Fiscal Cliff Again

Stop with the Cliff metaphor. The US went over the fiscal cliff when Nixon took the US off of the Gold Standard. It has been in a tumbling bumpy increasingly faster descent ever sense. It's the sudden stop at the bottom, the collapse of the dollar, we should be worried about. The economy held a branch out during the Clinton years but that was just an balanced budget illusion. As congress ignored it and spent even more. Since then Obama has strapped on a Jet pack and turned on the after burner.  The US is not only going to come to a sudden stop it is going to hit at such a speed that it will vaporize America as we thought we knew it.

Krugman-like Keynesian economists think there is no bottom, so why worry. Congress thinks that if it keeps digging the bottom can be avoided until they are out of office or their insanity and the bureaucracy's avalanche of regulations overcome everything accept the black market.  Free enterprise and capitalism is seeing the last flickers of the light of their existence and a minority of the American people are witnesses to the extinction of self-reliance as it is exchanged for mindless hope in big government.  All fostered by a growing majority of public employees, entitlement seeking and welfare receiving citizens, and illegal immigrants violating the nations laws with impunity.  Everyone of them are paying no mind to , ignoring the signs of, or are oblivious to the rapidly approaching catastrophe. Add to that a clueless younger generation obsessed by self-gratification and the stage is set.

B.O. and his communist buddies are providing absolutely no leadership or working to resolve the circumstances that have lead to this predicament as if they didn't know any better or most likely didn't care.   I am of the opinion that they are too stupid to figure it out but there is a lot of evidence that indicates that they are purposely bankrupting this country and have every intent of reducing the standard of living to levels commensurate with every other subsistence nation. As if some how that is going to make everything alright.

Reality

The reality of it is that credit is the life blood of prosperity but it is also the noose around our neck that is being drawn tighter by the increasing weight of each borrowed dollar.

In reality the disparity of resources and the inequality of ability insures that minorities are wealthy and the majority is not.

In reality people are petty, selfish, and self-centered. No matter what solutions are recommended there will always be opposition and nothing will be accomplished or the problems solved.

Where we go from here is yet to be seen. But I fear that it will not be some place good.

Disheartening

Accidents happen.  Through no fault of there own some people have bad things happen to them. Dumb is.  Through no fault of there own some people are less intelligent and the circumstances are such as they might there abilities to deal with life is simply insufficient.  Compassion is conditional. Through some fault of our own our heart strings are tugged by different measures, our attention is captured and lost by unpredictable things, and our willingness to help is more dependent upon being asked than sensing the need.

So whether we think so or not the amount of kindness is out weighted by the amount of need. The question is, does the amount of need exceed the potential to meet that it.  I think not.  However, the real issue is the amount of greed. Is there enough potential to satisfy the greed. The answer is unequivocally no. We make judgments about someone's need through the spectacles of greed and determine our willingness to share and too often as a consequence we share not enough with those who are honestly in need.

Unfortunately in this life there are no instances that are not uncertain,  where decisions are not difficult and are not complicated by thoughts and feelings and where there is never really only one right answer or best possible solution.  So how do we deal with it. How do we have compassion on the least of these our brother and sisters and have it not cost us too much time or more money than we are willing maybe even capable of sharing?

As much as I don't like the ills of big government it brings with it compelled compassion because in the government realm it is easy to let someone else feel compassionate.  The problem comes when the solution does not involve us personally or when someone else is willing to do it, for a price, when those with heart can give the heartless people's money away with little or no remorse no accountability, and especially when there's not enough money, more can be had by taxing or printing it.

Some could begrudging go along with that because then all it would cost us is a little bit of money and practically none of our time and if we didn't think too hard the freedoms and liberties lost were negligible and our consciences could be relatively clear.  However, charity never faileth to steal the dignity of the receiever and after a point it persuadeth the less than ambition man to petition for more and the ambition man to hunger for more power to take care of the sick and afflicted, the poor and needy, the indigent and disenfranchised,  the minority and the suppressed.  The call would go out... if not the government... then who.

Dishearteningly, it is only a matter of time before big government is telling us what to do and how to do it all because we would not take care of the poor, the widow, the fatherless, and the needy.

Sayings

Wise sayings without miracles are just words. Words without proverbs are statements of fancy. Fancy statements without a true meaning are a waste of time.  Time without a purpose is a waste of space. Space without context is nowhere at all. Context without premise and postlude is invalid

As I contemplate my existence, my purpose, my accomplishments, and my heart felt desires I wonder how to find meaning in a world so large that I matter not at all, how to make a difference that is meaningful in a place where different is suspect, where selfishness seems not to be a vice but a virtue, and how to gain a true perspective so that my desires are worthy of being pursued.

Of all of the possibilities this world has to offer: why here? why now? why this?  I am in Lovell, Wyoming, United States of America. A small remote rural town in the western half of the most prosperous country in the world.  There is little I am unable to do if I put my mind to it and have the resources to get it done.  There are positives and negatives but by and large this is a great place to be considering, even for a moment, the alternatives.  Assuming that I am not an accident of nature coming into existence on an obscure little plant in the chaos of an indescribable spiraling arm of a medium to small galaxy in a vast universe that currently has no outer limits and as far as science is able to tell there are no other signs of life.  Which makes one wonder just how unimportant we are.


Marie called, this morning, with insight about why linage is recited in the scriptures.  "It establishes validity" she said.  Her insight causes me to consider that the scriptures are filled with instances establishing validity.  As I was stating at the beginning of this post anything without validity is just short of nothing. Granted a unbeliever will discount the information but without it there is no credibility.  The interesting thing is that my thoughts were going along that line this morning and she was able to help formulate the idea that the scriptures are full of validating ideas.  Which in a sense helps to make sense of the scriptures, which helps to make sense of this life, which helps me to make sense of myself, my purpose, my place and my heart felt desires.

Gospel

In my study of religion I am discovering an interesting aspect. The written gospels seem to be after-the-fact narratives. There are countless investigations by all sorts of people educated, uneducated, biased, and prejudiced. Much of the information that I have run into does not dispute the fact that Jesus lived or the apostles were real but that their writings were recollections and that the surviving evidence are, probably, copies of the originals.

There seems to be a disparity of translations and a growing number of discovered records. Apparently much editing has taken place and a very conscious effort of selection and rejection has resulted in the canonized version of the bible with many other records and writings excluded.

My incomplete understanding and exposure to the depth and breath of the material plus my inability to read any language but english makes my thoughts very personal and probably very wrong. However, I am developing an attitude about the information and I wanted to write it down so that I don't forget what I was thinking as I go forward as my knowledge, correct or not grows, and my perspective changes.

I am depressed by the apparent organic way religion has come about. As I study the history of the bible and the empirical evidence it seems to me that there is a incomplete but perceptible path from pagan to Christian.  It seems to me that the evidence shows that the people of the time were actively engage in religious writing and that there is reason to believe that the surviving writings are more contrived than actual.

However, that does not preclude the probability of Jesus actually living and teaching. It just seems to me to be a rather futile way to initiate the salvation of man. It seems to me that given the time and nature of man that whatever truth might have been divulged is was probably not understood, misstated, mistranslated, and even corrupted.  So then what purpose do the scriptures serve?  Why would a loving God leave so much up to chance? I suppose that if Jesus had not shown up when he did history and probably mankind would be different.  i.e. china.  I suppose that modern day revelation as in the LDS Church would not necessarily be accepted as is the case. Primarily, I think, because of the bias and prejudice of other christian sects.  The LDS church seems to be being accepted, at face value, in China at the rate its communist leaders will allow.

So then what does that prove? That there is a time and season for all things? That God exists? That a God does not exist? That God's way are not man's ways? That each of us in our own time and in our own way will come to know the truth or that there is no actual truth to know?

Election

It was my hope that Romney would be elected, not that I thought he would be a much better president, but that the Obama administration would be put out of service.  It is the Obama administration and all of the Progressive/socialist/communists that have sway and are implementing the destruction of the American ideal that I believe needs to be stopped.

President Obama is a nice enough fellow but the people he associates with and populates his administration with is what I object to. Their concerns about the environment and the poor are not unjustified but their ideas, propositions, and methods are disastrous. We need to do things more intelligently which includes how we change from bad practices to good. How we transition productively from unsustainable to sustainable.  How we encourage rather than force people to take responsibility for their actions and become stewards of the land and our heritage. How we teach people to fish rather than giving them someone else's fish.

Now that he has been re-elected by the useful morons of this country he owns the outcome and can no longer blame anyone for his failures.  The policies invented by his cronies, the procedures instituted by their minions to limit resource development, demonize capitalistic endeavors, and the borrowing of the federal reserve's funny money to giveaway to the rest of the world can be attributed to no one but him.

As this country sinks into socialism and its vitality is strangled out of it. He and his party will be the final arbiters of reducing it to a deficit riddled, debt bound bankrupt economy incapable of getting itself out of debt, and with no desire to reduce its deficit.  For the foreseeable future the US will be bankrupt of money, ideas, and ideals and it will be hung around his neck by history.

The mainstream media will try to explain it away. The party operatives will try to blame it on someone else. The useful morons will be oblivious to the nature of there suffering and rest of us will have to deal with it the best way we can.  We will have to endure hyper inflation, increased crime, rampant corruption, a growing welfare state, and a diminished quality of life, liberty and the memories of happiness.

The single greatest thing to come our of the election is that Obama will have no where to go but forward to his rightful position of what I think will be considered by history as the worst president.  Not that his administration hasn't be effective in the dismantling of the American right but that his leadership was absent when it came time to preserved and protect the constitution of the united states and to lead this country away from the up coming financial collapse and the associated big government and welfare morass.

It was not a job that any one man could get done by himself but it needed someone to begin the effort.  It needed someone to take the desire of the electorate for hope and change and lead them toward a better place.  Instead he took the easy route oversaw and promoted the worsening of the fiscal crisis to the point that the future generations have had their dreams of a free and prosperous society completely and utterly destroyed.

Four more years of trillion dollar deficits per year and a 20 trillion dollar debt is a financial hole our grand children's grandchildren will not be able to climb out of.  Who, in this world, will come to our aid... no one.

Watching

While watching a TED talk by Simon Sinek about inspired leaders he suggest that their success was because they were focused on why they did things, not how or what they did.

He used Martin Luther King as an example and how he got people to believe in his cause and commit their time and effort to it not because of him, not because of what,  but because of why.

As I contemplated the idea it donned on me that Jesus Christ was a why type. He told us why he was here and why we should want to follow him.

After 2000 plus years all we get in sunday school class is what and how he did what he did and we almost never talk about why he did what he did.

All of the time that I have been going to church I have never really been satisfied with the experience because it was always about what and how.  I knew the why for the most part, and that is why I attended with my family, but the message is lost in all of the metaphors, analogies, and allegories.

In addition our educational system has corrupted the learning process plus too many of us seem to prefer the what to the why because it is easier to deal with and requires less from us.

The end game

I know that no one cares about what I write accept me but it gives me a chance to articulate my thoughts with some expectation that either I or my posterity will by plan or chance read my thoughts and ideas. I think many of us have hope of amounting to something more than nothing so we write our ideas down on paper as if it might matter some day.

America as we fantasize about it being the home of the brave and land of the free came to an end quite some time ago we just didn't realize it.  Last night, the real America voted, approximately 19.6% of the voting american public, which is only 39% of the population of this country, reaffirmed their preference for big government and the nanny state by reelecting a president that has presided over the minimization of the constitution and the violation of ideals and values originally established in the founding principles of this country.  They did so with unprecedented debt and an insurmountable deficit as the indicators of a failed idea, a failed administration, a failed generation, and a failed people. They did so with no regard for the futures of those who are to follow and are to be saddled by the previous generations fiscal irresponsibility and selfish attitudes. They did so in spite of the warnings and efforts of the 18.4% of the american electorate to campaign and vote for fiscal responsibility and social conservatism.

The future of America was mortgaged a long time ago on the premise that the country was rich in resources and populated by an ambitious people capable of producing enough wealth to pay the bill. However, with each succeeding generation anxious to get their share of the pie and a little bit more the mortgage was not paid down but refinanced, forwarding the bill to the next generation.  Add to that a rising mentality which advocates environmental activism which places our abundant resources off limits, the ever increasing socialist policies, and practices of the elected officials, and a willingness of too many of its people choosing to replace work with overly generous government handouts and what you have is a disaster in the making.  Disastrous not just for us but the world. America's pretend wealth has propped up the rest of the worlds extravagance as well.  China and India are not yet ready to weather the storm but they will be less affected than the rest.

As soon as our appetites out paced our abilities to produce the goods and pay for it ourselves and we began buying and borrowing from other nations then the die was cast and the inevitability of the bill coming due sooner or later became a reality.  Now that our preferences are clearly socialist and our policies are environmentally and capitalistically restrictive the pending foreclosure on the mortgage is real because we are not making the payments and our good intentions are not covering the costs.

303,824,640 U.S. Population

207,643,594 Eligible voters = 68%

118,705,449 votes cast = 39%

60,800,050 winning total = 20%