Ni5: Perspectives

This is where we offer some of our thoughts and perspectives to you. We won't promise they're better than anyone else's. Or even right. But we'll at least provide interesting ways of looking at things.

Combined with the information we provide in the other parts of this site, we hope to encourage interesting and meaningful conversations about things that affect you.

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A fine line

Date: 2015-Jul-21 Author: Barry Shatzman

The NY Times has 2 stories about Daesh (you know them as ISIS) that are both enlightening and sobering. They're must-reads in order to have any intelligent discussion about the situation.

ISIS Transforming into functioning state that uses terror as tool.
ISIS Strategies include lines-of-seccession and deadly ringtones.

Here are some of my takeaways...

o If you're not corrupt and provide social services, you can be a popular government even if you murder people.

o The air bombardments might kill some people and make a few missile salesmen rich, but they won't be stopping these guys anytime soon.

o Good doesn't necessarily triumph over evil in the long run

Oh... one more takeaway. Governments decide who they ally with, who they go to war with, and how they treat their citizens. You don't decide these things. In other words, there's a line between people who just want to live their lives and governments that have a degree of power over them.

It's the same in this country. You cheer or boo when the Supreme Court tells you that you can keep your health care, or when they don't allow the EPA to make power companies quit spewing mercury into the air we all breathe, or when they tell you whether a state can prevent you from forming a legal family with someone who happens to be the same sex as you. You cheer when Congress votes to keep the government open (i.e. simply just doing their job), or your local government paves the street near your home. When then don't, you have all kinds of other things to say.

Of course you don't make the final decisions (you elect people to do that in your best interest), but you can influence them more than you think. Our Constitution attempts to make that line between government and citizens thin. But here's the thing - the less you take advantage of it, the thicker that line becomes.

So i'll say what i've said before and i'll keep saying. Write to the people you elect to represent your interests. User our RepresentMe! tool or just do it through their website.

What if you don't? Does that mean our government will turn into a Daesh? I sure hope not. I just don't want to leave it to hope. Do you?