When I write non-photography blogs centered on subjects like politics, religion or social issues, please read and digest every word, giving thought to everything I am saying, not just what you feel you disagree with. Thank you.

One of the many myths I believe (some) people of the United States embrace too readily, is that the only way to stop mass murder in this country, is to somehow magically figure out which individuals will become one of these killers, and then kill it before it grows, so to speak. In other words, when can pick and choose who will be evil, while leaving alone all of us who will not bring harm to others.

One consensus (among some groups) of how we stop crazy people from going to places where others gather (schools, workplaces, etc.), and slaughtering fellow humans, and I use the term human lightly for those who would do that, is to catch people with “problems” earlier and report them to the authorities. You hear about mass murderers all the time, how the signs were there if only someone would have done something. That sounds good to most people including me, on the surface. If you report somebody who you’ve always thought strange to the authorities (big brother?) thinking well, they’ll just detain him from work or school for a while until they find out for sure, how will you feel when your co-worker or next door neighbor reports you? How will you explain to them (those faceless authorities again), that no I am alright. Really….I’m okay, it’s the guy across the street that not me.

I personally don’t want to live in a society of “busybody snitches” where people report every action they personally decide is odd, to the authorities.

Here’s a fact of life in America. There are at least 80 million “illegal” guns in this nation. Guns that criminals and crazies can get their hands on. Without gun shops or gun shows. Our societal problems that lead to mass murders aren’t about guns or government-owned psychiatrists. Big brother informants or taking guns away from honest citizens who may want to protect themselves against the crazies and/or criminals aren’t going to help a bit. Until we have a nation that respects human life, be that life on our streets or in the womb, this cancer will continue. Government data bases, that hold birth to death info on its citizens (already being put in place in Common Core), will only mean that everyone that the government disapproves of, will be placed or detained where and when they decide, while the true crazies, run the very government who removes those it considers dangerous.

Freedom has always had a high price. America needs to figure out whether we are to be yet another mindless nation of robotic “yes men” to a totalitarian government which decides our lives for us, or a society that loves both freedom and life, and does so enough to teach and nurture “cradle to grave” respect for that life.

There always has been, and always will be a price that goes with freedom.

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I love busting myths of all kinds. Whenever we make a moral decision that something we’ve done in America is wrong, and somebody has been wronged, and we correct that transgression, we always make those who were wronged into gods. We, or at least the liberal portions of society, always and I mean always seem to think, that once we’ve agreed on that wrong doing, that from here on, those who were victimized, can become a product of myth and lies, as long as it is a positive myth and lie. They re-create whole societies in what they want them to be, rather than what they were or are.

There is little in life, worse than randomly taking away someone’s freedom. Slavery in this nation was one of the two worst things that we have ever done. We inherited our belief that we had the right to own human beings, from Great Britain. The British however, abolished the act long before we did. In the Americas only Brazil held onto to slavery longer than we did. Once we did the right thing, as America always has done eventually, there was still a century of the south living with the “hangover” of slavery, and the continuation of the attempt to deprive black Americans of many of their basic civil rights. That included voting, honest court proceedings, and a right to live and go to school where they choose. They are often referred to as the Jim Crow laws, and they were a further blight on our society.

After the Jim Crow laws were abolished, black Americans began looking at their past, and the Africa they were forced to migrate from.  From that point on, movies, TV shows, books and the like, portrayed all of black Africa as a nobel society, that we could only hope to emulate. Living in peace and in perfect harmony with the land.

We’ve all seen those movie scenes of white American slave traders raiding tribal camps in Africa at dawn, and stealing tribal members away by force. The truth is, that it rarely happened that way. Slave traders entered the camps of tribes that were themselves, slave owners. White slave traders bought black slaves from other black Africans. Today, as I write this article, there are several countries in central and southern Africa, that continue the practice of slave ownership. This has always been known, but generally kept quiet. Genocide, is also all too common in Africa. It is common to equate the American slave trade with the Jewish Holocaust, yet those same people make no mention of slavery and genocide in modern-day Africa.

None of what I have said above, eliminates in any way, the horror and evil of Americans owning slaves. That’s why the northern states abolished the act in the late 1700s, and earth 1800s, and why the first condition of the Union Army to forgive the south for their transgressions, was that they eliminate slavery. Why is it that the part of our society that always scolds us and tells us that we need to know the truth, only wants you to hear their version of the truth, where the bad guys and the good guys (and the truth itself) are picked by them.

Another American atrocity was the way the American Indian, Native American, First People, or whatever we are to say today, were treated as white Europeans flooded into the shores of this continent.

It was not unusual, and an accepted practice (until the late 1800s) for a technologically developed people, to over take those who were not. It wasn’t right, but it was generally accepted, and always expected. Worse even than the takeover of all that land, was the continual breaking of promises by the white Europeans to the Native Americans. As far as I know, there was never a treaty made, that we did not break. There is never an excuse for willfully breaking ones word.

In the 20^th Century, especially from the late 1960s on, we began to embrace Native American culture. I think it was the right thing to do, and I still study and enjoy that culture. With knowledge of the truth however. We turned the American Indian into a society of perfect Gods.

I love the way Native Americans lived with the land. I feel a kinship with that culture, and I love the goodness that exists there. There were however, nomadic tribes that fished and hunted out regions, and left them badly bruised and then searched for more fertile grounds. While the American Indian put a much higher premium on keeping their word than did the white Europeans, they considered stealing from neighboring tribes, to be righteous. It was often a right of passage for young males to steal. Stealing is just as bad as breaking your word. There were many, in fact most tribes, who were peaceful. There were however others who were brutal warriors and regularly made war and killed members of other tribes. It was a high honor to take their scalps in some cultures. Captured prisoners were either tortured to death or taken as slaves.

If you are a woman who thinks highly of Native American culture, hopefully you understand that you would have needed to have been a member of one of very few tribes to have been free and equal to men. Men hunted and made war. Women worked 20 hour days doing everything else. If your father would have been offered a good horse from a neighboring tribe, you likely would have been sold. You would have probably have wound up as one of the horse owner’s wives, or simply been used as slave labor. Yes, several Native American tribes practiced slavery. On several occasions, white settlers were captured and sentenced into a life of slavery.

We see a few of the same issues (via liberalism) today with Islam. The half-truths, complete lies and plain old omissions about the truth of the religion of Islam, are breathtaking in their scope. The difference in this and slavery or Native American dealings, is that non-Islamic societies or western countries are not brutalizing Moslems. It is often the other way around. As we attempt to do everything to get along with the Islamic culture, we are often rewarded with death. Every American, should read and understand the Quran. A cold shiver will travel down your spine.

White man, red man, black man, yellow man, brown man, it doesn’t matter. All of us in every society that exists or has existed, are or have been flawed, sinful and full of selfish desires. That is called being human. The over deification of Peoples who have been wronged is understandable in its inception, but wears thin and becomes destructive eventually. It doesn’t serve to bring us together, it separates us. The truth is the only answer to equality. Let neither the distorters of history, or the cleansers of the truth, pollute your mind. There is freedom and edification in seeing what “really is, and what really was”.

Never forget or ignore the goodness that exists or existed in every society, but balance it with the faults and even the horrors. Eventually you will realize that all societies have been and are, both good and evil.

Set yourself free by busting the myths that are force-fed to all of us.

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Some will ask why must I persist to find the flaws in things like African culture, Native American culture and other subjects that are deemed untouchable by the political left? It’s certainly not because I don’t love my black brothers and sisters, or our first citizens (American Indians) of this great land. Nor do I excuse wrongdoings by any group, including the Europeans that came across the ocean to live here. It’s because those who consistently tear down America, always claim they are only after the truth, and then they proceed to bury more truths than they uncover.

There’s good and bad everywhere, in every culture and on every continent. Never let the thought police decide for you what’s true and what’s myth.

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As is always the case with non-photography/art articles here on Earth Images, this one will be moved to August 21, 2015 where all such posts live together. You can find many such articles there, but proceed at your own risk.

God Bless, Wayne