no sense, why this one specifically, especially with the counter evidence available? The only reality is a refusal to admit that you are wrong ,rather than any real concern for the truth. And if you come up with a new reason to hate the military after the fact, you're just backpedaling and trying to reinvent a new reason to hate them, which is where the problem lies; in nothing but pure bigotry.