Syrian conflict on Turkey's border

Russia and China originally stonewalled more U.N. and NATO involvement in Syria because Russia was selling weapons to Syria. From Russia's viewpoint, the longer the war went on the more money they would make. 

Three day ago NATO moved forward with its plan to have Patriot missiles on the border between Turkey and Syria. NATO insists the only reason these missiles are being installed is to protect their ally Turkey. The main reason they have done this is to make sure Syria does not use chemical weapons deployed through missiles against the rebels. NATO is simply using the excuse of protecting Turkey so they can put more pressure on Syria without China and Russia stonewalling them by blocking the countries that are in the U.N. from taking action, effectively cutting off NATO from doing anything even though they are not NATO members. 

Russia said that Moscow would not protest Patriot missiles being put on the border between Turkey and Syria if they were for the defense of Turkey only. The only reason that NATO has the excuse that they are simply protecting Turkish citizens is because five Turkish citizens were killed by a missile that came from Syria, even though most likely that missile was a misfire.

Just hours after NATO set up Patriot missiles on the Syrian border, Russia delivered its first shipment of Iskander missiles to Syria. What NATO did ended up backfiring on them. Its true that there is slightly more pressure on Syria but Syria also now has Iskander which helps the Syrian government immensely.


Iskander missiles are designed to get past missile defense systems. They are of Russian make and are extremely successful at pinpoint accuracy and getting past missile defense systems. 

After NATO said that there were signs that Syria would begin to use chemical weapons against the rebels, Russia stated that the Syrian government had assured them that they would not use chemical weapons against the rebels.However, with the Iskander missiles that Russia sold to Syria they now have a very effective way of attacking the rebels with chemical weapons.  It remains to be seen if they will or not.

Syria is worried that the U.N. will frame them for using chemical weapons against the rebels. It is very likely that the U.N. is trying to find a way to frame Syria because if Syria uses chemical weapons the U.S. will become directly involved in the conflict there.

Russia delivered these missiles to Syria so NATO would not easily be able to shoot down missiles shot in Syria. Russia and China will now continue to stonewall the U.N. and NATO now that Russia is once again selling weapons to Syria. 

Gay rights

Homosexual people should have all the same rights that everyone else has for quite a few reasons. It is true that people who are homosexual have a trait that makes them different from the majority of people, but that does not mean they don't deserve the same rights. 

There is nothing wrong with being attracted to people of the same gender. It just means you have a trait that is different from the majority of people, but there is nothing wrong with that. Someone who is handicapped is different from the majority of people, but he or she still gets the same right as everyone else. So why shouldn't homosexuals get the same rights as well? 

Homosexuality does nothing to hurt us in any way. If anything, it helps society, because gay people cannot reproduce with each other without the assistance of technology. Therefore, they are not adding to the population burden the world is currently facing. If they are not doing anything to hurt people, they deserve all the same rights that everyone else does. 

People argue that gay people shouldn't be allowed to marry because that is not abiding by what God told us to do. Even if that is true, there is still the separation of church and state. Legal recognition of marriage is a civil agreement, not a religious one. There is absolutely no reason that homosexual people should be punished or have different rights from other people. 

Fiscal cliff

One of the major reasons that there has not been much progress on the fiscal cliff is because the republicans believe that Obama and the democrats will give in to avoid the fiscal cliff. The republicans believe that the democrats will budge because they always have in recent events. 

They believe that even though they lost the presidential election they can still act like they won, and can ignore the wishes of the American public. If Obama and the democrats wish to finally convince the American public that they are not just pushovers, they can't give in to the republicans and just cut spending without increasing taxes, even if it means going over the fiscal cliff.  

It appears, though, that the republicans might be willing to compromise, which is a step in the right direction because we can't just have tax increases or just spending cuts. Neither is enough to reduce the deficit. What we have to do is make the tax rate for the wealthy the same as it is for the middle class, and we also have to cut unnecessary spending. 

Tax increase on wealthy

It seems that the republicans are beginning to consider the option of raising taxes on the wealthy. Republican speaker John Boehner stated on Wednesday that one places we will get revenue will come from the top 2% of Americans. What he proposed was to cut the loopholes for the very rich, effectively raising the amount that they pay on income tax. While it is true that that is not raising the taxes on the wealthy, they will still pay more than they currently pay. 

A full 22,000 households that made more than $1 million in 2009 paid less than 15 percent of their income in income taxes — and 1,470 managed to pay no federal income taxes on their million-plus-dollar incomes, according to the IRS. This is unacceptable, we cannot allow the very rich to pay a smaller percent income tax than the middle class. Many people want there to be a higher income tax rate on the wealthy than there is on the middle class but we can  not let that happen either. If we were to have there be higher tax rates on the wealthy, we would be punishing them by making them pay a higher percent for being successful. We cannot live in a country that punishes success.