Minor Updates

With apologies to Lincoln:
Eleven score and thirteen years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.  Never did they think we would end up equal, as in the Declaration of Independence they claimed we only have the right to pursue happiness, not to have it "guaranteed" for us by a federal government that steals our money and our sovereignty (as a recent philosopher put it, in this system someone will lose.  But hey, let's be communist instead so we can all lose together!).

Now, we are headed toward another great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation, so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war, the battlefield of ideas - for now.  We have forgotten or have desecrated the memories of the real battlefields, the final resting places for those who here gave their lives that that nation might continue to live.  What did these brave soldiers give their lives for?  I think that question is answered by another question: What were they fighting against?  They fought the very ideas of government that have brought us to this knife's edge today.  They fought the kind of tyranny that today is much more quickly and easily seizing around our own throats.  It is altogether fitting and proper that we should wake up and do the same.

But, in a larger sense, talk is cheap. We don't want mindless sheep who don't know what they're fighting for, or don't know how to fight this fight.  The brave men, living and dead, who struggled on the battlefield of ideas have shown us the way.  If the founding of this country were treated as the founding of a church, the Declaration of Independence and The Constitution are not the only canonized works out there.  We need to have more than a trivial ability to recount the important dates of the Revolution, we need to know why they fought, and what weapons they used, because we are fighting the same fight today.  It is our history that will save us.

Your first piece of history today is the remainder of this speech, left unedited so that you can imagine what it would be like if we don't pay attention to the battlefield of ideas:

"The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government: of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."

You say you want a revolution, well...

From the United States Declaration of Independence: "When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation."  In other words, tell us why.
President Obama and his ilk are indeed revolutionaries, but they will not bring their ideas to the masses until after the masses have been contained or eliminated, because on the battlefield of ideas THEY WILL LOSE EVERY TIME.

Glenn Beck on the Revolution, then and now.

Just so we're clear

The thing I hate about calling the President and all of his appointees people out for being Marxist is that it has to be done.  I worry that the act of so doing will inspire sympathy because of our history with McCarthyism.  Look, if you want to be a Marxist, stand up, be proud, and be a Marxist!  Just don't go around telling people you're a capitalist.  It's too damn bad that people don't want what you're selling, but you don't get to package it as something else.

On Public Education

More than a couple times I’ve been in arguments about public education, usually provoked by something inflammatory I’ve said or stood up for, but today the approach was a little different:

“I’m wondering why you hate public education so much. I am just curious and would like to hear your reasoning behind your emotion.”

I don’t know why this touched me differently, but it really made me think about my approach to the debate, and realize that I really need to be specific if I’m going to bandy public education about as a whole.

My initial response to the above question was this:

“I don't think I can narrow it down to one reason...or keep myself from writing a novel here by listing all the evidence. :) I think this is difficult because you're just catching the bitter diatribes that I throw out there, and also because a lot of possibly unrelated things get lumped together when someone says "I hate public education," so I will need to try and bring it all under one umbrella.”

*NOTE* Since this post will already be extremely long, I will refrain from offering my ideas on solutions. I also refrain because I know I’m not the smartest man in the world, I just act like it.

And so, I will refine whom and how I malign, and define my opined targets, which are oft times intertwined.

The least of all my accusations stems from a very broad idea of how things are and perhaps how they could be. I am an entrepreneur at heart, albeit a lousy one. Since I’m a poor example, I defer to someone who is good example, Robert Kiyosaki, and his book, Rich Kid, Smart Kid.

“Years ago my schoolteacher dad tried to change the [education] system. He was aware that different children had different geniuses. He was also aware that the system was a "one size fits all" type of system, which was good for about 30 percent of the kids and horrible for all the others…He went on to say, "The reason the school system does not change is that it is not a system that is designed to change. It is a system that is designed to survive."

Most of us know that the teachers are doing the best they can to educate children. The problem is, the teachers are working within a system that is designed not to change. It is a system designed for survival. It is a system that will drug kids to slow them down rather than change by speeding up. Then, after giving the drugs to the active kids, they go on to say to the same kids, "Don't do drugs." To me, that is one tough system. It is the only business I know that fails to give its customers what they want and then blames them for its failures.

Instead of saying we as a system are boring, they say, "Your child has a learning deficiency." They say that rather than say, "We as a system have a teaching deficiency." As I said, it is the only business that blames the customers for its own failures. Years ago my real dad realized that it was a system that had tremendous flaws in it. He became very disturbed when he found out that the educational system used by most English-speaking countries is an educational system that originated hundreds of years ago in Prussia. He became deeply disturbed once he realized that he was part of a system that was not designed to educate kids, but to create good soldiers and employees.” (emphasis added)

Wow. I really only remembered the bit about the soldiers and employees, but he really lays into it. I highly recommend this book and also his Rich Dad, Poor Dad. Now, I’ve already stated that I’m a lousy entrepreneur, and I could go off on a tangent about how maybe it’s because I’m also a product of the system…but that’s not my intent. Right now, anyway.

What I want to do is to tie this in to the American Dream. How many of us are sold on the idea that the American Dream is a house? If so, then I say to you “How easily you are bought, and how easily you will be enslaved.” The American Dream is immaterial, it’s telling the world to (well, originally it was telling King George III this) “get the hell outta my way, I’m the one doing the work, and I’m going to make my own fortune.” I (should) know what’s best for me and my own, and as long as I’m living by the Constitution of the United States, there’s not a damn thing you can do to stop me. THAT’S THE AMERICAN DREAM. And what are we doing with our kids? “You go off to government school so you can learn to be a good little drone for the government someday, because we all know we need the government to come in and wipe our noses when we sneeze, and tell us how to do everything else too.”

Sorry, I blacked out for a second there. Was my rant too long? Or just the post…SO FAR! Mu ha ha ha ha! Tip of the iceberg, baby, tip of the iceberg.

Okay, so I won’t go down the road of pointing out all the Bad Educators, because there are people who suck at their job in every industry. What really ticks me off is the inability to do anything about it on this one. Thanks to the relic of tenure, bad apples are kept well past their expiration date.

I also defy my friends and family who are educators to name one Administrator that isn’t wasting a TON of money on “administration,” or has stood up to those that are doing so. How many times have you heard of a District luncheon going on at some steakhouse, or some retreat they may have gone on, while schools in the same district are sorely lacking in supplies, and teachers’ salaries are shockingly low? The fact that I hear this from so many of my friends, and that they’re not all in the same district, tells me that this problem isn’t solely in the Granite, Jordan, and Davis districts.

DING DING DING!!!

Uh oh, you know what that bell means! Yes, my friends, it’s time to bring up Vouchers! This is just my classic argument that there’s nothing the government can do that the private sector can’t do better. In this case, I ask what is one to do when confronted with the fact that their kid is being taught (or worse, brainwashed – which we’ll cover later) by one of these bad apples? What recourse do we have? Pull the kid out - send him to private school, or a charter school, or home school? ‘Cause these dinosaurs sure aren’t going to change. Why then do I still have to pay into the government school system? If something that is supposed to be a “public benefit” (in the economics sense of the term) isn’t benefiting the public, and we’re not going to do some kind of voucher system, we may as well be burning that money for fuel.

This segues into my next point as well as reinforces my first. What are we teaching these kids? What is the goal of government schools these days? “Teach the test?” I think it’s quite obvious that there is no goal, and there hasn’t been one for a while, at least not one that you or I care about.

This accusation has two main foci, the first being summed up quite easily: do you think anyone ever asked Michael Jackson what his goal for plastic surgery was before he started disfiguring himself? No, he just went under the knife numerous times, all in an effort to “look better.” His end result could be the poster-child for not having a clear goal. In addition to this, the method of achieving that goal is equally important.

Secondly, and more dangerously, if we don’t have goals for our children’s education, someone else does. At this point, you can take your pick of the litter in the different ways our kids are being indoctrinated. There are too many to list here, but I post them frequently on my Facebook group: Stolen Rocks. However, some of my favorites include:

• Elementary kids being told to paint the Earth under water because of global warming. (I couldn’t find the original article with their art, but here’s a good replacement: http://www.glennbeck.com/content/articles/article/198/21120/. Also, this: http://www.globalwarminghype.com/inconvenient.html)
• The recent videos of school kids singing Obama’s praises, reminiscent of Hitler Youth, as well as youth singing Chairman Mao’s praises.
• Widespread use of teachings that the Earth is actually spherical. (just making sure you’re paying attention. :-P)

Now, the term “dangerous” used above is really only dangerous if you and I have the same views.

Abraham Lincoln is still regarded as a good president, right? His oft quoted Gettysburg Address states that we are a “government of the people, by the people, for the people.” (On a side note, this phrase has become so intertwined with the cause of freedom that I’m certain that if you took a straw poll and asked people where that quote comes from, the majority would say “The Constitution” or the “Declaration of Independence”) So why is it that “the people” don’t have a voice anymore? I have more than a few off topic answers on that question, and hopefully you’ve been asking that question too. For this post, can it suffice to say that our voice is gone or falling on deaf ears?

If you’re still reading, congratulations. I am a horrible debater, and have difficulty translating my thoughts and feelings to words (no, really, it’s taken me almost two weeks to “refine” this post up to this point), which is why I usually defer to “smarter people” with whom I agree. I just bought the book “Arguing with Idiots” by Glenn Beck, and only last night read his chapter on this very topic. Coming back to my argument, I don’t think I do it proper justice. So I really think you should read what Glenn has to say, despite the cynical title of the book.

In closing, there are times when we choose between right and wrong, and times when we take a different road to get to the same place. I sincerely believe that we are no longer “agreeing to disagree” on which road will get us there, I’m saying that government schools at this point (well, government anything, really) are not even connected to the correct destination.

Don't it always seem to go...

...that you don't know what you got 'til it's gone?

I was going through the starred posts on my Reader, and came across this video:



It just made me think about what I'll call here "the big picture," though even I think that's mislabeled. I've got this weird feeling after watching that video, like I'm taking a step back from everything and taking it all in, and this quote pops in my head: "Those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it." I'm thinking that we've all heard that at least once, but it raises a couple of questions for me.
1) Are we learning it in the first place? In the context of this blog post, are our children learning about the conditions under which the colonies revolted against the crown? Did we even learn that when we were kids?
2) Perhaps the first question is not fair, since children are not mature enough to properly understand the complex struggles of the revolution, so let me ask this: "What have you done for me lately?" Ask yourself if you rightly know what our forefathers gave their Lives and their Fortunes for, and how they ultimately earned their Sacred Honor. What were they truly fighting against?

I brought up the Nephite pride cycle in my previous post, but there's another pearl of great price in the Book of Mosiah that is a better fit here. Roughly 92 years before Christ visited the Americas, the great Nephite King, Mosiah, was nearing the end of his life and his eldest son refused to assume the throne. It is at this point that the nation converts from monarchy to a primitive democratic republic. The whole chapter is great, talking about content of character (no talk about skin color there...), but I'm looking at verses 25-27:

25 Therefore, choose you by the voice of this people, judges, that ye may be judged according to the laws which have been given you by our fathers, which are correct, and which were given them by the hand of the Lord.
26 Now it is not common that the voice of 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.
27 And if the time comes that the voice of the people doth choose iniquity, then is the time that the judgments of God will come upon you; yea, then is the time he will visit you with great destruction even as he has hitherto visited this land.

You see where I'm going with this? You understand why our country is in the state that it's in? It's our own damn fault! Now ask yourself this question: Who has the power in this country? Redundant question, I know, since I just told you it's our fault. But have we lost our power? Not completely, not yet.

If you want to get it back, though, it's going to be a fight. You're going to have to be "that guy" in your circle of friends. You're going to have to practically drive your wife crazy by seeing politics in everything, not because you're paranoid, but because that's how far it's come. You're going to have to dress up as Thomas Paine and yell at people for 6 and a half minutes about how lazy they've gotten!

It's not fun being "that guy", trust me. I can't wait for my 10 year reunion next week so I can talk to the 3 people I haven't alienated - either through my wanton destruction of the earth, or the fact that I don't want to wait a year for a life saving surgery, or because I'm a bigoted homophobe! Family reunions are even better! (Haven't had one for 9 years)

But, if that's all I have to go through, as opposed to an actual bloody revolution as our forefathers did, I'll dress up like fricken Betsy Ross if that'd help. (It won't.) Please understand that our forefathers knew they were signing their own death warrants. Please get yourself in a frame of mind that, if it came to it, you would sign yours too. Or at the very least get in shape for that Betsy Ross dress.

Do you hear the people sing?

I'm a bit out of practice, not that my incoherent ramblings were easy to follow before, but I've just got so much on my mind that I need a healthy outlet...so you all get to suffer for my benefit. Really, I started this blog as a journal for posterity anyway (and you and I are both thinking, "yeah, right"), and I feel, or maybe just hope, that this post is something they will look back on and draw strength from.

For my close friends, this will be more of the same. Please don't just tune out because it's somewhat political (I'm not just talking to you, Wyatt). I know I talk about politics a lot, but to me it's not politics, it's freedom. Politics is the game the idiots we have elected play in order to get their pet projects done so we idiots will keep electing them, all the while belittling or completely ignoring the real issues. The hardest thing about writing what I write is that words of gravity have lost the weight of their meaning because they're used incorrectly in abundance. I will still use them in hopes of stirring something in your hearts that you once knew to be correct.
I've got a feeling welling up in my chest, something that I haven't felt so strongly since June of 2001. Independence Day was approaching, and I felt compelled to write a letter that would arrive home in time to be in context. It was addressed to my ward in general, though really it was something like what I feel compelled to write today, addressed to everyone and no one. I had been living in Russia for over a year, and even though the Soviet Union fell 10 years previously, the ravages of socialism and communism were still prevalent. Unless Putin goes and undoes everything, it may be at least a generation before the majority of the Russian people can appreciate the blessings of freedom, their God-given rights, because their minds are still so entrenched in having the government control their lives.

It was at this point that my love of country and gratitude for the founders and defenders of my country was cemented in my very being. I then became sad for the direction in which I saw we were headed and, recognizing the “Nephite” pride-cycle, I wrote home extolling the virtues of these united States, and forewarned of what must surely be coming to bring us back to humility before God. I got sick, and was sent home two months later. My letter was still hanging by the Bishop’s office on September 11^th, and I wish I had thought to take it home, but sadly it is now lost.

My favorite scene in the Lord of the Rings movies is in the second film during the siege of Helm’s Deep. The enemy had breached the impregnable outer wall and were on the verge of taking the fortress. Theoden King is making ready for what he thinks will be his life-ending battle and asks, to himself, “How did it come to this?” You might have the same answer as me, "DUH!" By this point in the movie, the answer was self evident. The King fell asleep at the wheel. He allowed his sniveling advisor Wormtongue to convince him that a few orcs on the border weren't a problem. A few more? Better not to make a fuss. A few more? It's hardly an army. Then there he is, facing annihilation. Don't get the correlation wrong, I'm not saying Obama is Wormtongue. If you were to ask me, I'd say that Obama is Saruman. It's the media that is Wormtongue. Petty name-calling aside, the point here is that it doesn't matter who is the Saruman and who is the Wormtongue, we are Theoden, and we've fallen asleep at the wheel.

I don't believe there will be a terrorist attack this time. That was just a wake-up call, and we hit the snooze button.

Back to words that have lost their weight, I want you to pause for a moment when I ask you what comes to your mind when you think of the word massacre (especially after the previous two sentences)? For me, I go back to the scene I was just talking about in LOTR, mainly because I (we) have nothing better to relate it with. Had the battle been lost, it would have been a massacre, yes? Especially so of the women and children secreted away in the caves. Do you know how many people were killed in the Boston Massacre? Five. Not to devalue human life here, but five people is a massacre? Absolutely. The oppression of the Brits was approaching a boiling point, and was so overwhelming that yes, killing 5 people is a massacre. From Wikipedia:

"The Boston Massacre is one of most important events that turned colonial sentiment against King George III and British acts and taxes. Each of these events followed a pattern of Britain asserting its control, and the colonists chafing under the increased regulation. Events such as the Tea Act and the ensuing Boston Tea Party were examples of the crumbling relationship between Britain and the colonies. The Boston Massacre was the most major events that started the issues between the colonist and British way of rule. While it took five years from the Massacre to outright revolution, it foreshadowed the violent rebellion to come. It also demonstrated how British authority galvanized colonial opposition and protest."

Do you see the scary part in that article? Not anything that was actually written, just that we are almost to a point where we could exchange "US Government" for "Britain" there. Now, conspiracy theorists will tell you that our current state of the union was designed, that certain people have long plotted our Nation's downfall, and they have a pretty convincing argument. Origins aside, what I'm worried about is who will fill the void when it happens. Will it be The Coming Insurrection, or will it be people with Common Sense? I've already gone on WAY too long here, so I'll wrap it up with this:

Do you hear the people sing?
Singing the song of angry men?
It is the music of a people who will not be slaves again.
When the beating of your heart echoes the beating of the drums,
there is a life about to start when tomorrow comes.

Will you join in our crusade? Who will be strong and stand with me?
Beyond the barricade, is there a world you long to see?
Then join in the fight that will give you the right to be free.

Will you give all you can give, so that our banner may advance?
Some will fall and some will live,
will you stand up and take your chance?
The blood of the martyrs will water the meadows of France.

Do you hear the people sing?
Singing the songs of angry men?
It is the music of a people who will not be slaves again
When the beating of your heart, echoes the beating of the drums
There is a life about to start when tomorrow comes.

Do as I say not as I do

Now that I'm a dad, I can better appreciate the significance of those words.

President Marion G. Romney gave a talk in the General Conference of the Church in October of 1982. I read that talk for the first time a couple of weeks ago in the March 2009 Ensign. I hope you will read it now, right now, so that you might understand my frame of mind as I write this. It's about self reliance, something that I have only recently decided to strive for, and something I wish I had been able to read and understand long ago. This talk has changed my life, and it's not too often that things affect me that deeply.

Allow me to put on my World's Humblest Man hat for a sec (I made it for myself), and tell you that if there is only one thing in the world that I'm good at, it's taking the Lord at his word. I have seen miracles in others, and I have been on the receiving end of miracles myself, and in every instance it was because a contract was fulfilled between the receiver and the Lord. I know that most of the time all it requires is the demonstration of faith on the part of the individual, and there are a plethora of ways to do that.

At this point I'd like to remind you of the title of this post. There are also a plethora of ways to shrink and further disqualify ourselves from the myriad blessings that are merely waiting for us. One thing that has changed in my life recently is that we are no longer on state welfare. If I have anything to say about it, we will never be wards of the state again. It just so happened that we were blessed enough to get off of it before I read the above article, and had I not read it, we probably would end up right back there should hard times befall us again. I laugh now, as I re-read the previous sentence. Hard times = getting a college education in engineering? Sorry, I'm distracting from the reason I'm writing this.

The point here is that I can see some positive effects in my life already, if only the realization that I have been acting in the direct contrast of faith. Now, I'm not advocating that we all start putting water in our gas tanks and pray that the car will still run. In light of the article, I am saying that I was depriving my family from depending on the Lord, and that was a bad place to be. I was also depriving myself of becoming a hard working, resourceful, and self-reliant man.

So the title of today's post is really for myself, should I ever need a refresher. I hope that I can look back on this journal entry someday and be able to count the blessings we will have received by following President Romney's council. I'm confident that we won't be able to count that high.