Terrorism is a lie.

Do I have your attention?  Good.  Now let me explain.

I do not mean to say that terrorism does not exist.  What I DO mean to say is that we fed a series of major distortions, lies, and misinformation on the nature, degree, and scope of the so-called "Terrorist Threat."

The numbers are staggering.  Though some of the details may be disputed, picked at, or wheedled over, we kill each other at a rate that makes the feeble efforts of extremists statistically insignificant, and gives the lie to the histrionics of the right wing war hawks seeking to embroil us further in petty endless conflicts in the middle east.

Take a look at the statistics from 2013 (since they proved relatively easy to find).  More than twice as many people were killed by toddlers in the United States than by terrorists.  It's official: babies are a bigger threat to national security than ISIL.  Why then, are our politicians and news media making such a big deal about it then?

Power.

It is all about power and control.  Ben Franklin (yes THAT Ben Franklin) is quoted saying "They who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety,"  with the oft-given addendum to this being "...and will lose both."  And haven't we?  How much have we given up for this War on Terror?  How many Trillions has our government funneled into the Middle East?  How many multitudes of people are under almost constant surveillance?  How many heaps and mountains worth of data do the FBI and NSA have on all of us?

But the Republican party has doubled down so far on scapegoating Islamic Terrorism for all of our problems, or at the very least exaggerating their threat to such an extent that other issues are pegged as insignificant.  The Democrats, though not as heavily invested in the issue of Terrorism, have been complicit in allowing it to dominate.  The left has been dragged ever further to the right, to the point that the establishment will not challenge the GOP on their definition of Terrorism and its place in the political discussion. 

Now the FBI is cracking down on High School students, to take away more civil liberties, and gain even more control.   If this trend continues, and speech critical of the government will be labeled as dangerous as suspect.  Anyone who dares to speak out will be investigated or even imprisoned.  We can't allow it to happen. 

Thought Police

The FBI has a new plan to weed out divergent thoughts and control our minds.  In a story for AlterNet, Sarah Lazare reports on a plan by the FBI to spy on high school students across America, looking for signs of unorthodox ideologies.  It is "instructing" schools nationwide to report students who "criticize government policies" and speak against "Western corruption."

Ostensibly meant to spot signs of radicalization early and prevent terrorism, this makes any student suspect who has political views out of sync with the established, accepted modes of thought approved by the Party...I mean, by the Authorities.

Let us be clear, this new policy targets young Muslims, but it puts all of our young people at risk.  Among the views now included as suspicious are "anarchism," "animal rights extremism," and "environmental extremism."  This will strengthen the nefarious school-to-prison pipeline, and drags us a few steps closer to an Orwellian dystopia ala 1984.  Treating criticism with suspicion is an easy path to criminalizing dissent.  The Ministry of Love will be sending out its Thought Police any day now to ensure that we love Big Brother. The AlterNet article intervied Hugh Handeyside, staff attorney for the ACLU national security project, who speaks on the issue.

“Broadening the definition of violent extremism to include a range of belief-driven violence underscores that the FBI is diving head-first into community spying. Framing this conduct as ‘concerning behavior’ doesn’t conceal the fact that the FBI is policing students’ thoughts and trying to predict the future based on those thoughts.”

This would not be the first time the FBI curtailed our civil liberties in the name of security.  As early as 1946, J Edgar Hoover was compiling lists of American suspected of disloyalty, and in 1950, proposed a plan to suspend habeas corpus to detain over 12,000 Americans.  In the 60s through 1971 J. Edgar Hoover ran major campaigns against the civil rights movement, including both Martin Luther King Jr. and the Black Panther Party with his Counter Intelligenge Protocol (COINTELPRO).  Hoover was famously quoted saying that "justice is incidental to law and order."

Since 9/11, the FBI has had unprecedented leeway in compiling information about American citizens in the name of national security.  The Patriot Act, the controversial domestic spying law made us a surveillance nation, and multiple sources allege that our civil liberties have been repeatedly violated ever since.  A report by the EFF claims that the FBI may have committed over 40,000 such violations between 2001 and 2008.  This included approximately 800 confirmed and reported violations of the law, executive order, or regulations regarding the acquisition of information.  Of these, about 150 were violations of Constitutional protections, FISA, or other laws governing intelligence gathering.  The EFF believes these 800 confirmed cases to be an underrepresentation.  Additionally, the report includes some 7000 more incidents the FBI claims were "potential" violations of civil liberties.  By extrapolation, the EFF reaches their estimate of 40,000 instances of misconduct.

The truth is that we don't know how often or how severely the FBI currently violates our rights, or to what degree such even exist any more.  However, it isn't hard to see that this new procedure, left unchallenged, would exacerbate an already tense issue, and put the heat to evaporating privacy rights.

I oppose the marginalizing of, and the casting of aspersions upon those who express alternate viewpoints.  We should not face suspicion for calling a spade a spade, and pointing out corruption where we see it.  Criticism of the government is not a dangerous act, it is our civic duty.  This policy is shameful.

Humanism: Physiological Needs

Humanist psychology, in line with humanist philosophy, chooses to examine people holistically, as a person who is more than the sum of their behaviors and experiences, and capable of great things, with an inward drive towards actualization.  It rejects previous deterministic models of human psychology by examining a person's subjective reality and perspective, and accounting for that person's free will.  It assumes a multitiered model of the prerequisites for humanity to be able to achieve that psychological imperative.  When the needs of each level have been met, the human may progress to the next stage of psychological achievement.  Each progressive stage cannot be reached, or at least not maintained, without a solid foundation of the lower order requirements.  If a person's basic needs are not being met, then they cannot fulfill their potential.  Today we will be talking about the most basic needs of humanity, the physiological.

A representation of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, By J. Finkelstein - I created this work using Inkscape., CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1315147

Physiological

As with any structure, if the base is weak, or incomplete, the structure will collapse.  Humanities most basic physiological needs form the foundation of the pyramid.  People cannot possibly live actualized lives, or have a sense of belonging and esteem if they do not have food to eat or a place to live.  It is essential for the functioning of an ethical society to provide for its people the basic physiological necessities of life.  Therefore, I view these as natural rights belonging to all people, not as granted by god, but by virtue of their humanity and the intrinsic.  Therefore the state is required to protect these human rights.

• Breathing: Duh
• Food and Water:  Everyone deserves food, without question.  As a natural right, I view this as one of the unalienable rights referred to in the Declaration of Independence.  Nothing takes away a person's right to food and water.   If a person cannot provide for their own feeding, then they must be fed.  I would oppose as a human rights violation any attempt to abridge the food stamp program that did not supplant it with a superior system.  This includes drug testing.  The use of, even addiction to, drugs cannot deprive a person of the right to eat.  Everyone deserves food, not matter the circumstances.
• Sex: Simply put, all humans of sexual maturity experience sexuality, and must be required to express that sexuality unpunished.  This includes all expressions of sexuality between mature and consenting individuals; man and woman, man and man, woman and woman, masturbation, abstinence, and any other.  It must be stressed that the right to abstain from sex is as integral to physiological needs as the right to sex itself.  Abstinence in this case can mean from sex as a whole, or from any undesired act thereof at any given instance.  Consent to sex on one instance does not imply consent to sex on another instance.  Consent can be given and withdrawn at will. 
• Sleep: Simple put, while no one can or should be legally required to sleep, most particularly not at any specified time, every human is entitled by right of humanity to sleep 8 hours a day should they desire it.  From a practical standpoint, this places an upper limit on the length of any legal work day. 
• Homeostasis: Scientifically, this refers to a sort of biological equilibrium amounting to freedom from excess heat and cold, and other factors.  From a practical standpoint, this refers to two things: clothes and shelter.  All people are entitled to a home address, and clothes to wear.  Chronic homelessness is unacceptable.  An argument could also be made that the right to homeostasis includes healthcare as a means of achieving that homeostasis.  This is, in fact, the position of the World Health Organization.
• Excretion: We all piss and shit.  Deal with it.  It's a right.  People who make you pay to use the toilet are jerks.

Implications

If we accept the premise that the aforementioned physiological needs of humanity are basic human rights, and the premise that it is the duty and purpose of government to defend human rights (such would be in keeping with the Enlightenment ideals in which the United States of America was formed), then it must naturally be concluded that the above needs of humanity must be met, and that it is the duty and purpose of government to ensure that they are met.  

I would also posit that if we are to hold to the ideals of the Founding Fathers, that the "unalienable rights" to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" guarantees us the right to pursue our greatest happiness--the elevation of ourselves to the pinnacle of our being; our true selves and our fullest potential.  It would be, in a sense, to evolve.