Mahboob A. Khawaja, PhD.

We, the People, the Humanity and Our Entangled Future in Global COVID-19 Pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic surge has depleted our inner thoughts, souls and outlook for change and adaptability to the making of the future. At the outset, political leaders appear to be leading the movement for human survival, often abridged by medical scientists and experts in determining which vaccinations – be it European, Russian, Chinese or American should be used to treat people of ethnic, social, moral and intellectual and political diversities. Do they pretend that vaccines or the pandemic knows nationalities or political ideologies separating the human intellect? Ostensibly, human faculties of thinking and choices are being used for divisions and political indoctrinations not for specialized human unity to cope with the emerging crises of COVID-pandemic and its aftermath impacting the masses across the world.

We must be looking for truth to necessitate rethinking in our minds and souls for change and universal sense of humanity as being One and unshakeable by geography, politics and ethnicity and sentiments of political nationalities and persecution. We can do it, we are One People and One Humanity impacted by unknown motives of the few lacking knowledge and wisdom to unite mankind in situations of crises often engineered by ignorance missing divine knowledge of truth and human origin.  We cannot be divided into segments of geography and history as numbers. We the People, We the Humanity are connected to all other things within the God-given Universe to serve the mankind. This gives soundness and power to reason and forbidden truth in the current global affairs.

MY MIND, MY CHOICE; rather than “My Body my Choice.”

It is the tragedy of w-o-man (wife of man) that right from the first day of her appearance on this planet she has been taking care of her physical appearance on the basis of “my body my choice.” She has been spending money as well as every effort to decorate herself and present herself as a beautiful female figure. But she never thought about her mind’s cognitive and creative capabilities. As compared to man, her part in the fields of philosophy, science, art, and other intellectual activities and creativities has always been negligible. Modern neuroscience has proved that woman is more intelligent than man—as we have an oblong skull, neurons in her brain move from left to right and right to left covering shorter distance, while in man’s brain neuron move front to back and back to front travelling longer distance. I SAY IT IS WOMAN’S TRAGEDY, because even in modern age she is focused on her BODY rather than her MIND. Women need to change the slogan to, “MY MIND, MY CHOICE.” It is time they should know that the old saying by David Hume, “beauty is in the eye of beholder” is now obsolete; as today “BEAUTY IS IN THE MIND OF THE BEHOLDER.” Virginia Woolf, a beautiful woman has said, “There is no gate, no bolt that you can set upon the freedom of my [a woman’s] mind;” she clearly meant ‘her mind’ not her beautiful and attractive body. ~

MIRZA ASHRAF

Mahboob A. Khawaja, PhD.

Beyond COVID-19 Pandemic, Global Peace and Imperatives of our Future

In a time of global humanitarian crisis such as the COVID-19 Pandemic, we should demonstrate unity of minds and human inner soul that we are not alone – how we care about others, not “America First” or “Europe First” – affluent nations and so called smart leaders hurriedly procuring vaccinations in bulk without caring for the rest of mankind. Often, politically aligned thoughts in Europe and America have ignored the humanitarian vitality of China and Russia or Asian-African nations for convenient political expediency. There appears to be a lot of conjures to be cleaned and clarified for change and a new world order of collaboration and help when it is most needed beyond national flags and borders. We desperately need to re-organize our thoughts and genius for unity and coordination to pool the humanitarian resources to fill the political gaps of egoism and anarchy between inept patriotism and its global outreach to restructure our policies and practices to extend humanitarian help to all those who needed most, not the weapons of mass destruction, not the claims of individual greatness but a revitalized sense of One Humanity ready to protect the present and future of human civilizations

Is It Time To Amend The Amendment?

This Post is created by Dr. Shoeb Amin

The second amendment that is….

After the Parkland, Florida High School shooting there was a sense that this time it was different; that something big will emerge from this tragedy to control gun violence in this country; laws passed for background checks before ALL gun sales at ALL venues, registration and licensing of all guns, a ban on assault weapons, even a more controversial law holding gun manufacturers liable for civil action by victims of gun violence. NOTHING of that sort happened at the federal level (some states may have enacted new legislations)and many more mass murders have occurred since, including the recent one in Boulder, CO.  And even though these mass murders get media coverage they account for a very small percentage of deaths due to gun violence; many more die in one’s and two’s from suicide, accidental deaths and homicides.

The NRA gets the blame – deservedly so – for lack of gun control legislation but really the bigger obstacle is the Second Amendment to the Constitution, which gun lovers and  the NRA use to their advantage. It is hard to argue against a constitutionally given right; your patriotism itself is questioned if you speak in favor of gun control. So with the NRA in bankruptcy – and possible dissolution if the New York AG’s lawsuit succeeds – energy is better focused towards the Second Amendment. So what exactly does the Amendment say? More importantly let’s look at what its predecessor, the Virginia Bill of Rights said.

Section 17 of the Bill of Rights of Virginia said:  That the people have a right to keep and bear arms; that a well-regulated militia, composed of the body of the people trained to arms, is the proper, natural, and safe defence(sic) of a free state; that standing armies, in time of peace, are dangerous to liberty, and therefore ought to be avoided, as far as the circumstances and protection of the community will admit; and that, in all cases, the military should be under strict subordination to, and governed by, the civil power.

It clearly says only a well regulated militia, IN THE ABSENCE OF AN ARMY should bear arms, that those bearing arms be well trained and those folks be subordinate to the government. Madison and the framers changed it to this as the Second Amendment of our constitution:

“A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.”

The critical word is “people”, which constitutional scholars and gun rights activists use to mean ANYBODY, with no training and no oversight- even though we now have a standing army that can very adequately take care of the security of the State.

So is it possible to amend the Amendment? YES.  After all the Constitution has needed 27 amendments so far; six more have been proposed but have failed to be ratified. And more importantly the 18th Amendments – for prohibition – was rescinded by the 21st amendment. So yes it is possible to amend an Amendment. But it has to be ratified by the House, the Senate and 75% of state legislatures and that’s not easy. The Equal Rights Amendment got everything except 3 states out of the 38 needed. It was derailed by one driven person. So a similar driven person/s and a lot of financial backing may be able to get it done. But what exactly would be the possible amendments to  the Amendment??  Here are a few suggested by James Hefferman on Huffpost: (changes in upper case)

INSOFAR AS a well regulated militia IS necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.” (Word “being” is removed)

A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms IN SUCH A MILITIA shall not be infringed.”

“A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed EXCEPT TO ENSURE PUBLIC SAFETY.” (This is Hefferman’s change of choice)

My suggestion:  IN THE ABSENCE OF AN ARMY, a well regulated militia being necessary for the security of the state the right of rhe people to bear arms shall not be infringed.

In all these “amendments” the current wording is not changed; just caveats are added that makes gun ownership by the people conditional on different conditions – conditions that don’t exist 200+ years after the Second Amendment was written.. This is not to take all guns away from people but to make it easier to pass simple and sensible gun control legislations because now lawmakers cannot use the Constitution as a cover for bowing to the NRA and suppressing or killing such legislation. And the courts would have a harder time overturning such legislation that have become law. 

I understand this seems like a looney and wild idea but nothing commonsensical has worked so far. As long as the Second Amendment stays the way it is we’ll keep hearing about such carnages every so often. Not to mention the daily toll gun violence takes that you only see and hear about in annual statistics.

Shoeb Amin