Painful memories

Everyone knows about the Holocaust. Some want to forget it, others believe we need to remember the horrors in order to prevent such a tragedy from happening again. As the years go by, less and less people have been directly affected by this devastating moment of human past. So how do we deal with the dwindling survivors? The Jewish people that escaped, should they have or should they receive compensation? Another pressing topic for more people, is how do we deal with those who were Nazis? Who were apart of the chaos, who helped, or didn’t do anything to oppose it.

Well the question is raised once again, this time with a slightly more important person than those who may have just been mere soldiers or pawns. This time, there is an Auschwitz guard put on the hot seat. 93 year old Oskar Groening has been charged with 300,000 counts of accessory to murder. As an SS (Shutzstaffel) guard and member, he has a much higher bounty on his head. Accused of helping operate the death camp between May and June of 1944, 425,000 Jews were brought to the camp, 300,000 being gassed to death almost immediately. His job included, but was not limited to, dealing with belongings of the prisoners, and helping collect and tally the money that was found among the victims. The prosecutors believe this to say that he “helped the Nazi regime benefit economically, and supported the systematic killings,” while his attorney, Hans Holtermann, declined to comment on any of the charges.

WARNING, BRIEF GRAPHIC INCIDENT DESCRIBED. Groening has openly talked about his time as a guard, and even shared a specific incident with a German magazine. On “ramp duty” he heard a baby crying, and observed his fellow SS soldier grab the baby by the legs, and smashed the child’s head against the iron side of a truck until it was silent.

Groening is one of roughly 30 former Auschwitz guards who are going to be pursued and charged, regarding a new German law. Groening is the fourth case investigated, 2 being shelved due to the suspects being unfit for trial, the 3^rd being closed after the suspect passed away. Groening is in good health though, so what is to happen to him will set precedent for the rest to come.

Do we really need to convict this man with said charges? He was cleared of any war crimes in 1948, and reportedly had nothing to do with killing and Jews directly. Of course there is something to be said for being a part of such an atrocious organization. Awful and completely inhumane things were done by humans, to other humans. While I personally believe the comment on how he helped the Nazi regime benefit economically is complete bull, it is a point many can and will make against this man. Think about all of this from a less literal perspective though, this man was in the middle of country trying, not just planning but trying and being very close to succeeding, at taking over the planet. It’s possible he was just trying to survive, and there isn't much we can do to blame him for wanting to survive. Aren't his memories enough torture for this man? He could have not had the guts to do any button pressing for murder. Of course these points are all multiple sided dice, and is up to you to decide, and the court to decide on a unanimous one.

Links : http://townhall.com/news/world/2014/09/15/93yearold-former-auschwitz-guard-charged-n1891936

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2756765/Former-Auschwitz-guard-93-charged-300-000-counts-accessory-murder-role-Nazi-death-camp.html

ISIS. AGAIN

An ISIS magazine promotes slavery, rape, and murder in their God's name.

Previously I made a statement that I believe that they're just looking for attention, and in a way I believe that this is supporting my statement, but also fights it.

First, I don't think it's fair to consider the Islamic deity, or holy spirit, the same as one in another faith, such as Christianity. With that out of the way, the fact that their religious scripture not only approves, but praises the following of inhuman actions, in my opinion requires isolation. There shouldn't be any connection between those who follow that belief valiantly, and those who have nothing to do with anything they work for or believe in.

While this does seem extreme, It seems necessary. These people are advocating rape, slavery, ethnic cleansing and sexual abuse, and are trying to force these beliefs on the rest of the world, rather violently. I still think that they are acting for attention right now, it's for a bigger idea that they have, and it's rather frustrating that it's affecting the world as much as it is. Like stated previously, I don't believe they should be killed, but rather isolated by our choice. In doing this we sustain our humanity by not killing them for their beliefs, and allow them to live their lives by their ideals, but without any connection to those who don't wish to partake in that Religion.

Topping it off, most of what ISIS is doing is nothing new, we've seen it all before and a lot of these events are happening in other parts of the world without global recognition. ISIS is just like a little kid, doing substantially worse things, unforgivable things, but doing it on small scales and to the Biggest of the big countries, and trying to get more attention out of it.

I personally am pretty pissed at ISIS because they do these things based off of religion, and I'm not personally a very religious person, and dislike those who try to make actions towards or judgement upon someone else based on their religious beliefs.

Huzzah for rights!

Privately gay bishops have recently been told that if they publicly acknowledge their sexuality they will receive "support, prayer and encouragement" from a number of Church of England priests and parishioners. In a letter signed by more than 300 members of the Church to its leadership and entire episcopate, Anglican, Methodist and other Christian signatories appealed to gay and bisexual bishops, urging them to have the "courage and conviction" to come out. The written plea is back by at least 160 priests and promises to stand by and "welcome and embrace' those bishops who do decide to go public.
The Church of England teaches that sexual intercourse should occur within a marriage and that this "ideal" is not met by homosexuality. There are also currently no openly gay bishops. A 1991 statement from the House of Bishops said that hetero and homosexuality are not equal, nor in harmony, with the observed order of creation or with the insights of revelation as the Church engages with these in the light of her pastoral ministry.
The letter to the Church of England Bishops adds that it does "not advocate the involuntary outing of bishops."
They write to assure those bishops who may choose to openly acknowledge their sexual orientation as gay or bisexual and that they will receive the support, prayer and encouragement of all that respect the written proposal.
They also added "Sadly, we live at a time when those who are honest about LGBTI and Christian are treated with hostility by a vocal minority within and outside the Church. We have no doubt that the vast majority of Anglicans will welcome and embrace those of you who are gay or bisexual for your courage and conviction if you come out: weeping with you for past hurts and rejoicing in God's call as witnesses to Christ's transforming love and compassion.

I have 2 primary concerns with this. The first being, by "support" do they mean that they will actually stand behind their friends' and families' sexualities, or encourage them to "witness God's love" or whatever term they'd like to use and tell them they need to change.
Secondly, if this happens on a larger scale, as in all of the official large Christian Churches accept gay and bisexuality, then this could cause a large moral problem, larger than it already is. There are those who are die-hard to the fact that gays and bisexuals are wrong and should be "fixed." These people will probably state that they don't believe that these large scale church changes are Christian and break away, causing more extreme cases like the Wet Borough Baptist Church.

Abortion and the many views

It has recently come to my attention that it is possible for a young woman under the age of 18 to have an abortion without needing a parent or guardian's consent. I'm shocked that this is even a possibility, considering the state of our society when it comes to matters such as that. 

Today's society is just a mosh pit. Everyone fights about everything possible, yet our country is supposed to be founded on the basis of freedom, nothing we do seems to be anything similar to our "goals." We fight over gay rights, feminism, abortion, wars in other countries, ethics in other countries, anything that could possibly lead to a large scale argument, our kind seems to take and put an immense amount of work into making it a huge deal.

Firstly, my views on all of these topics follow a similar pattern. The largest question leading them: why do you care? Where does it affect you? 90% of the time it doesn't and the person is just trying to dictate someone else's life, regardless of their views. Let’s take an example here - gay rights. Many believe that same sex marriage is wrong. They believe that it is either against some religious idol’s teaching, or is the opposite of what nature want. Now let’s take this into perspective, why does this said homophobe care? Because it’s different, and they’re uncomfortable. I will admit, there are some homosexual couples and/or individuals who are very abrasive with their personalities, and can be a little much. That isn’t because they’re homosexual, it’s just who they are. That person would be uncomfortable to be around regardless of their sexual preference. So therefore, it doesn’t matter, you’ll have to deal with them like you would anybody else, without taking into account that they’re not heterosexual.

Abortion however has a couple of twists and turns in its debate. There are debates about ethics in this topic. Whether or not abortion is killing a human being or not, and whether or not we have the power to decide another human beings life like that without consent. While I don’t have a good solution to the problem, my views on it are pretty straightforward and apply to those who believe for and against abortion.

Don’t be overbearing about it, if it doesn’t affect you, or anyone in your family, there is absolutely no reason to harass anyone over this topic. This topic is not much different from deciding whether or not to pull the plug on a patient who relies solely on life support.  

Is self expression that bad?

An Australian man is being charged a $4,000 fine for having his fence painted with rainbow colors unless it is repainted as "heritage colors."
I'm laughing with frustration right now. Not only does the office in charge of this whole fine say that they have received numerous complaints, she's lying about it. Completely. Everyone nearby the house loves it. The owner of the fence even went door to door asking opinions on his fence, and everyone said they loved it. Not just liked, but loved. He would be doing more harm than good if he repainted it. It's absolutely absurd that the government is trying to REPAINT A FENCE THAT HAS MULTIPLE COLORS. Multiple colors is their problem. It's not "heritage colors, and they have 'regulations.'"
Isn't that the base of racism?  You oppress someone because they're of a different race, or, a different color? Obviously there are some pretty core differences, but it's so stupidly extreme to think that someone would even go out of their way to remove a colored fence.
I think the worst part is that they're trying so hard to get rid of it too. They lied, and lied the complete opposite of how it actually was. If every single neighbor said that the fence was "alright, or bearable" then I could see it maybe. Not only that, but the owner is more than willing to repaint the fence if his neighbors are unhappy with it. He is willing, for the people he respects and sees as equal, to change his ways in terms of decoration. Yet this isn't good enough for the Australian government, they think that what he's doing is wrong. It makes me super sad to be completely honest, just let the man have a colorful fence. What harm is he doing?
http://m.theage.com.au/victoria/raglan-street-port-melbourne-rainbow-fence-owner-sees-blue-over-council-fine-20141020-118jvd.html#ixzz3GdNDUqRY

ISIS video of child shooting Russian spies

Don't get me wrong here, this is absolutely terrible and awful that they have a child brainwashed to believe stuff like this, especially to such extremes. I think a key thing to remember here is - ISIS can't win in any large goal, at all whatsoever. They're simply too small of an organization, they aren't an entire country. They aren't even a well organized group, and they're reckless. Even if they wanted to do something, virtually everyone in the world would be able to retaliate twice as hard. ISIS is a little kid wanting attention, and that's what they're getting. Do I think ISIS needs to be stopped? Absolutely, they infringe human rights. Do I think that anybody is doing anything correctly about it? No.
ISIS is just like any other terrorism group, their ideals need to be completely obliterated. By ideals I mean more specifically the extremes that they sit on. Religion as it stands, is mediocre at best. It's losing its place and people are having troubles accepting that, but people should have the right to believe and practice what they want - WITHOUT infringing human rights. Based on that, some militant freak's ideals could be to just nuke every middle eastern country because of what ISIS is doing, along with previous terrorism. Should we allow that? No, but that's the same idea. You can use religion to justify both ends of it, so that's checked off the list. Some would even go as far as to say that we're teaching little kids the same "nuke everything" ideal here in the US, just like ISIS is doing that with their children. Anyway you look at it, someone can justify the same thought process somewhere else in the world. We just don't take it to the same extremes, and raise with filters. It works, and these ideals are normally not kept the entire lifespan of said child in a non terrorist-enthused environment.
Please, sit down and open your eyes,
Sincerely - the world.

The future is what Britain sees

So Britain has decided they need to educate younger kids about coding eh? Personally I think this is a phenomenal idea. After going through the early stages of schooling, and most of the later parts of it (that required by the United States government and 99% of every basic job), I have determined my opinion on education as we have it in our country.
It's flawed. Completely flawed, there is nothing that I can say is anywhere near perfect for our current setup. The elementary school years are very basic, as they should be. Sadly, this is also where the core of social problems start, and I could go on about that for hours in another post, but I'll save it for later. I personally think that we should integrate more arts and extra curricular things at an earlier point in life. I completely understand that it may seem like a bad idea because the performing arts is a very limited area for people in their adult lives. I understand that entirely, but I'm not saying that it should become a primary focus in a person's life that early, but there's no reason it shouldn't be integrated into schooling. By doing that, it's natural. School will always be a part of their life. Always. They will go 5 out of 7 days a week, for the next 13 years of their life in a minimum. If we can put something CREATIVE, not necessarily productive in the later parts of lives, I believe that we would be able to maintain a stable level of children not completely hating school. Most kids I know don't like school, for one reason or another, it doesn't matter. It's the fact that there is no way that we can fix that without revamping the whole system. Personally, I think we should revamp it.
The junior high/middle school period. I don't think this is necessary at all. The fact they take 2-3 years out to put you in another school to try and practice how high school is, is really dumb. "Practicing" for high school shouldn't be necessary. It should be a stereotypical practice throughout all years of basic schooling. Doing that, makes it again, a more natural thing. That way high school isn't daunting, and awful. People won't have to hate school if it's not drastically different or harder than what they've been doing for the past 9 years, and on top of that, if the whole stress of school is removed or significantly decreased, based on my suggestion (or others), then school isn't a chore.
High school. I could go on forever on every single little thing that is wrong with every single one in the country. That's not necessary, I believe with any previous changes made, we can just tweak the curriculum and alter it enough to make a difference in kid's lives.
Fixing school problems like this will open a lot of doors that were previously closed, because our population will be more diverse in how we go about various problems that arise, and eventually solving the current problems we have, making the world a better place.

http://www.ctvnews.ca/lifestyle/five-year-olds-learn-coding-as-britain-eyes-digital-future-1.2072508