Posted by Scott on February 29th, 2008 — Posted in Identity Theft
I never liked the idea of credit bureaus. They make money by keeping tabs on people without the permission of those people.
The company lifelock works on behalf of consumers. They charge $10 per month to help you protect your identity.
Obviously, the credit bureaus only care about making money. To make money, they will do anything they can to make money. They choose to not put certain security measures to protect your identity because it would cost them money. The credit bureaus probably do not care much that it might cost you money to have your identity stolen, as long as it does not cost them money.
LifeLock uses the credit laws to force credit bureaus to take more secure precautions to protect your identity. LifeLock does this by putting your file on a fraud alert. Fraud alerts usually expire after 90 days, so LifeLock automatically re-alerts them.
LifeLock also stands up for consumers by getting your name removed from junk mail lists, so you will stop getting so many of those annoying “pre-approved” credit card offers and junk mail. Not only can that help you avoid the annoyance of junk mail, but it protects your identity because identity thieves use those junk mails to help them steal identities.
Additionally, LifeLock orders free credit reports for you, and has the reports sent to you. Plus, they will help you if you have your wallet stolen or have someone try to steal your identity.
It makes me happy to see companies like LifeLock standing up for us. But it does not come without trouble for them. LifeLock has been sued by Experian, a mammoth credit bureau. Apparently, Experian is very mad that LifeLock is forcing them to protect consumers’ identity. Luckily, LifeLock plans to vigorously defend itself in court. I hope it becomes a case of David vs. Goliath.
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Posted by Scott on February 29th, 2008 — Posted in Politics & Commentary
I have come to the conclusion that we do not need prisons. I wrote an article about it: Does Society Need Prisons?
Basically, my contention is that we can release anyone who does not have a psychological defect making them so dangerous to others as to warrant putting them in a medical asylum.
What do you think?
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Posted by Scott on February 27th, 2008 — Posted in Rape & Sexual Assault
I just finished reading a great book, Exquisite Rebel: The Essays of Voltairine de Cleyre-Feminist, Anarchist, Genius
. I love Voltairine de Cleyre’s writing.
Among other topics, her essays have me considering feminism and the treatment of women in society. In this blog, I often point out how much rapes and sexual victimization occur. I assume that the continued systemic subjugation of women in society helps contribute to the occurrence of rape and sexual victimization against women.
Most psychologists say that a perverted desire for power motivates rapists and sexual assailants, not an extreme desire for sex. That makes sense, considering the assailants could “get off” in other ways with much less danger. Many different factors can cause the types of perversions that lead to a person becoming so perversely and violently power-hungry. Nonetheless, the fact that their perversion develops into a desire to violently subjugate women sexually seems like a manifestation of society’s subjugation of women. Society may not tell men to rape women specifically, but it does instruct men to subjugate women, and that subjugation manifests as rape sometimes.
I believe that less rapes and sexual victimizations would occur if society did not treat women as inferiors. I believe that less rapes would occur if our culture respected women more and treated men and women fairly.
More importantly, if society empowered women as it empowers men, then I believe we would not overlook the problem of rape and sexual victimization. Like most governments, the United States government loves to spend money and loves to wage “wars”–both metaphorical like the war on drugs and real like the war in Iraq. But the same governments and politicians will not do what we need to do in order to end rape. Despite the extreme horridness of the act, the people in our society have not made it a priority to end rape. Perhaps that happens because society sees rape as a women’s problem, sees women as inferior, and thus sees rape as an inferior problem not worth solving.
In addition to its relationship to rape, the societal subjugation of women acts as a form of victimization in itself. It not only causes other problems, but it is a problem in itself. If we want a fair and free society, then we cannot tolerate the subjugation of women.
I doubt that men alone could give women freedom. Masters generally cannot give freedom to slaves because that act still implies that the masters have claim over the slaves. In other words, men cannot really give women freedom because that means that men still control society. Women must demand freedom and take it for themselves. To that end, I believe that we must all work-together, making a consistent effort to end the social traditions that subjugate women.
In response to the claim that women cannot rough it like men, Voltairine de Cleyre wrote, “Train any animal, or any plant, as you train your girls, and it won’t be able to rough it either.” She made note of how the social subjugation of women starts with how people generally raise children. From earliest childhood, we instill gender roles into kids, teaching boys to dominate and women to submit.
Of course, gender roles also place restrictions on men and boys as the gender roles do with women and girls. Instead of letting each child develop naturally, we force each child to accept a certain role based on the child’s gender.
If many girls naturally develop femininity, then good for them. If not, then good for them just the same. If many boys naturally develop masculinity, then good for them. If not, then good for them just the same. We do not need to force gender roles onto children.
I do not doubt that women and men tend to have some physiological and psychological differences stemming from genetics. But I bet that most of the common gender roles would not exist if not for social conditioning. In other words, nurture more than nature causes gender roles.
Worse yet, our society treats naturally feminine traits as inferior to naturally masculine traits. That unfairly subjugates women. For example, even if men and women naturally tend to think differently, we cannot refer to either way of thinking as superior.
Also, in one of her essays, Voltairine de Cleyre made another point which I had not considered much beforehand. She pointed out that society treats the female body as obscene. Namely, we force women to wear clothes. Also, traditionalists in society will harshly criticize women who show off their bodies and who dress liberally. Voltairine de Cleyre said that society treats women worse than animals by forcing them to wear clothes, pointing out that we would charge a person with animal cruelty if the person covered up a horse or a dog with such restricting clothes.
Of course, the forced clothing only makes up part of the sexual subjugation of women. Our culture has a horrible double standard when it comes to sexuality and gender. Our society does not allow women to express themselves sexually like men can, but instead the women must follow a strict standard of so-called purity and wholesomeness. When women exercise the freedom of men in regards to sexuality, they get insulted, called sluts, and treated like trash. The people in society subjugate women by making women repress their own sexuality and by insulting women when they do not repress it.
Ironically, society also treats women like sex objects. While on the one hand we tell women to remain pure and wholesome, on the other hand we make them feel as though they mainly only have value insomuch as they provide sexual gratification to men. Society constantly pushes women to lose weight, dress up, wear high heels, get implants, and so and so forth. Magazines and commercials make women feel physically insecure and convince them to focus on their looks. We not only make them repress their own sexuality, but we also make women the object of men’s sexuality.
I love the way women look, but they have much more in them for us to value than their looks. More importantly, a woman can have value in the same way any human can have value that matters far more than physical attractiveness. We must not hold a person to a different set of values because of the person’s gender.
The subjugation of women will not go away if we ignore it. We must actively find ways to counter and undo the ways that society instills gender roles. We must eliminate double standards based on gender. And we must start respecting women’s freedom just as we must respect men’s freedom. We must respect all people’s freedom and not berate people who do not conform to gender roles.
What do you think? Please post comments with your opinions about gender roles and our society’s treatment of women. Thanks!
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Posted by Scott on February 20th, 2008 — Posted in Politics & Commentary
Today, I will post the following video about the genocide that happened in Nazi Germany:
What do you think of the video? If it interested you, then also check out a post I wrote about genocide: Lo taamod al dam reakha
Basically, I explained that fear causes people to stop caring about the lives of “the enemy,” and that causes the people to support the wars and genocides committed by their government. What do you think?
1 Comment »
Posted by Scott on February 19th, 2008 — Posted in Guns
For the sake of this blog, I frequently read through the news and other blogs regarding topics related to self-defense and the prevention of violence and victimization.
I have often found way too many posts about gun-related politics. I have even come across many blogs dedicated solely to gun-related politics. Pro-gun bloggers make posts about all sorts of shootings and incidents while claiming that more guns would have prevented them by enabling the victims to defend themselves. Anti-gun bloggers make posts about the same incidents and say that more gun control would have prevented them. Plus both make random posts simply supporting or opposing gun control.
Personally, I dislike having to sort though those posts. I see too much focus on guns, and I doubt gun control or the lack of it will prevent much violence and victimization.
For example, 17,000 murders take place each year in the United States. I highly doubt that more or less gun control will change the number very much. Most of the statistics shown about guns seem highly politicized and mostly irrelevant to me.
I think we need less focus on guns and the politics involved. When guns are illegal, murders, rapists, and other assailants can use illegal guns or commit their deeds without guns. When guns are legal, very few people actually possess them anyway and even pro-gun people generally support legally disallowing access to criminals and other mentally unstable people.
We have more important issues. We need to put our resources into finding ways to reduce violence and victimization. We need to forget about changing the legal status of guns and instead find a way to stop murder and rape.
Anyway, I feel like simply summing up how I feel about guns theoretically. (I do see the irony considering my previous comments.)
I support the legalization of personal guns for self-defense for two main reasons. Firstly, I support freedom as a top priority–believing it most helpful to most individuals and to society as a whole. Secondly, for those who oppose gun ownership, I believe they can better reduce it through persuasion rather than coercion. I feel the same way about other victimless crimes such as drug possession and prostitution. These actions do not inherently include an act of victimization.
If someone owns a gun or takes drugs, but the person does not hurt anyone else, then I say we let them. Regardless of whether they own a gun or take drugs, if they try to attack someone else than I say we physically stop them.
When people exercise their freedom stupidly, I do not want it taken away. You may think it stupid to take drugs, own guns, or to commit other exercises of freedom. However, I generally believe that you can best stop these in a persuasive way rather than with the coercive power of illegalization. For example, public service announcements, advocacy groups, and so on can inform people about the dangers of drugs, guns, and such–thus trying to convince the people to voluntarily give up the supposedly bad habit.
What do you think?
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Posted by Scott on February 15th, 2008 — Posted in Corporate Crime
When we talk of crime and victimization, I think we often think of street crime, as in individual acts by individual persons, such as rape and assault. However, corporations perform the most major forms of criminal victimization.
Corporations have more social and political power than most people, but they do not have the humanity. For the most part, they only care about the bottom line. They love money, and they will do anything to get it. They would slice the throats of 5-year-old girls if it would make them money. For example, consider when Bayer knowingly sold drugs infected with AIDS.
Worse yet, corporations often get away with victimizing people. They often get to victimize people legally because they have the money to lobby and control the government. For example, consider all the money the military industries, oil industries, and private-owned prison industries have stolen from taxpayers by using some of their money to buy politicians. Or consider the corporations that steal people’s land via the government with eminent domain.
Though it is generally illegal for them to bribe politicians, corporations can legally control the government to legally victimize people with campaign contributions, lobbyists, and media control. Additionally, even when prosecuted, corporations have the highest paid lawyers. And corporate crime rarely results in criminal prosecution and jail time, but instead ends with a fine.
Also, let’s not forget that corporate crime often results in violence. For example, 56,000 Americans die every year on the job or from occupational diseases such as black lung; many of those cases arise from criminal recklessness. Other examples include the violence of contaminated foods, pollution, hazardous consumer products, and hospital malpractice.
As Robert Mokhiber pointed out in 2007, corporate crime inflicts far more damage on society than street crime.
I believe we can only effectively limit corporate control over us by limiting the power of government. Insofar as a government has power over the people, the big corporations will control and victimize us by controlling the government.
Whatever we do, we need to find a way to defend ourselves from corporations, not just from human citizens.
What do you think?
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Posted by Scott on February 14th, 2008 — Posted in Facts and Stats
I just read a great post by Andy Kahan with statistics about violence and victimization in the United States.
Most notably, the statistics say that 4.6 million violent crimes occur each year in the United States. And that statistic apparently only includes the 47% of violent crimes that actually get reported to law enforcement.
Additionally, about 17,000 murders take place in the United States each year.
Financially speaking, violent crime costs victims about $1.4 billion per year and property crimes cost victims about $15.6 billion per year.
Politicians on the payroll of the military industry and the oil industry like to talk about terrorism because it helps them use taxpayer dollars to fund the industry. But these same politicians do little to stop the domestic plague of violent crime and victimization–which kills more Americans than international terrorism.
If you pay taxes and vote, then at least demand that your “representatives” do something to stop violent crime. But I personally doubt that the politicians will change much. So I think we all need to work together to find non-governmental ways to defend ourselves and to prevent violence and victimization.
What do you think?
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Posted by Scott on February 13th, 2008 — Posted in School Safety
I just read an interesting report on ScienceDaily about the increased danger for young college women who drink alcohol. Basically, the research shows that females who drink more in their first year of college have a higher chance of experiencing victimization than the females who do not drink.
The research also shows that new drinkers had a greater chance of physical victimization. To me, that implies that females who drank in high-school and college have less of a chance of experiencing physical victimization during college than females who drank less in high-school. I agree with the researchers, who speculated that new drinkers have less social experience and have less physical tolerance for alcohol, both of which increase the new drinkers’ impairment and vulnerability.
Statistically speaking, I think the study may mislead some people into thinking it shows that drinking causes the increased chance of victimization. As far as I can tell, it only seems to actually show a correlation between drinking and victimization, but it does not show that drinking necessarily causes the victimization. In other words, perhaps women who have a higher tendency to put themselves in dangerous situation also have a higher tendency to drink, but the drinking may not actually cause their dangerous behavior.
Nonetheless, if I had to guess, I would assume that both cause each other. I would guess that drinking will cause people to more often make dangerous decisions, and that people who make dangerous decisions will more often choose to drink.
Regardless, I think parents need to teach their children about drinking and social responsibility, both in high-school and in college. Additionally, schools and colleges can educate students about drinking and its effects. This will help the students make better decisions. Hopefully, more of the students will choose to abstain from drinking or drink less, and the others will know how to drink more wisely and safely.
I also think lowering the drinking age would help greatly. Almost no people wait until they turn 21 to drink, and the ones that do usually do not drink much at all anyway. By having the drinking age absurdly high, young adults must hide their drinking. They binge drink more because of that, I believe. Also, they do it without adult supervision and without adults even knowing. It creates a communication gap between adults and the students, which means the young adults do not get advice or help when they may need it most. I think lowering the drinking age to 18 or even maybe 16 would do wonders to help parents and schools teach students responsibility when it comes to drinking.
What do you think?
1 Comment »
Posted by Scott on February 13th, 2008 — Posted in Domestic Abuse
I just read an interesting article that says that domestic violence starts at home.
Basically, the article says that we cannot rely on police and courts to stop domestic violence because arrest and punishment can only do so much. The article then suggests intensive counseling for at-risk couples as well as putting more effort into raising children better.
I agree.
We do need to put domestic abusers in jail, but we can only stop domestic violence by preventing it in the first place. Most abusive people probably learn that behavior as children, so I agree that we need to find a way to make sure children get raised in a way that does not lead to domestic violence. If we do that, hopefully we could stop the cycle of domestic violence.
What do you think?
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Posted by Scott on February 11th, 2008 — Posted in Domestic Abuse
According to a new Centers for Disease Control and Prevention survey, 23.6 percent of U.S. women and 11.5 percent of U.S. men reported being a victim of domestic violence at some point in their lives. The CDC estimates that 1,200 women are killed and 2 million are injured in domestic violence every year in the United States.
Instead of needlessly wasting hundreds of billions of dollars on the occupation of Iraq and the war on drugs, maybe we could put some of that money into preventing domestic violence.
I would much rather see a war on domestic violence than a war on drugs. I suggest we stop throwing non-violent druggies in jail and instead use those law enforcement resources to stop domestic violence and lock up domestic abusers.
What do you think?
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Posted by Scott on February 1st, 2008 — Posted in News
I just read a letter to the men of the world on Allyssa Milan’s blog.
As it seems to me, the letter has a humorous tone even though it addresses serious feelings.
The letter talks about men’s general emotional insensitivity, not about the more extreme abuse that I often post about here. I don’t necessarily agree with all of the advice in the letter, but I definitely recommend reading it and considering its message.
At one point, the letter chastises most men for always trying to “act like a man” so to speak. I think almost everyone looks down upon the attempts that many guys make to seem macho, which comes off as phony and superficial. But I wouldn’t necessarily stop encouraging guys to try to “act like men.” I would just say that hurting people does not qualify as manly, nor does insensitivity towards women. I would suggest that we define manliness as helping other people and taking care of them.
Similarly, I think we can draw a distinction between insensitivity and toughness. Insensitivity refers to not feeling or noticing unpleasant stimuli, whereas toughness refers to withstanding it and dealing with it.
What do you think?
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