The Flaws of Claus

In the legal world, professional integrity is important.  This integrity is shaped by how a lawyer presents him/herself, interacts with fellow colleagues, and many other things.  According to the American Bar Association's code of professional responsibility, lawyers are not allowed to knowingly lie.  Many different types of people live a life of not lying, lawyers included.  After all, the words we utter are a deciding factor in whether somebody will trust us.  This all leads to the issue at hand "Whether a lawyer loses any integrity when s/he tells a child that Santa Claus exists?"  


Although a simple sounding question, it is actually very complex.  The question would read better if phrased as such, "What happens when an adult person tells a child that an obese man can travel hundreds of thousands of miles an hour with flying four-legged animals (that do not have wings), has an itinerary of every single child (the likes of which Dateline should investigate), lives in arctic temperatures with his wife and small workers (who have not unionized) and are likely subjected to more human rights violations than grammar rules violated by this sentence?"  

Thomas Nast created the modern
plump Santa that many try to look like
in their everyday life.

This question displays multiple mistakes about our society.  Here are a few (feel free to highlight some more in the comments section):


1.  We teach our children a false science.
This impossible idea shows that a person can defy the laws of physics and survive multiple G-forces with no protective encasement around him in a non-aerodynamic mode of transport.  It is also important to mention that Santa Claus is not a relative of Icarus.  That is to say, the higher Santa flies above the Earth and thus closer to the sun does not mean he is feeling warmer.  To the contrary, it is freezing cold where he flies.  Is it any wonder why American students are losing the global competition in math and science?


2.  Privacy is not important. 
A man has a network that allows him to spy on every child.  Now, a child must reason at a rudimentary level, "If Santa can see me while I'm sleeping or awake, then he can see me clothed and undressed." Which must be disconcerting because the child's parents told him that strangers aren't allowed to see him naked.  And this same stranger seems to be following him everywhere he goes because whatever store he goes into, this man is making him sit on his lap and tell him what he wants for Christmas.  Can we say stalker?  


3.  This teaches a child poor reasoning skills.  
This man is overly jolly, can drink millions of glasses of milk without vomiting (everybody in college knew somebody who tried drinking a gallon of milk in under an hour, never turned out well did it?), can eat hundreds of millions of cookies without getting a stomachache, handle his morbidly obese weight so well that he can squeeze down a chimney (in America, at least, and conform to other cultures as he must when he crosses borders), and has a toy for every Christian person in the world in a toy sack that is roughly about twice his size.  As a further point, if this man knows when I have been bad or good and "sees you when you're sleeping and knows when you're awake", then why write him a list of what you want?  By right, he should be all-aware and well-aware of what you want!  


4.  Faith is dispensable.  
As the child ages, he'll stop believing in God.  Why not?  Parents, the harbingers of truth, told the kid that an all-seeing, all-aware being existed.  And then, like pulling a rug from underneath a dozing koala bear, that person suddenly doesn't exist and is ripped from the fabric of that child's life.  


BUT WAIT THERE'S MORE!  A man named Jesus was born on this day.


BUT WAIT THERE'S MORE!  His mother was still a virgin after his conception and he came to die for every Christian's sins.


BUT WAIT THERE'S MORE!  He wasn't born on this day, he was born in the springtime.  Because duh, baby animals are not galloping around in the winter.  


BUT WAIT THERE'S MORE!  December 25th was chosen because a boat load of pagans had their pagan holiday on this day and the Christians wanted to appeal to them so they switched up Jesus's birth day (no offense, Jesus!).  


And, as we know, this was not the only time Jesus was hoodwinked with a quick exchange.  He was also partially merged into Santa Claus (along with St. Nicholas, Father Christmas, and Sinterklass.).  A child my wife tutors said it best, "I asked my friend what would happen if Santa died.  He replied, 'God would make him come back to life and he would live forever.'"


*     *     *     *


I was asked why I don't celebrate Christmas.  I replied that I actually do celebrate Christmas, except that I celebrate it as Christmas' namesake would have celebrated it, which means I celebrate it in the spring/summer.  Which also means I do not celebrate it because the namesake never celebrated it, rather he simply engaged himself in acts of prayer and self-betterment everyday.  


Sometimes, following precedent is not so bad. 

Tweet to @salawm

An Undue Process: A Tale of Troy Davis and Anwer Al AwSnap

It was the best of times.  

A convicted murderer of a police officer received his lethal injection after decades on death row.  Troy Davis had also shot somebody else and pistol-whipped a homeless person.  The police officer was coming to the aid of the homeless person.  During his trial, numerous witnesses testified that they had seen him either shoot one guy or kill the other.  Pretty solid case.  So solid that the jury found him guilty within two hours of deliberations.  

Al Qaeda and the Taliban seemed to be on the run, scattering elsewhere and repositioning themselves in Pakistan.  The founder of Al Qaeda, Osama bin Laden, was reportedly killed.  A leading recruiter of Al Qaeda, Anwar Al-Awlaki, was killed a few months later.  The war on terror was seeing major progress.  

It was the worst of times. 

During the time after Troy Davis's first trial, key witnesses recanted their testimony.  One alleged eyewitness, Dorothy Ferrell, was a recanter.  You might scoff, "Ah, her testimony could not have been that important if it is easily recanted." Well, I hope you want some sugar in your scoffee because Dorothy testified that she had seen Davis slay a person from her room across the street.

Is that bitter?

Might need more sugar. 

Dorothy also said that she felt forced to testify the way she did because she was on parole for a shoplifting conviction and the DA's office had agreed to a plea deal in exchange for her testimony. 

She pointed the finger at somebody for murder in exchange for help for a shoplifting conviction? (you can push play now)  

(Definitely need more sugar.)

This is the part where a lawyer's/law student's mouth drops.  

Truly, it may have been a blunder on the attorneys to not properly look into each witness. These days, finding out that a witness for the prosecution is currently in plea negotiations is something to always look for in order to discredit witness testimony. All the defense attorney has to say is "Oh, hey, jury, check this out: She's only saying this stuff because if she does, SHE will get less time for a crime she committed." Then again, there were 34 witnesses for the prosecution. To look into the background of each one would take an enormous amount of time. 

Dorothy was not the only recanter. Three other key witnesses stated they felt pressured to say what they did. Another was threatened to be charged as an accomplice if he did not testify against Troy Davis. Jurors later said if they had known then what they knew now, they would have tried harder in school.  They would have also not convicted Troy Davis. Ever. 

Everevereverevereverevereverever.

"I'm not actually Atticus Finch, 

but I do play him in a movie. 

And darnit, PETA, stop thinking 

that birds were killed in that movie!  

Nothing was killed in the movie.  

Well, actually, crap, that's incorrect."  

(During some points of that last clause, if you are a true American patriot, you could only see "revere". If, at any point, you saw "evergreen", you are illiterate.)

It seems that a black man was tied to a crime in the South even though the evidence was doubtful. 

Boy oh boy, where is Atticus Finch when you need him? 

Meanwhile, Osama bin Laden was shot, killed, and thrown overboard into a sea all before President Barack Obama strutted away from the podium announcing that bin Laden was dead. (If you want to read more on OBL, read this entry.) Al-Awlaki had something coming his way. He had just started riding shotgun in a pickup truck and had probably just turned on his favorite Jock Jams volume (to remind him of his good ol days as an American youth) before a missile came out of nowhere and jammed his jock.

Went from listening to "boom boom boom"
to going boom, boom, boom.
What?  Too soon, soon soon?

Yes, he was an American. He was born in New Mexico. No matter how vile his actions, no matter how morally reprehensible, he still was entitled to his day in court. The United States had a law in place for acts involving terrorism. 

Yes, there was a law in place for exactly what Al-Awlaki did. 

It is part of a relatively unknown act called the US PATRIOT Act. Under sections 18 USC 2339A and 2339B (the material support to terrorists and material support to terrorist organizations laws, respectively), these statutes state that if somebody knowingly provides support to a known terrorist or terrorist organization, then he will be imprisoned for, at most, 15 years. If their actions result in the loss of life, then they may receive life imprisonment. The death penalty applies for those guilty of treason, of gathering or delivering defense information to aid a foreign government, or a list of other reasons under section 3591(a)(2). 

However, the death penalty can only be given after a trial.

So the case against al-Awlaki was pretty much air-tight.  All America had to do was find him, arrest him, and bring him to trial.  Yet, a memo within the walls of the White House skipped the steps of due process and stated that he was killable.

Killable, not kill a bill.

The US Government alleges that he could not be captured.  One of the reasons he could not be captured was because the US did not want to get stuck in a quagmire of diplomatic relations if US troops touched down on Yemeni soi...sand. (Which the Obama administration may or may not have considered when touching down in Pakistan to take out OBL.) This further makes no sense because Yemen had granted the US permission to fire missiles in Yemen, all the US had to do was ask Yemen if they could pretty please land in Yemen really quick. We are Americans, we are great at going into places really quick.

"Yo, wait up, I just gotta run in and use the bathroom real quick."

It was the age of wisdom.

Judges have an enormous weight on their shoulders.  (Some even have an enormous weight on their bellies.)  You may remember the following from your elementary school U.S. government course.  The judicial branch interprets the laws.  Under the judiciary, we have attorneys who are to use the law to represent others.  District Attorney Spencer Lawton, the lead prosecutor for the Troy Davis case, adamantly states that there were ample opportunities for the court to overturn the conviction, if it needed to be overturned.  In fact, Mr. Lawton informs the public that there were 14 appearances before six courts.  The US Supreme Court even ordered an evidentiary hearing in 2009.  This meant that defense counsel could present any and all evidence for review by the court.  At the end of that hearing, the judge was not convinced. The conviction was still upheld.  The judge did his job.  He interpreted the law as he saw fit.  

Walker, Taliban Ranger

The lawyers who work in the executive branch are some of the brightest legal minds in the nation. They spent a countless amount of hours in researching caselaw to see how to play this out.  (Actually, they are lawyers, so those hours are not countless and the appropriate billing amount for the hours worked has been charged.)  Plenty of American terrorists had been captured and tried.  But no American terrorist ever had a hit on his head.  John Walker Lindh was an American citizen and member of Al-Qaeda, but he did not have a hit on his head, he was just captured during a battle.  These great brains put their minds together to put together a terrific strategy.  

They must have been confident in their findings, because the Department of Defense tracked al-Awlaki for some time and then killed him.    

It was the age of foolishness.

Sometimes, upholding the law is blurred with upholding one's self-interests. With Troy Davis, the DA had slam dunked a case; but with witnesses allegedly recanting, things could have ruined this DA's career. Especially once everybody found out about the bits and pieces of evidence the DA may not have disclosed.  Or, perhaps the whole Doubt Movement that was to help Troy Davis was all a bunch of foolishness.  Davis had multiple tries before multiple courts to have his conviction overturned.  If all those courts did not see anything to bring about doubt, then how could the people continue to declare there was doubt?  Whereas, on the other hand, if all those people did see everything to bring about doubt, then how could those courts continue to declare that there was no doubt?   

The only way a judge can interpret the law is if he has parties before him, which are usually brought by the executive branch. This is because the executive branch enforces the law. Police officers, for example, are under the executive branch. The military also falls under the executive branch (Department of Defense). So, for a court to hear out both sides to al-Awlaki's issues, the military would need to bring him in. 

Except that the executive branch decided he did not need to be brought in.

He just needed to be taken out.

And this is where the checks and balances system failed.

The three branches of government are a system of checks and balances on each other, to ensure that one branch does not become too powerful. For the executive branch to bypass the rule of law and order the killing of an American citizen simply bypasses the judicial branch. The proper thing to do would be to capture al-Alwaki, bring him before a court, and let the court takes its course.  It seems that the Obama administration went through such a trial in figuring out how they could kill al-Awlaki that it made it okay for that trial to take the place of an actual trial. 

It was the epoch of belief.

"Hey, I also sound like I'm from
Baltimore."

Anwar Al-Awlaki was a man with influence. Why? All one has to do is watch his videos. He is not a guy who yells in a loud voice. His beard is not scraggly, but quite thick and full. His voice makes you do a double take. You see a man who looks like he is straight from Arabia, but he sounds like a guy from Baltimore. His speeches talk much about stories that happened in early Islamic history and are even pleasant to hear. Also, he wears glasses that look like John Lennon's glasses. Surely, this guy must be a good guy!

With Troy Davis, nobody knew what to believe. In his court case, the jury believed one thing. In his media case, everybody believed something else. One jury of his peers found him guilty within two hours, whereas the national jury of his peers continued to find him not guilty for two decades.

Maybe if he looked more like her...?

It was the epoch of incredulity.

Anwar al-Awlaki spoke on how much he loved peace and how he wanted all to know that Islam is a religion of peace. That is, until the wars on Iraq and Afghanistan happened. He believed that this was a war on Islam and so, in return, there must be a war on America. It is scary that he could pinpoint the moment when he went from your average peace-loving Muslim to your Osama-bin-HatinAmerica types. More incredulous, still, is that he kind of looks like Bob Saget. 

"Good night, Michelle" vs. "Good night, from Hell."

Ok, not really.

He was connected to other domestic terrorists through internet forums. He was connected to terrorism through his subsequent videos denouncing America and calling for jihad. The evidence was clear. But the evidence never had a chance to be seen in court.

For Troy Davis, the evidence was not so clear.

The one thing that continues to be clear is that there was a perversion of justice. A famous quote says

Justice delayed is justice denied.

And what is justice denied? Well, that's something we'd have to ask Troy Davis and Anwer al-Awlaki.

The Summer I Learned to Spit Sunflower Seeds

It was a dark and stormy night. 

Somewhere in the world.

Watch this video

But not where I was.  I was in a room stuffed with tables, books, and overworked people.  The people were my fellow students.  The books were bar review books.  The tables, well, you know what tables are for. 

Resting your head for a nice nap.

It was 8 weeks into an intensive review of everything law school had taught me (and then some). The final hour was drawing nigh:  the Bar Exam.  This meant that at least once an hour, somebody would throw a pen at a book because they disagreed with the book’s answer.  They could articulate exactly why they disagreed and provide the law for why they disagreed with the book’s answer.  They could discuss little legal nuances for an hour with other people in the library, who were also looking for a release.  They could do so much but they could not calm down. 

I say “they” when I should really be saying “we”. 

It was a tough two months to prepare for a “mere” two days.  Friends and family members were letting loose with the F word. Not THE F word, rather, the other F word.  “You’re going to do fine.”  “You’re a smart kid, you’ll be fine.”  “When have you not done fine?”  “You parked here too long, now you have to pay a fine.”  But, we as law students had done our research.  We knew that lions before us had fallen victim to the Bar Exam.  Lions who did amazing things in the real world, that shaped our country to be what it is today, fell prey to the Bar Exam.  Nobody wanted to go through the rigors of retaking the Bar Exam; the physical and emotional stress would be much too much. 

So we did what we could.  We took the exam.  8,000 people in the Javits Center in New York City.  And now we wait until November when the results come.  I could not help but think that just outside the building, there were people who were on vacation, visiting NYC for the first time.  There were people rushing to work.  There were people who just broke up with their boyfriends or girlfriends. People who just experienced death.  The world kept on going.  No matter how I did on this exam, no matter how I would do later, the world would keep on moving.  And that was something that did not make me bitter (because nobody else knew the pain of this struggle), it just eased me through the process.   A couple nights before the bar exam, a good friend of mine said, “No matter what happens, we’re all coming out of this alive.” These few words were a powerful sentiment as he said this a few days after the shootings in Norway ended so many lives. 

Rock stacks are much better than book stacks 

The exam came and went, just as any other 24 hour cycle goes.  People even gave birth right after the exam.  My wife was waiting after the exam ended.  We packed up the car and went to the Adirondacks for a few days.   Just a few days prior, I had been surrounded by gadgets and technology.  My laptop, iPod, smartphone.  All these things I traded in to simply go camping in the woods.  Instead of gadgets in both hands, I had my wife’s hand in one, and sunflower seeds in the other.

Both were my wife’s doing. 

I agree, too many Disney pics.
But, even Mulan learned to spit.

I had no idea how to spit sunflower seeds.  My brain had been crammed with tons of information over a two-month period and I thought I could not put anything else in there.  But then I put the seeds in my mouth and all the tensions and stress went away.  When camping, chewing on sunflower seeds are an essential, you could say it is a law of the land. 

And I had a new law to learn. 

Trust me, I have a J.D.

As soon as law school begins is as soon as law school ends. That is the way it tends to work.

And once it ends, bar review rapidly begins.  Sometimes, bar review begins as law school is ending.  And when that happens, that means you did not plan your schedule out right for your final semester.

Speaking of planning, what do you plan to do now that the Bar exam is over and while you await your exam's results?  This is a waiting period of a few months.  In NY, we take the Bar at the end of July and have to wait until Mid-November for the results.  That is three and a half months of being suspended in limbo.

Law School purgatory, if you will.

By now, the Bar exam taker has de-stressed to some extent (from taking the exam at least).  Life is weird because days filled with studying non-stop are now days filled with doing nothing non-stop.

Well, not exactly nothing

Thousands of law students across the nation are not only stuck waiting for results, but they also cannot find a job.  And so, they start googling and binging what others are doing.  From the looks of it, people are applying to all sorts of jobs like there is no tomorrow.

In a nutshell, everybody should now be applying diligently to jobs and networking.

Here are some things you should NOT do:

1.  Visit forums online
These places are depressing and will only make you feel miserable.  Many people are voicing a lot of negativities and it just is not worth your time. Do not do this.  You have other things to do.

2.  Give Up
Listen bub, you spent three years of your life to get a J.D. to become whatever it is you wanted to be.  Do not settle for something so far removed from that goal that it would be very difficult to become an attorney or whatever you want to be.  However, if you are having absolutely no luck finding a non-legal job, it might be because you have "J.D." on your resume.  Employers may view you and your salary requirements moreso as "high maintenance".  But, if you are proud of your J.D. (which you should be), then in your cover letter, let the employer know how that J.D. will help you help them.

3.  Sit Around Doing Nothing
This is the worst thing you can do right now.  You have to apply, en masse, for jobs.  And not just that.  You have to network.  Major emphasis on networking.  Let me show you in font language how much emphasis is on networking:  NETWORK! Why?  Because employers are getting hundreds of applications, yes, even for the jobs you think nobody would want to do.  Who knows if they will ever read your cover letter.  But, they might be at the next bar association meeting and they would much rather hire somebody they met in person and had a chance to talk to than filter through email after email and page after page of people talking about how great they are.

Here are some things you should do:

1.  Apply to a few jobs a day at least 
Keep churning out your resume and cover letter each day.  A few a day is better than many at once.  You might miss some errors if you churn out too many in a day.  For example, in cover letters, always make sure the date is correct.

2.  Bookmark webpages
When you find a good site that has lots of potential jobs, then drag the link onto your toolbar and make it a habit to check that daily.  I have a few on my toolbar.

3.  Conserve resources
By this I mean do not waste money or time.  For example, Netflix recently changed its payment plan.  If you have both streaming and DVDs, your cost is going to go up.  Ask yourself if you really need both services and if you really need the whole thing and if you can go without it for a few months to save some cash.  There is always Redbox and the internet at your disposal for cheap or free entertainment.  Retail stores keep sending me coupons and sale informations, but, even though I would save a lot of money in purchasing discounted items, I save even more money by not buying anything at all.


I hope this helps and please leave any comments if you have any other helpful tips!

Justice for all?

      Justice is defined as the “fair and proper administration of laws”. For as powerful a word as justice is, it is rarely used in the legal realm. Yet, with the end of one of the greatest manhunts the world has ever seen, this word is a headliner outside the legal realm. President Obama alone used this word five times when he announced that Osama bin Laden had been killed.

      The first time he said “justice”, he stated that the attackers would be brought to justice. The second time, he stated that Osama bin Laden specifically would be brought to justice. The third time, he stated that Osama’s death was justice. The fourth time, he said that the Navy Seals worked to pursue justice. And the fifth time, he closed his speech with the final words of the Pledge of Allegiance. Now, everybody and their mother is saying that justice has been done. This leads to the question, has the word “justice” been used correctly?

Obama in his first situation room

      A fair and proper administration of law would mean that the Navy Seals had Pakistan’s permission to enter, were instructed to capture Osama bin Laden, hand him over to the proper interrogating authorities, and let due process take its course. President Obama, as a former constitutional law professor, knows this. However, from what news reports are saying, the Navy Seals were never instructed to capture Osama, rather it was a “kill operation” from the beginning. Additionally, reports first said that Osama attacked and now the reports say that he was unarmed and only resisted. How much did he resist? Did it deserve a shot to the head and chest? And ultimately, was there ever any intention of carrying out due process of law?

All kidding aside, is a President the decider?

      But, what if killing bin Laden was a good idea? Had bin Laden not been killed, then this would lead to a begrudgingly slow process through the courts. This would parallel what we see today for Guantanamo Bay’s long-term inmates. Advocates for due process and, thus, justice, would argue that capturing and detaining him would not only be proper, but it would be the only option (unless he used deadly force). Yet, on the other hand, if bin Laden went through the court system and was held in prison for even longer than a day, how likely is it that terrorists would have wreaked havoc worldwide? Quite likely, apparently. Although the terrorists would not know where bin Laden was being held, that would be all the more reason to quickly gather, arm themselves, and blow up in whatever public locations they could.  Yet, the question is a very dangerous question.  This is because nobody knows who gets to make the decision to forgo due process and be the decider.  The decision affects the very process that makes America the country with the greatest court system in the world.  Whether you raped a hundred people or stole $50, you are entitled to access to the court system.

      Burying bin Laden at sea while everybody found out about the news story makes little sense. Whatever area held his dead body for inspection would not have risked the safety of the civilian population.  Would any terrorist care to retrieve the body of bin Laden? After all, it is just a dead body. A dead body that no longer serves a purpose to Al Qaeda, which is an organization whose end goal for its soldiers is death. And if the body serves no purpose, then why would they bother with its retrieval? If the answer is that Al Qaeda would need it for an Islamic funeral prayer, then that is incorrect because funeral prayers can happen in absentium. And if the answer is to not create a shrine for terrorists, that is also incorrect because these so-called Muslims do not worship people. They would see that as stepping on worship of God.

      Many are happy that bin Laden is dead, saying that he deserved it. Upon hearing this, Gandalf’s words provide great wisdom,

Osama bin Killed

Many who live deserve death, and some that die deserve life - can you give it to them? Do not be so quick to deal out death and judgment. For even the very wisest cannot see all ends.

This is true, it is hard to see what could have been the future, let alone what happened on that night in the Battle of bin Laden Hill. But, imagine seeing Osama bin Laden in handcuffs being escorted to a courtroom in orange prison garb. Imagine seeing images of him sitting at the defendant’s table. Imagine hearing the jury’s verdict. That would have been a fair and proper administration of laws. That would have been justice.

Or does the law of war just screw everything up?

Note:  I do not support Osama in any way whatsoever.  As a student of law, I care for due process and everybody's right to it.  Because everybody does have a right to it.  Lawyers may represent murderers and rapists, but that does not mean the lawyer agrees with murder and rape, he/she just wants to carry out due process.  I asked an international human rights scholar, "Do you feel that Saddam received due process?"  He replied, "I think both of us know the answer to that question."  

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The World Is(n't) Falling Apart

I heard the world is falling apart.

Great timing, Mr. Globe.  I am in my final year of law school.  They were/are tough.  They pushed me to the limits and nudged me off cliffs.  They kept me awake all night and asleep most of the day.  That was law school in a nutshell.  Emphasis on the "hell" in nutshell.

But to get to heaven you have to go through hell.

So what does the future hold?  Or, more candidly, is there a job market to enter?  Yes, I still have one more bout with finals, an epic struggle against the Bar Exam (which is designed to ensure that I, specifically, am guaranteed a most difficult time), and the long (or short) haul of job-hunting.  I'll probably meet lots of people for the first and last time when it comes to job interviews.  And when I say I, I mean I as a collective to include other soon-to-be-graduating law students that are in the same boat.

This boat is in some treacherous waters, that's for sure.

There are revolutions happening all around the world.  Violent, nonviolent, known, and unknown.  Gas prices rise.  Governments fall.  Strikes surge.  People try to find some sort of balance to it all.  Can we still keep moving forward with all these world events in mind?

Well, we kind of have to move forward, no?  Think about it.  Thousands of years ago, even just a few hundred years ago, when something happened in China, the British didn't have a clue (and didn't even care).

Sure, the world is much more connected now.  But do we still not have that independence?  Is this not why President Obama is pushing towards a greener country?  It has its benefits of "saving the planet", if the planet really needs saving.  (The planet has been around for 6,000 - 4.5 billion years, I think it can keep surviving) [Author is Christian and Science friendly].  But the main benefit is that we would not have to worry about how world events will affect our energy sources.  Anything else that is necessary and outside should be moved to our own borders (Apple can stay in China).  I think that makes perfect sense.

Even though the sun IS a foreign source of power.  (And we wouldn't even have an energy crisis when the sun goes out because we'll die about 7 minutes later).

In the medieval times, when a castle was about to be attacked, the people moved everything that was outside the castle and a necessity to inside the fortress.  I think it is time that we move our necessities within our own borders.  What I also like is that this attempted energy change is a shoutout to the original Americans (the Natives).  They lived off the land and we should be able to as well.  It will take some adjustment, sure.

But that is how the American Dream is achieved, through adjusting.

And if the rest of the world falls apart, well, we will adjust to that as well.