Judging – Page 4 – Sommer Season all year

Seriously! I Don’t Get it.

A confused Canadian needs help understanding American politics.

On the evening of September 26, 2016, I watched the US presidential debate with interest since US presidents do have an impact on my country. After watching the full debate, I was dumbfounded. To be perfectly honest, I just don’t understand why Americans can support Donald Trump for president.

During the evening, my watching of the debate was interrupted when my wife ran into a computer technical problem. When helping her, we phoned a support line to talk to a very delightful young man from Texas. During our time on the phone with him, I mentioned that I was watching their presidential debate to which he responded, “so am I”. A discussion then ensued about the presidential election. What struck my wife and I during the discussion was his remark that it“was scary” what was occurring in the 2016 election. This young man identified himself as a Bernie Sanders supporter and he spoke very highly of Mr. Sanders. He also made mention of our Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, and said (paraphrased), “If only we had someone like your Prime Minister. He is such a cool guy”. I fill with Canadian pride when I hear foreigners praise our PM.

Now as I mentioned, I simply cannot comprehend why Americans support Donald Trump. Despite what Mr. Trump’s surrogates say, this man is a racist, a misogynist, a bigot, a sexist, a liar, and a vain man. Allow me to state my case.

Donald Trump is a racist: A racist is a person who believes that a particular race of people is superior to another. Many of the statements Mr. Trump has made prove this. Drawing from US Weekly’s article, Donald Trump’s Most Offensive and Outrageous Quotes, one of Mr. Trump’s most obvious racist remarks was during his presidential announcement speech in June 2015 when he said, “When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending the best. They’re not sending you … they’re sending people that have lots of problems and they’re bringing those problems with us. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.”

Then there is the birther issue. After much discussion about whether President Obama was an American citizen, the President released his birth certificate in 2011. On August 12, 2012, Mr. Trump tweeted, An ‘extremely credible source’ has called my office and told me that Barack Obama’s birth certificate is a fraud. (see a Bustle article, The 16 Worst Donald Trump Quotes..) The GOP candidate even questioned President Obama’s religion. The Huffington Post reports that Trump said, “He may have one, but there is something on that birth certificate,” he explained, suggesting the document could highlight something the president doesn’t want voters to see. “Maybe religion. Maybe it says he’s a Muslim. I don’t know. Maybe he doesn’t want that. Or he may not have one. I will tell you this: if he wasn’t born in this country, it’s one of the great scams of all time.” Sounds like a racist to me.

He is a misogynist. This is a person who dislikes, despises, or is strongly prejudiced against women. Trump wrote in his 2006 book, Trump 101: The Way to Success, “Beauty and elegance, whether in a woman, a building, or a work of art, is not just superficial or something pretty to see.” For Mr. Trump, women have no use except to be objects to be admired.

He also is accused of having called Miss Universe Alicia Machado “Miss Piggy” and “Miss Housekeeping” after she gained weight in the months after she won the Miss Universe pageant in 1996. That sounds like misogyny to me.

The Republican presidential candidate is a bigot. A bigot is a person who is intolerant toward those holding different opinions. The fact that he has called for a complete ban on Muslims says he is intolerant of Muslims. The point that he intends to build a physical wall on the US-Mexican border says he is intolerant of Hispanic people.

Trump is a sexist. A sexist as defined by Merriam-Webster as behavior or attitudes that foster stereotypes of social roles based on sex. Interestingly, the Lost Angeles Times reports an employee at his California golf club saying, “I had witnessed Donald Trump tell managers many times while he was visiting the club that restaurant hostesses were ‘not pretty enough’ and that they should be fired and replaced with more attractive women,” His comments about Alicia Machado also is evidence of this.

The man is very vain. According to CNN, in August of 2015, he said, “It’s very hard for them to attack me on looks because I’m so good looking.” Or in January of 2016, he said, “I could stand in the middle of 5^th avenue and shoot somebody and wouldn’t lose voters”.

On Jimmy Fallon’s The Tonight Show in September 2015 he said, “I think apologizing’s a great thing, but you have to be wrong. I will absolutely apologize, sometime in the hopefully distant future, if I’m ever wrong.” Have you ever heard Trump apologize for anything? I haven’t.

Mr. Trump lies. The New York Times article, The Lies Trump Told, lists 27 lies that the GOP candidate has made that fact checkers have shown to be a falsehood.

Then there is this strange “love in” that Donald Trump seems to have with Russian President Vladimir Putin. In December of 2015, Trump said, “[Putin] is a strong leader…He’s making mincemeat out of our president.”

When the topic of possible Russian involvement in cyberattacks came up during the first debate, Mr. Trump said, “She’s saying Russia, Russia, Russia… It could also be China… It could also be somebody sitting on their bed who weighs 400 pounds. You don’t know who hacked into the DNC… But what did we learn from documents? We learned Bernie Sanders was taken advantage of by your people. … Whether that was Russia, China or another country… The truth is under President Obama we’ve lost control.” (Quotes from the debate). This raises red flags for me in light of the recent reports of alleged Russian cyberattacks and evidence that a Dutch-led criminal investigation into the 2014 downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 found evidence that the airliner was struck by a Russian-made missile that was moved into eastern Ukraine from Russia. (see USA Today)

I also question why Mr. Trump is the only person running for President that has not released his tax returns in 40 years. Even Trump’s running mate has released his. What is he hiding? According to the leaked 1995 tax papers, he’s hiding the fact that he likely doesn’t pay any income taxes.

Hillary Clinton has called Donald Trump a “loose cannon.” This is an unpredictable or uncontrolled person who is likely to cause unintentional damage. Politico Magazine has an article, Clinton explains ‘loose cannon’ attack on Trump, where she provides her reasons. I think she makes a good case. In March, during a town hall with MSNBC’s Chris Matthews, the following was said.

MATTHEWS: OK. The trouble is, when you said that, the whole world heard it. David Cameron in Britain heard it. The Japanese, where we bombed them in 45, heard it. They`re hearing a guy running for president of the United States talking of maybe using nuclear weapons. Nobody wants to hear that about an American president.

TRUMP: Then why are we making them? Why do we make them?

I don’t know about you, but that scares the hell out of me. Do Americans really want someone like this to have control of nuclear weapons?

Now I could go on and on. The media report that Trump and Clinton are in a virtual dead heat. Now I know Hillary Clinton has her baggage. I get that. I also understand the desire for change. That was evident in our country during the 2015 election, but it seems when Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton are the likely choices for president, there is only one choice. Furthermore, there must be a reason why none of the big name Republicans (see the List), such as both former President Bushes, have not endorsed this man.

So I repeat, I just cannot understand why Donald Trump has so much support. So in all seriousness, if you can “shed some light” on this, please do. Please enlighten me!

Remembering 9/11 and Rethinking Terrorism.

A commentary on terrorism.

2011-09-11-schorwtc1 — From Huffington Post

This week is the 15^th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks against the United States. The world changed that day. I distinctly remember feeling that way when I learned of the horrific acts of terror effected that day. Mohammed Adam wrote a column in the Ottawa Citizen entitled, Fearful shadows of 9/11 still haunt Muslims, where he wrote:

Post-9/11, Islam was vilified and many Muslims were attacked and hounded as potential terrorists. Muslim women in particular, easily identifiable by their hijabs, faced verbal abuse, intimidation and even violence. A lot of bad things — the Iraq war, torture, Guantanamo — all happened. Draconian laws that curtailed age-old freedoms were passed, including here in Canada.

There has been a rise in anti-Muslim hate crimes in recent months especially since Donald Trump, Republican presidential nominee, has been spouting his rhetoric about a Muslim immigration ban. The Guardian article, Hate crimes and attacks against Muslims, reports the Council on American-Islamic Relations (Cair) published new data showing that incidents against Muslims in California increased by 58% between 2014 and 2015, and that communities throughout the US are seeing similar trends.

Many French Riviera mayors imposed a ban on full-body bathing suits known as burkinis this summer. France’s top court later ruled that basic freedoms were infringed upon and that mayors had overstepped their powers when they decreed a ban on burkinis at the beach. BBC News reports that French cities, such as Nice, have since lifted the controversial ban to be in line with a national court ruling. French opinion polls suggested most French people backed the burkini bans igniting fierce debate in France and around the world, with Muslims saying they were being unfairly discriminated against. Now I think the court decision was the right decision. It is simply discriminatory for one group with one set of values to tell another group that their set of values is wrong or at the very least unwelcome.

Even Pope Francis, leader of the world’s Catholics, defends Muslims. In the CBC article, Pope Francis defends Muslims, the pope says,

“I think it is not right to identify Islam with terrorism. It is not right and it is not true. I don’t like to talk about Islamic violence because every day when I look at the papers I see violence here in Italy – someone killing his girlfriend, someone killing his mother-in-law. These are baptized Catholics. If I speak of Islamic violence, I have to speak of Catholic violence. Not all Muslims are violent.”

The pope went on to talk about the causes of terrorism. He said,

“I know it is dangerous to say this but terrorism grows when there is no other option and when money is made and it, instead of the person, is put at the centre of the world economy. I ask myself how many young people that we Europeans have left devoid of ideals, who do not have work. Then they turn to drugs and alcohol or enlist in ISIS.”

Now I certainly don’t agree with everything Pope Francis says but I agree with him on this. I agree that terrorism is related to social problems. Terrorism is defined by Dictionary.com as the use of violence and threats to intimidate or coerce, especially for political purposes. With that definition one could argue that many if not most acts of violence are acts of terrorism. Let’s look at the city of Chicago, Illinois in the United States as an example. That city has been making news headlines lately because of its high rate of gun violence. CNN reports in its report, 500 homicides. 9 months. 1 American city, that on Labor Day weekend Chicago’s 500th homicide of the year took place. These are Americans carrying out acts of terror on one another and I suspect the majority of violent acts are not carried out by Muslims. So I asked myself, Why? This article says there are nearly 82 shootings per week. What does that tell me? Guns are too readily available but that is a whole other post. But why would people want to carry out acts of violence? Some Chicagoans blame the violence on economic struggles and lack of jobs. What’s interesting to note is Chicago’s unemployment rate fell from 6.1% in 2015 to 5.5% in 2016. Others say social problems are the root cause of the violence. Regardless of the cause, my point is that there is so much media emphasis on Islamic extremism when really there is much more terrorism being caused by non-Muslims. Most acts of terrorism are carried out by home grown non-Muslim citizens.

In our local paper recently there was headline titled, Mobile Muslims launch 40-day campaign. The story explained that members of the Muslim community stopped in our little town spreading teachings of peace and love in hopes of changing their religion’s stereotype. One of the Mobile Muslims said, “There are many and false teachings associated with Islam and we need to dispel them.” CBC did a piece on this group called, Muslims go on cross-country tour. Kudos to the Mobile Muslims who are trying to set the record straight. It’s time to stop blaming terrorism on the all Muslims. The number of radical Muslims who practice terrorism is only a small group.

But let’s not forget that radicalism is not unique to Islam. The news site, AlterNet.org, published an article called, 6 Modern-Day Christian Terrorist Groups You Never Hear About, which talks about six Christian terrorist groups. These are groups like the “Army of God” who openly promote killing abortion providers and who also have a history of promoting violence against the LGBT community. It also talks about “The Lord’s Resistance Army” (LRA) who according to Human Rights Watch, has committed thousands of killings and kidnappings. It seems terrorism does not exclusively belong to Muslim extremists. The Christian religion has had its fair share of extremists. Terrorism, no matter who carries it out, is WRONG! Discrimination against any group is WRONG! It’s time we focus on building a world of tolerance and understanding.

Are All Muslims Extremists?

A commentary on “Islamic or Muslim Extremists”.

On June 21, CBC.ca reported that a Muslim woman was attacked in a shopping mall. The article says a Muslim woman shopping with her four-month-old son was attacked in a London, Ontario supermarket and according to police the fourth reported event against visible minorities in the city in the past eight months. The day before, CBC reported A pig’s head left outside a Quebec City mosque was the latest in a string of incidents pointing to a rising tide of Islamophobia across Quebec. This is just days after the horrific attack in Orlando, Florida when a gunman massacred 49 people in a nightclub.

On June 12, the night of the attack, Donald. Trump, GOP presidential nominee tweeted: What has happened in Orlando is just the beginning. Our leadership is weak and ineffective. I called it and asked for the ban. Must be tough. In other words, his view is to ban all Muslims from entering the USA, a position he put forth during the primaries.

On June 13 Donald Trump gave an address on terrorism, immigration and nation security. During that address he said;

The immigration laws of the United States give the President the power to suspend entry into the country of any class of persons that the President deems detrimental to the interests or security of the United States, as he deems appropriate. I will use this power to protect the American people. When I am elected, I will suspend immigration from areas of the world when there is a proven history of terrorism against the United States, Europe or our allies, until we understand how to end these threats.

It’s no secret that Mr. Trump plans to ban Muslims from entering the United States. So what is happening? Is Mr. Trump, along with many other individuals, stereotyping Muslims, that is, categorizing them as potential “radical Islamists”? So I have to ask the questions: Is it fair to lump all Muslims together and label them potential “radical Islamists”? Should we fear Muslims because they might be terrorists? To answer these questions I did some research.

Globalresearch.ca is a Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG). It is an independent research and media organization based in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Since the CRG is a registered non-profit organization and was created to do research on global issues, I would then conclude that it is a credible source. This organization has concluded that non-Muslims carried out more than 90% of all terrorist attacks in the United States. (see Non-Muslims…) The article cites a graph that provides statistics from 1980 to 2005 from the FBI Database. According to this data, there were more Jewish acts of terrorism (7%) within the United States than Islamic (6%). The article also says the U.S. News and World Report noted in February 2013: Of the more than 300 American deaths from political violence and mass shootings since 9/11, only 33 have come at the hands of Muslim-Americans, according to the Triangle Center on Terrorism and Homeland Security.

The Economist’s article, The plague of global terrorism reports:

Last year (2014) 32,700 people were killed in attacks worldwide, nearly twice as many as in 2013… Most of the deaths last year (and every year) are in the Middle East and Africa, not the West. Iraq, Nigeria, Syria, Pakistan and Afghanistan together account for three-quarters of the global total. Western countries suffered under 3% of all deaths in the past 15 years…The Paris attacks and the downing of a Russian airliner in Egypt killed more than 100 people each. Such lethal attacks are rare but are increasing. Last year, there were 26 compared with a handful in 2013. Most were carried out by ISIS, and most occurred in Iraq. And terrorism is spreading. 67 countries saw at least one death last year compared with 59 the year before.

So according to the Economist, less than 3% of all deaths in the West in the past 15 years were due to terrorist attacks. According to globalresearch.ca article, The Terrorism Statistics Every American Needs to Hear, the leading cause of deaths for Americans traveling abroad is not terrorism or murder or even a crime of any sort; it’s car crashes. With the exception of the Philippines, more Americans died from road crashes in all of the 160 countries surveyed than from homicides. The article also claims, you are 35,079 times more likely to die from heart disease than from a terrorist attack It too says you are 33,842 times more likely to die from cancer than from a terrorist attack.

The World Post has an article titled, Muslims Are Not Terrorists: A Factual Look at Terrorism and Islam, which makes some interesting points. One of their points is: Even if all terrorist attacks were carried out by Muslims, you still could not associate terrorism with Islam. It supports that statement with the fact that there have been 140,000 terror attacks committed worldwide since 1970. Even if Muslims carried out all of these attacks, those terrorists would represent less than 0.00009 percent of all Muslims. To put things into perspective, this means that you are more likely to be struck by lightning in your lifetime than a Muslim is likely to commit a terrorist attack during that same time span.

This article also says that if you’re going to claim that all Muslims are terrorists, then you must also claim all Muslims are peacemakers. The article says that the same statistical assumptions being used to falsely portray Muslims as violent people can be used more accurately to portray Muslims as peaceful people. If all Muslims are terrorists because a single digit percentage of terrorists happen to be Muslim, then all Muslims are peacemakers because 5 out of the past 12 Nobel Peace Prize winners (42%) have been Muslims.

So what are my conclusions? My take on things is that the media has perpetrated the belief that most or even all terrorism is due to “Muslim extremists”. I say this because as typical of the news media, terrorist attacks, especially those carried out by “Muslim extremists”, get sensationalized in the media.. This myth perpetrated by the media is contrary to the evidence I sited earlier. It is blatantly unethical to group all believers of Islam as potential terrorists. That is why Donald Trump’s call for the Untied States to ban all Muslims for entering the States is unmerited and is based on misconceptions. Besides, banning Muslim immigrants does not guarantee a nation’s safety from terrorism since the latest incident in Orlando, Florida was carried out by an American born, non-practicing Muslim. I do not believe all Muslims are potential terrorists. I believe that most Muslims are peaceful, law-abiding people. Mr. Trump has used the phrase “Islamic Extremists” numerous times as have others. To think there is only extremism in Islam is naïve. The Christian religion has had its share as well. One of the latest, according to Wikipedia, was in November of 2015 when Robert Lewis Dear killed three and injured nine at the Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado Springs, Colorado. The Christian terrorist voiced on several occasions his support for radical Christian views and interpretations of the Bible, and praised people who attacked abortion providers, saying they were doing “God’s work.” It’s interesting to note that this incident was not talked about for numerous days afterward.

Is our world less safe than it once was because of extremism? Yes it is. But should we be fearful of Muslims and Islamic terrorists? No. If we become a culture of fear then terrorists groups, such as ISIS, have succeeded in their mission which is to instill terror. Besides you’re more likely to be killed in a vehicle accident than in a terror attack.

Many Islamic leaders have condemned attacks carried out by “Muslim extremists”. I believe they will continue to do so and I have heard of many Muslims working to change the image people have of their religion. An ad campaign was launched in the United Kingdom to improve the image of Muslims. (see U.K. ad campaign). To quote the late Muhammad Ali, Terrorists are not following Islam. Killing people and blowing up people and dropping bombs in places and all this is not the way to spread the word of Islam. So people realize now that all Muslims are not terrorists. I say it is time to stop the senseless attacks on Muslims. Not all Muslims are a threat!

Judge Not!

Now that I have some time, I spend some time perusing the internet reading interesting articles. I recently read an article titled, We’re all the Same. Basically, the article says we as humans are quick to judge others. It makes bold statements like:

Let’s face it. We all do it. We judge.
We like to label others and shove them into this box.
We don’t like ”undefined” people.
We assume we know who someone is based on our interactions and observations.
Judging makes us feel safe and comfortable.
It gives us a sense of control.
But despite our best efforts to judge, we all know deep down inside, we can’t and shouldn’t really judge another person.

Now my initial reaction was, “Not me! I don’t judge people.” But who am I kidding? So I thought about it. Do I judge others or not? If I am honest with myself, the answer of course is “Yes”.

The year 2015 was a year of change for my wife and I. I retired from teaching. My eldest daughter moved to a different apartment which is closer to her work. My youngest daughter returned to university, so she is moved back to the city after living in the rural community she grew up in. And my son, who has been going to the local college, is moved to the city to continue his education at university. My wife is the only stable one (in more ways than one) as she is continuing with the same job.

So a few months ago, my wife and I were helping our eldest daughter find furniture for her new apartment. She had been getting some used stuff off of Kijji, an online garage sale site. She had looked at a media unit with an electric fire-place and decided to purchase it. She gave the young man $40 to hold it, and arranged to pick it up when I could bring up the truck. On a Saturday morning we arrived at this person’s apartment complex at the agreed upon time only to find that he was not there. My daughter texted him and called him only to discover his voice mail box was full. Being the Dad that I am, I immediately jumped to conclusions. As far as I was concerned this guy had ripped off my daughter. My daughter and wife, on the other hand, kept reminding me that maybe he had a family emergency or something. I, on the other hand, was convinced that he had swindled my daughter out of $40. After an hour of waiting and me “steaming” we left and continued with our day.

Now it turns out that this fine, young man did indeed have a family emergency. His explanation to my daughter alluded to perhaps a death in the family. This man felt very bad about the incident and returned my daughter’s $40 to her. I had totally misjudged the situation and the young man involved. Now I am the one feeling bad and guilty that I had so little faith in people. This was not the only time recently that I had jumped to conclusions and misjudged a situation.

As I mentioned earlier, I just retired from teaching. The school that I worked at submits a weekly newspaper column in the local papers. Well, at the end of June, I was all “bent out of shape” because my school (so I thought) did not even care that I was leaving after 26 years of service. They didn’t even have the decency to acknowledge my exit in the school column. I was feeling sorry for myself. I had convinced myself that my colleagues didn’t even care that I was leaving.

The next week the local papers arrived at our house and I my wife pointed out that I, and the other colleagues that retired with me, were acknowledged in the school column. Lesson learned (I hope); Do not be so quick to judge people and situations. Once again, I felt bad and guilty that I had so little faith in my colleagues. I know I could just blame it on “human nature”, but that is still not an excuse.

As a former school teacher I can recall numerous occasions where I prejudged students based on hearsay around the staffroom, only to discover that my experiences with those students were different from the prejudgements. It is so important to resist judging.

So, what is wrong with judging? I’m sure someone is wondering. The late Earl Nightingale, an American radio personality, writer, speaker and author who dealt mostly on the subjects of human character, once said, “When you judge others, you do not define them, you define yourself.” That is so true! Judging others is about our need to feel safe and comfortable. When we judge others we feel better about ourselves because judging others occurs when we believe we are better than the people we’ve judged. Really, we have no right to judge anyone unless we know everything about that person, which is impossible. There is a native American proverb that says, “Don’t judge any man until you have walked two moons in his moccasins.” As I learned from my experience with the young man who I believed conned by daughter out of $40, you never really know what is going on in that person’s life, so as in my case, most often our judgements are based on ignorance or misinformation.

So remember, things are not always what you perceive them to be or believe them to be. Don’t be so quick to judge a situation. Michael J. Fox, best known for his role as Marty McFly in the Back to the Future movie trilogy, once said, “The least amount of judging we can do, the better off we are.” He is right! I am going to try to follow Fox’s advice from now on, or at least that is the goal.