The 2nd Amendment

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Jan 312013
 
bill_of_rights_630

“A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”

That’s the amendment as written in the Bill of Rights of the Constitution of the United States of America. Right beneath the First Amendment. You might say that it was thought to be so damn important that it was put second, right after the freedom of speech and religion stuff. And it is damn important, and it exists for a reason, and you probably don’t know that reason or you don’t want to know that reason, or you don’t care about that reason. Well too freaking bad. Until you understand what the amendment means and what you’d be throwing away by getting rid of it, or by infringing upon it, then I’m sorry but you’re being an idiot. Sorry, not pulling punches on this one, this is Constitutional Law, a.k.a. the basis of all law in this country. Plus it’s not like anyone reads this thing anyways.

So we’ll start with the Bill of Rights. The Bill of Rights is in the Constitution because some of our founding fathers had the foresight to understand that not everyone was going to be a strict constitutionalist. That some people would assume that any power not strictly forbidden the government in the Constitution would be in the government’s power. Read the Constitution sans the amendments. If you were to interpret the Constitution as laying down only the things that the government must do, but not including everything the government could do, then damn, the American people could be totally rogered from here to sundown. The Constitution does little to protect the people it governs. Enter the Bill of Rights. You ever hear anyone say “Hey man, you’re treading on my Article 3, Section II rights here!” No, no you haven’t, because Article 3, Section II has to do with the powers of the Judicial Branch of government. What you do hear people say is “Hey man, you’re treading on my first amendment rights!” That’s because pretty much all our rights stem from the Bill of Rights. It is our only protection from a government that has left strict constitutionality in the dust long ago.

During it’s drafting and debate, the right of the states to have militias and the right’s of the people to bear arms was not something hotly debated. It was seen as the best damn protection the people of the United States had to avoid becoming a kingdom. The majority of back and fourth that occurred in the House and Senate was of specific wording to insure that the government wouldn’t be able to rules lawyer their way into stripping the people of their weapons. The purpose of the amendment wasn’t to ensure people would be able to hunt, or protect themselves from criminals, or to protect themselves from foreign invaders. The purpose was to allow people to protect themselves from the government, specifically a government which had a standing army and controlled the State’s abilities to keep their own munitions and armament. (Read Federalist Paper No. 46 if you’re not convinced about this one). Ultimately the purpose was to allow the people to protect all those other rights they were given in the Bill of Rights from a tyrannical government. Cause let’s face it, if a tyrannical government is good at anything, it’s good at wiping it’s butt with pieces of paper that declare citizen’s rights. So in order to ensure that the Bill of Rights would stand, the people were given the right to arm themselves so they could protect these rights if the government became tyrannical.

The individual’s right to keep and bear arms (and not just a militia’s right to do such) was reinforced in a Kentucky case in 1822, which struck down a state law saying you couldn’t conceal your weapon, claiming it as an infringement of the individual’s right to bear arms (Guy was being fined $100 for having a sword cane). Then in 1856, as part of the Dred Scott V. Sanford Supreme Court case it was written that slaves who were afforded the full rights of the U.S. Constitution would include the right to keep and carry arms where ever they went.

Infringement of our rights didn’t start until the 1930′s, when congress passed a series of laws aiming to take guns away from organized criminals, which had sprouted up after prohibition had passed. The event that got the ball rolling was the Valentine’s Day massacres. (begin sarcasm) The acts that passed really did a good job of stopping mob violence (end sarcasm). What they did do, was create another avenue of revenue for organized crime syndicates. “You mean we can sell booze and guns at massively inflated prices! Heck yes!” 1938 saw the passing of the law that required logging names and addresses of gun sellers and buyers, and excluded some people from owning guns (namely criminals convicted of a select number of crimes). 1968, post Kennedy assassination, increased the list of people who couldn’t buy guns. It now included all convicted felons, the mentally unstable, and drug users. 2004 saw the Brady Act, which set up the national database used to ensure that only people who can legally buy a gun are able to buy a gun without the black market surcharge (Cause lets face it, it’s been illegal for criminals to have guns for a loooooooong time, but they still seem to have them).

Luckily in 2008 and 2010 two Supreme Court cases basically ruled that, and I’m paraphrasing here, “No really, individual people have the right to bear arms”.

So that’s where we are right now. Criminals, drug users, and the mentally unfit can’t buy guns from legal arm’s sellers who also have to be registered with the ATF. Everyone who buys a gun has to be checked into a database before they buy a gun. Everyone who buys a gun’s name and address is kept on file at the federal level. So the question remains, are we still able to defend ourselves from a tyrannical government and can we do so if we make more laws?

Don’t get me wrong here. I’m cool with convicted felons and the mentally ill not being able to own firearms, and the Supreme Court did uphold the ability of congress and the states to make it illegal for convicted felons and the mentally ill to own firearms (in those 2008 and 2010 cases mentioned earlier).

But the question now is? What other restrictions can we add to “make things safer.” And my counter question is: If we give up more ground on this right, on our only right to defend the other rights we have against an unjust government. If we make more areas “No gun zones” a.k.a. “Easy targets for nut jobs with guns”. If we make more databases and licenses which make it easy for the government to disarm you. If we make it more expensive to own the weapons we need to keep the government in check (And if you’re of the opinion that the government would never, ever, ever, in a million years try and stomp on your rights then you need to read some f*&king history books my friend. History has done a good job of showing us that the only thing that keeps people in power from trying to take your rights away wholesale is the threat of force).  If we expand “gun control” are we more or less safe from the government. If the answer is less safe, then we’ve infringed on the 2nd Amendment and we’ve made it easy for a tyrannical government to strip our Constitutionally provided rights. Because that’s what the 2nd Amendment protects.

It’s not there for hunting. It’s not their for protecting yourself from attack or home invasion. It’s there so you can protect your Constitutionally given rights. And I don’t know about you, but I think those rights are pretty damn important.

Why I’m voting for Romney and not Obama.

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Nov 022012
 

I think everyone knows I’m fairly opinionated and I do indeed have an opinion on the coming election and this is it. I’m going to vote for Romney and not Obama and I have reasons for both.

Firstly I will start with why I am not voting for Obama, because that will set up why I am voting for Romney a little better.

But even before that: I will explain something about the President. The President make two kinds of choices: Hard ones and really hard ones. Where the options are: Terrible Thing A and Terrible Thing B , or Unsure Thing A or Unsure Thing B. This is simply because if a solution to whatever crazy problem has hit their desk was easy then someone would have solved it before it hit their desk so they could take credit for it. So the President makes bad decisions simply because he cannot make good ones. However, HOWEVER, the President does get to make some moves on his own and make his own direction in some ways. Typically these initiatives are few and far between and depend highly on the makeup of Congress at the time. In summation, in my opinion, I judge the President on those things where he champions “doing something” before what-ever-it-is-he’s-doing-something-about brings down the walls, and then on the decisions he makes when presented with two bad options.

For Obama it comes down to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and then the Tax Deficit. In most other things he’s basically continued on down the path that was set for him. The wars continued and pull out plans were followed, pretty much how it had been planned (considering he kept Gates as his Secretary of Defense this should not be shocking). Remember folks, we’re still in Afghanistan. The bailout was started at the very end of the Bush administration and continued unabated during Obama’s administration. The Patriot Act is still in full effect, getting re-approved every year by Congress. Guantanamo Bay is still open and prisoners are still tried there. Change is indeed not something Obama really pulled off, except for that one thing: The health care law. And here’s my problem with the health care law: it did nothing to alleviate the cost of healthcare and instead entrenched the insurance industry making it a mandated part of everyone’s lives. It in fact has done the exact opposite of what it was supposed to do, which was to make healthcare affordable for everyone. Instead, it has just made it so everyone must have insurance or they pay a tax penalty. It ensured the existence of the Insurance Companies as middlemen between you and your healthcare provider for the rest of time, or until the law is repealed or replaced. That to me is stupid. I’m sorry, but it is stupid. I think a much better solution could have been found which was centered around you and your healthcare provider but that was the horse Obama backed. And not only did he back it, but he pretty much blew all of his, and the other Democrat’s in Congress’, political clout and favors to pass it into law. Again, blowing all your political leverage on that law looks pretty stupid from both a “the law is bad” perspective and a “it’s a bad political move”, simply because it resulted in the loss of the House to the Republicans. So again, we come back to stupid. Now I’m not saying Obama is a stupid man, but he made a stupid call and it was too stupid of a call.

The other thing was the Tax Deficit. That blindsided Obama. I’m sorry, but it did. His original budget for that year, the year where the government almost shut down like 10 times cause they kept almost not raising the debt ceiling, was basically the same budget from the year before. The man, or more likely his advisers  for some reason, seemed to have no clue that the massive number of new Republicans in the house were going to push for lowering the deficit. So yeah, again, stupid.

So that’s why I’m not going to vote for Obama.

Now to Romney. Romney is a politician. As a couple people have pointed out his policies during his tenure as Governor of Massachusetts were fairly liberal. He flip-flopped on pretty much all of those policies during his current campaign for the Presidency. He’s also lied while talking, sometimes on camera or in front of a microphone. Well duh. I’m sorry if you don’t understand how Primaries work and if you don’t understand what a candidate has to do to win the Presidency against an incumbent after winning his party’s primary. If you don’t, mainly what you have to do is lie a whole lot. To be honest, Romney hasn’t lied as much as most politicians that have been in his position in the past, simply because he always has a camera on him…always. So yeah, I don’t really care about all that because it’s the same crap from every candidate ever in that position. What I do care about is his performance as governor of Massachusetts. His performance as governor was basically what the people of Massachusetts wanted, which for an elected politician, is a check mark in the good box. Not only that, but he was a Governor for many years, and not a 1 term Senator who never ran anything from an Executive perspective.

So for me the option comes down to this. Obama, who will have to claw and fight with the Republican House to get anything done, and he has already proved that he will blow his political clout on stupid laws and will likely abuse his lame duck status…because all presidents abuse their lame duck status (Clinton was particularly bad about it in my opinion). Or Romney, who will actually be able to work with both side of the aisle, simply because of what he did while he was Governor, which was interestingly similar to the things Obama did while he has been President. His term will likely have vastly more success in passing legislation and in fixing problems than Obama’s last term was or next term would be. And on top of that Romney has proven that he will do what his electorate wants him to do.

And just to be clear, I’m not a huge Romney fan, but when your options are incompetence and marginal ability, you have to take the marginal ability. Just my opinion, but to me the choice is pretty easy to see.

what-if.xkcd.com/1/

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Aug 102012
 

So as you may or may not know there is an excellent web comic out there that I am convinced that my friend Trip writes, although I know in reality he doesn’t, Randal Munroe does, called xkcd. It is a comic about a lot of things and since becoming popular the writer/artist has branched out into a lot of things that are also neat and interesting. One of the things he’s started doing recently is a series answering fan-supplied questions about ridiculous or interesting or ridiculously interesting topics. They have been very good so far and in my realm of expertise they all seem to be spot on. All that is except the first one he did. In this one he successfully did something that only a few other people have done in the history of the world and that is that he touched on my particular area of expertise, which is the combined area of aerospace and nuclear science/engineering. I’m more of a space guy as per the aerospace side of things, which is important for the proceeding argument because I am not disputing his interpretation of events as they would play out in the aerodynamic sense.

So here is the question: What would happen if you tried to hit a baseball thrown at roughly 90% the speed of light?

Randal’s answer is very good, from a purely Newtonian physics combined with Quantum Mechanics, which takes care of the small stuff, point of view, but I think it falls short in two distinct areas. The first is in his treatment of material solid structures and the composition of the ball as it hurtles through the air going 90% c (c is the typical letter used as shorthand to denote the speed of light. 0.9c is shorthand for 90% the speed of light). I’m not a structures guy for the most part, but I have a feeling that the ball’s solid structure wouldn’t last past the first few impacts with the air molecules. Either the ball would rip itself asunder due to wave propagation through the lattice of the leather and rubber or the chunks of the ball would explode out of the back of the ball as individual pieces of the ball were de-accelerated by the molecules they interact with and ripped from their lattice, taking anything behind them with them. Either way, the ball would never reach the batter as a ball, but it might reach him has a de-accelerated mass of plasma, which is basically what Randal suggests will happen…which means that this is basically a nitpicky kind of thing.

The second shortfall I think has more wide-ranging consequences and that is the explanation of the effects inside of Newtonian Mechanics. Unfortunately at 0.9c the ball, and anything in relation to the ball (a.k.a. the pitcher, batter, audience, the earth, and the guy overlooking the game from a hill a block away) have to be considered in the realm of General Relativity. Without getting too into it, because honestly I’m more of a Special Relativity kind of guy, an object traveling at 0.9c which has mass can have a tremendous impact on the local curvature of spacetime (a.k.a. gravity), hence distorting both how everything is related to each other in space and how events will transpire in time. Since general relativity depends on matter that has momentum and energy our baseball scenario needs to be considered in terms of how the baseball will affect local gravity. Usually we only concern ourselves with matter that has lots of energy and how they affect gravity, stuff like stars and planets. But here we have something that has matter and an extra-ordinary amount of momentum (which is just mass times velocity). Theoretically these objects would have an effect on gravity similar to high energy matter.  Now I don’t have any evidence to give you as to what effects it will have since we don’t typically see things with the mass of your average baseball coming anywhere near 0.9c in speed. Our Galaxy for instance is only flying through space at roughly 600 km/s, roughly .002c. The sun is going something near 220 km/s around the center of the milky way. The earth is going around the sun at roughly 107,300 km/h, and is rotating at 1674.4 k/h if you are standing at the equator. Now let’s say that everything is aligned such that all those velocity vectors add together, which it would every once in a while (give or take a few millennium), you’re still only moving at 850 km/s, which is still only 0.0028c. Sure you could also be on a rocket moving as fast as we can move things, but you’re not going to get much faster than 0.0028c. So we just don’t have any real hard data about what happens to large solids at speeds of 0.9c, or what they do to space-time in their general area.

But this is what I think would happen, given what we do know about general relativity. As the baseball is moving from the pitcher’s mound to the plate, disintegrating into a fast moving ball of plasma, it will also curve spacetime around it created a local gravitational pull. This will in turn cause everything close to the ball to pull toward the ball. The pitcher would literally be dragged behind the ball after he let it go. The batter, umpire, other players, people in the stadium, the ground, and everything else nearby gets pulled toward the ball as well, while the ball is moving. It would be like the ball was a really strong electro-magnet and everything around it was metal. As the ball moved through space everything would move toward it…and because it’s plasma, everything would be slowly disintegrated and then fused…which would in effect release more energy to fuse more things. As the ball progresses through space the only hope that the fusion reaction does not become self sustaining is that it sucks in enough iron, and similarly high binding energy elements, that the plasma ball burns more energy breaking apart matter (breaking molecular bonds and fissioning atoms) than it makes putting it back together (fusion). In the event that it drowns itself (Not literally, water is actually a terrible idea in this circumstance…although it might work given the hydrogen bonds…hmmmmm) then you will indeed get the explosion as Randal states, although I imagine it would be larger…likely taking out a larger chunk of the surrounding city. Luckily due to the structure of most matter laying around a baseball field it is highly likely that the fusion reaction will not become self-sustaining. In the event that it did become self-sustaining, congratulations someone just “pitched a star”.

There is another element to consider here as well and that is the effect on time. Anything close to the plasma ball will feel the effects of gravitational time dilation. This means that anything close to the ball will experience time at a different rate. So for the pitcher, batter, and everyone in the stadium everything happens before they know what happened. But for the observer on a hill, everything that happens near the plasma ball is in a kind of weird slow motion, not really that slow mind you, but slow enough to see the ball of pure light streak from the pitcher to the batter, while starting to implode, and then of course the resulting explosion.    

 

On Authority

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May 222012
 
writeCN1598

Everything you know is very little. Let me stress that by stating it again but less Yoda like. You know very little. And I’m not saying that as an attack on you, the reader. It is true of everyone. The things you know are the things you have seen and experienced for yourself. The rest of everything in your head are things you believe. That collection of things you believe is the vast majority of what is in your head. Therefore what you know, what you’ve seen and experienced for sure, are only a small portion of what is in your brain. Everything else you have taken on authority.

Now in our modern society with its modern sensibilities about things (which I’m certain will seem silly to the next few centuries of people and absolutely ridiculous to the people further on) we’ve come to find the word authority and the idea of taking something on authority as a bad thing. And why not, is it not better to know things for yourself? Well sure, who can argue with that. Except that there are many, many things which are difficult to know for ourselves and even more that are impossible. For instance, I know how a nuclear reactor works, or at least I believe I do. I’ve read about how a nuclear reactor works. I’ve studied nuclear science. I’ve learned and memorized a variety of equations dealing with the subject. I’ve watched nuclear fuel being put into a reactor, and I’ve watched electricity come out of the turbine to power an electrical grid…well not really that last one, but that’s not the point. The point is that I’ve seen all these things but I’ve never seen a nuclear chain reaction, and I never will, because it happens at the atomic level. I can see plenty of indications of nuclear reactions, but those are just inferences. Things that tell me that something is indeed happening and it seems to follow along with all the things I know should be happening.

The same is true of History. None of us witnessed the American Revolution or the Civil War. We have war memorials, battlefield guides, documents, books, and historians that all tell us that those things happened, but in reality all we are doing is trusting someone else’s story. In the end that is what the vast majority of our knowledge is, information given to us via sources, more often than not sources we don’t know and have never met. And we trust these sources. We trust our parents when they tell us stories about ourselves as children that we don’t remember. We trusted our teachers in elementary and middle school, and then lost that trust because we trusted our high school teachers more and they said things that disagreed with our earlier teachers, and so on through college as our trusted professors told us stories that conflicted with our earlier teachers and even our parents. We trust the author’s of books to tell stories truthfully (at least non-fiction books) and to present us with fact based, well-reasoned arguments when they tell us these stories. All this trusting in what is ultimately Authority, of one variety or another, and we have the audacity to say that taking things on authority is bad.

The reality is that taking things on Authority is only bad if you do so blindly. And now I’m going to make a statement that you aren’t going to agree with. All of us are blind, including you. We blindly accept the majority of the information we are told. We have done so our whole lives. Some of us have experimented with the world quite a bit and yet as much as we may have peaked from under our blindfolds in some ways, it gets tucked around our eyes in others. I have no solution to offer you concerning your blindfold and how to get it off, nor do I claim to be a man who can see. I only claim to be someone who recognizes that they are wearing a blindfold. That I enjoy reading articles in print and on the web that agree with my opinions and will readily accept any “fact” they throw my way. That I get angry reading articles I don’t agree with and will point out the logical and factual errors in the writer’s work as readily as I can. That I accept history on an almost face value, and that while I have studied some of it heavily, I will never know for any certainty what really happened. That I accept scientific articles based on opinion as much as good rigor on the part of the scientists, although with how politicized science is, it is difficult to find real scientific rigor. That I think that reading many different articles about a given topic, from disagreeing viewpoints, makes me feel like I know something about that topic when really all I’m doing is parroting someone else story…who is likely parroting someone else. That is what I do, because that is what we all do. Some of us are better than others, but we all have our blindfolds on.

So the question then is, how blind is it okay to be? None if you can get to it, but like so many goals it remains unachievable. But it is the goal. The idea here is to know as much as you can, which is to say if you want to know something you have to see it and experience it. Like I said, an impossible goal, given history and other subjects are beyond our senses, but you do the best you can. You try to find Authorities you can trust and who you can believe, because in the end that is what you are doing, you are believing them.

Logic and Science

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May 092012
 
writeCN1598

I’d like to start by stating something that I find rather obvious but which seems not to be anymore. Logic, which is to say a person’s ability to use their knowledge and experience to form reasoned chains of expressions about something, and Science, the study of something using the scientific method, are not the same thing. I think part of the issue that has arisen whereby people equate the two of them stems from Logic becoming a branch of study in major universities. Instead of just using logic, we now study the process of logical argument and reasoning, and this study is often refereed to as a science. Hence many people assume that Logic and Science are the same thing, or even worse that Logic is merely a small branch of science and somehow developed after science.

This is of course not the case at all. Science is a rather new invention and springs from the development of the scientific method. But more than the use of that method science involves the testing and retesting of hypothesis, by the proponent of the hypothesis, and more importantly to the modern-day, by the scientific community at large. The scientific method is of course when studied just a complicated form of guess and check, but Science is the collection of the guess and checks of scientists in order that each man and woman no longer has to guess and check about the same things. It is an attempt to expand human knowledge in such a way that we no longer have to individually guess and check at things. It is a tool we use to examine the universe around us and then test that universe and then to retest it and then to provide those results so that everyone may look at them. Science is about determining how things happen, and as a tool it is good at doing that insofar as we can supply it with the right technology to do that. But science isn’t so good at answering all the questions we encounter in our lives.

For instance, there are those questions for which we do not poses the technology to explore. Like “How did the dinosaurs die?” Taken at face value the only way this question is answerable via science is to re-create the dinosaurs and then attempt several ways of wiping them out and then finding the closest match to what we have. That, or going back in time and watching. The first one still is not entirely scientifically accurate and the second involves time travel. But any other method would not be entirely scientific, it will in fact have to rely on logic to fill in the gaps. Any hypothesis we develop, no matter how well we test it, will require reasoned steps in its explanation of how X or Y killed the dinosaurs. You just can’t get there without Logic.

And in the modern world that is much of what Logic is used for. Because we have Science in the modern world, Logic is what we use to fill in the gaps left by those questions that science can’t answer, or can’t answer fully. The more I learn about the world the more I realize that Science answers very few questions about the world completely. Evolution for instance is only supported scientifically in the natural selection arena, whereby some species thrive in some environments and other species don’t. To date we haven’t seen the rest of the theory played out though the scientific method. The rest of the theory is held up by logic, and I didn’t necessarily say it was correct logic, but just that it was logic and in fact not science. To do the whole theory of Evolution through science you would have to create your own ecosystem on the scale of the Earth and watch it evolve over several millions, if not billions, of years. These problems of scale and technology would of course disappear when you had the right technology, that is true, but that doesn’t mean people won’t want to think about them in the time being.

Then there are those problems that science either cannot answer or has little to say about. Economics and psychology are two areas where science often finds itself floundering and experts are constantly baffled. How things happen in an economy are not always straightforward or easy to document. The same is even more true for how people make decisions. Oh for sure those two fields generate fistfuls of statistical evidence, but this as we know is again not science, it is merely distilled observation. With a statistic we can only say what was true, percentage wise, in the past, but we cannot use it to make scientifically accurate predictions about the future. I think I will have to leave that bit here now and bring it up later, for science and statistics get confused for one another quiet a bit these days as well.

Then there are of course the why questions, on which science is silent, simply because the why questions aren’t what science is for. Science is for the how. And what I mean by why questions is something like this “Why is the sky blue?”. Taken by science you get an explanation about the atmosphere’s refraction of certain colors of light and blue being the leftover one that makes it through to our eyes. But that’s not why is it, that’s how? Why the sky is blue depends on why the visible spectrum is the way it is, and that depends on both why our eyes are the way they are and why light behaves the way it does, and back and back the whys stack up until you hit more universal questions like “Why does the universe exist?” or “Why does the universe exist the way it does?”. Science doesn’t have an answer to those questions. For those questions it’s just us and logic out in the cold. And it’s not so bad, since logic has been with us a lot longer than science. But many people decide not to ask those questions anymore simply because they don’t have the warm blanket of science to get them through those questions. They say things like “Those questions don’t matter and aren’t worth bothering about.” They think that logic and science are equal and because science has nothing to say to answer those questions that logic will be equally quiet about the matter. I disagree. I think logic has quite a bit to say about those kinds of questions. Logic has indeed quite a bit to say about a lot of things, but as long as you think logic is science then logic will be more silent than it ought to be.

Trafficking in Persons

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Apr 052012
 

Below is a letter I received from a nun who I support who does some amazing work in the field of Counter-Trafficking. If you were unsure of your plans this year in the realm of donations to charitable organizations, I would suggest the ones she mentions in the letter.

                                                                      “Women Helping Women”

The Prophetic Role of Women Religious

in Counter-Trafficking in Persons

Delivered by Sr. Eugenia Bonetti, MC

At the British Embassy to the Holy See, Rome, Italy

International Women’s Day, March 8, 2012

**********

2002 – 2012

Marking the 10th Anniversary of the first

Human Trafficking Conference

with Ambassadors Accredited to the Holy See

**********

Introduction:

Your Excellencies and distinguished guests, I feel grateful for the privilege to have been invited today – on International Women’s Day – to share my personal experience in response to the plight of trafficked women and children, imported and exported all over the world like commodities mainly for the “sex market.” We need to acknowledge that “slavery” still exists in the year 2012, and that the majority of its victims are women and children who do not choose to become prostitutes, but are forced into it by different circumstances.

I am aware that “trafficking in persons” does not refer only to women involved in the sex trade. Modern slavery takes many forms today, such as trafficking for unpaid/unfairly paid labour, illegal child adoption, organ smuggling and begging; however, for several reasons, I will focus mainly on the phenomenon of forced prostitution and the prophetic role of women religious in counter-trafficking, as well the need of networking with political, social, private  and religious organizations to stop its trend.

A Brief History:

A conference held at the Gregorian Pontifical University on June 17, 2004, entitled “A Call to Action: Joining the Fight Against Trafficking in Persons,” organized by the U.S. Embassy to the Holy See, marked the conclusion of the first phase of a project which had as its aim the training of 80-100 women religious from different countries already active in the trafficking field, or willing to commit themselves to the fight against the trafficking of human beings — with a primary focus on women and minors — in the various forms that started to emerge with great force all over the world.

The training programme for women religious was the fruit of a perceptive and courageous intuition of then-ambassador Jim Nicholson, who saw in women religious a great resource for effective networking against one of the most humiliating forms of contemporary slavery.

A Pilot Project

This project was based on the outcome of the first international conference “21st Century Slavery: The Human Rights Dimension of Trafficking in Human Beings,” held in Rome, May 15-16, 2002, organised by the U.S. Embassy to the Holy See together with several other members of the Diplomatic Corps accredited to the Holy See, with the Gregorian Pontifical University and the Pontifical Councils for Justice and Peace and for the Pastoral Care of Migrants and Itinerants.

The conference on the phenomenon of trafficking wanted to expose the problem as slavery and consequently focus on the violation of a person’s fundamental rights. Some 70 speakers from all over the world analysed various aspects and implications of the problem, sharing their research and personal experience.

The 400 participants were members of different international organisations, institutions and NGO’s, religious and lay associations. The presence of women religious from different congregations and of different nationalities, already in the forefront of prevention and social re-integration of women victims of trafficking, was significant.

Speakers and participants brought into focus problems and strategies, noting strong and weak points in working towards a unified approach to the phenomenon. A wide variety of interventions was presented and, above all, suggestions were made so that the meeting might not be an end in itself. The publication of the entire proceedings of the conference served as a valid and important reference tool. Despite these positive and significant outcomes, nevertheless there was a need for some concrete projects moving forward. The slogan “Stop Trafficking in Human Beings. Together It’s Possible,” has provided a good guideline for continuing work and today, after ten years, we are asked to reflect on the work done and moreover consider what still needs to be done.

A Singular Project

The phenomenon of present-day trafficking in persons is still very complex and is in constant flux. Religious and Christian organizations have an important role to play in this field, given the richness of their ministries and charismas; yet in this area it is not possible to improvise. It is rather a ‘must’ to have people adequately and professionally prepared to deal with this issue.

After the conference of May 2002, the first target group to be given priority was a training programme for 87 women religious from different countries. The programme proposed by the U.S. Ambassador to the Holy See himself, Jim Nicholson, was financed by the U.S. Department of State and organised by the IOM (International Organisation for Migration). USMI (Unione Superiore Maggiori d’Italia/Italian Union of Women Major Superiors), UISG (International Union of Women General Superiors) and the Foundation ‘Migrantes’ were also invited to be partners and to collaborate in the concrete realization of the project.

In Italy, the experience of different Congregations of women religious already at work in this field or willing to get involved in it, was extremely significant. Together with the sisters, there was a growing commitment of civil society with national legal structures to address this growing problem. Of all the lessons learned, the need for appropriate formation of personnel focussed primarily on prevention in countries of origin has been found to be a priority. Providing assistance to victims to help their re-integration into society, has also been seen to be essential.

Women Religious at the Service of Women’s Dignity

Trafficking in human beings for sexual exploitation, a very grave violation of human rights, is a global problem. An appropriate response requires several forces—lay and religious—to operate in this field, to come together and to provide adequate strategies to safeguard the dignity and the sacred nature of each victim.

The trafficking of human beings for sexual exploitation brutalises the victim, depriving women of their deepest values. It destroys women, annihilating their self-esteem, concept of love and self-oblation. The victims are stigmatised. They fight to recuperate their sense of marred and denied feminine values. Besides being forced to live clandestinely in absolute submission to criminal organisations, these young women are also subjected to the dangers of the streets – such as road accidents, physical abuse, forced abortion, and even assassination.

Over the past years, we have witnessed the murder of hundreds of young women in the streets. Many also died during their voyage to the “promised land” (countries of transit or destination where they were abused), disappearing into nothingness instead.

The commitment of the Italian women religious belonging to USMI (Italian Union of Major Superiors)[1] has increased over several years, in communion with the commitment of civil society and institutions. In 2000, USMI created an office of “Counter-Trafficking of Women and Children” to coordinate the service of hundreds of religious facing the challenge of this new kind of slavery, providing immediate assistance to the victims. In fact, the Religious Congregations, together with the Diocesan Caritas and groups of volunteers, were among the first to interpret this phenomenon in the early 90’s and to offer alternative solutions to enslaved women — at that time, mostly Albanians and Nigerians who were victims of sexual exploitation on the streets.

Religious Congregations opened the “holy doors” of their structures to offer protection and help, to assist in supporting the creation of a new life for the young victims who courageously rebelled against their exploiters.

In recent years, due to increased awareness and effective interventions, the phenomenon of trafficking in persons has changed faces, routes, modality, criminality and led to new methods of assisting and reintegrating victims. However, the danger of women’s exploitation is ever present, with the risk of victims falling into slavery and submission because of their vulnerability and an absence of alternative opportunities. The various criminal mafias constantly change their strategies to ensure and protect the enormous financial earnings they reap through the recruitment of young victims for the highly sought after market of consumer sex.

In Italy, USMI works in the following ways:

  • Outreach units coordinated by parish groups in the streets as first contact with victims;
  • Drop-in Centres to welcome women who seek help;
  • Safe Houses or Shelters for projects and social reintegration;[2]
  • Professional preparation, including language and work training courses;
  • Legal assistance, to aid victims in processing required documents and rectifying clandestine status through obtaining a residence permit;[3]
  • Collaboration with the relevant ambassador/embassy personnel to obtain required identification documents;[4]
  • Psychological and spiritual assistance to victims sheltered in the Centres for Identification and Expulsion in Rome, as they await forced deportation after being arrested without documents.[5]

A Globalized Market                                                                     

Prostitution is not a new phenomenon, but what is new is the development of a global and complex trade which exploits the extreme poverty and vulnerability of many women and minors who have emigrated. They have become the 21st century slaves. Tricked, enslaved and thrown onto the street, the “prostitute” is the living example of the unjust discrimination imposed upon women by our consumer society.

Trafficking of human beings for sexual exploitation has developed into a global market, involving countries of origin, transit and destination.

  • Countries of Origin represent the “push” or “supply” side of the equation. That is to say, they provide the breeding ground of poverty which traffickers comb to find potential victims. The women are easy targets, vulnerable from utter poverty, lack of education and job opportunities, gender inequality, discrimination and war.
  • Transit Countries offer several routes through which trafficked persons are taken to reach their final destination. Traffickers have perfected ways to import and export their victims without risk of being stopped and sent back to the country of origin.
  • Destination Countries represent the “pull” or “demand” factor, and even though the main culprit here is the “client,” other factors must also be considered in deciphering the global net of the sex industry – such as gender, desire for profit and power by the mafia, and other forms of international and trans-national organized crime. Nevertheless, the main protagonist of the perpetuation of trafficking for sexual exploitation remains the “client,” or “consumer,” who plays a key role in this business. He regulates the demand factor, and the supply corresponds to his demand.

USMI organised various courses of professional formation for religious in several origin and transit countries, in collaboration with the UISG (International Union of Major Superiors), IOM (International Organisation for Migration) and the ICMC (International Commission for Catholic Migrations). We aim to contact and sensitize the Religious Conferences of other countries, especially in countries of origin with a particular risk of exploitation.

A Model Partnership

The collaboration between USMI and the Women Religious Conference in Nigeria has been very positive. It began in 2000, when the President and two religious sisters visited Italy to observe the phenomenon of trafficking for sexual exploitation with their own eyes. They were deeply upset by what they saw. Upon their return to Nigeria, they immediately initiated strategies of intervention and an array of actions aimed at prevention and reintegrating the victims of trafficking.

Of the many actions taken, it is important to mention one of the most effective: the institution of a “Committee for the Support of the Dignity of Woman.” It was instituted with the goals of running a significant public information campaign, seeking and protecting the families of the victims, welcoming and assisting victims—those who choose to return home or are forcibly repatriated due to not having required official documents—with social reintegration through projects financed for this purpose.

At present, Nigeria and Romania remain the countries at greatest risk. The first is marked by a high rate of illiterate women and the second a large population of minors. Both countries need adequate structures for projects of prevention and reintegration of victims—for those who want to return home voluntarily, as well as for those victims who are expelled from countries and need support for their reintegration into family and society.

Women religious in this sensitive field offer to many young victims the possibility of finding assistance to regain their desire for living, and the courage to start from zero after their terrible ordeals. They need this help to recuperate an active role in their family and in society, to witness to the possibility of a revival in every situation and to collaborate with a more humane respect for the dignity of each person.

Building a Global Networking:

Throughout the past years, much has been achieved in giving voice, protection and hope to many voiceless women; however, much more still needs to be done to break this new and invisible chain, to rescue our young girls and give them back their stolen dignity. This can be achieved only by:

  • Joining efforts for more informed consultation and greater cooperation with government, NGO’s, Caritas, religious and faith-based organisations and law enforcement in order to be more effective in eradicating this 21st century slavery, with the goal to eliminate corruption, illicit profits and the great demand from millions of “consumers” of paid sex. Unfortunately, even today, the issue of “demand” from consumers is very seldom addressed or highlighted.
  • Networking with Origin/Sending Countries will allow for the formation of a strategic alliance. Aware of the great richness of our charisms of charity and of the reality of our presence in all parts of the world, Religious women need to work in synergy between origin/sending and destination/receiving countries. Our natural network and our motivations could be of great help in preventing the exodus of so many young women in pursuit of better opportunities which quickly dissolve into real slavery[6].

Other networking initiatives carried out by inter-congregations:

v     Anti-trafficking educational kit for religious communities, seminaries, schools, parishes and youth groups, available in seven languages (English, Italian, Spanish, French, Portuguese, Polish, and Romanian) has been prepared by a working group on Counter-Trafficking in Women and Children of the JPIC Commission of the International Union of Superiors General (UISG/USG).

v     Weekly visits to Ponte Galeria, Rome, Italy, by a group of 16 nuns (from 12 congregations and of 13 different nationalities), one of the many Centres of Identification and Expulsion on the Italian territory. Women religious address the pastoral care of 180 immigrant women awaiting deportation because they have been arrested with  no official documents. [7]

v     Training programme for religious women carried out between 2004 – 2011 in various countries touched by the phenomenon of trafficking in persons: Italy, Nigeria, Albania, Romania, Thailand, the Dominican Republic, Brazil, the Philippines, Portugal, South Africa, Senegal, Perù and Kenya. The training sessions were proposed by the U.S. Embassy to the Holy See, financed by the U.S. Department of State and executed by the International Organization for Migration (IOM), in collaboration with UISG. At the initial stage, USMI and Migrantes were also involved in execution of this programme.

v     A shelter in Benin City: On July 11, 2007, as a result of concrete cooperation between Italy and Nigeria, a “Resource Centre for Women” was officially opened, the first such shelter to be built in Nigeria and run by women religious. It was fully funded by the Italian Bishops Conference (CEI) and run by the Nigerian Conference of Women Religious. The shelter can accommodate 18 women at a time and will benefit Nigerian victims of human trafficking who have either been forcibly repatriated or chosen to return home for several reasons, including physical and/or mental illness. For the official opening, an Italian delegation of 14 people (8 nuns, 6 lay people) visited Nigeria, attended the celebration and strengthened mutual cooperation of networking.

v     An International Training Seminar was conducted in October 2007 in Rome by USMI, in collaboration with the U.S. Embassy to the Holy See, and financed by the U.S. Department of State’s Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons (G/TIP), for 33 sisters coming from 26 different countries. The aim of such an important gathering was to strengthen our network, make local Conferences of Religious aware of the phenomenon and help Congregations to live our Prophetic role. The participants launched the international network INRATIP/International Network of Religious Against Trafficking in Persons, the first of its kind. Later on INRATIP merged with the new international network Talitha Kum.

v     UISG/IOM Congress: Two important seminars were organised in Rome, June 2-6, 2008, and June 15-18, 2009, for representatives of women religious who have previously attended one of the training courses for sisters. Once again the aim was to evaluate the need of such formation courses for sisters and create a strong international network to involve and connect National Religious Conferences and Congregations dealing with this ministry. Talitha Kum is the name of the new international network of Sisters dealing with counter trafficking. The network was officially launched in June 2010. For more information visit: http://www.talithakum.info.

v     RENATE - Religious in Europe Networking Against Trafficking and Exploitation is a European network established in March 2009. It is an inclusive network of Religious from eastern and western Europe. RENATE held its first major meeting with 100 Religious from East and West Europe to take place from September 4- 9, 2011, in Krakow, Poland. For more information visit: www.renate-europe.net

A Call for Action: “Joining the Fight Against Trafficking in Human Beings to Free People”

If the annual TIP Report of the U.S. Department of State, which assesses the efforts of foreign governments to fight trafficking, highlights the “three P’s” – prevention, protection and prosecution – as part of the States responsibilities in the fight against trafficking of human beings; we, too, as members of the same human family are equally called to action and to commit ourselves by implementing the “three R’s” – rescue, rehabilitation and reintegration.

According to their specific roles and positions, we call upon:

  • The global family to develop a strong economic system to offer women opportunities for a better life without being forced to sell their bodies;
  • The States with proper legislation to suppress and punish trafficking in people and protect, legalize and reintegrate victims;
  • The society to legally press for effective measures against the demand, to rescue men from greed and lust and safeguard the family values of fidelity, love and unity;
  • The Church with its Christian vision of sexuality and man-woman relationships to safeguard and promote the dignity of every woman created in God’s image;
  • The schools by teaching and advancing the right values based on mutual respect;
  • The media in projecting a complete, balanced and accurate image of women that restores her to her full human value, presenting her as a subject and not as an object.

Conclusion:

In responding to the demands of a world that is constantly changing and in search of justice, solidarity, dignity and respect for the right of every person, especially the weak and the vulnerable, we are all called to offer our contribution.

Only by working together can we find success in our ministry to break this invisible chain of human trafficking — a crime against all humanity. Like prophets, we, too, have been called and sent on a mission ‘to set the downtrodden free.’

What are we called to do today to end slavery? What is our role? What are our practical proposals? How can we mark with significance and value for victims the 10th anniversary of the first international conference on the global phenomenon of trafficking in persons?

The discussion is open and responses are urgently needed, as we are still strongly challenged today by the phenomenon, just as we were in the year 2002.

May God help us to make His and our dreams of a slavery-free world become a reality.

Thank you for your attention and efforts.

Sr. Eugenia Bonetti, MC

“Counter-Trafficking of Women and Children” Office

USMI National  – Rome, Italy

ebonettimc@pcn.net

 

[1] USMI is the Italian Union of Major Superiors, comprised of 627 women Congregations working in several fields in Italy and abroad, consisting of 90,000 members.  Currently, there are 250 nuns – belonging to 80 congregations – who operate mainly in small shelters and in counter-trafficking ministry. These nuns are forming and informing, supporting and stimulating, encouraging and sustaining this network of activity. Working together is their strength.

[2] There are roughly 100 family houses managed by nuns for programmes of human, social and legal reintegration, many of which welcome mothers with children or pregnant women to protect them and safeguard the gift of new life; the number of “girls” staying in any one community never exceeds seven, and the length of stay varies from 12 to 24 months, the time necessary for an adequate social reintegration to complete autonomy.

[3] Application of Article 18 of the Testo Unico on immigration of the D.Leg 286/98. About 5,000 residence permits were obtained since Article 18 came into force in 1998.

[4] Since the beginning of our collaboration with the USMI Office of Trade in Human Beings, more than 4,000 passports have been issued by the Nigerian Embassy to comply with the procedure of residence permits according to Article 18.

[5] Every Saturday afternoon a group of 16 sisters from different countries and belonging to 12 Congregations visits the Centre in Rome to meet immigrant women waiting deportation to their countries because they were found in Italy with no documents.

[6] In the year 2000 USMI has invited three sisters from the Nigerian Conference of Women Religious to come to Italy to see what was happening to thousands of their young women displayed on all our streets. The experience was shocking but very useful because channels of communication and cooperation were created between the two countries.

[7] For the past eight years Sisters have been offering this ministry of mercy and comfort for religious and pastoral assistance, moral and psychological support to the many women in despair who do not want to go back home empty-handed and labelled as “prostitutes.”

Solar and Wind are Retarding

 Rants, Uncle Pat's Rants  No Responses »
Mar 312012
 
FARM

the efforts to make the power grid more efficient and greener. I use the word retarding because it means exactly what I want to express, which is that the current focus on shifting power production to wind and solar with the current grid, which is the way we distribute electricity, is holding back progress to make the grid better. Why you might ask, well firstly because too much of the money is going to solar and wind production. As a result of the stimulus package the government has spent over 12 billion dollars on Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, but the focus has been on renewable energy.
Now I’m not saying that renewable energy is a bad thing. I think it’s a very good thing, but I think the Efficiency portion of the equation is more important. The problem with current wind and solar power is the same problem we’ve always had with solar and wind power. The sun doesn’t always shine and the wind does not always blow. That’s a hard fact of life, and what you might not realize is that if the solar panel isn’t soaking up the sun and the wind turbine isn’t getting it’s fair share of the wind then the turbine isn’t turning and electricity is not being made and you can’t turn on your lights or run your refrigerator. So in a system with only solar and wind you end up being reliant on the sun and the wind to tell you when you can turn your lights on or condition your air. If you ask me, that’s a step backwards isn’t it?
Now, let’s say we could somehow store the electricity from the solar and wind power production and use it later, that would solve the problem right?. And then you say “But we can!” and I say “Not really, at least not well.” Batteries suck as storage units for electricity, and they suck harder the larger you build them, so the more energy you are trying to store the less efficient the battery becomes. You might also have heard about storing water via pumped hydro power, which works pretty well, but requires a hydroelectric dam or other large reservoir of water and correct geological formation. And while we use it as much as we can, it’s a mere fraction of what is needed. So we basically can’t store electricity right now in the way we would need to to rely on wind and solar. Right now it literally is like I said before, the electricity has to be produced when you want to use it.
Therefore any move to make us more dependent on wind and solar power is a retarded move. Money should be going to the storage problem. If we can figure out how to store electricity easier and more efficiently then it suddenly makes solar and wind more viable. But hey if you don’t like answering the storage question then we could also put money into figured out how to make wind and solar better at producing electricity, cause right now they do a very poor job of this. This would make them much more useful on the grid, although calm nights would still result in major power outages. But no, that’s not what we spend our money on. We spend our money on putting in crappy solar power plants and crappy wind farms and we call it progress, even though it’s not.

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