Politics, Human nature

A new report about the growing middle class in Gaza a city under the control of Hamas, a political entity created by hyper-religious, culturally regressive, and impoverished economic conditions in the middle east, describes what criticisms are being levied against them because they are breaking out of the omnipresent poverty.

Evidence of capitalism as being the motivation and free enterprise being the force which is causing the changes was reported.  At the same time the report illustrates how the leadership which came to power because of the circumstances are wanton to keep the status quo as a means of remaining in power.

This unfortunately this the lamentable condition of man. No matter which force takes leadership cultural, economic, or religious the powerful are not inclined to relinquish their position in spite of the evidence that there is a more excellent way.

As a consequence the average person is subject to the whims of man and nature.

Mismanagement & malfeasance

Google, union mismanagement and only one story, and it is a blog critical of the unions, shows up. That is amazing to me. Unions are underfunded in some instances by less than 60%.  Which means that almost half of the money paid in dues have been mismanaged. That much incompetence is only exceeded by the federal government.

The problem with collecting money and power, especially in large amounts, is that it attracts criminals, crooks, and con artists.  The only real solution is to divest power and spread the money out.  The probability of mismanagement is still great, maybe even greater but the impact is local rather than global.

How does one quantify the amount of harm. The average person swindled out of their money by local crooks or the average person's money confiscated by the government for redistribution less administration costs.  The local crook can only steal what you have. Our government confiscates our earnings plus penalty.  The local con artist has to sleep and it does take time to turn the con. Our government is now technologically advanced and can confiscate our money around the clock and in advance of our earning it.

The resident criminals can devastate an individual's life, our government has diminished the lives of this country's great grandchildren.  It might be acceptable if it were an either or situation. But it's not. Both miscreants are aggressively pursing what little money we have left.

Nauvoo Pagent

Marie and I spent two weeks as a volunteer at the Nauvoo Pagent in Nauvoo, Illinois.  Marie worked in the administration office and I served as security and handyman.  We attended the Pagent almost every night for two weeks and was spiritually edified by it.  We helped with the associated, Country Fair, events and became aquatinted with many excellent latter day saints. It is truly an amazing experience.

Acts 15-16 Lesson 31 Gospel Doctrine

Paul's journeys back to the cities and the peoples he visited and converted appears to me to be an example of one of Stephen Covey's seven habits  "sharpening our saw". What Paul found was varying degrees of apostasy, spiritual degradation, and inactivity. By going back he was able to positively affect and influence the people and help them to follow the teachings of Christ.  If we revisit the principles of the gospel that are present in our lives to make sure that we are actively and correctly following them we will be sharpening our saws and become better latter day followers of Christ.

Letter to my congressman

Thank you for responding to my email. I was pleasantly surprised, but I am disheartened by your response.  You are right, government is the problem, but it is not the solution.  Two trillion over 10 years is simply a miniscule reduction in the growth of government. Privatization of government services must become the focus and de-funding of nonessential enterprises the method. Spending controls and fraud prevention, as in any government program, is an oxymoron. A balanced budget amendment is too easily circumvented and hardly worth the paper it is written on (i.e. congress's and the president's willingness to disregard the constitution).

What I wanted to hear was how your efforts were going to develop support for divesting the government of unaffordable departments and programs; what your efforts were for reviewing and reducing the government regulations that are destroying private enterprise; and how you are actively engaged in an effort to term-limit all politicians and sunset all legislation with a 2/3 vote for reinstatement of both the politician and legislation.  

This country is bankrupt in money and, unfortunately, in leadership. I was hoping the Wyoming delegation would be outside of the norm and not let business as usual or the too often used mantra "you don't understand the political process" be the justification for continuing the erosion of liberty, the destruction of freedom, and the replacement of the capitalistic system with a socialist one.

Instead of the Ad council being used to fund antagonistic and counter cultural announcements, it should be used to inform the populace of civic duties and financial responsibilities. If the money is to be spent at all, it should be used to raise our standards of behavior not lower them.

Our country is being lost because too many of its politicians are too often unwilling to make the tough decisions and because too many of its politicans are anxious to vote for the expedient measure rather than deliberate the long-term consequences. 

Please allow me to encourage you to do the right thing for the majority of the people rather than sacrifice the many for the few. I don't believe anything can be done well by the broad brush of the federal government. I do believe that we can restore America but only through the collective agency and work of the people at the individual, community, and county level.  The states should be willing to cooperate rather than bicker and feud. The federal responsibility should not be at the local or especially the private level.

Individual income taxes should be replaced with a consumption tax which is collected by the states and each state would then pay its federal assessment to fund the federal budget which then is based not on the projected income, but on the actual receipts and zero-based budgeting.

Please allow me to encourage you to sponsor legislation which promotes America's abundant resource development and makes it possible for manufacturing to return to our soil and for our independent farmers and small business people to succeed.

Divestiture rather than collectivization of business; individual accountability rather than social classification of our citizens; responsible development as opposed to sequestration of our resources; and shared risk with consequential litigation limiting the awards to context specific criteria. Pay the right amount for the actual damages.

Please allow me to encourage you to defend the conservative point of view and to actively pursue the practical legislation which promotes it.

Thank you for your commitment to the citizens of Wyoming and for your time on our behalf.

angry birds revisited

Today's conventional wisdom is that we can launch an idea toward a perceived problem or futuristic outlook and think that it is relevant.  For example, I read a recent article about the demise of the Dollar as the reserve currency.  In 25 years...  That is like loading an idea up in a sling shot and launching it toward a perceived situation and expecting that at the end of the journey the idea will be unaffected by time and distance and that the structure has somehow not changed.

Everything changes and the simple fact of addressing it causes changes.  Instead of pontificating about the outcome which is worthless it would be much better to put forward a strategy toward some desirable end.

For example the world needs a reserve currency and that currency needs to be as stable as it can be.  Stability comes from discipline which is achieved through responsibility.  A second aspect is that the reserve currency status is not delegated but earned. It is achieved by being the predominant economy.  Economic vitality presumes risk and risk is associated with instability. Instability can only be countered by integrity and responsibility.

Integrity can be taught, modeled and promoted. Responsibility can be monitored and measured. It is the standards of responsibility that must be discussed. It is the duty of the purveyors of conventional wisdom to maintain the standards of responsibility.

Angry Bird Mentality

The recent smart phone game to go viral is called "Angry Birds".  Little did the authors and developers know but they actually created a metaphor for our current mentality.  In angry birds a structure exist which houses some green pigs that have supposedly stolen the birds eggs.  Angry birds are then sling shot toward the structure with the intent of destroying the structure and killing the pigs resulting in a fictitious score and utter destruction of the structure, the pigs, and the birds.

The current mentality is that capitalism, the green pigs, have stolen the riches of the world, constructed an edifice unto themselves and therefore must be destroyed by catapulting constituent groups of angry citizens into the structure to break down the environmentally damaging structure and destroy the capitalists within while accumulating points which presumably means that the person shooting the birds can now post his name as score leader.

The metaphor doesn't stop there.  Once the destruction is complete, the game will reset or advances to the next level epitomizing the current mentality which assumes that life is a game and that it will reset itself with no lasting damage.  Society can be destroyed, the pigs of the world vanquished and all will be well at the next level.  Only it is the same scenario with more pigs, bigger structures, improved defenses which proves more difficult to destroy.

I have a suggestion to improve the metaphor and that would be to eventually turn each pig red and house them in an practically indestructible grass shack adjacent to the diminishing capitalist structures. Eventually all of the pigs are turned red, the capitalists no longer want to steal the wealth or build environmentally destructive structures, the world is at peace and the birds are no longer angry and the game comes to an end. RIP