Responsibility Must Be Taken

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There is a good reason many are called but few are chosen. There is a good reason why there are few real leaders, lots of managers, and many more shrupshire sheep. Responsibility is not something that can be given. Responsibility must be taken and taken seriously.

People want things to be given to them. We live in a your-way-right-away generation. Some of the people I teach or with whom I go to church act as if to say, "I'm an adult. Give me what I deserve as an adult." To which I respond, "Prove you're an adult by taking responsibility".

Young people today just go hang out. They say they are living life to the fullest, but they aren't really living life at all. They exist. Their days may be filled, but they are not full. They may seem to have everything, but they bewail what they lack.

As I seek an eternal companion with whom to make a family, I meet with some odd resistance. From, "I wish I could find a guy like you" to "you intimidate me" to "you're a good guy, but...", ooh that infernal codicle, I find that women want a good guy but won't do what is necessary to deserve one. I know some who refuse to lose weight, want to just have a good time and "hang out", read only when they must, prefer movies to the theater, and think that my 32" waist isn't skinny enough.

I really like this quote from "The Notebook":

I am no one special. Just a common man with common thoughts. I've led a common life. There are no monuments dedicated to me and my name will soon be forgotten, but in one respect I've succeeded as gloriously as anyone who ever lived. I've loved another with all my heart and soul and for me that has always been enough.

Choosing to avoid drugs- that isn't an accomplishment. Choosing to drive responsively isn't an accomplishment; staying in school isn't an accomplishment. It's just life. Saving a portion of my income isn't a special action; living within my means isn't noteworthy; it's common sense. I am an ordinary man. Everyone else has surrendered what they want most for what they want at the moment (M. Russell Ballard).

"I am not a hero. I am not an angel. I am just a man, a man who's tried to love her, more than any other, in her eyes I am (Her Eyes by Josh Groban)." I love and I am loved, and love is something I take seriously. It is my highest choice and the righteous desire of my heart. Someday God will lead me to a woman I deserve (or her to me) because I put him and his kingdom first as he asked.

Genuine Idiots

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On the expiry of the Bush Tax cuts:

"It's not a tax increase, it's an elimination of a tax decrease." --Congressman Nancy Pelosi (D-CA)

George Orwell would be proud.

Stupor of Thought

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As people around me, well-meaning though they may be, attempt to dissuade me from what I know to be right, I have put a lot of thought to the concept of revelation. In some particular matters of late, I reflected a few weeks ago in my journal, "I have felt burnings in my bosum and never a stupor of thought". Elder Jeffrey Holland said "Beware the temptation to retreat from a good thing. If it was right when you prayed about it and trusted it and lived for it, it is right now."

When God speaks of revelation, he promised us how to tell if it comes from him. If it is true, he will cause that our bosum shall burn within us, and if it is wrong, we shall have no such feeling, but a stupor of thought. It is, in my experience however, much more common that people speak of doubts and fears than genuine stupors of thought. They retreat from good things many times based on these fears, which are founded not in truth but in things that have not happened and may never happen to them at all. Most of the time, your fears don't turn out to be accurate predictors of the future.

In Letter XV of the Screwtape Letters, CS Lewis speaks of this phenomenon. The devil wants us to live in the future. The past is real because it happened, the present is real because it lies before us and the future enflames hope and fear. To quote him on the matter at hand:

He would therefore have them continually concerned either with eternity (which means being concerned with Him) or with the Present—either meditating on their eternal union with, or separation from, Himself, or else obeying the present voice of conscience, bearing the present cross, receiving the present grace, giving thanks for the present pleasure...In a word, the Future is, of all things, the thing least like eternity.

The devil wants us to constantly fret about the future, about things concerning which we generally have no knowledge and thus create misery within us, "a whole race perpetually in pursuit of the rainbow's end, never honest, nor kind, nor happy now". The devil wants you to think about what happens to you; God wants you to think about what you do.

If something is true, then it always was true and always will be. If something is true for you, God will provide you the means to accomplish the thing he commands of you. My cousin told me back in May that God never commands men to do the impossible; some things just take a little longer.

When you come upon a decision that is incorrect, God will lead you away from it. At times when I have pursued something that ran contrary to his will, I found myself easily distracted from it by other things...ooh, look a butterfly...

Elder F Enzio Busche spoke on this matter. He said that God will give you correction and direction. Questions may arise, but "if something is wrong, God will give you clarity, but never doubts". Doubts are not the answer. If something is wrong, God has promised that he will cast the thought from our minds entirely.

Our enemies desire our destruction. They will pull all the tricks they can to keep us from our highest choice, from our mission in life, and from a fulness of happiness. Their opposition intensifies when we approach important crossroads in our lives. By this you may know in part that what you do is right. Opposition and struggle are almost always guaranteed when we stand on the cusp of greatness. To close, with Elder Holland again, "Trust in that eternal truth. If God has told you something is right, if something is indeed true for you, He will provide the way for you to accomplish it."

Stand for truth. Stand for right.

Faith in the American People

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As I watch the Tea Parties, posts on Facebook bewailing Rush and Beck, et al, and the desperate daily demagoguery on the part of the administration and the Democrat party to convince you that their agenda is right and is working, I gain faith in the American people. Over the last few weeks, I have thought about the great opportunity this time affords us, and for the fact that there is a resurgance of political activity in America even in the dark times.

About a week ago, Mark Belling sat in for Mark Levin on his radio program and put this idea in my head. This morning, I read Mosiah 29:26 where Mosiah tells the people why judges in lieu of a king. he says: "Now it is not common that the voice f the people desireth anything contrary to that which is right; but it is common for the lesser part of the people to desire that which is not right; therefore this shall ye observe and make it your law--to do your business by the voice of the people and if the time comes that the voice of the people doth choose iniquity, then is the time that the judgements of God will come upon you."

The majority of Americans still desire that which is right. They oppose amnesty, universal healthcare, and socialism. They may not know what to do, but they do not agree. It is, as Reagan said, "a little intellectual elite in Washington", those bureaucrats and elected officials who think themselves wiser than we all, who plan our demise. Again to quote Reagan, "the more the plans fail, the more the planners plan".

I don't really like Glenn Beck. I think he talks a lot and acts too little. However, he motivates some other people to act. Think what a difference it would make if you would talk to the people around you, those who just don't know any better, those who vote with their parents, those who listen to posters instead of actually reading what the politicians say, and get them to think for themselves. Most human mistakes are made when we let other people tell us what to do. Nobody has your best interests in mind as much as you. Talk to your neighbors and get them to think for themselves.

Take Danny Tarkanian, candidate for Senate against Harry Reid. I have read his website. He seems like a nice guy, and he is far better than Reid. However, in the words of Daniel Webster, although he means to rule well, he means to rule.

The Constitution was established to free men from bondage. It took almost 100 years to end slavery, but it did end it, and we were the first society to abolish it forever. We went to war with ourselves to do it.

There may be a time when the strength of America fails, but it is not today. Fear has never been our master; doubt has never been our guide. We shall continue to spread freedom's prose until it has crossed every ocean, penetrated every clime, resounded in every ear, and the great Jehovah shall say the work is done.

Godspeed the right.

Rush Limbaugh on God and Government

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I thought this worthy of repeating. I will memorize it.

RUSH: If I may get serious with you for a moment. The left, if you believe them, believes that there's one species on the planet destroying it. Now, all mammals exhale carbon dioxide. But somehow only man, only human beings' carbon dioxide is destroying the planet. It's only man in all of his endeavors, particularly Capitalist Man, Western Culture man. Those are the culprits! We are the real culprits. We are destroying the planet. We are the one species on the planet that's destroying it. Why does the left think this? I'll tell you what I think. We, human beings, are the only species who have the capacity to know and understand the concept of God. No other species has the slightest clue. A fish doesn't even know it's in water. A dog doesn't know it's a dog. And who the hell knows what cockroaches think. I don't even want to contemplate it.

To know God is something unique for all species on the planet. It's us. We're the only ones who know God, who can conceive God and all that that means. Therefore, to the left, to know God is the single most destructive part of the human mind. That's what has to be destroyed. Faith in God, belief in God, that's the real enemy -- and there are many enemies of the left, but that's the first. You go to any communist country and the first thing they do is wipe God and religion out of everybody's mind. The State becomes God and whoever is running it at the time becomes The Messiah. There is no God other than The State. See, God put us here to procreate, to experience his gifts. The left, in order to ultimately succeed, has to end our understanding of God's existence and purpose. Therefore, we're not going to fix this economic mess until we fix or moral mess.

Our country is in a moral shambles, and until we fix the moral destruction that has crept over our culture we're not going to be able to really fix anything else -- and when you start talking about fixing the moral mess, then you really cause the left to rise up and come after you. So the strip all this stuff away and what's at the root of it is: A belief in too many people in something other than The State, something other than the government. If you strip away God... 'Cause a human being has to believe in something, a higher power. Even atheists, they've got something that has a higher power. It's a tree or whatever. It could be another human being. It could be institution that human beings put together but there's gotta be something. If you strip God out it has to be The State. So that's what's happening. That's really at the root of this.

A Week at Sidewalk Level

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The best test of any policy change is to apply it to the sidewalk level. A friend of mine recently pondered the implication of the taxation scheme under discussion by the administration, and more commonly known as Marxism wherein they take from each according to his ability and give to each according to his need.

He said: "While I do understand the concept of wealthier people 'contributing' more to government programs (such as healthcare) - this is precisely the same as saying their cover charge to get into a nightclub or their price for a hamburger should be higher because they make more money. It seems fair when talking about taxation and expressed in percentages but maybe it isn't."

Variable price on a pack of gum depending on your paycheck makes no sense. What would be the point of earning twice as much money as I do now if I then had to pay twice as much for every commodity? That's a null-sum game. It would be nice if those who could do more did so, but that runs expressly contrary to the laws of God.

God asked Israel for the tithe. That means 10% of your increase, regardless of what you earned. He asked from time to time, like when the temple was built, that those who could do so would donate of their increase to furnish and decorate it, but it went out without compulsory means. God makes commandments with promise. Government issues orders on fear of penalty.

The biggest problem with compulsory government policy is that it disinsentivizes people to excel. If you are going to be punished for increase, it dissuades you from the attempt. On the other hand, those who make policy remain largely unaffected by it. The federal government will not suffer from universal healthcare because they have exempted themselves from it. Many people don't actually work for money, and they pay no taxes, yet they benefit from all the social programs into which working and striving individuals contribute under threat of duress. I know that Senator Harry Reid (D-NV) says taxes are voluntary. I dare him to try and not pay.

The president needs to spend a week at sidewalk level. He condescends when he wishes to cheerlead in chief, but the people to whom he promised kitchens, cars, jobs, and "Obama money from his stache" in Michigan still wait.

Anything, But

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Obama says he will do anything to save jobs. That's a lie. He won't cut taxes.

Taxes are going up.

My car registration last year was $42. This year it's $55. I drive a 95 Saturn.

Look at your utility bills, your health care costs, and everything else you pay. When the prices of commodities rise, sometimes it's because the taxes have gone up, and the manufacturers pass that cost on to you. Look at cigarette prices. If they raise taxes on that, it's only a short hop before they raise taxes on something about which you care.

Companies don't pay taxes. People do.

Spiritual Sickness

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My friend Thom posed a good question today. What does it mean to be spiritually ill, and how does one recognize that? Most people, as in the forgoing suggestions, choose to commiserate or ignore the situation entirely, but whether you are "religious" or not, there is a spiritual component that, if deficient, robs man of well-being and the fulness of happiness. Thom and I agree with the Founding Fathers in a Creator, and whether you believe in Him or not, being in tune with the spiritual energies affects your well being just as whether you believe in it or not gravity does too.

As to the issue of spiritual illness, I propose the following interstitial thoughts: Spirituality concerns our connection with the intangible. So, in a sense, spiritual sickness affects the unconscious and unseen world. Spiritually ill people cannot grasp concepts, define them, or stick to them. Things like loyalty, fidelity, and bravery take on opportunistic definitions, situation-specific, and ephemeral as the ether. They are blown about by every wind of doctrine. They know not what they believe let alone believe that anything in which they do not believe affects them. Think of it as an "it can't happen to me" mentality. Light, energy, truth, and power remain out of reach for them, and they are dark, literally and figuratively speaking.

Cheerleader in Chief

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Obama rarely says anything with substance. It's all campaign rhetoric to drum up emotions, much like pep rallies, regardless of how much you believe in your team's ability to win, get the adrenaline rush that brings you out on the field, no matter how unlikely the victory.

This is not the change you were looking for. You should go about your business. Move along.

Obama has a powerful affect on the weak minded.

Hope and Change.

So You Vote...Would You Like a Medal?

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Many of my acquaintences disagree with my politics. Many of them cast blame at other people. We defend those about whom we care, for our care for them, particularly when we do not really know them, is in part care and love for ourselves.

One particular acquaintence showed the level of his commitment. He answered, when I told him to put his money where his mouth was and run for office and prove his way is better, that he votes. Good for you. Would you like a medal?

I worked at the polls in 2008. Many people came in who had never before voted. They came to be part of the "historical election". Some of them asked me for whom they should vote. Out of integrity, I told them that the choice was up to them. Others were not so honest.

Voting is easy. You go in, cast your voice, and then moan and whine when the other guy wins or when the guy for whom you voted changes his mind. None of it is your fault. You did your part.

Another acquaintence had this to say: "[Voting] gives us the ability to pretend we cast an important vote and that our opinions matter, but in the end, regardless of what we write on our ballots its the same corrupt fools being elected, we simply decide if they are elephants or donkeys..." I disagree with his premise that it's a complete waste, but yes, it does seem that some of them share everything except the emblem of their party affiliation.

You know what your state needs. Vote for someone who agrees. Yes, I said that, and now it is my copyright. Voting gives us the ability to pretend we did something, but it takes much more than that.

Write letters, attend meetings, talk to your neighbors, complain, read, learn, get involved, and by gum run for office yourself if you can. I know good men don't run and I know full well why, but if they don't, my friend will be right and the same corrupt fools will be elected. In my opinion, every single Congressman and Senator needs to be kicked out of office as soon as possible as a message that we will not allow that to continue. The trouble is that to accomplish this, we must present the people with real alternatives.

Nobel Peace Prize

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Other presidents who won the Nobel Peace Prize:

Woodrow Wilson

Theodore Roosevelt

Jimmy Carter

If they ever offer me a prize from the Nobel foundation, I will flatly turn them down.

Government is not the Solution

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Years ago, Ronald Reagan said this, and it has stayed with me since I heard it: "Government is not the solution to our problems. Government is the problem". Yet, in our current troubles, the president proposes naught but more government programs, thinking after the Keynesian equation that to raise GDP and elevate society he can simply increase government spending.

The fact of the matter is, that Government programs don't work efficiently if they work at all. When people complain about the facilities at this college, several faculty have boiled it down to "lowest bid" as the excuse. It's a government institution, and much of what happens here doesn't give you good value.

Michigan started this great "green jobs" initiative. In a rare moment of candidness, the Washington Post reports today that Granholm's panacea produced problems. Since 2003, under her watch, the state has lost 630,000 jobs. She claims that "she" has created 163,000 jobs in that time, and she promises 40,000 more in the next 11 years, but that still leaves 400,000 people net out of work, assuming that between now and then NOT A SINGLE ADDITIONAL JOB IS LOST.

Liberal fiscal policy has driven companies out of that state, like it does all around the country. The fastest way to create jobs is to cut taxes, but in Nevada, they just raised our sales tax, our car registration tax, and expenses for state employees like myself. Politicians talk about "unrestrained capitalism", but that has never existed in my lifetime, and I suspect that it hasn't existed in theirs either.

No government official understands or cares about your situation as much as you do. You are not real to them. How can any senator know all of his constituents? It boggles my mind in this state, and yet the californians, with 30 times our population, claim to know the minds of all those people. Wow, they must be so efficient with their time. I've seen "Bruce Almighty", and if I had 2 million emails to answer every day, I am certain I could not answer them all. I am a great man, but I'm not that great.

I believe in Federalism as defined by the Founders. They knew that the concentration of power at the head was the soil in which tyranny takes root and flourishes. They intended the Township, and at worst the State, to be the seat of most power, where the people could influence the policy enacted by people they could actually reach, and if not, they could move to another township or state. By the time of FDR, the Township was dead. By the time FDR died, the States had been emasculated. FDR, if not for his death, might well have been, as was Ceasar, elected Dictator for Life.

There may be great men in office, but remember that they are still men. No man is perfect in his knowledge, his motives, or his actions. That's why the Constitution's firewalls, as Madison said, provided controls on politicians as a means to protect the people. Besides that, most of these men never have to deal with unexpected consequences. They are not in office when the bill comes due. Said Mark Levin: "The government cannot do this- all these phony promises. They never live up to them, and 20 years from now if they institute this crap, where will Obama be? He’ll be retired, living the good life, historic president…while other presidents are struggling with it."

Government is the problem. It always has been. We have too much of it and an insufficient amount of internal self-control.

Proper government begins with proper behavior, and proper behavior is taught in the home.

Wikipedia is Untrustworthy

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You can write anything you want on the internet. Do a search for "founding fathers are terrorists" and in about 0.08 seconds, it will generate over 84000 pages of results. Yes, the Declaration of Independence was high treason, but they were hardly terrorists. Since when is it terrorism to urge British citizens to exercise their franchise and demand representation? Since when is it terrorism to throw tea into the harbor? If thoughts and opinions are treasonous, then we'd all have to turn ourselves in.

That being said, just because someone writes something doesn't make it fact.

Wikipedia may be a good place to start, but it is far from authoritative. For my own part, in lieu of trusting what Wikipedia says Keynes or Smith said about Economics, I read their books. I read Rules for Radicals and the Federalist Papers. I have seen the Declaration, the Constitution, and the Magna Charta. I didn't just watch Kiera Knightly in Pride and Prejudice- I read it. I don't trust what people say just because it's at my fingertips in under a second via whatever search engine you choose.

A few years ago, several Duke Lacrosse players were slandered with accusations of rape. A few years ago, a friend of mine was accused of adultery. Back in grad school, I was accused of cheating, and as an undergrad, I was accused of lifting a paper from another source. Despite unfounded allegations in all of these instances, the accused have been exonerated. DNA evidence has commuted the sentences of people on death row. Sarah Palin, whom I do not know and for whom I am not sure I would vote, was buried in legal challenges as the governor. As Letterman basted her with jokes about situations of illicit physical intimacy involving various members of her family, he until this last week obfuscated his own dirty laundry.

Those who scream the loudest, when they are themselves not paragons of virtue, more often than not proclaim their own sin as sodom. Mark my words- he who smelt it dealt it. If it stinks, look to the source, not the target.

So, wikipedia may be easily accessible, but if you let your education end there, your freedom will end there too. As for paragons of virtue, if you meet one, tell me. I would like to be his friend.

By What it Is, Not By What it is Not

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A friend of mine posted up a video yesterday depicting Albert Einstein's defense as a young boy of the existence of God. It brings to mind a larger issue that I choose to address.

Like Albert says, we define cold, not as a thing itself, but as the absence of heat. We likewise define darkness as the absence of light. We likewise define evil as the absence of good.

People are prone to point out the absentia of certain virtues in people and point at them as truths. The truth however is, that no man is all good or all bad. The evil that men do is simply a lack of good. Said Abraham Lincoln, "If you look for the bad in mankind, expecting to find it, you surely will." Fact of the matter is, there is no bad in mankind at all. There is only good, however meager the amount may be.

This is why God can love all men and it is the currency by which he redeems them. There is goodness in every man, an inner nobility. They are what they are. They may not seem to be as much as you consider yourself to be, but as CS Lewis says in the forward to the 1961 edition of Screwtape, if you remove all the good from man, you are not left with evil, you are left with nothing at all. See the diamond within. See the hope. See the light.

Learn from one of earth's wisest thinkers to look for what is instead of for things that by definition do not exist.

Crowded Political Primary

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My mother told me that the newspaper recounts a long list of aspirants for the Republican nomination for Senate. These individuals all hunger to avail themselves of the opportunity to displace Harry Reid as a Senator, as he has the lowest approval rating in history and seems weak. They stand around like wolves waiting for the large Bison to finally run out of energy. Each wants to strike the blow that deals him death.

I agree the same as you that Harry Reid needs to do something else with the rest of his life. For almost my entire life on earth, he has worked as a politician, ostensibly in the interests of Nevadans. Honestly, ask yourself if your life is better than it was before Harry Reid became a senator.

I am not sure however that any of the aspiring Republicans have your interests honestly in heart. I have read Tarkanian's website, and although, like Daniel Webster said, he means to rule well, he means to rule. Each of these individuals wants to be the one to take credit for taking down Reid. Each of them wants his power. Which of them want to return that to you?

Remember that the Conspirators used the same jargon and argument for the assassination of Caesar. Brutus says that Ceasar was ambitious, and Brutus is an honorable man.

Choose the best man you can. Primaries mean so much. Now is not the time to stand behind the person most likely to win the election. Now is the time to stand behind the best person that can be found, no matter what letter adorns his name, no matter how much money is in his coffer, and no matter how likely you think he is to win. Remember that Washington, without trained men, without paid men, and without munitions, somehow managed, by the grace of God, to defeat the British Empire.

Popularity contests belong in high school. Please leave them there and pick the best man you can on 2 November 2010.