Archive: Fair Wages
Every so often, between stories about celebrities having sex, the media will hit on an important story. The one characteristic these stories tend to have in common, at least on the surface, is that they are depressing. The headline usually reads “U.S. soldiers consort with pre-pubescent sex slaves” or “September 11, can it happen again?”
Occasionally, as Americans, we’ll hear a story from Zimbabwe or Cambodia or some other place most of us can’t find on a map that just breaks our hearts. The reporters, however, never seem to posit a solution. There never is a light at the end of the tunnel and we never see the root cause.
Well, the cause of child hunger, child prostitution, terrorism, totalitarianism, and just about everything else is poverty. The solution is equally simple: find people jobs and pay them a decent wage.
Rich countries like the United States know firsthand that mechanisms like a minimum wage are beneficial to an economy. Common sense tells us that when people make more money, they buy more stuff. Producers then make more stuff; more people get better, higher paying jobs, and those people then turn around and buy more stuff.
This process is called economic growth and any improvement in the distribution of income will give it a nice boost. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to understand that this idea applies to a global economy just as well as a national one.
The only reason big businesses fight so fiercely against wage control measures like an international minimum wage is because economic growth has the side effect of inflation. That is, the billions or hundreds of millions not invested in growing economies will lose value.
While they would make money in the economic boom resulting from real worldwide development, individuals with generational wealth would essentially be losing money as the value of each dollar/euro/pound would be worth less in terms of purchasing power. The struggle for fair wages, therefore, is a struggle between income and wealth. Unfortunately, wealth is winning.
Unfortunately, a straight minimum wage may not be the answer. If, for example, the international minimum wage was $4.00/hr., it would be next to impossible (initially) for a poor Rwandan or Cambodian to raise enough money to start a business. This policy would also be incredibly difficult to enforce.
A better solution is for industrial powers like the U.S., U.K., Japan, (etc.) to agree on a minimum wage for companies based within their borders. This wage would be the minimum companies could pay employees regardless of location. This would require almost unanimous agreement among industrialized nations. The minimum should be close to half the average minimum wage in industrialized countries so it would still be cost-effective to operate overseas.
This policy would leave multinational corporations with two choices: they could make small adjustments in the status quo – increase wages, improve working conditions, improve environmental standards – or they could move their entire operation overseas. Either way the “third world” would win.
If company A chose to move to a country like Bangladesh, it would bring high paying jobs (R&D, advertising, attorneys, executives, etc.) to a part of the world that badly needs them. Whether they gave the jobs to locals or imported labor, the economy and society would get a boost.
Educated labor, especially imported U.S. labor, would expect certain rights (speech, religion, and press) and amenities – clean water, air, and safe transportation to name a few. More importantly, the people of rich countries would become more aware of conditions overseas, and would be more likely to care.
Pressure would build from within and without to build a modern economy and a liberal, democratic society.
Similarly, if company B chose simply to comply with the new requirements, wages would increase; people would pay higher taxes and would therefore expect more (public works, education, social welfare, hospitals, and medicine) from their government.
People would live longer, be happier, and expectations would rise for the next generation. Eventually, as Joe Pakistani became more educated, the economy would begin to grow on its own. Some of the people would begin to save money and would start their own businesses, capitalizing on the people who prefer to spend their money.
Basically, people make more, so they spend more. Businesses then produce more, hire more people, who then spend more money. Not only do local economies grow, the world economy grows.
The best thing about my solution, however, is that each company will act independently, adapting in their own way. Company A will import high-paying jobs and/or educated labor and company B will pay their uneducated labor a better salary.
As the influx of money goes through the multiplier and the economy grows, labor becomes more scarce and competitive; soon company A has to pay better wages in order to staff its factories. Furthermore, the lower and middle classes, as they grow and become more educated, will see firsthand the way the rich executives of company A live.
Social tension will build, causing greater social change and development. Again the economy, the society, and the government would grow together. Imagine progress as a string of dominoes; every domino that falls influences the next.
Apart from economic arguments which tend to be murky, mostly because people tend to be stupid, there is an even better reason why U.S. corporations should be required to pay their employees a decent wage.
In basic training our soldiers are told that they are representing their country, and that as representatives of the U.S. they’re expected to act, dress, and even speak in a certain way; the same can be said of politicians and Olympic athletes.
Americans are appalled when our president throws up on a world leader or mispronounces their name and we would be equally upset if one of our Olympians or a U.S. soldier were caught overseas supporting child prostitution or slavery.
Olympians and politicians, however, make up only a tiny portion of what the world sees of the U.S.; and while the barrel of a U.S. gun has become an unfortunately widespread representation of our country overseas, the U.S. military is still not nearly as widespread as the U.S. economy.
In most countries the poor and disenfranchised don’t have T.V’s; they don’t see our politicians and our Olympians when they say something stupid in front of a camera. Despite the U.S. presence in Eastern Europe, Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and the Pacific Islands, most of the world’s people don’t see a U.S. soldier every day – let alone fifteen hours a day.
More than any other entity, the factories in which people work fifteen hour days are the face of our nation. Unfortunately they are not representing us well. For many poor people, the face of the U.S. people is a boss who pays $1.25 for a fifteen hour work day or a company that pays children to work in gold and silver refineries with harmful chemicals like cyanide and mercury and dangerous heavy machinery.
These irresponsible companies share as much responsibility for terrorism and anti-American sentiment as George Bush and Osama Bin-Laden combined.
There is no such thing as a quick fix when it comes to poverty, but if the proper policies were implemented tomorrow our kids’ kids might never have to deal with the side effects of poverty.
Archive: Overpopulation
The earth, as large as it is, has a fixed number of resources, most of which are renewable. Oil, coal, ground water, and clean air, for instance, are all renewable resources; unfortunately it takes thousands of years to replenish even a small oil well or coal deposit. Because resources take time to replenish themselves, there is a fixed amount of oil, water, coal, clean air, wood, and topsoil that can be used in a given year.
Further complicating matters is the fact that humans do not consume resources with perfect efficiency. An engine, for instance, that is able to use eighty percent of the energy from the combustion of its fuel would be ridiculously efficient by current standards.
There also are resources we don’t currently use at all, resources we haven’t found a use for; oil is an excellent historic example. Before the widespread popularity of the internal combustion engine oil was far less valuable; experts in that time period would likely have limited their estimates of energy resources to coal deposits.
Just as there is a limit to the amount of resources available to us, there is also a minimum amount of resources each person must consume in a given year in order to survive. People must eat, they must have clean drinking water and shelter, and occasionally they need medical attention.
The amount of resources available per year (A) times efficiency of consumption (B), therefore, is equal to the minimum consumption (X) times the maximum sustainable population of an ecosystem (Y). Similarly, to find average standard of living  where Y is the current population and X is the amount of resources available per person, per year.
Basically, the more efficiently we use and distribute our resources, the more there seem to be, and the fewer people sharing a pie, the more pie each person can have.
There is little we can do to change either our endowment of resources, or the minimum amount of resources needed to sustain human life. What is vitally important, therefore, is the relationship between technological efficiency and population; as we use our resources more efficiently, our planet can support more life.
More importantly, however, is the fact that technological advancement in excess of population growth equates to people living better lives while population growth in excess of technological advance leads to a decrease in standard of living and, eventually, some combination of disease, starvation, war, or infertility – ultimately a decline in population growth – as we grow beyond our ecosystem’s ability to support us.
These declines can be easily explained. If people have just enough to survive and population increases, people will starve. Starvation weakens the body, aiding the spread of disease; disease, meanwhile, can lead to infertility and the absolute need for resources justifies violent means of attaining them.
Human psychology further complicates matters, as people measure their own well-being by comparing it to that of their neighbors. Most people in modern societies have no real concept of the minimum amount of resources needed for survival. A poor person in the United States, for example, may have plenty to eat, a decent place to live, and decent clothes, but would still feel poor because everyone else seems to have more.
This same principle can be extended to a middle class person in a rich neighborhood. The bottom line is that regardless of how high or low a person’s standard of living is they will inevitably fight to prevent it from declining. Furthermore, there is a surplus of people unsatisfied with their current allotment of resources, people looking to move up.
Therefore, population growth in excess of technological advance leads to catastrophe – a decline in population growth.
People from the poorest (agricultural) countries reproduce at a much higher rate than people from fully developed (urban) economies. They have developed based on the assumption that, first, more kids will lead to better productivity, which equates to economic well-being and, second, several of those kids will die during childhood. There is, therefore, a much greater emphasis on family and fertility. Because the main role of women is that of child-bearer they are less likely to be educated and far less likely to be accepted in a work environment.
Normally these cultural differences would be offset by a higher death rate that would decline along with the birthrate as the country developed economically. Despite cultural mores and the resultant high birthrates, population growth would be controlled. The natural processes mentioned earlier would ensure ecological equilibrium. Right now, however, industrialized countries are focused on controlling the death rate rather than helping poorer countries develop economically, resulting in the most rapid population growth in human history.
The governments of the industrialized world are seeking security, meaning re-election. They avoid unpopular public action. So they stop war when they can, they try to limit problems like mass starvation and widespread disease, they try to maintain stability to keep businesses and consumers happy by enabling trade, and they try to accomplish all this at a discount because the only thing businesses and consumers hate more than taxes is taxes intended to benefit someone else.
These are all good things but the long-term result of these actions could be very bad because the only way to address all these problems at a discount has been to ignore the root cause and treat the symptoms. It is the equivalent of a patient avoiding a simple but painful surgery in favor of daily medication with dangerous long-term side effects. Poor countries will become more populated and it will become increasingly expensive to treat the symptoms. At some point the weight of supporting so many people at a minimum standard of living will become so great that rich countries will have to either change policies or allow their economies to collapse.
Furthermore, the longer this trend continues, the more difficult economic growth will be. For a poor country too develop socially and economically without catastrophic damage to the environment while dealing with the problem of overpopulation is too much too ask. A cash-strapped country cannot simultaneously finance public housing, water purification, welfare, and health care while building roads, airports, sea ports, schools, and giving loans to would-be business people.
If rich countries continue to simply focus on prolonging life and preserving stability they will be forced to choose between allowing disease, starvation, and war to take its course in the third world or allowing the world economy to collapse. They need to act now, redirect some of their military spending to foreign development, force their businesses to pay foreign workers decent wages, invest in infrastructure and capital goods, and educate people from disadvantaged countries with the intent of returning them to their own countries.
Most importantly, however, women need to get a good education. Educated, urban women have more options and, therefore, have fewer children. Given a choice, some women will choose not to have kids, and those that have kids tend to have fewer when their income is less dependant on children as a source of free labor. Therefore, educated urban women reproduce at a slower rate.
Furthermore, educated women that stay at home and raise children usually raise smarter children.
What troubles me is that world leaders either ignore or fail to understand the consequences of their actions.
Developed countries like the U.S., U.K., Japan, Australia, and most of Europe send billions of dollars in aid to underdeveloped countries to prevent people from dying of starvation or disease and spend billions more to maintain vast militaries to prevent war. I can understand these actions; no one wants people to die and these actions prevent millions of deaths.
If we continue down this path, however, it could mean a drastic decline for our entire civilization. I certainly am not suggesting we forget about the “third-world” or that we leave them to their own devices, but I am vehemently opposed to the idea of international welfare as a long-term solution to the problem of an unequal distribution of income between nations. The industrialized world needs to bite the bullet, making the investment needed to fix the root problem, poverty, before the symptoms get out of control and before we decimate .
Archive: Sustainable Development
Our environment is being destroyed; our resources will not last another hundred years; our ecosystem cannot support our booming population; desertification is robbing us of arable land. These are but a few of the claims commonly made by environmental groups and the popular media today.
The intention behind such assertions is to shock people into action and there are legitimate concerns behind many of these issues, but they are often unrealistic, based on absurd assumptions (like no technological advancement), and every one of them has been an issue since ancient Greece.
Sustainable development, possibly the most self-explanatory term in our vocabulary, refers to social and economic development that does not waste future resources and, therefore, is sustainable. Basically it’s eco-friendly economic development.
Sustainable societies are those in which the three key forces – social, economic, and environmental – are in balance. Satisfying all three is the most daunting challenge faced by decision makers today. Each force seems, at times, to be in conflict with the other two; but the conflict between the three is the driving force behind almost all societal, economic, technological, and environmental progress.
The economy is generally the most useful of the three forces because it is a societal construct and can be manipulated effectively by a relatively small group of large governments and powerful corporations. It is not only possible, but also practical to manipulate society and the environment by making economic changes. Economic equality, for example, almost always leads to social equality and changes in hiring practices, wages, and working conditions have had a huge impact on societies.
In this country the civil rights movement, women’s movement, and the progressive movement of the early 20th century stand out as examples of economic manipulation, namely more fair hiring practices and wages and safer working conditions, ushering in extreme social change.
Economics also can be used to protect the environment. If, for example, OPEC fixed the price of crude oil at three hundred dollars per barrel, consumption of gasoline would plummet and scientists would find a workable alternative within a couple years. The environmental pillar would be moved drastically in the right direction by controlling the economic pillar, though not without cost.
The global economy, however, is also driven by environmental and social factors. As environmental problems become more severe, for example, natural economic forces will facilitate a shift (however slow) to cleaner fuels and better planning. This shift has already begun in the form of Research and Development into clean fuels, lightweight materials, and more efficient engines. R & D is the precursor to technological advance.
Returning for a moment to the women’s movement and civil rights movement, they also are excellent examples of social changes leading to economic change. Employers were forced to accept both women and African Americans in capacities they otherwise would not have been considered for because the enormous war effort caused a labor shortage. Having experienced opportunities previously given only to white men, both groups refused to again take a back seat and they were able to make enough noise to convince political powers that a new solution was needed.
Similarly, as population growth slows in many developed economies, labor shortages and increasing levels of indebtedness will force businesses to underdeveloped countries in search of both a labor force and a new consumer base.
While I maintain that growth is not necessary in a capitalist economy, growth does lead to higher profits. Businesses will, therefore, always seek growth. If the consumer base in developed economies like the U.S., U.K., Canada, and Japan stops growing or, worse, begins to shrink, businesses will be forced to create growth elsewhere by paying better wages in factories already in place in the “third world.”
Evidence of this transition is already present, though it is admittedly difficult to see. Levels of indebtedness have been rising in rich countries over the last twenty-or-so years while population growth has slowed drastically, together indicating that our consumer base may be nearing its limit. Businesses also are positioning themselves overseas; knowingly or unknowingly they are preparing for the transition to greater social and economic development in the third world.
At times our economy is limited by our environment and our social growth is limited in turn by our economic means. Some have even suggested that further economic development threatens to outstrip our resources, ruining our environment and sending society back to the Stone Age. It is my position, however, that as long as we actively adapt to each new challenge we can sustain our level of cultural and societal complexity indefinitely.
Keys to sustainable development:
1. Phase out fossil fuels: Our dependence on fossil fuels goes beyond the automotive industry. Planes, factories, and farm equipment are just a few of a bevy of dependant technologies being overlooked. We also will need to find a replacement for the motor oil we use as a lubricant.
2. Rethink agriculture: We need to farm in such a way that the land remains fertile for future generations and vastly important water resources are not contaminated. The solution may be to better control fertilizer; it may be to rotate crops such that the soil is replenished regularly and needs less fertilizer. Once we have the solution the spread of the new technology will be crucial.
3. Mechanization and of “third-world” agriculture: There are three important benefits of sustainable, mechanized agriculture for sustainable development. Countries will be able to produce more food on less land; the land will not be ruined by over-farming; people who previously were farmers will be forced to the cities and the transition to an urban, educated culture will be accelerated, resulting in slower population growth; jobs will be created as more people are needed to process, market and sell food; people will be more healthy as meat becomes more available.
4. Rich countries need to invest overseas: If food production industries are to be modernized, the “third world” needs roads, cars, processing plants, trains, planes, airports, ships and seaports. Transportation and processing will be key and they do not have the capital for so many changes.
5. International Minimum Wage: Without it poor people will continue to have dozens of kids and the kids will work for next to nothing in dangerous factory conditions. The U.S. and her allies need to be responsible and slave wages and child labor need to stop.
6. The world needs more teachers: If conditions are ever to improve, people must not only grow richer, but smarter as well. If children are free to attend school, meaning their parents can support them alone, they will be the ones to advance society, providing there is someone to teach them.
7. Gender Equality: If women are working they are likely to have fewer kids. If they work and have kids, fewer of their kids will have to, and if there kids don’t work they may go to school. If women are recognized as equals, boys and girls will be allowed an education and the next generation of educated women will probably have fewer kids and the women that have kids will be more capable of raising educated kids. Finally, twice as many educated people is always a good thing; technological advance will accelerate as more people contribute. In short, gender equality is key to both education and economic development.
Archive: Drugs
Since the 1980’s, the government and media have warned the American people about the dangers of drugs like cocaine, heroine and LSD. The Reagan administration even went so far as to call the anti-drug crusade the “War on Drugs.”
Hard drugs like crack, PCP, and methamphetamines are dangerous, not to mention morally wrong. However, I believe that all drugs should be legal because the collateral damage from anti-drug legislation does as much or more damage than the drugs themselves.
According to the United States Department of Justice one out of every fifteen U.S. citizens will serve time in a state or federal prison at some time in their life.
The problem is even more appalling among men and minority communities. A 2000 study by the Department of Justice estimates that 18% of all African Americans, over 11% of all men, 32% of all black men and 17% of all Hispanic men will serve prison time. Of the 1.3 million American citizens these numbers represent, 21% of state and 57% of federal inmates are serving time for a drug offense.
There are two major flaws in the reasoning behind the war on drugs. First, people assume that harsh penalties will deter young people from becoming involved in the drug trade – the opposite is true. Second is the assumption that eliminating drug dealers eliminates drugs. In actuality it simply creates a job opening.
Many drug dealers sell drugs, often on a smaller scale, for the first time as a young child. As anyone with children will tell you deterrents are at best only partially effective on young people. Children have no concept of time and no concept of their own limitations. They also rarely understand the long term consequences of their decisions; that is what parents are for.
These kids may only make a couple hundred dollars a week selling drugs, but ask any thirteen year-old to choose between doing their homework or making $300 and see what they say. While a rational adult may see that those couple hundred dollars aren’t worth sacrificing an education, for that child, especially a poor child, school takes on a less important role.
By the time many of these kids are seventeen year old crack dealers they’ve been selling drugs for the better part of a decade, have little in the way of an academic knowledge base, and still are too young to be expected to understand the consequences of their actions.
It is ludicrous for our society to expect a poor teenager, let alone a young child, to be deterred by the long-term disadvantages of dealing drugs especially with cocaine priced at between $12,000 and $35,000 per kilo, according to a study by the DEA. It’s equally unrealistic to expect a teenager with no options to give that kind of lifestyle – one in which they may make as much money as a doctor or lawyer – up for a job at Burger King.
The idea that putting dealers behind bars will stem demand is even sillier. Nobody stops using drugs because their favorite drug dealer has been locked away; they just go to someone else. Drug addiction is much too powerful to be stopped by inconvenience, as are the underlying issues that lead to drug use in the first place. The only way to rid ourselves of the problem is to study and treat drug users.
By outlawing drugs, we’ve simultaneously fueled gang violence, driven prices down, increased production and created and unregulated black market for the banned substances. It is no coincidence that gang violence surged to unprecedented heights in the eighties and nineties as crack became king of the American underbelly, nor should this link surprise anyone.
The key to understanding why the war on drugs has failed is simple economics. In a free market economy, which is what we’re talking about in its most pure form, competition drives price down and quality and convenience up.
That is why, according to a report by Mary Cooper, drugs are more pure, cheaper, and easier to find than ever. It’s also why more drugs are being cut with Drain-o and rat poisoning – drug dealers need to cut costs.
Competition also causes is conflict. People fight most ferociously when something tangible is at stake. Pride or respect may be the focus of romanticized Hollywood movies on the subject, but money transformed the American gangbanger from neighborhood ruffian into cold-blooded killer.
The lack of regulation, however, has been equally important and has had equally tragic results. Overdoses kill thousands of people each year. If drugs were legal, purity could be regulated and drugs would be cut with benign substances people would have a better idea for how much they were taking and overdoses would become far less common.
Luckily, the problems caused by the war on drugs can be fixed fairly easily: by legalizing, commercializing, and regulating all drugs. Many of the proposed changes, especially those related to marijuana, are similar to policies regarding alcohol.
I propose that marijuana use be restricted to adults aged eighteen and older and that hard drugs be restricted to those twenty-one and older. Furthermore, it should be illegal to use marijuana outside of one’s own residence and specially-designated clubs as the smoke may cause others to become intoxicated.
While marijuana may be treated in much the same way as alcohol, it is actually less dangerous and much less addictive, hard drugs are an entirely different animal. Drugs like crack and heroine are dangerous, overdoses often result in death, and they are very addictive.
Commission of any crime while under the influence of hard drugs should result in a significant extension of the normal sentence. The amount of time added should be doubled in the event of a serious violent crime like murder, rape, attempted murder, or any crime involving the use of a deadly weapon.
Overdoses would be greatly reduced by rating (and restricting) the purity of drugs and this information would be clearly indicated on whatever container is used for public distribution. Limitations as to what drugs may or may not be cut with would serve to further protect the public.
Heavy taxes and difficult-to-obtain distribution licenses (for hard drugs) would facilitate a swift takeover by large corporations or government-owned monopolies. This would eliminate small distributors and, therefore, allow for strict government and quality control.
Our country would also reap the benefits of what Cooper estimates as a 400 billion dollar industry which, given time, could be entirely home grown.
In addition to the enormous new revenue stream provided by taxing that industry, our government could less on prisons ($20,000 per inmate per year), law enforcement – 17.8 billion per year according to Cooper’s study, and court costs – 621,000 jail inmates in 2000, according to a report from the Bureau of Justice Statistics.
With nothing tangible to fight about, gang violence should decline steadily and police would be allowed to focus on enforcing other areas of the law (Murder, Rape, Home Invasion, etc.) rather than wasting their time and our money making drug busts (job openings).
More importantly, without a field of work promising fast money with little or no education or experience, more young people could focus on school and achieve their vast potential.
Since the 1980’s the government and popular media have done everything in their power to sell us on the benefits of the “War on Drugs.” I’ve probably heard a thousand accounts of how drugs ruined an addict’s life, or how a young child was caught in the crossfire of a local gang war.
What I have not heard, unfortunately, is how the war on drugs has aggravated and, in some cases, created peripheral problems like gang violence and drug overdoses.
The war on drugs has created a “career” requiring no experience, education, and with no age limits; where it’s possible to make tens of thousands of dollars in a matter of weeks; one that often ends in prison or worse. By legalizing drugs, I seek only to eliminate the temptation caused by the drug trade.
Legalizing drugs will not eradicate drug use, but it will greatly reduce peripheral problems like drug overdoses, gang violence, crowded prisons, and the damage done to drug dealers. If we cannot prevent people from using drugs (we can’t), the least we can do is limit the collateral damage.
Archive: Gun Control
In 1994, the United States saw problems such as gun violence that had been escalating for several decades reach an all time high; later that year Congress passed the Brady Bill and a ban on nineteen different types of assault rifle. Since that time, the rates for all types of violent and property crime have decreased every year and all-time lows were achieved for both in 2003; despite rhetoric to the contrary, gun control legislation, even flawed legislation, does prevent crime.
According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, 1.3 million people were the victim of a firearm related violent crime in 1994. The availability of military weapons was the major reason for the glut of gun violence our country experienced in the 1990’s. The abolishment of those weapons, aided by the restrictions placed on handguns, nearly cut our crime rate in half in less than a decade.
Furthermore, our total rate for violent crime fell from 51.2 down to 22.3 from 1994 to 2003 (per thousand), according to the United States Department of Justice. That’s a decrease of over 100%, more than 10% per year. Total property crime has also decreased every year, from 310.2 in ’94 to 163.2 in ’03.
The area of crime impacted the most directly by this legislation is gun crime. The rate for total firearm crime fell dramatically, from 2.1 in ’93 to 1.2 in ’03. In addition, the rate for murder fell from 6.6 to 3.8 (per 100,000); this country is a safer place because of gun control.
The reason for this phenomenon is simple. Normal home-owning hard-working middle class families don’t normally own Uzi’s or HK-53’s; they have no reason to. Criminals, on the other hand, use the cheapest, most effective weapon available. The availability of assault rifles gives the criminal a technological advantage and confidence. That combination proved deadly in the early 1990’s.
Before the ban, anyone of age could purchase assault rifles legally for less than $1,000. Under the ban, arms dealers were unlikely to risk a prison sentence by selling to just anybody. Also, these weapons were much more expensive due to scarcity and the risks involved with smuggling them into the country.
The 10-year assault rifle ban ran out last year and already AR-15’s are available for under $1,000 and AK-47’s for $450.
The winner of the debate over gun control versus gun rights is obvious: gun control wins. The extra paper-work hunters and gun lovers had to do for the last ten years helped prevent hundreds of thousands of rapes, robberies and assaults and thousands of murders.
What Congress needs to do is reinstate the assault rifle ban, take the ban a step further by collecting the assault rifles already owned by private citizens and expand it to include all assault rifles. Guns will be much more difficult to obtain with a longer waiting period and would be much more expensive, preventing ordinary people from committing a “crime of passion.”
Next, safety training should be a prerequisite for licensing, and operating a firearm under the influence will carry a stiff penalty and be strictly enforced. The sooner we, as a society, learn that guns are not toys, the sooner we’ll stop hearing about kids accidentally shooting themselves and others.
This plan won’t cost us anything. Hunters will still hunt, people will still be able to “protect their homes,” and gun nuts will just have to find something else to collect. Furthermore, by reinstating and expanding these laws, the trend towards lower crime that began in 1994 would continue and gain momentum. These safeguards would bring our country closer to the lower crime rates experienced by Japan, China and Europe.
In 2003 “only” 500,000 people were victims of firearm crime – down from 1.3 million in 1994 – yet in 2004 the ban on assault rifles ran out and in 2006 our conservative Congress still has made no attempt at renewing the ban.
Archive: Female Genital Mutilation
“As an innocent child I was led like a sheep to be slaughtered…I was taken to a very dark room and undressed. I was blindfolded and stripped naked.”
“I was then carried by four strong women to the site for the operation. I was forced to lie flat on my back by four strong women, two holding tight to each leg. Another woman sat on my chest to prevent my upper from moving”
“….The pain was terrible and unbearable…I was badly cut and lost blood. All those who took part in the operation were half drunk….After the operation, no one was allowed to aid me to walk….”
“Each time I wanted to urinate, I was forced to stand upright. The urine would spread over the wound and would cause fresh pain…Sometimes I had to force myself not to urinate for fear of the terrible pain.”
“I was not given any anesthetic…nor any antibiotics to fight against infection. Afterwards I hemorrhaged and became anemic. This was attributed to witchcraft.”
According to Amnesty International, 135 million girls and women have undergone genital mutilation similar to what Hannah Koroma of Sierra Leone just described and another 6,000 young girls are estimated to endure the procedure every day.
The problem is most serious in Sub-Saharan Africa where 90% of the girls in Djibouti, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Sierra Leone, Somalia and Sudan are estimated to have been mutilated. There are fifteen more countries in Africa where 50% or more of their girls have been mutilated.
There are four types of Female Genital Mutilation (FGM). Sunna circumcision involves the removal of the tip of the clitoris and/or clitoral hood. Clitoridectomy is the removal of the entire clitoris; sometimes the adjacent labia are also removed; this operation is known as excision.
The most gruesome type of FGM is called infibulation or Pharaonic circumcision, in which a clitoridectomy and excision are performed and the outer labia are cut “to create raw surfaces which are then stitched together to form a cover over the vagina.” A small opening is left to allow urine and menstrual blood to pass.
An estimated 85% of mutilations performed in Africa are clitoridectomies or excisions; the remaining 15% are infibulations. According to Amnesty International, FGM usually takes place between the ages of four and eight. The procedure is typically carried out by an older woman – not medically trained – with scissors, razor blades, or knives.
The equipment is rarely sterilized and anesthesia is not commonly used. The girl is simply held, by one or more older women, with her legs open. Importantly, these operations are often done on a group of girls; the same instrument is often used on the entire group.
According to Amnesty International, the immediate effects of FGM include hemorrhage, shock, and pain. These symptoms can and have led to death. Because the instrument is often used on several girls and rarely sterilized, HIV can and has been transmitted through FGM.
More commonly, clitoridectomy can cause intermittent bleeding, chronic infections, abscesses, and small benign tumors. Excision commonly causes discomfort and extreme pain.
According to Amnesty International, infibulation can cause “chronic urinary tract infections, stones in the bladder and urethra, kidney damage, reproductive tract infections resulting from obstructed menstrual flow, pelvic infections, infertility, excessive scar tissue, keloids (raised, irregularly shaped, progressively enlarging scars) and dermoid cysts.”
All types of genital mutilation can adversely affect sexual fulfillment and damage sometimes caused by FGM increases the risk of HIV transmission during sex.
Infibulation also requires further operations after the girl is wed. In order to have sex, the opening left after mutilation must be gradually dilated; this process is very painful. Worse yet, in many cases cutting is necessary, in which case women may be damaged further by “unskillful cutting.”
Childbirth poses further risks as infibulated women have cesarean sections at higher rates. For a vaginal birth the woman may have to be cut again or the baby may tear open the vaginal covering. Often the woman is “reinfibulated to make them ‘tight’ for their husbands.” According to religious tolerance.org, women may also be reinfibulated if their husband plans to be away for an extended period of time to prevent infidelity.
Female Genital Mutilation is commonly, and incorrectly, linked with Islam in many people’s minds. FGM is a cultural practice. While the practice does take place in some Muslim countries, it originated in Africa and predates Islam. Furthermore, Islamic teachings forbid most types of FGM.
There are many reasons given for FGM, ranging from specious claims of health benefits to assertions that the practice enhances femininity (marked by docility and obedience) and the rather blunt reality that it “reduces a woman’s desire for sex, therefore reducing the chance of sex outside marriage.” The most common reasons given are references to custom and tradition. Older women subject young girls to mutilation because their mothers mutilated them.
Though the reasons for practicing FGM are well documented – if misguided – the original intent of the practice is not known. Common sense would seem to suggest an attempt to control a woman’s sexuality or reproduction. The nature of infibulation, in particular, seems to support this view.
Some, however, have drawn parallels between FGM and male circumcision. They would argue that it is a cultural practice akin to face shaving, tattooing, foot-binding or other cultural practices associated with attracting a partner – but how many people die from shaving?
Regardless of why FGM originally emerged, it is a serious problem. Young girls are, in essence, being tortured and permanently damaged against their will. Not only is FGM an appalling violation of these girls’ human rights, it is a sickening reminder of the failure of the U.S. and other rich, industrialized countries’ unwillingness to protect them.
FGM is a tragic physical representation of the poverty and ignorance more than one billion people live with every day. It is a reminder that, rather than be a powerful positive force in the world, build schools or economies, or fund rural education programs that could actually stop FGM, the United States consistently acts in the interest of immediate security concerns and maximization of American corporate profits.
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