Middle Eastern Conflict

After reading your blog, the conflict in Iraq, and the whole Middle East for that matter, just seemed to get more confusing and hopeless. On the surface, it seems like this is a conflict that is a “Catch 22”. A no-win situation. Though it may seem that way, I am not willing to give up that easy on the conflict. I think there are things that America can do to somehow resolve or even reduce the status of this conflict.

First of all, I think that it is extremely important that America keeps training Iraqi soldiers and policeman to help bring peace into that nation. We need to do this as quickly and efficiently as possible, then let them spread their wings and fly away on their own. Gradually, U.S. soldiers and authorities need to come back home and let them take complete control of their country.

Second of all, and I think that this may be the most important of all, I think that the Iraqi citizens need people who will challenge their thinking. The problem is clearly stated in your blog. It is primarily a conflict of worldviews. If we America can get people over there to challenge and strengthen their thinking, then perhaps it will spread first throughout Iraq, then throughout the Middle East. There are a few things that make this idea very difficult to achieve. The main one is that our culture is one that is very anti-intellectual, so for the most part, we cannot train them on how to think about goodness, justice, beauty, or peace, if our own citizens do not even know how to think well about these issues. This change in our country is not going occur unless our modern-day education system makes some serious adjustments.

Change in the Middle East will not come unless a change in the Middle Easterners foundation occurs. Their foundation is their worldview and that is what we need to attack. The situation is not hopeless, it is just that America needs to make some serious adjustments before we expect any change to occur in the Middle East. For some of these Iraqi citizens, this is the only time they will come in touch with Western ideas. Exposing them to ancient Western foundational ideas is what we need to do in order to expect any change, but how can we achieve this if our culture does not have enough knowledge or has not explored these ideas in depth either?

History of the Income Tax

Many Americans dread the day that April 15th comes around each year. They know that more then likely their bank account will take a financial hit (if they haven’t already paid before the deadline). The history of the income tax dates back to as early as the Civil War. It is illegal to not pay your income tax, and if you don’t, the government just may reach their hands into your bank account and do the job themselves.

In 1861, the Revenue Act passed during the Civil War. This act implemented a tax on personal incomes to help pay war expenses. The people paid these taxes for ten years until the Revenue Act was repealed. In 1894, Congress enacted a flat rate on taxes. This was declared unconstitutional one year later by the U.S. Supreme Court because “it was a direct tax not apportioned according to the population of each State”.

The 1950’s brought reorganization. They replaced the patronage system with career employees. The Restructuring and Reform Act of 1998 was brought upon by the IRS. This act reorganized and modernized the IRS and founded the Taxpayer Advocate Service as an independent power inside the agency on behalf of the taxpayer.

The filing deadline has not always been April 15th. In 1913, Congress specified that the filing date would be March 1st, after the passage of the 16th Amendment. The date was pushed to March 15th by Congress in 1918. The deadline was pushed back yet another time to April 15th in 1954 due to the tax overhaul.

This is how the Federal Income Tax started. Its purpose was to pay for the soldiers and supplies during the Civil War, and we have being paying them ever since then. A few changes have been made since then, but the purpose has stayed the same; to provide the government with revenue it needs. The income tax may change slightly in the future, but one thing is for sure, it will never go away.

What I enjoyed/did in Europe

Some of the best memories of my high school career have come while I was in Europe. I thought the trip was an absolute blast. I would really like to go back one these days, especially to Paris and Munich. Even though it was hard to pick a favorite city, these are the two that stood out the most to me. The Louvre was amazing. That was one of my favorite sites in all of Paris. I would probably have enjoyed going back on my free-day, but unfortunately we did not get that opportunity. Instead, Mr. Patag, Alex, and I went over to that Impressionist museum. The art there was pretty cool, but nothing compared to the Louvre. After that we just walked/rolled around the freezing city. It was nothing special. Something that just came to my mind was my favorite lunch that I had on the trip. It was that day we visited the beaches in Normandy. I ate the best Clazone I had ever eaten. This thing was enormous and not to expensive. I loved it. In general, I enjoyed and appreciated the beauty of the architecture, especially in Paris and Munich. This was one of the reasons I enjoyed Munich so much, it was because the architecture had a different kind of European feel to it. The cathedrals everywhere were gorgeous, but there was something about the German cathedrals that I was particularly attracted to. Admiring the architecture was of my favorite parts of the trip for me and one of the big why I would enjoy going back one day.