February 16, 2010
Security Dilemma Fear
Security Dilemma Fear
The Global Dilemma: Denouncing Genetically Modified (GM) Food
The global population growth increase coupled with the adverse effects of global warming has had a suffocating impact on the current food production. At the wake of these issues among others, the feeling that other ways are required in order to increase traditionally produced and conventionally modified food has encouraged scientists to think a notch higher in an attempt to come up with innovative ways of increasing food production. Several debates on whether to or not to produce GM food have arisen of-late. This has been due to the manylimitations of GM food as compared to other foods. GM food is food whose genetic material has been altered by genetic engineering techniques using the DNA technology. Denouncing the GM food is based on the potential danger its production poses to the environment. Moreover, the possible health risks to the consumers which are due to the fact that very scant information exists on harmful substances GM food may contain. Also, since GM food is pioneered by developed countries, the end result is putting developing countries out of international trade causing serious economic and trade inequalities. Proponents of GM food however claim that these arguments are biased and unfounded. GM products are economical to produce, herbicide resistant, and of high quality as a contrast to the high costs of producing naturally produced and conventionally modified food which are of questionable quality and prone to weeds. Yet, due to the perceived serious threats which GM food pose to human health and the world ecosystem, its production should be brought to a stand-still till further studies providing a remedy to its harmful effects are done.
"With all the resources we have today, people should focus on why, though enough, not everybody enjoys access to the resources"
GM agricultural production is increasingly getting opposition from world organizations and states as negative effects start being felt at every corner of the world. The threat this is posing to the ecosystem has tilted the balance of the production of naturally produced food; enormously reducing food production. These environmental disadvantages include the negative effects to cross-pollination and agro-ecosystems which put a risk on plant growth consequently reducing the production of some crops. In addition, GM food production will lead to increased weediness, a situation where plants become weeds and supports gene transfer to weeds and wild or weedy relatives who make them grow into threatening weeds thus becoming resistant to herbicides. Also, the threat has extended to wildlife as many engineered products can be very harmful to the existence of wild animals. As a matter of fact, many other undiscovered environmental risks of GM food production are sprouting, increasing the number of criticisms against its introduction into the world market.
Coupled with this is the health risks, a problem which may arise when people consume GM products which contain toxins, allergens or products made for animals. The toxic substances contained in these products can lead to serious allergies sensitive to individuals. For instance, some particular proteins contain allergens. These toxins may be triggered by the body functioning to grow to high levels leading to increased concentrations which may pose serious harms to the body functioning. Too, these products can cause diseases to consumers which may arise from viruses and bacteria in GM food production. Together with this is the presence of anti-biotic resistance genes in foods which could reduce the effectiveness of antibiotics to fight diseases and the resistance genes could be transferred to humans and animals pathogens making them impervious to antibiotics. This can also create new and worse viruses which can cause havoc to people, animals and other plants. A healthy body depends on the proper functioning of the body and therefore the presence of these toxic substances lead to health problems.
The dangers caused by GM food production to developing countries and international trade are on the increase. Developing countries mostly depend on agriculture for economic growth and international trade. Since GM food production is engineered and done in developed countries, its increased production would mean a reduction of developing countries' exports which will have long-term negative effects to the economic growth of these countries. Therefore, there will be increased over-dependence of poor countries on the developed world and this may not solve the problems of starvation eventually but rather increase the problems associated with the same. More so, millions of farmers from these countries will be put out of business.
However, supporters of GM products argue that the concepts behind the rejection of these products have no ground. In support of GM food, they point out that they are economical to produce since the costs of production are low compared to conventionally modified food. For instance, the costs of herbicides and pesticides are reduced as some plants produce their herbicide and pesticide. Together with this argument, the issue that GM engineering leads to high crop yield and profits has gained support due to the fact that this will save 800 million from starvation coupled with reducing the food crisis in poor countries. Also, due to precise science which is rigorously tested as compared to other techniques, GM food will lead to improved nutrition. Yet, there have not been complete studies on the threats this food causes to human health and the environmental setting. This indicates that GM food is not capable of providing the healthy conditions we are striving for.
GM food causes enormous risks to our bodies and our environment, and greatly threatens the health existence of humans, animals and plants. Though it has some feasible benefits, the overall outcome of incorporating large-scale production in the world can lead to long-term negative effects to health, the surrounding and to the levels of economic growth of developing countries. It can lead to increased levels of greenhouse effects which are a large detriment to the environment today. The GM food production can also contribute to the increase of complex diseases to both plants and animals. And since poor countries depend on agriculture for trade, increased production of this food will widened the gap between the developed and developing economies in terms of international trade. This will eventually result to increased starvation. There is enough for everyone in the world. And therefore, until enough evidence that the negative impacts of GM food production can be put under control, it should not be introduced into the world markets.
References
Clover, J., 2002, Situation Report: Genetically modified foods in the African context: Behind the smokescreen of the current debate, institute for security studies, African security Analysis program.
Driessen, P. & Boynes, C. Jr.2005, GM: Facts Versus Fears, A journal for western man-Issue XXXII
Economist (US), 2005, Greener that you thought, Highbeam Research, US.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetically_modified_organisms, date of retrieval 2007/10/20
Mcafee, K. 2003, The New Global Food Fight: US advocacy of genetically modified food pits it against many countries, Yale Global.
Mcfadden, J. 2005, Top of the crops, University of Surrey, UK.
Sakko, K. 2002, The Debate over Genetically ModifiedFfoods, American Institute of Biological Sciences, US.
Union of Concerned Scientists, 2005, Risk of Genetic Engineering, Cambridge, MA.
About the Author
Emmanuel Mutisya is a writer and researcher in sustainable development, peace and conflicts, international development, microfinance, and urban planning and is affiliated with the university of Tokyo. He also works with United Nations University (Japan) on sustainability projects in Africa.
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The Dilemma of Illegal Immigration: Enforcement of Current Federal/State Laws Versus Reform
George Orwell, British author of the satirical novels "1984," and "Animal Farm," once quipped in political commentary, "What, at first, is absolutely strange, if forcibly fed to a population of human beings in small digestible bites, through the clever medium of government sponsored propaganda, will, over time, become accepted tradition and commonplace, even if sorely corrupted and evil." What this basically means is that a government, any government, may spend hundreds-of-thousands of taxpayer dollars to legislate a law of great benefit for the people of a nation, the majority of which may eagerly support its passage, and, over time, gradually and duplicitously, for spurious reasons, de-emphasize the importance of the law's enforcement, incrementally decreasing the means of enforcing it, until very few concerned citizens actually question why such an important law has gone un-enforced. During the interim time, however, as the law has regularly gone un-enforced, the very evil thing that the law was originally intended to proscribe has become a tolerated practice to a great percentage of the population and, moreover, the electorate. This evil will continue to be tolerated by a duped populace until its deleterious effect on the nation is much too great to be ignored.
Almost identical to the above scenario, U.S. immigration laws, under Title 8 of the U.S.C, were originally legislated by the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives with overwhelming, if not total, support from both Democrats and Republicans during the first four decades of the 20th Century. As with any federal law, the legislative mandate of the U.S. Code directly addressing illegal immigration, 8 U.S.C. § 1325, 1326 (which propelled the legislation through Congress) was placed into the hands of the President of the United States, or the Executive Branch of the U.S. Government, to faithfully enforce.
The due proper enforcement of the U.S. Immigration Code proceeded along pretty well until around 1960, when the passage of U.S. Civil Rights legislation and the strict enforcement of illegal Hispanic immigration collided head-on in the political arena. Subsequently, the legislative mandate of the laws, which was to keep illegal (especially Hispanic) aliens from entering the nation from across the Southern border, was unfortunately subjugated, at that time in history, to political whims and sympathies emanating from, primarily, Democratic U.S. senators and representatives. These legislators cared more about scratching the backs of their wealthy farmer constituents during their seasonal picking times (ensuring that they had ample illegal alien fruit and vegetable pickers) than making sure that immigration laws were faithfully enforced. Consequently, enforcement of immigration law became inanely geared much more to political favoritisms and special interests than to the rule of law. This placed the U.S. Border Patrol in the ambiguous posture of enforcing illegal immigration not according to prescribed federal law, but, rather, according to the whims of powerful men and women in high political offices. I know this to be true because, in 1985, a senior U.S. Border Patrol agent told me that he was extremely frustrated with the differing orders coming from Washington, D.C. telling him and his officers to substantially reduce the number of raids made on known employers of hundreds of illegal aliens in San Diego County. At the time, I was a San Diego County deputy sheriff working at the Vista San Diego County Jail.
Currently, there are millions of parasitic undocumented illegal Hispanic aliens at large throughout the United States, especially in California, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas due to the U.S. Executive Branch's refusal to properly enforce the current immigration laws that are an integral part of the U.S. Code. Many of these illegal aliens are crooks and felons, who are going about with false identifications, bogus driver's licenses, and fraudulent Social Security numbers for the express purpose of ripping-off American citizen taxpayers, obtaining food stamps, medical care, and other public services at taxpayer expense. Of the 15-to-20 million illegal aliens presently here, more than 20 percent of them are violent felons, burglars, robbers, thieves, and gang members. Over 20,000 of them are presently serving federal and state prison sentences for felonies they have committed. But all of these undocumented aliens have one felonious thing in common. They are all guilty of violating federal law by illegal entry into the United States.
Recently, Barack Obama had the unmitigated gall to call, misguided, Governor Jan Brewer's signing into law a new Arizona legislation giving state and local law enforcement officers the authority to detain, and arrest, suspected illegal aliens. How dare Obama say such a thing! When he (and the eight Presidents before him) have blatantly refused to honor their oaths of office, to faithfully execute the (immigration) laws of the United States, it is utterly reprehensible for him to criticize a responsible state governor for honoring the legislative mandate of a vital federal law when its lack of federal enforcement has critically upbraided the peace and security of her state.
Quite ironic it is that the Executive Branch of the federal government can build and staff what they regard as secure top-secret installations for military weapons research, intelligence gathering, or for what they want to consider important in the amorphous name of national security, and thoroughly protect the sites from illegal entry with all sorts of armaments, aircraft, and high-tech gadgetry, while at the same time insisting that protecting the Southern U.S. against illegal entry is almost impossible. Case in point, Area 51, comprising thousands of acres of desert, mountains, and forested land, which is guarded day and night against illegal entry. Take, for instance, an ordinary American citizen who merely wants a job working inside Area 51, and obtains false identification in order to gain entry. Let's say that that citizen gets a job working at one of the government-run restaurants on the installation with his false identification. Two weeks later, Joe Blow is hard at work serving food when government agents harshly arrest him for illegal entry onto U.S. Government property. The poor fellow is charged with a dozen federal crimes, put on trial in a federal court, and subsequently convicted and sentenced to 30 years in a federal prison. Yet, most U.S. citizens will read about the person's conviction and strongly agree that the intruder had it coming when he illegally entered a restricted federal area. So, why isn't prevailing U.S. public opinion against men, women, and families who conspire to illegally cross the U.S.-Mexican border? Such an act is as much a crime as illegal entry onto Area 51. Perhaps it is as George Orwell said, that through deliberate government inaction, and the effective dispersal of government sponsored propaganda, a law vital to a nation can, over time, be de-emphasized to a point where the average citizen does not consider its enforcement as essential.
I sincerely believe that our second President, the late great John Adams, who coined the expression, "We are a nation of laws and not of men," would be completely devastated by how the American republic has become a nation of men and not of laws. Mr. Obama obviously wants to see the U.S. Constitution pragmatically changed to give the federal government total control over every matter the Framers considered state concerns. In essence, Obama wants revise the Bill of Rights and to remake the American republic to resemble the Federal Republic of Germany, which has no bill of rights guaranteeing freedom of speech, freedom of religion, the right to keep and bear arms, and the right to be free of unwarranted invasions of privacy. But, most of all, he wants to see the evisceration of the 10th Amendment, which currently reads, "The powers not delegated to the United States (the federal government) by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people." It seems to be sad, but true, that if a standing President does not like the laws that pervious congresses legislated, and that previous Presidents signed into force, that President will not make an effort to enforce them. This refusal to faithfully execute "all" standing federal laws is, in my opinion, an impeachable offense constituting a high crime. Nonetheless, a President who has a majority of a U.S. Congress rubber-stamping every thing he does, and wants to do, is in no fear of impeachment. A candidate for President, who is not a natural born citizen of the United States, can even be elected and sustained with impunity with a Speaker of the House of Representatives and a Senate Majority Leader supporting him. What was true about "Dubya" and his rubber-stamping Republican Congress is equally true, if not more so, with Barack Obama and his rubber-stamping Democratic Congress. The Obama administration is saying, in effect, that President John Adams, his historical regard for the application of law, and every other salient precedent illustrating the importance of following law instead of human whim, can all go to hell.
Perhaps, during the November 2, 2010 mid-term congressional elections, indignant American citizens, the majority of the voting electorate seeking the rule of law, will go to the polls to cast out of the U.S. Senate and the House those representatives who voted for a legislation to deprive the American public of their freedom of choice, which will force them, by federal mandate, to, either, buy into federally controlled health care, or be penalized for not doing so. The Obama administration is systematically working with the Democratic controlled Congress against the interests of American citizen taxpayers by seeking a federally controlled, essentially totalitarian, regime that will only increase national debt, tax burdens on individuals and families, control over a citizen's daily life, and do away with the type of federalism established in the U.S. Constitution. I sincerely pray to Nature's God that a great majority of American citizens, registered voters seeking the rule of constitutional law, regardless of political party affiliation, will converge on the voting places this coming November to elect new U.S. Representatives and Senators who will abide by the U.S. Constitution instead of the whims of an aberrant, power-hungry President.
About the Author
Norton R. Nowlin took M.A. and B.A. degrees in the social and behavioral sciences from the University of Texas at Tyler, studied law for one full year at Thomas Jefferson School of Law, in San Diego, California, and earned an ABA-approved advanced paralegal certification from Edmonds Community College, in Lynnwood, Washington. Mr. Nowlin has attended LaJolla, California's National University and Malibu's Pepperdine University to attain graduate credits in business management and economics. Mr. Nowlin also attained a Texas State Teaching Certification, in social studies and psychology, from the
University of Texas at Tyler. A paralegal, published essayist, poet, and free-lance fiction writer, Mr. Nowlin resides in Northern Virginia with his wife, the renown math tutor, Diane C. Nowlin, and their two very intelligent cats.
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