Saturday, April 2, 2016

Pregnant Limited-English Chinese Woman with Two Small Children given $500 meat fine - No Translator Offered - Zero Leeway


This page and my blog at https://cbpabuse.blogspot.com documents abuses by the United States Customs and Border Protection Service (CBP) against my wife and family, and to make note of & link to abuses received by others.

My wife speaks limited English. She's pregnant. She's prone to morning AKA all-day sickness related to her pregnancy. We have two young children, aged one and three.

She was the one fined $500.

She is the one threatened with expulsion from the Global Entry program, a program we signed up for specifically because we have young children and were hoping to spend less time in line when returning from China.

But, if you sign up for Global Entry, the CBP is much more interested in the contents of your bags - and any little specks of meat which may be inside.

Even if you declare that you do have meat at the Global Entry kiosks, and even if you do declare that you do have meat on the paper customs form, that's not enough for the angry, abusive, and anxious to pounce CBP officers. After 15+ hours of travel you must be required to verbally state every small instance of "meat" you may have, within 5 seconds of being asked. Otherwise it's a $500 fine for you, and a probable boot from Global Entry.

And if you're a limited English person who really should have a translator fully explaining what exactly is meant by the term "meat," doesn't matter! Still a $500 fine and a probable boot from Global Entry.

Fruit sniffing dogs.

Angry conniving & thuggish officers who are ready to pounce at the slightest misstep.

The CBP treats everyone like a criminal and everyone like a terrorist.

The face presented by the USA to visitors and returning citizens & residents is actively hostile.

Included below are quotes from letters we've shared with the White House, and with one of our senators. We've asked them for help, but we're not hopeful.

We suspect that the wheels of the CBP grind very finely. The CBP appears to be a de facto raquet and scam. A scam to get money & frankly to terrorize regular citizens & residents & visitors. Treating all people with the same blunt tool:
You will be treated with the same concise & exacting anger as one might expect for a drug dealer, prisoner, criminal, or a terrorist - if you have the smallest speck of prohibited food in your bags - and even if you select "yes" to the relevant questions on the customs forms and at the Global Entry kiosks as your "official" declaration as to what's inside your bags - and which does knowing route to you to mandatory all-bag inspection.

You try to be honest? After 15+ hours of travel you forget one speck of stuff? And even though you've selected "yes" as your official declaration which you know mandatorily routes you to full bag inspection? That's not enough for the thugs at CBP.
Thug is a strong word. But when it comes to brutalizing pregnancy tired sick women who speak limited English, and who try and "come home" to America with their two young children in tow - the term is fully accurate.

More details can be found in the quoted letters below sent to our elected representatives. We shall continue to document what happens with us in this blog.

Key items for your further review of this matter:

Items 1 & 2: Our letter to President Obama; our letter to one of our senators.

Combined PDF (opens in a new window).

HTML version below.

----------
Jonathan XXXXX with Yanning XXXXX and children XXXXX & XXXXX
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
XXXXXXXXXX, Utah XXXXX
March 31, 2016

President Obama
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, District of Columbia 20500

Dear President Obama,

As per your website’s invitation for feedback, and the general principles of freedom of speech & petitioning our government for a redress of grievances, I am writing to you today.

My wife is an immigrant from China and she speaks limited English. Recently she and our family were the recipients of abuse at the hands of the U.S. Customs & Border Protection Service (CBP) at the San Francisco Airport.

My wife packed our bags. We did select “yes” in answer to the meat & vegetables questions at the Global Entry kiosks and on the paper customs form. My wife is pregnant and is highly prone to morning sickness (AKA all-day sickness). We have two young children. We had just traveled for 15+ hours and were very tired. Our children were tired and were complaining. We were first greeted at the San Francisco Airport by an angry, yelling, and unhinged CBP officer who was yelling at a Chinese tour group in a large hallway to move on more quickly – while a tour guide was explaining how to fill out the paper customs form to this group. All these factors wore us down and resulted in this:

A failure on the part of my wife to verbally state, within 5 seconds or less to a CBP officer, that there was a very small amount of meat in our luggage. My wife didn’t fully understand exactly what was meant by “meat.” A large piece of meat? Meat in a loose bag & not in a sealed package? And she was never provided a translator. My wife reported that the words of the officer involved sounded muddled to her and were hard for her to understand. And my wife’s condition & ability to accurately & quickly respond was degraded due to tiredness & pregnancy & having to deal with and help our two young children.

But, she was the one fined $500. And she is now the one being threatened with expulsion from the Global Entry program. An expulsion of her from Global Entry would be a de facto expulsion of my whole family. My wife is the mother of our children, and we shall not travel separately nor stand in separate lines.

Enclosed is a petition I am sending to one of my senators, regarding help with the CBP. Inside my petition you shall find further reference to exactly what happened to us. Also included is relevant commentary regarding how others are generally treated by the CBP – how the initial “face of America” as presented to all visitors is a hostile one.

I know that Senator Hatch shall be forwarding my concerns to the agency involved for a response. If in your capacity as President you are able to provide some positive assistance that would be welcomed also.
Sincerely,

Jonathan XXXXX with Yanning XXXXX, & XXXXX & XXXXX  

----------
Jonathan XXXXX, with Yanning XXXXXand children XXXXX& XXXXX XXXXXXXXXX
XXXXX
,Utah XXXXX
March 28, 2016

Senator Orrin Hatch
c/o Help with Federal Agencies, with additional relevance to the Senate Committee on Finance & other committees
104 Hart Office Building
Washington, District of Columbia 20510

Greetings Senator Hatch,

Regarding the First Amendment, Right to Petition.

We are writing to request your help with the following federal agency: U.S. Customs & Border Protection Service (CBP).

Our petition for your office & the CBP begins.

The nature of our complaint has main three elements:

Issue 1: Demeanor of CBP officers at the San Francisco Airport port of entry.

Issue 2: Appeal regarding property seizure and of a fine.

Issue 3: Appeal regarding threats made to our Global Entry membership status, threats made during our visit to the San Francisco airport (SFO) on March 27, 2016.

My wife and I were legally married in the State of Utah. My wife currently has a Green Card and hopes to become a U.S. citizen.

We have two young children, age one (a girl) and three (a boy), and my wife is pregnant with our third child (a girl).

We obtained Global Entry memberships to help us be able to more easily return from China, and more recently & particularly because my wife is currently pregnant. We usually visit China once per year so that my wife can see her family, and so that our children can see their grandparents and uncles.

Regarding issue 1, the demeanor of officers at the San Francisco Airport port of entry.

Upon arrival at the San Francisco airport immediately after exiting the relevant airplane we were on, we noticed a Chinese tour group leader telling a group of travelers information about how to fill out a customs form. This was all happening in a secure large international passenger hallway & plane exit gate area, right next to a large sculpted artwork present in the large hallway.

An apparent tour leader was instructing his group regarding how to fill out the form, a CBP officer started yelling loudly from down the hall and barking orders for the group to move more quickly. The CBP officer was very angry and upset. The tour guide responded “ok ok,” whereupon the CBP officer said “NO IT’S NOT OK!!! MOVE IT! COME ON! MOVE IT!”

This was these peoples’ first introduction to America: An angry and unhinged CBP officer barking orders at them, all while their Chinese tour guide was trying to explain how to fill out a relevant CBP form in the large hallway outside of the relevant airline gate we all were at.

Regarding issue 2, an appeal regarding property seizure and of a fine:

Our family proceeded through the Global Entry kiosks ok. We believed we had filled out the relevant customs form for our family sufficiently. At the Global Entry kiosks we did select “yes” to the question regarding whether we had brought in any food, vegetables, or meat. And on the paper form a “yes” was selected.

Primarily & probably solely because of our “yes” selections as noted above, our baggage was then X-rayed and opened up by CBP officers.

Inside of our bags the officers found items which matched up with the Global Entry kiosk selections of (meat & veg) “yes,” and with the front-of-the-form selections of yes for meat & vegetables.

Specifically one piece of bread with very small pieces of cooked pork on the outside of the bread was found.

Also one small sealed package of sausage purchased as a gift for us from Walmart in Nanning, China (yes they have a Walmart there) was found.

Also one package of noodles with “chicken extract” inside was found.

My wife speaks limited English and she has a more limited understanding regarding CBP regulations. On the back of the customs form we did indicate the phrase “packaged bread.” And on the front of the form we did indicate a “yes” to the question regarding whether we had brought in meat. We also stated the word “etc” after a phrase similar to or exactly matching “packaged snacks.”

The process of being grilled and interrogated by a CBP officer can be befuddling. After 15+ hours of travel my wife & I were very tired. Our two very young children were tired & upset. And after our encounter with the CBP officer barking & yelling orders, we were further worn down.

We made our “best faith effort” in filling out the relevant customs form. We also made our best & good faith responses at the Global Entry kiosk when we said “yes” to the meat & vegetables question.

The small package of sausage purchased from Walmart in Nanning came as a gift and was mixed in with bag of other non-meat gifts. And again we did answer “yes” to whether we had meat both at the Global Entry kiosk and on the front of the paper form – the most relevant part of that form.

The piece of bread found came from a bakery. The word “bread” was mentioned in our declarations.

We gave the CBP full opportunity to check our bags.

When people answer “No” to the question regarding meat & vegetables, they are usually just waived on & not fully checked. We saw this first hand. Thus the CBP appears to have a gotcha-type system & scheme where common citizens & lawful U.S. residents are easily trapped & penalized – directly & severely penalized for attempting to be honest.

There should & must be a difference between treatment & handling of people who answer “no” & are found to have prohibited items, and people who answer “yes” to the related question. YES was our official deceleration, at the Global Entry kiosk, and on the front of the paper form, regarding whether we had meat & vegetables present.

According to the USDA website at

meat is allowed:

Products for Personal Consumption

Federal inspection regulations permit the entry of small amounts of meat, poultry or egg products for personal consumption 9 CFR, Part 327.16, 381.207, and 590.960. The amount of a personal consumption shipment cannot exceed 50 pounds for meat, poultry, or dried egg products and 30 pounds for liquid or frozen egg products. The products must be for personal use only and cannot be sold or distributed in U.S. commerce.

Such products are exempt from FSIS import regulation, but they are subject to Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) animal health requirements. These requirements change frequently, and travelers should contact APHIS for up-to-date information by visiting the website or calling (301) 851-3300.

All travelers entering the United States are required to declare any products of animal origin (including soup or soup products) they may be carrying. The declaration must cover all items carried in checked baggage, carry-on luggage, or in a vehicle. U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agriculture specialists at the ports of entry will examine the items and determine if they meet the entry requirements of the United States. Additional information on bringing agricultural products into the United States is available from CBP.


Long traveling families, with children age one and three, and a wife still prone to morning sickness AKA all-day sickness, and families where a key family member who packed our bags speaks limited English should be given some leeway. And even more leeway should be given when in the first instance we a.) tried to be honest, and b.) we set ourselves up for mandatory inspection as per our YES answer to the meat & veg question at the Global Entry kiosk.

From our perspective, our answering of “yes” to the meat & vegetable questions at the Global Entry kiosks, and “yes” on the front of the paper form, should have covered what was found.

Long traveling tired families like us are not well prepared to respond to being verbally grilled, and to verbally remember every little thing within 5 seconds of being asked. But, we did remember to select “yes” in answer to the meat & vegetable questions at the Global Entry kiosks. And we did remember to select “yes” in answer to a similar question on the front of the customs form.

And again a YES answer at the Global Entry kiosks routes one, knowingly, to mandatory inspection. Had we answered NO at the kiosk and on the paper form, we most likely would have been waved on after a quick verbal question regarding whether we had any fresh fruits or meats.

We COULD have lied & then been waved on. But we did not. We sought to be truthful, and we set ourselves up for mandatory inspection. Plus we answered YES during BOTH opportunities to declare meat & vegetables, at the Global Entry kiosk, and on the front of the relevant paper form.

The CBP officer who dealt with us was not helpful. He acted rather like an exacting judge in a court room. One wrong word. One wrong comment. A lack of a proper response within 5 seconds. One temporarily forgotten piece of bread or packaged sausage (not recollected verbally within 5 seconds) after traveling for 16+ hours including connections & layovers, and with a wife who is still prone to all-day sickness related to her pregnancy, and with two very young upset & tired children – one very small misstep with this abusive CBP officer resulted in the following:

                A $500 fine.

                A threat to my wife’s current & future Global Entry membership (issue 3).

We maintain & claim that our representations at the Global Entry kiosks and on the paper forms were sufficient declarations to cover the very few things found as noted. Fully sufficient.

In our tired & degraded state after our long journey, we provided the best quick answers we could.

We gave the CBP full opportunity to check our bags, via our “yes” answers as previously noted. When one answers “yes” to the meat & veg question at the Global Entry kiosks, that automatically & mandatorily & knowingly routes such travelers to the more intensive baggage inspection.

We basically allowed the CBP officer involved to abusively pounce while he searched for the smallest tiny mistake with our verbal responses. But we, my wife & I, set the wheels in motion for this trap via answering “yes” at the Global Entry kiosks to the meat & veg question. But, we answered “yes” in good faith. We were trying to be honest & to do the best we could under the circumstances.
A pregnant woman with two very young children who speaks limited English, was the one fined.

As the inspecting & fining CBP officer involved was asking us initial very quick spoken & cutting verbal questions, my wife would not have had time to process his questions & answer them appropriately.

We were never offered an interpreter.

My wife never was asked one question, directly, and with an interpreter asking the questions – particularly during the whether-to-fine-or-not-fine decision-making part of the conversation with the relevant fining CBP officer.

And overall we received zero consideration for the fact that we were a family traveling with two very young & upset & tired children. No leeway. Nothing other than a very quick verbal game which one can either pass or very easily fail. My wife should not have been expected to pass such a game in her state & after such long travel & after being very tired & sick as a result. Yet, she was the one fined.

A lack of equal treatment under the law:

The CBP officer we dealt with regarding the inspection & fine stated that Global Entry members are investigated more closely. However a general principle of the rule of law is that people be treated equally before the law. Thus the more intense fruit & veg scrutiny to Global Entry members given by CBP officers violates a principles of equal treatment.

People who answer “no” to the meat & veg question are checked much less often than people who say “yes.”

People who aren’t Global Entry members are checked less than people who are.

This is all unequal treatment.

The CBP penalizes people who try to be honest.

We did not set out to “sneak” anything in.

We gave our good faith best-effort answers at the Global Entry kiosks, and on the relevant paper form – regarding having meat & vegetables inside our bags. We answered and declared YES.

Traveling with two young children, and having a wife who’s highly prone to all-day pregnancy related sickness, and 15+ hours of continuous travel, resulted in our being able to be easily befuddled and tripped up by a ready-to-pounce CBP officer. But as noted we opened the door to their being able to find the items they were then concerned about. And we did say “yes” to whether we had meat & vegetables – because we were trying to be honest in the first instance. This was our declaration first & foremost: an answer of Yes at the Global Entry kiosks and on the relevant paper form, to the meat & vegetables question.

Why did we choose to pay the spot fine instead of going to court? Because we live in Utah. We cannot reasonably be expected to travel from Utah to a court in San Francisco to fight this matter. And so we paid the $500 fine quickly so that we could be on our way with our two young kids, and so that we could get a bit of rest in San Francisco before continuing on to Utah.

However the CBP officer involved never mentioned, during the whether-to-pay-quickly-or-not-or-go-to-court part of the conversation, how my wife’s Global Entry membership would be threatened via our decision not to fight in court. He only mentioned this way after the fact – and after we paid the $500 spot fine. Thus the officer did not provide full information during our decision making process regarding which route to proceed with initially.

Plus again, the CBP provided no Chinese-speaking translator during the entire verbal interaction process with the CBP. Thus the CBP officer’s questions verbally expressed to us would not have been fully understood by my wife. This is a very important point.

During the fine issuing process, my wife was never consulted, directly, regarding whether she would have preferred to pay the fine up front, or via check, or whether to go to court – and certainly never with an interpreter speaking with her directly.

Regarding issue 3: Appeal regarding threats made to our Global Entry membership status, threats made during our visit to the San Francisco airport on March 27.

My wife’s Global Entry membership could now be revoked, and her future Global Entry application attempts rejected.

The CBP officer who verbally dealt with us stated that my wife’s Global Entry membership would most likely be revoked, and that our future attempts to have her be a Global Entry member would most likely be denied.

A termination of my wife’s Global Entry membership would mean a termination of all of our memberships. We do not travel separately to China nor to other international destinations. If she cannot use the program then none of us can.

Tired families with small children, who exit their airplane and first encounter a yelling order-barking CBP officer (issue 1) can then be easily befuddled by an exacting and similarly angry CBP officer when it comes time for the meat & veg inspection & for the related exacting interrogation.
We made our best faith efforts to comply with the regulations. But we don’t believe the CBP makes good faith efforts to accommodate families with young upset small & tired children, and a pregnant wife with pregnancy nausea & sickness, with their exacting demanding questions & grilling, and with wives who’re threatened with fines & expulsion from Global Entry who speak limited English - families where one key member doesn’t understand their questions as they are being asked.

The CBP apparently takes every opportunity to trip people up, and to then ruthlessly penalize people.

Regular people. Regular citizens who’re just trying to come home after a long journey.

Further notes regarding issues 1 and 2:

Even taking into account the strict letter of the law, the USDA states that small amounts of meat are allowed to be brought in. And we tried to be honest via our responses of YES to the meat & veg questions at the Global Entry kiosk and on the paper form, which we KNEW would route us to mandatory inspection.

1. One piece of bread with little flakes of cooked pork on the outside.

2. One vacuum sealed package of sausage purchased from a Walmart in Nanning & received as a gift.

3. A package of noodles with no meat except for “chicken extract.”

4. Answers of “yes” at the Global Entry kiosks regarding whether our family had meat & vegetables.

5. An answer of “yes” on the front of the paper customs form regarding meat & veg.

6. A mention of the words “etc” after “commercially packaged snacks,” and also “bread” on the back of the form.

7. Tired families with two young children.

8. A wife with pregnancy related sickness.

9. A wife who speaks limited English and who cannot understand quickly-spoken questions from angry exacting CBP officers.

All of these factors combine and result in the following requests:

Request 1: That the $500 fine imposed on my wife be dropped. If it cannot be fully dropped then at least reduced to the lowest amount possible (eg: $1 or $0).

Request 2: That the US CBP confirm that my wife’s Global Entry membership is not threatened by the harassment & abuse & fine we received at SFO on March 27, 2016.

We are not terrorists. We are not criminals. And frankly we don’t deserve to be treated the way we have been so far.

We request to be able to appeal the fine imposed, and appeal in such a way which doesn’t require that we travel to San Francisco nor to a physical courtroom.

We request to be able to appeal the threats made to my wife’s Global Entry membership. A termination or blocking of her membership will be a de facto termination of all our our memberships.

Does the CBP ever forget & ever forgive? Or are citizens & permanent residents given permanent “black marks” if we do not respond with full & very quick courtroom-style accuracy to their grilling interrogative questions? Quick probing interrogative questions given to a woman who doesn’t fully understand what exactly is being asked of her?

My wife hopes to become a U.S. citizen within the next year or two, primarily because we have two U.S. born children and third on the way. Will my wife’s ability to become a citizen be threatened by what’s happened to us so far?

We request that all the factors mentioned in this letter be read & fully considered, and that our appeal requests as stated and noted be granted & honored as requested.

---

The way the United States treats visitors & returning citizens & residents is hostile.

Yes of course terrorists should & must be blocked & stopped. But most people are just regular travelers. The CBP should be more accommodating & kind (yes kind). By comparison when people visit China, very little if any “customs” checking is done. Essentially zero for regular visitors. Same goes for many other countries. Such countries are very welcoming to visitors.

The US regulations regarding meat & vegetables are overly punitive, and are enforced in a highly hostile & apparently unfair manner. The face presented by the US to visitors is not welcoming. It’s iron-fisted & just plain mean. Even citizens & returning residents are treated badly & harassed & abused.

Sincerely,

Jonathan XXXXX
with Yanning XXXXX 

and children XXXXX & XXXXX 

Enclosures: Photos showing our family during our March 2016 visit to China, and additional reference photos.

Cc: Senate Committee on Finance; Senate Homeland Security & Governmental Affairs Committee; House Homeland Security Committee; House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform; House Judiciary Committee.






Previous photos show our March 2016 trip in China, our family, and evidence of my wife’s current pregnant status.
Additional reference photos of our children:







-----end of quote of letters to our elected representatives.


Friday, February 19, 2016

Lies present in conservative religion force children into the abusive arms of the denialist myopic left.


Frankly, the thing which hurts conservatism are the pervasive and *required* lies present within religions like Mormonism and Evangelical Christianity.

Are you a pro-family & pro-life conservative?

Then don't lie to your children about a mystical god, or a about a prophet who's rear end all are required in your religion to kiss, or a non-existent Savior who also likes rear-end kissing (of his own).

By lying to your children, and by forcing them to lie (oh, and by too much shaming regarding such issues as masturbation (!)), you will force them to respond ping pong style.

Ultra-right as a chump in your religion, and THEN ultra-left!

The exact opposite of what you were hoping for.

It's quite true that the left (including the hippie & communist left) deals with the new technology of birth control with the same care & consideration as nuclear bombs were dealt with back in the '50s - ask all the cancer-ridden 'down winders' who were exposed to radiation during that time.

It's quite true that birth control & easy birth-control-connected-abortion have given humans the false impression that sex is for anything BUT reproduction, which it is not. Sex only exists in an inherently reproductive context, period.

So, Mr. & Mrs. conservative religionist, I can see why you're wary of having your children exposed to the vagaries of leftist relativism, extreme naivety, and myopia.

But you aren't helping things via lying to them about your imaginary god, nor about how everyone MUST suck up to your prophet or to your Savior, or else.

The Atheist Movement needs more laxative. Room should and must be made for social & political conservatism.

Exactly what connection does rural China & rural India have to do with the Bible or the Quoran or the Book of Mormon? Zero. So they are essentially a de facto control experiment, and can be accurately seem as an example for your average leftist atheist / "humanist."

Is "religion" the root cause of social conservatism, or is it human nature & evolution? Will life be a f-ing panacea if we can all just live like Bonobos, and let it all hang out? No. Lives are destroyed via such assumptions. We are NOT bonobos.


Let children be raised by two non-inherently-reproductive outlier-type females or males? It matters not, right?

Being "childfree" helps you be the most "true" YOU there is, right?

Don't have children because people in third world countries have too many, but for some reason they don't get enough peas in their diet so you still need to have as many peas in yours as you can in response, right?

Let strangers raise your children while you show that your EQUAL EQUAL EQUAL in all ways to men, right?

These are a few key tenants of current denialist leftistism. Denial of human nature. Denial of human history, evolutionary history, and sexual history.

And when you essentially force your own children out of your house and out of your religion, by a.) forcing your children to believe lies and maintain-as-true key lies, and b.) engaging in far too much (!) sexual shaming & too much shaming & control on other fronts, you will force them right into the hands of abusive leftist relativist denialist moron culture. The exact opposite of your otherwise reasonable goals for them.

So, how to move forward?

Some degree of shame regarding sex is warrantied, the type that helps people avoid lethal STDs for example, but not the type which says that masturbation is evil! Why mention the latter, because f-tard leaders in religions like Mormonism do.

Teach your children about the >fact< of evolution, but also teach them that religion & culture *evolved also and simultaneously* to help us *avoid* destructive behaviors!

Yes we should wake up about the non-existence of all gods and the facts of evolution by natural selection, but we should also be woken up to the FULL facts, not the partial denialist relativist "facts" which are generated solely from the ultra-left side.

Religion is a fully natural phenomenon as is culture.

Yes humans have fully evolved destructive & outlier proclivities which can destroy. Prohibition-elements of various types *also* evolved to counter destructive impulses.

Like it or not that's how things have been set up in us, not by some god, but rather by fully natural evolution by natural selection.

-----

Where does social conservatism come from? From human nature.
http://jonathanshome.blogspot.com/2015/11/where-does-social-conservatism-come.html

Lives and families are destroyed by Tranny and Gay acceptance and promotion - LGBT abusive outliers are not equal
http://jonathanshome.blogspot.com/2015/07/lives-and-families-are-destroyed-by.html

The Atheist Movement needs move laxative - Making room for social & political conservatives!
http://jonathanshome.blogspot.com/2014/05/the-atheist-movement-needs-move.html

Conservative Naturalism: Don't put your willie in the deadly destructive glory hole of the left. You might get both an STD and an MTD
http://jonathanshome.blogspot.com/2014/05/conservative-naturalism-dont-put-your.html

Conservative Naturalism: Culture War General Commentary - 5-22-2014
http://jonathanshome.blogspot.com/2014/05/conservative-naturalism-culture-war.html

Embracing true honest naturalism: Marriage is about children
http://jonathanshome.blogspot.com/2014/05/embracing-true-honest-naturalism.html

More on the ping pong game - hard facts for the Mormon & Catholic churches:
Are Mormonism & Catholicism homosexual & pedophile generators?
http://jonathanshome.blogspot.com/2014/05/are-mormonism-catholicism-homosexual_24.html

The talk I gave at my mother's funeral - February 2010
http://jonathanshome.blogspot.com/2010/12/funeral-talk-that-i-gave-in-february.html

Friday, January 8, 2016

Welcome sweet & kind refugees from Islamic countries.

Cologne Out Of Control: One Week Since Migrant Attacks, Another Teenage Girl Hospitalized By Gang

http://www.breitbart.com/london/2016/01/08/cologne-out-of-control-one-week-on-from-migrant-attacks-and-another-teenager-hospitalised-by-gang/

Welcome sweet & kind refugees from Islamic countries.

There's a price to be paid for Puritanical dress & dating & sex codes. This is the price: Young men so f-ed up they're willing to rape & molest en masse.

Islam comes to Europe.

---

Tawfik Hamid talking about how Puritanical Islam fucks up the brains of young Muslim men:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pxfo11A7XuA

A high percentage of Muslims believe in medieval barbarism and iron-fisted theocracy

"Total number of those Muslims who want sharia law and also want death penalty for leaving Islam = 269450621
in percentage = 32.69% worldwide."

from https://www.quora.com/Is-it-true-that-90-of-Muslims-think-you-deserve-death-when-shifting-away-from-Islam

Find "death penalty for leaving Islam" at:
http://www.pewforum.org/2013/04/30/the-worlds-muslims-religion-politics-society-beliefs-about-sharia/

more info:
http://www.thereligionofpeace.com/pages/opinion-polls.htm

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2013/05/01/64-percent-of-muslims-in-egypt-and-pakistan-support-the-death-penalty-for-leaving-islam/

Nearly 270 million worldwide. And these people love their prophet more than not only their life, but more than your life also.

Dalia Mogahed is an abusive Puritan and cult member

In my view Dalia Mogahed is an abusive Puritan and cult member. Advocates for the hijab / niqab / burqa are basically Puritans. Liberals just hate Christian-originated Puritanism, but they love Puritanism which emanates from any flavor of Islam (eg: the widespread worldwide Saudi-funded & CAIR supported version), or when it comes via any idea that counters or casts doubt on any aspect of the dominant leftie paradigm.

Video interview of Dalia Mogahed on the Daily Show:

short url: http://on.cc.com/1RnSWKp

longer: http://www.cc.com/shows/the-daily-show-with-trevor-noah/interviews/lnkifi/exclusive-dalia-mogahed-extended-interview?xrs=synd_FBPAGE_20160108_326082216_The%20Daily%20Show_N/A&linkId=20219197

Response to the following point made by
Dalia Mogahed:

---quote begins

What a Hijab does is it basically privatizes a woman's sexuality.

So what are we saying when we say that by taking away or privatizing a woman's sexuality, we're oppressing her? What is that saying about the source of a woman's power [in the media]?

---end of quote

My response:
13.8 billion years of evolution by natural selection has not "selected for" a privatization of female human sexuality.

Maryam Namazie's response to the hijab, a most excellent response!:

World hijab day - as celebrated by Maryam Namazie, the way the day should be celebrated (ie: without a hijab):

In my view
Dalia Mogahed is simply a member of an abusive human spirit destroying cult.

Women within Islam are not free to go without the hijab, even in Western countries:

Why is Puritanism ok when it's expressed by a Muslim woman who's in a hijab, but not ok when it's expressed by a conservative Christian?

Puritianism is abusive in it's own right, whether that Puritanism is expressed by someone like Dalia Mogahed, or whether it's expressed by past Mormon prophet Spencer Kimball or by John Harvey Kellogg.

Maajid Nawaz, a near lone truly-liberal Muslim voice, on the hijab:

Quote: "...Even when adopted through individual choice, it is the religious-conservative assumption, this modesty theology, that women who do not wear headscarves are somehow sinful, less modest and not pious, that we liberals must critique. For at the root, it is this same attitude that is invoked in honor killings, and heinous acid attacks..."
Women in Iran who sneak & go without the scarf:

The hijab is abusive, abusive for exactly the same reasons why Puritanism in general is abusive: It/they attempts to warp human sexuality into something it is not by default and by (evolutionary) design: hidden.

Because their are Islam-run countries which force women to hijab, and because mosques worldwide force women to wear it, it's abusive. It's also abusive because it separates men & women into an inherently abusive and unnatural state & relationship status.

Women should be showing their hair & necks, in public, to men & to other women. Period. And if you see value in "privatizing" the normal natural healthy human sexuality expressed via women's hair, necks, and faces, you are an abuser. And if you're a cult member who believes there's value in such covering, you are an abuser.

More on Dalia from Sam Harris:

As a Muslim woman, I see the veil as a rejection of progressive values Yasmin Alibhai-Brown
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/mar/20/muslim-woman-veil-hijab

The science of swearing, by Steven Pinker:
http://harvardsciencereview.com/2014/01/23/the-science-of-swearing/
...relates in my view to how some humans also don't enjoy "sexual system" activation in their brains, not-at-all!

Tawfik Hamid talking about how Puritanical Islam fucks up the brains of young Muslim men:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pxfo11A7XuA


Why do desert tribes hate sexual system activation? Clothes on humans may well be natural. Otherwise abusive body mutilations humans engage in within various "aboriginal" "native" tribes (eg: male & female genital cutting aka circumcision) may also be "natural." Religions are natural. But not everything that's natural is good nor do all natural things make humans happy generally nor cause them to thrive.

In any case puritanism is abusive regardless of it's source, whether that source is Islam, Islamophiles, lefties who love Islam & the hijab, your local Saudi-funded mosque which forces women to be segregated and to hijab, or Mormonism, or Catholicism, or etc.

Somewhere between letting it all hang out and hanging people for doing so is where humans are happiest and thrive the most. But the hijab is more on the hanging-people side of things than any other.

Related post:
whitewashing history -- sex obsessed ancestors -- nudist hypocrisy
http://jonathanshome.blogspot.com/2014/09/whitewashing-history-sex-obsessed.html






Charlie Hebdo rest in peace (RIP): Not all gods are equal, some are peaceful and some are terrorists


Copy of the January 2016 "Charlie Hebdo"
The god of all religions a terrorist? I don't think so. Not all religions have the same god.


The original & only Charlie Hebdo rest in peace. The new Hebdo is not the same magazine as the old one. RIP Charlie Hebdo. Not all gods are equal nor are all religions. "Religion" as a concept is just as dangerous a thing when it flowers on the left as when it continues to exist on the right, and probably the leftist version is even more dangerous & denialist & dishonest.

[Charlie Hebdo’s anniversary edition proves Islamic terrorists won]

Charlie Hebdo claims that the "god of all religions is a terrorist" as per a recent cover talked about in the video below. That's not true though.

The god the Jains is not a terrorist. The god of most Amish is not. Even the hippie god of leftie Christians/Unitarians is not (except in as much as that god says one must law down and let fascists thrive "in their own lands").

The god of Mormonism is a horny white & delightsome man who has sex with thousands of women every hour of every day [do the math: to make 10,000,000,000 spirit babies in say 1,000,000 years, that's 1 baby making activity even every hour].

The god of Scientology is an angry alien.

The god of Catholicism & Anglicanism is a mystical undefinable asexual parthenogenic blob, and in the case of Catholocism who really really hates making Jesuses via normal vaginal sex while at the same time really really liking perverted old fart virgin pedophile priests.

The god of Islam is vain & brutal & narcissistic & jealous & mean & evil. Check the links at:

Not all gods are equal nor are all religions.

--------

Related posts & additional notes:

On the god of Mormonism:

Advise for TBMs on porn: Why society accepts pornography but not littering?
http://jonathanshome.blogspot.com/2014/05/advise-for-tbms-on-porn-why-society.html

We were all just sperm in god's balls:

http://jonathanshome.blogspot.com/search/label/god's%20balls

Questions for Mormon missionaries (includes references to how the Mormon god had literal sex with Mary the mother of Jesus)
http://jonathanshome.blogspot.com/2014/03/questions-for-mormon-missionaries-god.html

On the god of Catholicism (defined by a bunch of fucking mumbo jumbo):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_Concept_of_the_Divine#Essence_and_attributes
and unlike Mormonism Catholicism firmly maintains the birth of Jesus was virginal:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virgin_birth_of_Jesus
God's wiener did not go anywhere near Mary's hoohaw, and in Catholicism God probably doesn't even have a wiener & to suggest as much would be sacrilege to Catholics.

On the god of Islam: the core text of Islam clearly states his intentions:
http://www.skepticsannotatedbible.com/quran/
...on that page check out the following categories:

Injustice
Intolerance
Cruelty and Violence
Absurdities
Good Stuff
Women
Science and History
Contradictions
Interpretations
Family Values
Sex
Language

Whereas the god of Jainism is much different:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jainism#God

Five main vows of Jains, which is a much different list from that of your average Mohamed lover:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jainism#Five_main_vows

Jains must be non-violence, but sometimes violence is called for:
http://jonathanshome.blogspot.com/search/label/iraq

God of Scientology:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k4SBfhRmvzU
and http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x21d8ks_south-park-what-scientologist-actually-believe_fun

Monday, January 4, 2016

The religion of the "non-religious" left: anti-free-speech, anti-science, anti-Enlightenment

Islam v. Free Speech: Twitter Surrenders
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/429190/islam-twitter-and-free-speech


[Bernie Sanders:] Global warming a worse threat than terrorism, "...climate change is directly related to the growth of terrorism..."
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/427094/sanders-absolutely-global-warming-worse-threat-terrorism-tom-s-elliott

The main arguments supporting Sanders' assertion seem to revolve around resource availability:
http://www.factcheck.org/2015/11/sanders-on-climate-link-to-terrorism/

However what's missing from Sanders' equation is the impact of the Islamic meme set itself upon the stability and viability of societies.
(that the Western political leadership is largely in denial about the real root causes of terrorism)

Obama's statement about what, according to him, the future "must" not belong to:
https://reason.com/blog/2012/09/25/president-obama-says-we-must-condemn-tho
(never talking smack about Mohamed)

Sam Harris and Maajid Nawaz collaborating discussions:
https://www.samharris.org/blog

Maajid is an unfortunately-singular truly-liberal voice within "Islam."
Cartoon posted by Maajid:
https://twitter.com/maajidnawaz/status/422342223460855809
more on Maajid:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maajid_Nawaz
https://twitter.com/MaajidNawaz
https://www.facebook.com/MaajidNawazFanPage/
Sam Harris debates Cenk Uygur (an example of the new regressive left vs those few lefties who're willing to be honest regarding Islam)
http://www.samharris.org/blog/item/the-young-turks-interview

Re climate change, Mark Steyn is engaged in a legal battle with Michael Mann.
http://www.steynonline.com/6234/the-silencing-of-science
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6bARjABDqok

Judith Curry & Mark Steyn at the Senate: 

Anyway I've come to conclude that, as per Daniel Dennett's "dangerous" idea regarding religion being a natural phenomenon, religion is so damn natural that two or more atheists gathered in the name of their favorite social or political agenda cannot help but form a de facto one.

Charismatic charlatans come in all shapes and sizes. When our favorite "prophet" is on our side of the political spectrum we're more ready to dismiss their flaws. For example when Clinton was in office I personally wrote to the White House expressing my support during their trials & tribulations. However I now see that I was hoodwinked, just like I was hoodwinked about Joseph Smith.

Why are the rape crimes of Bill Clinton given a pass while the probably-natural activities of Catholic Priests & other pedophiles are not? Just because something is 'natural' doesn't mean it should be valued. Sociopathy and psychopathy are natural too, natural abusive outlier activities that is.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naturalistic_fallacy
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeal_to_nature

Recoverers from religion have a hard time seeing value in fully natural & fully evolved human morality which says "no" to certain activities. Why did fully natural religions/cultures evolve moral codes of conduct? For fully natural reasons.

So how "conservative" should we be? It's a balancing act. An evolution if you will. And we aren't the first people to deal with the tension between letting it all hang out, and hanging people for doing so. Somewhere in between those two extremes lies human happiness & human thriving.
Islam & Mormonism are too conservative.

60s/70s SanFran-Glory-Hole-style liberalism is probably too permissive.

Humans aren't Bonobos. Shame regarding certain otherwise destructive activities exists for some reasonable evolutionary reasons. Moral codes of conduct evolved as counterweights to proclivities which can be destructive.

Tuesday, November 24, 2015

Freedom is a liberal swear word.

Related post:

Freedom is a leftist swear word, a leftist "hate speech" word. Facebook censorship - tranny, feminazi, and words leftists hate...
http://jonathanshome.blogspot.com/2015/11/freedom-is-leftist-swear-word-leftist.html

Freedom is a leftist swear word, a leftist "hate speech" word. Facebook censorship - tranny, feminazi, and words leftists hate...

Freedom is a liberal swear word.

Facebook Censorship: Tranny, Feminazi - these are leftist "bad words" which will get you reported by leftist fascists and auto-banned by FB thought-control bots.

When freakish abusive trannies come to the fore, those of us who value non-outlier human history & human values & family values complain, and we speak our mind. But such actions are too much for leftist fascists.

When Bruce Jenner came out as an outlier freak, we complained. The response? SHUT UP! - from leftists and leftist-fascism enablers who run Facebook.

Comments such as these were auto-banned on FB:

Lives and families are destroyed by Tranny and Gay acceptance and promotion - LGBT abusive outliers are not equal
http://jonathanshome.blogspot.com/2015/07/lives-and-families-are-destroyed-by.html

Later, when supports of gay marriage find there's "people of reason" (AKA atheists) who oppose gay marriage, they can't handle that fact. They report posts they disagree with so as to attempt to shut those people up.

24 hour ban resulting from the following exchange:

Where does social conservatism come from? From human nature.
http://jonathanshome.blogspot.com/2015/11/where-does-social-conservatism-come.html

Freedom is a leftist swear word, a leftist "hate speech" word.

Freedom of thought.

Freedom of speech.

Freedom to refuse to comply with leftist dogma & doctrines. Sacrilege. The new religion of our day. And Facebook operators play a key part in the fascism of the left.

Related thoughts:

The Atheist Movement needs move laxative - Making room for social & political conservatives!
http://jonathanshome.blogspot.com/2014/05/the-atheist-movement-needs-move.html



Where does social conservatism come from? From human nature.

Leftists seek to censor, again and again and again. They demand you either fall in line with their views, or that you shut up.

Here's some of my recent reflections on the pressing issues of the day, posted in a place where deletion is less likely (originally posted on
Faisal Saeed Al Mutar's facebook page).
============

OMG there is no such think as an unbiased journalist. Some bias is useful, and the more I look at things I see that a rightist bias is more reasonable.

Pro-family.

Pro-life, as in human life, as in survival.

Pro-Enlightenment, generally speaking, de facto (even if a given person claims they just 'hate' 'hate' 'hate' Darwin's findings, they can still be de facto pro-Enlightenment but what they say and do).

Pro-the-truth.

In the wake of Hebdo, exactly who on this planet published the cartoons? Who, exactly? Leftist media? "Main stream" media, which is de facto leftist? N-O.

As an ex-Mormon I can see the plight of ex-Muslims, fighting to be heard. People like Bosch Fawstin, who face death threats in response to their life work, and there's many others: Ayaan, Maryam; and that's not to mention the atheist bloggers who've been killed.

Where does the truth lie? In being honest and true to our evolutionary history. Embracing enlightenment & science, but not throwing out the baby with the bath water.

Daniel Dennett's dangerous idea is that religion is a natural phenomenon. That fact cuts several ways. Fully natural & useful & evolved human values exist w/in religion - values evolved to help us avoid destructive behaviors. But religions can and do go overboard: the hijab; controls on dating & marriage - Islam goes *way* too far in the negative & controlling direction.

In the 90s I thought Mormonism was the fruit of all evil, but now I see Islam as a far bigger problem.

And an an ex-religionist it's hard to admit that some shaming is useful, from a utilitarian perspective. Yes there's damn good reasons not to get an STD and leave your family with no parent, for example. Letting it all hang out has real world downsides.

Finding a balance between the crazies on all sides is hard work. The left is too permissive. The right is too uptight.

Freedom of speech comes from a limited slice of human heritage & experience (ref. Mark Steyn). Most people don't value it - which is one reason why it must be valued by those of us who were either born into or adopted into the Western heritage.

Who stands up for free speech? Not "the left," generally speaking. Who published & who was willing to show the cartoons? There is your answer - the camp we should go to & join.

------------

[In response to the above post a pro-gay-marriage person complained and stated that his gay "marriage" to his gay associate was an example of family values. I then drafted the following reply, a reply which resulted in a ban from FB for 24 hours. I don't think they liked my use of the tranny &
femin*zi terms. But it's apparently quite true that there are strong institutional barriers against speaking one's mind & speaking the truth. Honest observations and honest opinions. True diversity encompasses a diversity of opinion (!), just just a diversity of skin tone.]

------------

Control experiment: Visit human communities who're opposed to gay-advocacy & gay "marriage," communities which have zero connection to the Bible or the Quran. Ask what they think. Do their views have value? Where do their views come from?

Religion is a natural phenomenon as noted. Dismissing out of hand everything w/in religion simply because given values are couched w/in a religious context is wrong headed & foolish & unscientific and unhistorical.

Outliers exist. They are side effects of how evolution works, how sex gets set up in humans. Outliers are a side effect of selection, not a root cause for selection.

When the human animal can naturally produce children via outlier "sexual" activity, or via natural non-interventionary parthenogenesis, then outlier "sex" will no longer have an outlier status.

Gay people can be service oriented and they can help main-line non-outlier humans who can and do naturally reproduce. But outliers can also inappropriately assume that they should essentially steal away children into outlier culture.

Gay culture is no place for children. Gay men tend to not be faithful. Gay women don't have father-figures around at all.

Non-faithfulness is simply a way of life w/in gay culture. Also children have been hard coded (by evolution, by nature) to *need* to be raised in a household where a mother & father are present.

So re gayness: here's for contributors like Alan Turing, Stephen Fry, Douglas Murray, and so on. That's all fine and good. But I suggest not whitewashing problems with gay culture & so-called gay "marriage."

Yes gay people can hook up, but they cannot have true sex nor true & honest marriage. Why? Because sex only happens when two sexual animals engage in inherently reproductive activities with their sexual organs. Other activities with one's sexual organs are not, literally, and in any real meaningful scientific sense, sex. And as marriage has been a direct extension of inherently reproductive sex, AKA sex, there is only one type of true & honest & meaningful marriage.

It's not about civil rights. Outliers have every right to work to not be outliers. That's why I support secular groups like NARTH. My gay nephew certainly would benefit from association with such a group. He lives such a wastrel, petty, selfish, mostly meaningful life, it's amazing and sad. Seen this first hand. I also say how he & his friends readily accepted a convicted pedophile into their friend community after the pedo was released from prison.

Oh and then there was my gay (or "bi") uncle who died of AIDS: a victim of the abusively permissive glory hole culture of San Francisco, thereby leaving his straight normal family (AKA his family) with no father. My uncle was a victim of both the ultra-right and the ultra-left - a victim of the ping pong game that happens when people rebel in response to exposure to ultra-right religion.

Ultra-left religion is no "answer" to the cultural & religious right, nor is it a panacea.

In my infancy I drafted:
http://corvus.freeshell.org/corvus_corax/two/life_path/Mortal_Mormonism.htm
...a Mormon exist journal of a newbie ultra-leftist

Then when I grew up and tossed my ultra-leftist colored glasses I graduated to:
http://jonathanshome.blogspot.com/
...where I am willing to examine truth from all sides, and where I take w/a grain of salt the dogmatic claims of all sides.

Gay "marriage" is not about families, it's about a basic denial of human nature, a denial of 1.2 billion years of sexual history, and ~13.82 billion years of evolutionary history. Leftists deny human nature all the time even more than righties do. At least rightist culture can help one avoid deadly STDs, the "childfree" life, a dead end life, a wastrel, a life as a lesbian femin*zi, and so on.

I am happy to have the gay people (AKA biological outliers) who contribute to society, and who help those of us who *are* inclined to naturally reproduce. But please don't steal away our kids into your sometimes-abusive culture. Gay culture is no place for kids.

Related thoughts:

Lives and families are destroyed by Tranny and Gay acceptance and promotion - LGBT abusive outliers are not equal
http://jonathanshome.blogspot.com/2015/07/lives-and-families-are-destroyed-by.html

Embracing true honest naturalism: Marriage is about children
http://jonathanshome.blogspot.com/2014/05/embracing-true-honest-naturalism.html

https://www.facebook.com/Seculars-Against-Same-Sex-Marriage-293011477509961/

I'm Gay and I Oppose Same-Sex Marriage
by  Doug Mainwaring
http://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2013/03/9432/

From Jesse Bering: "...Even in societies where homosexuality was tolerated, such as in Ancient Greece, men tended to engage in pederasty with adolescent boys while maintaining wives and families at home..."

http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/bering-in-mind/2011/08/01/the-end-of-gays-gay-marriage-and-the-decline-of-the-homosexual-population/

Report: Pedophilia more common among 'gays'
http://www.wnd.com/2002/04/13722/

A journalist's second thoughts
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-07-10/gorman-second-thoughts/4809582

Children of gay "marriage" who're against gay adoption:
1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CK64ajNt9QU
2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MeNrPJ42Xoo
3: http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/lauretta-brown/adults-raised-gay-couples-speak-out-against-gay-marriage-federal-court

http://www.frc.org/issuebrief/ten-arguments-from-social-science-against-same-sex-marriage

Geezus is not my savior, nor do I believe in Mohamed. But socially conservative atheists from rural China can serve as a control group and a counter to leftist relativism & leftist denialism.

In as much as gay culture produces people like Douglas Murray, I say let's have a million of them. The more neocons the better, yes that's true. But please let's have less gays like my gay nephew & less gays like my gay uncle, please.

-------------

Related thoughts:

The Atheist Movement needs move laxative - Making room for social & political conservatives!
http://jonathanshome.blogspot.com/2014/05/the-atheist-movement-needs-move.html