Inciting Change

Change is not just something you get at the grocery store. It's how society and individuals grow, progress and learn. Unfortunately change also includes moving the other way into decay, corruption and ruin.

Let's assume for a moment that you want to be an agent of change. What's involved?

Scope
You can decide on your own that you want to change something about yourself. You may want to lose weight, earn a degree, buy a home, earn a million dollars, read a book, whatever.

Changes of a local scope are those that influence those around you. Of course that comes down to a question posed in the New Testament: "Who is my neighbor?" It really depends on what you're changing. Some changes will effect your family, like deciding to go on a vacation together, or to all learn to speak Pig Latin fast enough that the neighbors can't tell what you're saying. If you decide your home owner's association needs to be reformed, it takes a bit more effort since a few hundred people could be involved. The local scope can grow to encompass just about everything.

When the scope of a change covers everything, you get to global change. Everything we do has some global impact, but the strength of that impact is almost always negligible in the big picture. Based on chaos theory, there could be an extra butterfly in South America this winter because I left for work fifteen seconds late one day in 1995. The vast majority of change is small and untrackable. A relatively small number of changes or actions have a clear global impact.

The interesting thing about the spectrum of local to global change is that the large changes depend upon the individual scope as a driving force. Cities, states and countries don't make laws. The people do, through whatever government they have.

Method
The usual method to produce change is to follow the established rules. The legislative branch of government is responsible for writing the laws that we will follow. If you want to change something, there's a well defined process that works fairly well most of the time, whether at the level of city, state, or federal government. An idea is turned into a bill which is discussed. Some are deemed important enough to proceed to a vote, and some of those bills become law. Citizen initiatives are a similar process.

Another method of inducing change is to be a conciencious objector. Some time you may feel a law (or entire government) is oppressive or archaic, and the usual method of following the rules of the current system doesn't work. To change the way things work may require breaking a law in a particular way. Being an objector means you break a law publicly, announce your personal intention to the appropriate authorities, and subject yourself to the full consequences. Personally, I don't have any call to be a conciencious objector, but I maintain respect for those who honestly have no alternative.

The third method to incite change is to break laws without accepting full responsibility. This group actively tries to avoid the consequences of their actions. This group includes the scum of the earth. Deadbeats. Thugs. Thieves. Murderers. Terrorists. People who roll through stop signs. This method, rather than creating something new, seeks only to tear down and destroy the existing value system. Those who use this method of change think might makes right, and that they can do whatever they are strong enough to get away with. Theoretically, this method could be used to do something good, but those who try to get away with breaking the law aren't usually out to help others, now are they?

Value
Now that you've decided this "change" thing is what you want, what sort of change do you want to make? Change ain't so hot if you just put a different pair of dirty socks back on. Change for the worse is just as likely as change for the better if you don't look before you leap.

If you're used to sitting back in your comfort zone, you can take things two ways. First would be to take some area where you already have some expertise, and to make some change using that skill or knowledge. Second, you could decide you need to change yourself, and gain a new area of expertise. If you decide to change something beyond the personal scale before you know what you're doing, you'll be like famous actors who use their well developed skills to weep or rant at congressional hearings on subjects they only peripherally understand. All show, no substance.

So, remember that order. Learn skill then use skill. That way, you'll know what you're doing, and it will show. I may not agree with you, but you'll have the respect of those who value knowlege used well.

So What Now?
I already mentioned that whining isn't the answer, but there are infinite ways of changing for the better. Whether you learn something, create something, or serve someone based on what you already know, the world may just be a better place because of you. Don't like your mayor, school board member, or Congressman? Run against him. Don't want to run for office? Support someone who will. Use what you've got however you can to become an agent of change, rather than a victim of it.

What is This Thing?

Government Sponsored Entities are something that most readers of blogs are not really familiar with reading about or having to talk about. In the Washington belt they are called “GSE’s” for lack of an imagination. A Government Sponsored Entity is the end result of the old New Deal legislation that had to put on a new face after the populace discovered what the older meaning was.

They are, in fact, taxpayer-funded and tax-payer promised “free-market” enterprises that are really socialist endeavors of the federal government. By all means, allow me to explain.

In the New Deal days, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were banking enterprises that were, at first, entirely funded by a market place of willing buyers. They did so under the guise that the feds would rush in, like the 7th Cavalry, and fight off evil doers and make sure that people that borrowed for housing or business loans could do so without those evil entrepreneurs coming in to make a profit. Under the LBJ administration, the definition changed to make sure that tax-payer money would underwrite all of these loans in spite of the fact that profit turned out to be in-dispensable to the markets at large. Go figure that?

Let a few years roll by, and beginning in the Carter administration increasing pressure was built on lending institutions to credit people that could not otherwise get credit. It sure sounds good if you are a local organizer for a certain political party, but it was built up under the guise, again, that tax-payer money is going to be there to back up bad loans. Enter the Clinton administration and you even have the Attorney General threatening prosecution to burn down institutions that would not lend to just about everybody. Janet was good at burning down places, and I reckon that it was just a hat-in-hand thing to extend that to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac lenders that did not want to play.

The Bush administration is on record of having fought these GSE’s on more than one occasion, and they went so far as to have to fight the likes of Barney Frank for the right to place restrictions of the loans that were being imposed on an otherwise sound financial institution. They had to fight others as well. Does the name Franklin Raines ring a bell for anyone? That is right! The former CEO for Fannie Mae and now the economic advisor for the President elect.

Now let us go into another area, which will likely not make our Republican friends happy. What is a Government “bailout”?

Let me propose, ladies and gentlemen, that it is one and the same thing.

It is nothing more and nothing less than a government takeover of institutions that do not need to be taken over by the federal government.

For the sake of argument, let me say propose that I am a maker of the “widget.” For a while, the market is good and I am able, with the excess profits, good and fair labor costs and a lack of excessive international tariffs, to make enough money to pay for everything. My widgets are not necessarily the best widgets ever made, but they are nice enough and appeal to enough of the market that I can maintain at least a balance in what is otherwise a growing economy.

Then the world economy goes bad. The excessive union costs for labor come back to bite my company. Excessive tariff laws and federal tax structures that are designed to place my company in a position of paying a good part of my profit to the government also come back to bite my company. Now, let’s place into being the fact that my widgets are having a hard time in a global economy. They are not bad, by many comparisons, but other governments are understanding the tax structures here and the power of the dollar, and they make it even better by not buying dollars bills on the global market, reducing our buying power and so making their own products more competitive amongst our competitors. Further, the Unions are now complaining that I am not keeping up with what they think is our wage scale. I threaten to move overseas and they threaten to go on strike. Without a better economy, the result becomes inevitable.

Now the populace goes into a panic. They work for me and other capitalists like me, and they are told repeatedly by a press (sold into a leftist mentality) that all of us capitalists are bad. Not withstanding the fact that if I had not made these widgets, in the first place, then there never would have been unions or a tax structure or tariffs or salaries to worry about. Never minding any of that, now I go to the government begging for what I call a loan, or, in the case of banking institutions, not even that.

My own ancestors, as this point, do not know who the hell I am or what I stand for. They would have good reason to doubt me. My ancestors would never have dreamed of going to the federal government and begging for a single damned thing. My widget company has become a tool of the federal government and can barely be discerned from any socialist enterprise that has ever had the misfortune to breath upon this planet. My company’s doom has been visited upon me because of a series of bad decisions and an overgrowth of federal despotism. The “Widget Company” is now a tool of the federal government and a willing slave to their regulations and will.

I have a question now for this intelligent and responsible readership.

What happened to our balls? What happened to the idea of having a freedom to either gain or fail according to what we design or do not design? Do we not have any juevos at all now? Or, for the active female readership, what happened to the ideal of personal responsibility? We are in a place now that because we have allowed the federal government to outgrow its usefulness and Constitutional responsibilities that we now want that same overgrown bulk of inhumanity to become out overlords? What the hell has happened to us? Are we all now willing slaves?

I am the eternal optimist. I think not. I think that we have knowledge and can overcome the weaknesses that we have visited upon ourselves. Otherwise, I think, the intelligent among us have to walk the path of Cicero. We have to remember the place that put our Republic on the world map. God bless capitalism and God bless the Republic.

Have We Forgotten

A few weeks ago I attended an 80th birthday party for someone very dear to me. On the wall near the entrance in their home was a rather large American flag. Upon questioning the significance of that flag I learned that it had flown over Afghanistan. It was sent to them from Afghanistan by their only son who is currently serving there with our armed forces. This son has also served twice in Iraq.

I had this thought running in the back of my mind when I heard a song on the radio this past week. Now I am not much of a country music fan. The only country music I listen to is the kind that makes it to the pop music stations. I have several of these stations that have presets on the car radio. After exhausting the aforementioned presets and finding absolutely nothing that I could stand to hear I began to wander in the space between these stations. It was then that I found a song that made me stop and listen.

I leave only a link to the video because embedding has been restricted. Even if you aren't a fan of country music, take just a few minutes to listen. Darryl Worley - Have You Forgotten? I can't hear it enough. As I listened I thought of the military son and the flag on their wall. My dear old friend and her family remember. They have not forgotten why he is there. Neither should we.

I have two pictures of me that help me to not forget. These are of me back when we didn't know that there was anyone named Osama bin Laden or where Afghanistan or Iraq were on the map.

No Whiners Allowed

Actually, and equally valid topic, but one that might have made some folks wonder at my grammar would be "No Whiners Aloud."

I don't care for whining in our house. If a kid comes up and says "I'm hungry," my first thought is to say something like "well, that's too bad, isn't it?" Or maybe "That sounds like complaining." If I'm in a good mood, I'll just say "Hi there, Hungry. Nice to meet you."

Now if a kid asks what they can do to help with dinner, I'm all ears and willing to share information and jobs which can get us fed sooner. Those willing to actually do something will always win when pitted against whiners.

Political whiners are the same. I have no use for them. I don't appreciate it when things and people I vote for don't win, but I try really hard not to whine. I didn't get everything I wanted this last election. Very few people get everything they want. But how do you handle the losses you face? Rather than whining, learn how the system works, and what it will take to succeed in the future. Promote the good you see within the causes and people you support. Bypassing or subverting the system is cheating, by the way. You don't want to be a cheater any more than you want to be a whiner.

Are you currently a whiner? Do you wish for things to change that are unchangeable or in the past? Do you complain, rather than ask questions or correct things? Then stop it.

Once you've stopped whining, you're only half done because now you need to actually do something productive to make up for wasted time and to move forward on whatever you stand for. Don't know what you should stand for? You're in luck! You get to choose what you will devote the rest of your life to. I'd recommend faith in God, strong family life, upright principles and transparent ethics in case you are still undecided.

I can already hear the new whining bubbling to the surface. If that little voice in your head says that it would be hard, or that you don't have time, or that it sounds good for other people, or you wish things would just go your way instead, then stop it. Tell the little voice that you don't want to be roommates any more and move from whiner to mover and shaker. The world has enough baggage without you becoming part of it.

Don't just sit there. Do something. Be an example. Make something. Help someone. Take a stand. Leave a mark. Start now.

The state religion

I came across a video with the following message in it. It was written by Elder Neil A. Maxwell[1926-2004], who was in the leadership of the LDS Church. This address was given at Brigham Young University October 10, 1978 entitled: Meeting the Challenges of Today. Emphasis added.

I include it here because of how accurate it is. I think of the response the Mormons, Catholics and others received when Prop 8 passed in California--how they use the cultivation of freedoms of our Western civilization to shrink freedom. Those with religious motives are discounted by those who oppose them by claiming separation of church and state. This is a segment of that address.

We are now entering a period of incredible ironies. Let us cite but one of these ironies which is yet in its subtle stages: we shall see in our time a maximum if indirect effort made to establish irreligion as the state religion. It is actually a new form of paganism that uses the carefully preserved and cultivated freedoms of Western civilization to shrink freedom even as it rejects the value essence of our rich Judeo-Christian heritage.

M. J. Sobran wrote recently:

"The Framers of the Constitution . . . forbade the Congress to make any law "respecting" the establishment of religion, thus leaving the states free to do so (as several of them did); and they explicitly forbade the Congress to abridge "the free exercise" of religion, thus giving actual religious observance a rhetorical emphasis that fully accords with the special concern we know they had for religion. It takes a special ingenuity to wring out of this a governmental indifference to religion, let alone an aggressive secularism. Yet there are those who insist that the First Amendment actually proscribes governmental partiality not only to any single religion, but to religion as such; so that tax exemption for churches is now thought to be unconstitutional. It is startling [she he continues] to consider that a clause clearly protecting religion can be construed as requiring that it be denied a status routinely granted to educational and charitable enterprises, which have no overt constitutional protection. Far from equalizing unbelief, secularism has succeeded in virtually establishing it.

[she he continues:] What the secularists are increasingly demanding, in their disingenuous way, is that religious people, when they act politically, act only on secularist grounds. They are trying to equate acting on religion with establishing religion. And--I repeat--the consequence of such logic is really to establish secularism. It is in fact, to force the religious to internalize the major premise of secularism: that religion has no proper bearing on public affairs. [Human Life Review, Summer 1978, pp. 51–52, 60–61]"

...irreligion as the state religion would be the worst of all combinations. Its orthodoxy would be insistent and its inquisitors inevitable. Its paid ministry would be numerous beyond belief. Its Caesars would be insufferably condescending. Its majorities--when faced with clear alternatives--would make the Barabbas choice, as did a mob centuries ago when Pilate confronted them with the need to decide.

Your discipleship may see the time come when religious convictions are heavily discounted. M. J. Sobran also observed, "A religious conviction is now a second-class conviction, expected to step deferentially to the back of the secular bus, and not to get uppity about it" (Human Life Review, Summer 1978, p. 58). This new irreligious imperialism seeks to disallow certain of people's opinions simply because those opinions grow out of religious convictions. Resistance to abortion will soon be seen as primitive. Concern over the institution of the family will be viewed as untrendy and unenlightened.

In its mildest form, irreligion will merely be condescending toward those who hold to traditional Judeo-Christian values. In its more harsh forms, as is always the case with those whose dogmatism is blinding, the secular church will do what it can to reduce the influence of those who still worry over standards such as those in the Ten Commandments. It is always such an easy step from dogmatism to unfair play--especially so when the dogmatists believe themselves to be dealing with primitive people who do not know what is best for them. It is the secular bureaucrat's burden, you see.

Am I saying that the voting rights of the people of religion are in danger? Of course not! Am I saying, "It's back to the catacombs?" No! But there is occurring a discounting of religiously-based opinions. There may even be a covert and subtle disqualification of some for certain offices in some situations, in an ironic "irreligious test" for office.

However, if people are not permitted to advocate, to assert, and to bring to bear, in every legitimate way, the opinions and views they hold that grow out of their religious convictions, what manner of men and women would they be, anyway? Our founding fathers did not wish to have a state church established nor to have a particular religion favored by government. They wanted religion to be free to make its own way. But neither did they intend to have irreligion made into a favored state church. Notice the terrible irony if this trend were to continue. When the secular church goes after its heretics, where are the sanctuaries? To what landfalls and Plymouth Rocks can future pilgrims go?

If we let come into being a secular church shorn of traditional and divine values, where shall we go for inspiration in the crises of tomorrow? Can we appeal to the rightness of a specific regulation to sustain us in our hours of need? Will we be able to seek shelter under a First Amendment which by then may have been twisted to favor irreligion? Will we be able to rely for counterforce on value education in school systems that are increasingly secularized? And if our governments and schools were to fail us, would we be able to fall back upon the institution of the family, when so many secular movements seek to shred it?

I include a video of this on the sidebar.

See also: http://townhall.com/Columnists/KathrynJeanLopez/2008/11/26/mormons_in_the_crosshairs

"A law professor at the purportedly Catholic Georgetown University, who is also a gay activist, argues that the cause of gay marriage is simply in conflict with religious liberty; he's "having a hard time coming up with any case in which religious liberty should win." (Never mind, again, that the victory of Proposition 8 in California was not the result of an edict from Salt Lake, the Vatican or any one religion, but the free and fair vote of California citizens, some informed by their religious belief, as they are free to be so motivated.)

Surely we don't have to be Mormon to be outraged. I make no statement about their recruitment strategies when I say, watching California, "We're all Mormons now." Next time the violent backlash may be in response to a brave Catholic bishop teaching responsibility at the voting booth. Next time it could be an online evangelical dating service hauled into court by a state "civil rights" office for not providing same-sex matchmaking. Oh wait, that already happened in New Jersey."

Commonality

I have friends, neighbors and relatives with whom I disagree on any number of points such as the role of government, interpretation of the Constitution of the United States, the public and private choices we should be allowed to make, and the purpose of religion. I am a quintessential conservative. If I disagree with them on so many fundamentals, how is it that I manage to associate with them without the regular occurrence of hurt feelings? Quite often it is through realizing what we have in common and building upon that foundation, rather than trying to kick sand at them.

With some, I share a religion. With others, I share professional interests that span a wide range of technical fields. Ah, if politics could have right and wrong answers as straightforward as knowing whether a math equation was correct. With some, I share citizenship in a town, county, state or country that gives us a great deal in common.

With all of them, I share the world.

While I may have some slight influence over the beliefs and attitudes of others, I have no absolute control in those areas beyond myself. If I want to communicate with someone, I first have to understand them. This doesn't mean that I will accept all of their viewpoints. It just means that I can understand how they might feel the way they do. Sometimes I disagree with others at a most basic and profound level, yet I can still communicate if I understand what has made them feel that way.

Take our cat, for instance. She thinks that my arm is fair game for gnashing when she wants to play rough, and I've carelessly left an arm where she can reach. I don't approve of having new puncture marks, but I can understand that she wants to play. I may be able to teach her over time to not chew on me with those sharp little fangs, but my surest way to avoid bloodshed is through understanding her behavior and changing mine to present fewer painful targets. Sure, I still play with her, sometimes when she's in demon mode. I just have to allow her ways to express her desire to hunt, kill and eat small furry things by training her to chew on the toys, not the arm.

Communicating with people takes similar care, but in much larger doses. Sure, you can poke angry trolls with sticks and make faces at them for entertainment, but where is the challenge in that? Want to do something really challenging? Have a pleasant conversation about a controversial topic with someone who has a diametrically opposed viewpoint. Now pulling THAT off deserves praise. Think Orrin Hatch and Ted Kennedy and their friendship.

Destroying that which we hate is trivial if we don't mind setting aside morals and personal safety. Taking a stand for what you know is right requires getting out of your comfort zone, but is often a solitary effort. Building upon a common foundation is harder, but is much more worth the effort. Who knows? A friend may even grow to understand, then accept your views.

Keeping a Civil Tongue

In the light of recent events and the proposed scope of this new blog, I wish to start things off with a quick comparison of things now to things past. I thank the gracious host of this new blog for asking me to join in this endeavor, and I hope we can generate some interesting dialog.

This republic just finished a contentious and generally aggravating presidential election, coupled with many many races across the country that reflected the presidential campaigns in both tone and content. One of the chief characteristics in this election cycle was the continual advertising that slung personal attacks against all the contenders involved. This characteristic in many ways hid the other chief component of this last election; namely, the deeply divided political stances of our citizens. The mud-slinging was an illustration of the deep-seated frustrations that were and are present, and generally worked to literally beat the citizens down by a non-stop stream of invective. I do not know about you, but I sure got tired of that, and I am happy that this last election is finally over.

I was reminded of another election in 1829. This was also a terrible election that consisted of personal attacks and political hatreds that very nearly tore the nation in half. I quote from the prologue of Arthur M. Schlesinger's book "The Age of Jackson" (copyright 1945, Little, Brown and Company):

"It was no year for righteous men: everywhere they sat in darkness. Two months before, General Andrew Jackson had been elected President of the United States. The ungodly were now in the ascendancy, and those who walked not in their counsels had little but Scriptures for consolation. 'There is more effrontery,' Samuel Clesson Allen, retiring Congressman from Massachusetts, had exclaimed, '...in putting forward a man of his bad character - a man covered with crimes...than ever was attempted before upon an intelligent peoples.' The good Reverend Robert Little, pastor of the Unitarian Society of Washington, sadly chose this text: 'When Christ drew near the city He wept over it.'"

The sentiments reflected here are no exaggeration, as the Federalist opposition to the populist Jackson was bitter and deep-seated. It had begun with the opposition of the Federalists, such as Hamilton and the Adamses, to the utopic, agrarian vision of the Jeffersonian Republicans. As Schlesinger points out, the national need for our own manufacturing and middle class slowly outweighed the vision of Jefferson's nation of gentleman farmers, and it was in Jefferson's own administration that the retreat of the Virginia leaders began, and continued through Madison and Monroe. A National Bank had been established, and while the Federalists were out of power in the executive and legislative branches, they had firmly fixed themselves in the judiciary branch "...as to an ark of future safety which which the Constitution placed beyond the reach of public opinion." (p. 15) The general opinion of the Federalists were that Jeffersonian thought encouraged the rough and uneducated public to gain power that they were not fit to hold.

The four year disaster of the second Adam's presidency was the result of the legislature being generally entirely at odds with his Federalist tendencies. Much like the presidential race between George W. Bush and Vice President Al Gore, there had been cries of stolen elections and under-handed dealings, and the legislature was in no mood to cooperate with him. Now, with the second contest between Jackson and Adams, the populist President had gained control of the seat of power by using "Mob-ocracy," and the doom of the nation was immanent. Jackson was strongly in favor of dismantling the National Bank, and for the firm establishment of gold as the money of commerce and trade. Jackson represented the unruly and unwashed masses of the new, western states, and he did not look favorably on the "rich bankers" and the new, industrial wealthy class of the north-east.

The comparison I am drawing is, of course, not perfect, but there are some interesting similarities. I noticed that George W. Bush has been accused many times of representing the wealthy interests, most notably companies like Haliburton and the oil interests. He has also been a supporter of the so-called "religious right" in his opposition to things like abortion and the use of human fetuses for stem-cell research. Obama has been anathema to the religious right, and he speaks of strong federal control to bring down the wealthy and force them to enrich the nation further by legislative action. Obama and his party speak to the poor in this country, and, whether you agree with what he said or not, his campaign brilliantly brought them to the polls and they used their franchise to elect him to power. Since that time, I have heard many conservatives say things that are remarkably similar to the arguments against Jackson in the aftermath of his election to the Presidency.

Along political lines, that is where the similarities end and, because of almost 180 years difference, there are newer considerations that have to be taken into account for a fuller understanding. One, for example, is that the modern conservative viewpoint is actually closer to the older Jeffersonian view that a limited government is the better government. Whether George W. Bush actually represented that or not is a point for another debate. The modern conservative viewpoint further maintains that involvement in foreign conflicts can be a necessary place as a policy. Obama has maintained that our involvement in foreign affairs should be limited to diplomacy unless it is absolutely necessary otherwise to use force. That was at one time a conservative view, going all the way back to the first Virginian President, George Washington.

The last, and I think, most essential difference, is that at the time of Jackson, the ideal of the redistribution of wealth was simply a concept that did not exist. The control of wealth was certainly one that the Federalists would have maintained, but the idea of taxing the wealthy to give to the poorer elements of the country through a government entity would not have occurred to either Jackson or Adams. It would not have occurred in the minds of any of the founders, in fact. The evils of slavery did occur to them. The possible abuses of the wealthy class in control of the government occurred to them. The dangers of foreign involvement occurred to them. The question of wealth was for the earlier generations of this country not a question of "do we have the right to accumulate wealth," rather, it was a question of "how much power should the wealthy have in a Republic?" There was never an idea that being wealthy was, ipso facto, being a bad person that was just greedy. That is the newer controversy and one that must be considered whether one is a conservative or not.

My own place in this, and the reason for this analogy, is simply to provide perspective enough to give modern conservatives a hope and a prayer. The movement has been placed in a position that seems hopeless for the moment, and, yet, we have survived as a nation through disappointing results in the past. I am truly enamored by the old Jeffersonian ideals, yet, through the lens of time, I can see that not having an industrial base would have been a devastating blow to this nation. Jefferson hated it, but he also understood that as well. I hate the idea of redistribution of wealth as a "save-all" ideal, yet at this point my own grandmother, father and mother are counting on the government check that they spent years of paychecks buying into. Rather than bemoaning the latest defeat in the election, let us instead look to the future. We have to be able to fight these political battles by winning the minds and hearts of those that vote. We cannot win future elections by wishing for this or for that. We will win elections by having a real set of political goals. Anything else is either outright treason or, at best, a political daydream.

Matters of State

This blog will focus on the issues of today from a conservative view point. We felt that we ought to do our part to help defend the values that are part of the foundation of this great country.