politicaLDS - Mormons From All Sides

take a sad song and make it better

2009-06-13T12:15:00.003-07:00

Hey everybody. Sorry for the long, unannounced hiatus. Actually, I haven't posted since we found out my wife was pregnant with triplets. Those triplets are arriving on Monday!

Long story short, I don't have time to maintain this site anymore. It has been an informative and provocative experiment, and I plan on leaving it here where people can continue to post, comment or read through the archives.

If anyone out there is interested in taking over the site as the administrator, and has the time to devote to it, feel free to contact me. All I'd ask is that it continue in the spirit of learning and civil conversation in which it began.

Thanks to all the writers, commenters, and lurkers who have participated. I've learned a lot from many of you. I encourage you all to remain passionate about your beliefs while seeking to understand the perspectives of others.

All the best wishes for the future!

Mike

All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.
-Edmund Burke

If I weren’t a RACIST REDECK, an OPEN-MINDED LIBERAL I would be!

2009-05-07T10:25:00.005-07:00

This guest post was submitted by regular commenter, matt. If anyone else wishes to submit a guest post, please email it to Stephanie (link on side).

I love to hear comments such as, “Republicans are just a bunch of racist, religious [as if to say being religious is a bad thing], hate mongering bigots.”

If only we could all be as open-minded and non-judgmental as our friends, Keith and Janeane.

Any wonder why our nation is so divided?

Yes, it’s true, the GOP is no shining star, but after listening to the media coverage of the Tea Party protests, I am more than happy to be a racist redneck conservative.

Let’s break it down for all ya’ll rednecks that have ‘em misfiren’ synapse.

Jeneane: “Let’s be honest, this is about hating a black man in the White House.”

Yes, and that must be why the liberal media couldn’t find any protestor signs regarding Obama’s skin color. For me, the only good reason I had to vote for Obama was that he is the first black man to run for office. Not reason enough for me, so I didn’t vote for him. By the way, 98% of blacks voted for Obama, and who is the racist?

-Jeneane: “the limbic brain is much larger in [the conservatives'] head space…causing their synapse to misfire.”

(please note the laughing of Keith Olberman, and how he will not stand up to what is being said…maybe because he believes it) Kind of scary. I didn’t realize Jeneane was so educated in the field of medicine. I wish I was diagnosed before the Election, I could have treated the illness and would have voted for Obama.

-Jeneane: “This is pathological, it’s about philosophy and lifestyle, again, this is about racism…the conservative movement has now crystallized into the white power movement.”

Really?, Well aren’t we just the nicest racists you ever saw? I guess policy bashing translates into Racism somewhere in the intellectual liberal mind, with no misfiring synapse. On a separate show by Olberman, he showed video clips of White Power Nazi’s in a military Style march, behind quotes he was reading while covering the “Tea Parties”….and the Conservatives are the ones fear-mongering?

-Jeneane: “who else is FOX talking to other than older, urban white guys and their girlfriends suffering from Stockholm syndrome.”

Way to go Jeneane, fear-mongering yet again. Conservatives certainly have a lot of psychological problems now, don’t we? Still no defense by Olberman. My poor mother, held captive by my racist father all of those years and even forced to go to a white power church …Mormons!

-Olberman: “what if somebody gets hurt at one of these things?”
Jeneane ,“That is an unfortunate byproduct… of a volatile group like this of the limbic brain.”

Please MSNBC, find some kind of violence to show us…that’s right, there wasn’t any violence to be seen.

-Jeneane: “The Republican party now depends on immigrant bashing and hating a black man.”

You got us there, Jeneane, Upholding those darn immigration laws. Is it just me or is there no substance whatsoever to their claims? Must be an intellectual thing.

-Olberman: ”We’d have peace in our time if they didn’t do it.” (speaking of the conservative media’s so called misinformation.)

That’s right, peace and harmony all around. Obama is flawless after all. And with all of his experience we should just follow along like mindless intellects, never questioning a thing. That’s how the liberals treated Bush after all, right?

Now, I know Jeneane doesn’t speak for all liberals, but MSNBC and Keith Olberman agreed with, and aired every bit of the interview. If Rush Limbaugh is the face of the conservatives, doesn’t that make Keith Olberman that face of the Liberals? And people wonder why liberal talk radio doesn’t work.

Don’t worry, it gets even better.

The Tea Party Protests were advertised as exactly that, Tea Party Protests, except for a childish few who decided to portray it as a sexual “tea bagging” party. All that I can say is, conservatives are the “evil” ones?

I didn’t attend a Tea Party, and I know they didn’t exactly coincide with the purpose behind the “Boston Tea Party”, as liberals are very quick to point out, but aren’t liberals the ones pointing out that the “right” only sees “moral” issues as those pertaining to abortion , gay marriage etc? Well, here you go liberals, conservatives protesting “immoral” spending, that’s what these parties were about. I know darn well that this out of control spending started with Bush, as does the conservative media, but when Obama triples the debt in 3 months, people felt the need to protest. It had nothing to do with the skin color of our President.

Another political article in the Ensign

2009-03-22T12:47:00.008-07:00

The March issue of the Ensign has an excellent article (reprinted) by Marion G. Romney called The Celestial Nature of Self-Reliance. I was introduced to this article last year at the BYU Women's Conference Broadcast of Sacred Relationships and Self-Reliance by Ana Maria Coburn and was delighted to see it reprinted in the Ensign.

What stood out to me in reading it was how many times it has the word "government" in it. I count 9. I find this particularly interesting because this is the third article in six months in the Ensign that relates to politics. I just wanted to share a few quotes, give my "analysis", and see what you think. So, here goes.

On this subject, Elder Albert E. Bowen said, “The … Church is not satisfied with any system which leaves able people permanently dependent, and insists, on the contrary, that the true function and office of giving, is to help people [get] into a position where they can help themselves and thus be free.”

Many programs have been set up by well-meaning individuals to aid those who are in need. However, many of these programs are designed with the shortsighted objective of “helping people,” as opposed to “helping people help themselves.” Our efforts must always be directed toward making able-bodied people self-reliant.

So, how do our current government welfare programs stack up in helping people "get into a position where they can help themselves"? It seems to me that our current programs are creating and enabling cycles of poverty (permanant dependence) rather than helping people to break free from poverty. I appreciate that he credits individuals who support these programs as "well-meaning". (I would probably have used "misguided", which might be offensive, so I appreciate well-meaning)

President Romney quotes a story about gullible gulls out of the Reader's Digest:

In our friendly neighbor city of St. Augustine great flocks of sea gulls are starving amid plenty. Fishing is still good, but the gulls don’t know how to fish. For generations they have depended on the shrimp fleet to toss them scraps from the nets. Now the fleet has moved. …

The shrimpers had created a Welfare State for the … sea gulls. The big birds never bothered to learn how to fish for themselves and they never taught their children to fish. Instead they led their little ones to the shrimp nets.

Now the sea gulls, the fine free birds that almost symbolize liberty itself, are starving to death because they gave in to the ‘something for nothing’ lure! They sacrificed their independence for a handout.

A lot of people are like that, too. They see nothing wrong in picking delectable scraps from the tax nets of the U.S. Government’s ‘shrimp fleet.’ But what will happen when the Government runs out of goods? What about our children of generations to come?

Let’s not be gullible gulls. We … must preserve our talents of self-sufficiency, our genius for creating things for ourselves, our sense of thrift and our true love of independence.

This one line in particular stood out to me: But what will happen when the Government runs out of goods? This is a very real possibility. In fact, what do you call an annual trillion dollar deficit? The government is long out of "goods" and is borrowing those goods from other countries. It was recently announced that the deficits of Obama's administration are even worse than previously forecasted. Economists all seem to agree that these kinds of deficits are unsustainable. And yet, Obama is marching forward with his spending agenda of "overhauling health care, exploring new energy sources and enacting scores of domestic programs".

The dismal deficit figures, if they prove to be accurate, inevitably raise the prospect that Obama and his Democratic allies controlling Congress would have to consider raising taxes after the recession ends or else pare back his agenda.

Well, Obama has made it clear that he is not paring back his agenda.

"What we will not cut are investments that will lead to real growth and prosperity over the long term," Obama said. "That's why our budget makes a historic commitment to comprehensive health care reform. That's why it enhances America's competitiveness by reducing our dependence on foreign oil and building a clean energy economy."

Obama's $3.6 trillion budget for the 2010 fiscal year beginning Oct. 1 contains ambitious programs to overhaul the U.S. health care system and initiate new "cap-and-trade" rules to combat global warming.

Both initiatives involve raising federal revenues sharply higher, but those dollars wouldn't be used to defray the burgeoning deficit and would instead help pay for Obama's health plan and implement Obama's $400 tax credit for most workers and
$800 for couples.

I guess I just don't believe that Obama's agenda is actually going to lead to "real growth and prosperity over the long run". I wonder if we are "sacrificing our independence" for a $400 tax credit. So, if Obama won't cut spending, the alternatives are to borrow more or increase taxes. Believe it or not, there are limits on the amount the U.S. can borrow. We have to borrow from other countries (namely China), and they are giving us warnings about spending too much. Plus, the more debt we have, the weaker our currency becomes and the higher our interest rates go. That's why deficits around 5% of GDP are "unsustainable". So, I know the answer to "But what will happen when the Government runs out of goods?" Higher taxation. Glenn Beck pointed out that if every person who made more than $200,000 (the top 2% of the population) was taxed at 100% (so the government takes every single red cent from the "rich"), that would increase revenues by $1.3 trillion. Incidentally, that's almost the exact amount of Obama's projected deficit in 2010. But, you can't really tax them at 100%, can you (who would give the rest of us jobs?!?!?)? So, if taxes need to be raised, they will come to all of us.

To me, the answer to "What will happen when the Government runs out of goods?" is that I will likely see reduced services (more crappy roads, for example) and pay higher taxes. Can anyone say "oppression"? If not us, it will happen to our children. That's the answer to, "What about our generations of children to come?" We'll leave them with debt and deficits to oppress them.

Back to President Romney,

The practice of coveting and receiving unearned benefits has now become so fixed in our society that even men of wealth, possessing the means to produce more wealth, are expecting the government to guarantee them a profit.

Can anyone say "Bailouts"?

Elections often turn on what the candidates promise to do for voters from government funds.

This reminds me of the woman on youtube crying with joy because Obama is going to pay her mortgage and buy her gas . . .

This practice, if universally accepted and implemented in any society, will make slaves of its citizens.

We cannot afford to become wards of the government, even if we have a legal right to do so. It requires too great a sacrifice of self-respect and political, temporal, and spiritual independence.

President Romney repeatedly ties self-reliance to freedom. In an earlier part of the article, he says

It is easy to understand the reason the Lord places so much emphasis on this principle when we come to understand that it is tied very closely to freedom itself.

and in a later part, he says

Whenever we get into a situation which threatens our self-reliance, we will find our freedom threatened as well. If we increase our dependence, we will find an immediate decrease in our freedom to act.

Does anyone else feel that the more control we give to government, the less control we ourselves have? The less freedom we have? Conservatives (like me) are going crazy watching Obama because we can see our liberty rapidly slipping away.

We can’t always control government programs, but we can control our own homes and congregations. If we will teach these principles and live them, we can do much to counter the negative effects which may exist in government programs in any country.

Interesting, interesting. This is largely how I feel right now. As I listened to the last general conference, it seemed much more focused on strengthening our families and our stakes in Zion than on effecting change in our country and world. I am not sure there is much I can do as I watch the government (not just Obama, but Democrats and some Republicans) destroying our economy and leading us to socialism. However, if I teach principles of self-reliance to my children and live them myself, I may be able to "counter the negative effects" the government will have on our lives. Now, that is reason for hope!

Those quotes come from the first half of the article. The second half of the article is dedicated to encouraging (even admonishing) us to use our self-reliance to help others. After quoting several scriptures about helping the poor (and pointing out that it is a commandment),he says

There is an interdependence between those who have and those who have not. The process of giving exalts the poor and humbles the rich. In the process, both are sanctified. The poor, released from the bondage and limitations of poverty, are enabled as free men to rise to their full potential, both temporally and spiritually. The rich, by imparting of their surplus, participate in the eternal principle of giving. Once a person has been made whole, or self-reliant, he reaches out to aid others, and the cycle repeats itself.

I really like that. One thing we LDS liberals and conservatives agree on is that we are commanded to help the poor, to "Think of your brethren like unto yourselves, and be familiar with all and free with your substance, that they may be rich like unto you" (Jacob 2:17). We are commanded to "consecrate [our] properties" (D&C 42:30). We seek for Zion, where we will have all things in common.

However, we differ greatly on government's role in accomplishing that. I think that President Romney's talk does a pretty good job of showing how using government programs (however "well-intentioned" they may be) to accomplish that will decrease our individual freedoms and liberties and instead bring us into bondage or oppression (like the seagulls who "sacrifice their independence for a handout").

Pet Food and Capitalism

2009-03-22T11:43:00.005-07:00

So last night I was on my way home from Walmart (you know - those dreaded Saturday night Mormon runs to make sure you have milk, etc. for Sunday. We might as well make it a ward activity. Half the ward is there.) Anyways, I was on my way home, listening to talk radio, when a very interesting conversation came up. (I have tried to find the text of the conversation for you, but it seems impossible since I don't have a subscription to the site. Based on the KLIF website, it appears I was listening to "Coast to Coast AM Encore", to a rebroadcast piece from 5/20/97 by Art Bell interviewing Ann N. Martin, authority on commercial pet food production. I am going to recap the best I can.)

Ann was explaining how dead animals (road kill, dead pets, euthanized animals, livestock unfit for human consumption, etc.) are rendered to create pet food. The entire animal (minus head because it's sent to a lab to be tested for rabies) is ground up - hair, bones, everything. Then the ground up animals are boiled for about 20 minutes at a high temperature. The fat floats to the top. The rest sinks to the bottom. The stuff at the bottom is dried out into "meat meal", which is then used to make pet food. Ann was saying that she feels human food is more healthy for animals to consume than pet food, despite what veterinarians may say.

Art then said something like this, "I've heard that sometimes people who are poor, particularly the elderly, will eat pet food because they can't afford real food".

Ann laughed and said that although she had heard that, it didn't appear to be true - just more of an urban legend. For one, she said, pet food is more expensive than alternative forms of protein. When comparing a can of tuna to a can of pet food, the tuna is cheaper, so she can't imagine someone choosing the pet food. Plus, she had researched these claims thoroughly and had never found anyone who had eaten pet food because they were too poor to afford real food.

Art replied like this, "Well, that's because you live in socialist Canada where they take care of their own. Here in America, our capitalism allows people to slip through the cracks, so believe me, people are eating pet food. I know".

Can someone please explain his logic to me because I am just not getting it. If people are "slipping through the cracks", that means that the government is not providing food for them. That leaves them with a few options:

Go to a charity. What charities are giving out pet food to hungry people?
Purchase your own food. As Ann pointed out, pet food is more expensive than people food. Since capitalism assumes people make rational choices in their best interest, what rational person would choose to purchase the more expensive pet food to eat if they are basing their purchase on cost?
Steal. But again, if someone is stealing food, what rational person is going to choose to steal pet food rather than people food?

(Plus, there's the fact that he acknowledged she was a world-wide expert in commercial pet food and believed everything she said applied to the U.S. except this one little thing. I think that if you are going to discredit some aspect of someone's research based on the fact that they are "only in Canada", then you would need to discredit all of it.)

So, I am really not getting it. My take is that this was a very ignorant stab at capitalism. Am I missing something?

Big Free Speech

2009-03-15T15:27:00.005-07:00

Ah, Big Love. I'm one of those bad Mormons who kind of likes HBO shows - I mean, John Adams was amazing, Rome is one of those guilty pleasures, and Flight of the Conchords is one of the best things to ever happen to TV - and Big Love....You know, a few years ago, when everyone had all their panties in a wrinkle over this show, I decided to just try it out, and I kinda liked it - I never became an avid fan or watcher - I've just sometimes caught an episode here or there. From what i've seen, I've felt like, despite the hype, it usually portrays the LDS Church in a remarkably respectful way. The drama (and disrespect, if there was any) was not on the LDS Church, but on some fictional fundamentalist compound in southern Utah - and they made the distinction between that group and the LDS Church multiple times. So I thought, kudos to them.

But, in true Hollywood fashion, they feel the need to keep pushing the bar, so now there is this. and this Oh c'mon, guys - really? Yes, that's right - the LDS temple ceremony is to feature (allegedly it will be prominent) in tonight's all new episode. It makes sense - I mean, the temple is a big question mark to most Americans - so exposing the secret...well I'm surprised it hasn't happened more often.

So I get that HBO execs have a right to free speech - couldn't this be viewed as a)slander, or b) copy right infringement? I mean the church is sure to own a copyright on the Temple Ceremony, right? I'd think it could be a little risky. From reading other blogs, its apparent just how many indignant Mormons have their blood pressure going out the roof. I get where you are coming from - experiencing a little righteous indigestion. Just remember this - its not the first time it has happened, and it surely won't be the last. The whole ceremony is available on the Internet, the God Makers movie parodied it a million years ago, And Bill Maher's Documentary, "Religilous" briefly forayed into LDS temple rites. The difference between Big Love and other anti-Mormon garbage out there (like God makers) is that Big Love, apparently, had a former temple worker as a consultant to recreate the situation. Not saying that I agree with this broadcast. I think it is wrong, insensitive, and outright upsetting. But maybe, just maybe, they'll portray it accurately and thus show just how...unexciting the Temple Ceremony really is. Then all those tasty little rumors of sacrificial cows, temple orgies, temple horns and necrophilia will fade into their appropriate obscurity. People love the unexplained mystery - they are fascinated by it -and ours has been unexplained for a long time. Now people can have a better idea of it. Before you get too upset and call for boycotts, as so many have done, remember that media misrepresentation really has no impact on your own personal experience.

Before Political Neutrality

2009-02-27T15:55:00.010-07:00

The February issue of the Ensign has an article on Joseph Smith's Campaign for President of the United States. It is a pretty interesting read. After Joseph Smith appealed to President Van Buren and the candidates running against Van Buren for office for redress for the persecutions of the Saints in Missouri (and received little sympathy), he decided to run for President of the United States himself. This is why (in his own words):

I would not have suffered my name to have been used by my friends on anywise as President of the United States, or candidate for that office, if I and my friends could have had the privilege of enjoying our religious and civil rights as American citizens, even those rights which the Constitution guarantees unto all her citizens alike. But this as a people we have been denied from the beginning. Persecution has rolled upon our heads from time to time, from portions of the United States, like peals of thunder, because of our religion; and no portion of the Government as yet has stepped forward for our relief. And in view of these things, I feel it to be my right and privilege to obtain what influence and power I can, lawfully, in the United States, for the protection of injured innocence.

Do you think it is a call to action?

Joseph Smith, running as an Independent, wrote his platform, titled General Smith's Views of the Powers and Policy of the Government of the United States and sent it out. His platform included more power for the President to suppress mobs, eliminating slavery, reducing congressional pay, prison reform, forming a national bank, annexing Oregon and Texas, and extending the United States to the east coast (if Native Americans gave their consent). Many of his proposals eventually came to pass (although expansion of the U.S. obviously occurred without the consent of Native Americans). Elder John A. Widtsoe called Joseph Smith's platform "an intelligent, comprehensive, forward-looking statement of policies, worthy of a trained statesman."

Here is a quote from Joseph Smith's platform:

In the United States the people are the government; and their united voice is the only sovereign that should rule; the only power that should be obeyed; and the only gentleman that should be honored; at home and abroad; on the land and on the sea; Wherefore, were I the president of the United States, by the voice of a virtuous people, I would honor the old paths of the venerated fathers of freedom: I would walk in the tracks of the illustaious patriots, who carried the ark of the government upon their shoulders with an eye single to the glory of the people.

For the campaign, missionaries were called to both "preach the Gospel and electioneer". Yes, you read that right. There were a total of 337 electioneering missionaries, including Brigham Young and 9 other members of the Quorum of the Twelve. They kept their religious sermons and political speeches separate (usually doing the political gathering the night before a church conference), but they did do both.

Some of the enemies of Joseph Smith in Illinois were concerned that Joseph's "views on government were widely circulated and took like wildfire". According to a Dr. Wall Southwick, who attended a meeting where enemies were plotting to assassinate Joseph, they believed that if the Prophet "did not get into the Presidential chair this election, he would be sure to the next time; and if Illinois and Missouri would join together and kill him, they would not be brought to justice for it" (suggesting that Joseph Smith's assassination may have party been due to his Presidential campaign).

Joseph Smith was martyred on June 27, 1844. The electioneering missionaries did not get word until July 9.

The conclusion of the article says

Joseph Smith's presidential campaign had sought to make the United States a better place, not only for the Latter-Day Saints, but for all Americans.

My question is this: What do you think our church leaders today want us to learn from reading this article? Is it just an interesting piece of history, or is there more to it? Although the position on political neutrality is clearly present at the end of the article (The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints does not endorse, promote, or oppose political parties, candidates, or platforms), I personally take it as a call to "obtain what power and influence" we can to "protect innocence" or preserve liberty (particularly religious liberties). I was just wondering what your opinion is.

Implosion

2009-02-27T12:32:00.006-07:00

Implosion - A sudden inward collapse

This is my prediction for Britain. I already commented on the campaign in Britain to "Stop at Two" (when the fertility rate is already below replacement). Now, the benevolent government of Britain, in an effort to curb teen pregnancy, is encouraging parents NOT to share their values with their children.

Beverly Hughes, the children's minister in England, is distributing pamphlets next month to parents (through pharmacies) entitled, "Talking to Your Children About Sex and Relationships". The pamphlet encourages parents to talk to their children about sex. Among the suggestions:

Start the "big talk" with children as young as possible, before they get "misinformation" from their peers.
The best time to talk is while doing "mundane" tasks like washing the car and watching t.v.
Take your daughter to the doctor to learn about birth control options. "Or, if you have a teenage son, suggest he talks to his girlfriend about it and visits a clinic with her."
Use the lives of celebrities as a way of introducing the topic

Um, really? Of the above, I am going to say that I only agree with suggestion number 1. I personally am grateful for Family Home Evening and PPI's (that my kids ask their dad for because they enjoy those chats) because they give us time to talk about lots of serious issues, so we don't have to "sneak" them in while washing the car. I'm not even going to begin with how I would feel about encouraging my son to go to a clinic with his girlfriend. And celebrities as role models? Perhaps if I want to teach my children everything NOT to do. But, this last one is really the kicker:

Avoid trying to convince your teenage children of the difference between right and wrong when talking to them about sex. “Discussing your values with your teenagers will help them to form their own. Remember, though, that trying to convince them of what’s right and wrong may discourage them from being open.”

Clinical Psychologist Linda Blair explains further, "We do not know what is right and wrong; right and wrong is relative, although your child does need clear guidelines".

Are you kidding me? Are you people for real? Let me fill you "experts" in on a little info: Children want to know what is right and wrong and to try to do what is right. Children want values. They are looking for them. And they will find them - it is just a matter of where they find them at. As a parent, are you really going to leave your children to the wind (the media, their peers, the government) to help them figure out what is right and wrong? And, really, Ms. Blair, right and wrong is relative? No wonder our world is so screwed up. As I commented on another thread: Most people don't even know what is right anymore. I wonder why. Perhaps it is because parents are listening to morons like you.

Ms. Hughes says, "When it comes to sex and relationships, young people tell us that they would prefer advice and information to come from their mum or dad". Um, Ms. Hughes, if young people want advice and information from their parents, what makes you think they don't want to know what their parents think is right and wrong? Further, I agree that we should start teaching our children about sex at a young age so they don't believe misinformation from their friends. But, why would I provide them with information and not values? Is it not possible that they will get misinformation on what is right and wrong from their peers? Do you not see the inconsistency at all?

In the U.S., we seem to have done well with the "Parents are the Anti-Drug" campaign. It is widely acknowledged that parents who spend time with their children and talk to their children about drugs and smoking can curb this behavior. Why not sex? Why not a "Parents are the Anti-Pregnancy" campaign?

Simon Calvert, deputy of the Christian Institute, said this about the pamphlet:

The idea that the government is telling families not to pass on their values is outrageous. Preserving children’s innocence is a worthy goal. We would like to see more of that kind of language rather than this amoral approach where parents are encouraged to present their children with a smorgasbord of sexual activities and leave them to make up their own minds.

About her "role" in curbing teen pregnancy, Hughes said:

[the government] doesn’t bring up children but . . . it does have a role to play in supporting parents and giving them access to advice and information

Uh, you know what? I'm not so sure parents need your help, particularly when you are giving such bad advice. Does the government really understand that its role is not to bring up children? More and more, we see government replacing parents because parents are doing such a "bad" job. And with the British government encouraging parents not to pass on their values, I have to wonder, in the near future, are parents going to have much of a role at all to play in their children's' lives? Or, will we be replaced by those who "know better"?

(One last question - when the church places a HUGE emphasis on parents teaching their children what is right and wrong, who do you think would be behind a movement to get parents NOT to teach their children these things?)

The Best of Both Worlds

2009-02-17T09:03:00.003-07:00

So, I was just reading my sister-in-law's blog. She's not politically oriented (in fact, I think reading this blog regularly would take 20 years off her life) but once in awhile she gets fired up about something courtesy of Mr. Glenn Beck.

Now, I'm not familiar with him or his show, because I pretty successfully avoid all talking-head-type of media, but I did go through and read the 9 principles he is touting. And you know what?

I agree with them. All of them.

1. America is good.

2. I believe in God and He is the Center of my Life.

3. I must always try to be a more honest person than I was yesterday.

4. The family is sacred. My spouse and I are the ultimate authority, not the government.

5. If you break the law you pay the penalty. Justice is blind and no one is above it.

6. I have a right to life, liberty and pursuit of happiness, but there is no guarantee of equal results.

7. I work hard for what I have and I will share it with who I want to. Government cannot force me to be charitable.

8. It is not un-American for me to disagree with authority or to share my personal opinion.

9. The government works for me. I do not answer to them, they answer to me.

I know I'm supposed to get my panties all in a twist like a good Liberal, because this came out of the serpent mouth of a Conservative, who as any leftie knows are always wrong! I must immediately go down this list point by point and refute them, pick them apart until there's nothing left and I can stand alone on my Pedestal of Truth again. After all, if I do not identify myself as Conservative, and these principles are obviously meant to resonate with Conservatives, so I can't agree with them! That would be, like, treasonous or something.

But just hang with me for a minute.

If I were to write these exact same principles myself, I would word some of them differently. That's my personal spin on things, and as Mr. Beck so rightly said, it is not un-American to share my opinion. But I think these 9 statements are much of what is right with the Conservative viewpoint, and I applaud them. I don't know what Mr. Beck plans to do with the results of his campaign (and from the sound of the rest of the article it is not necessarily something that I am going to like), but the way I see it, the foundation is there. People are people, and we pretty much all want the same things.

We want to be respected for who we are and the opinions we hold.

We want to be able to express those opinions, without fear of derision or retribution.

We want to be able to live according to our principles.

We want to be happy. We want our families to be happy.

We want the same things - we just don't always agree on the best way to affect those outcomes. And even Mr. Beck very graciously left room in his club for Godless Atheists, etc, by saying that anyone who agrees with 7 out of the 9 is good enough for him.

Really, can't we all agree on 7 out of 9? Is that so much to ask? Can't we stop nitpicking for a minute, extend each other some grace, and get to the spirit of the law, as it were - to the heart of what is underneath our ballots and our petitions? What would this country - the world! - be like if we all believed that even if someone is advocating something you violently disagree with, that their motivation is probably the very same as yours? That if someone asked you and your opponent why you do what you do, the answers might be identical?

Now, I'm not quite ready to send my picture in to Mr. Beck, because I'm not sure what he means by his promise to "pull back the curtain". I'm a little suspicious that he intends to unite us so he can once again pit us against each other once he's got us all in the same room. And I will say that it strikes me as premature at best to be complaining so bitterly about the "opposing" party in power only a month into (at least) a four year term. The pendulum has swung, as it always does, and will again, and that's how it is supposed to be (see Prinicple #1).

The fact is, "we" do not surround "them". We are them. They are us. We are all in this together, and the sooner we realize that, the more we can learn from each other.

Together we stand, divided we fall.

My Bi-Annual WOW Guilt Trip.

2009-02-10T15:01:00.003-07:00

LDS folk are so motivated by guilt. Its like....marrow in our bones, you know? That's why I'm back with my bi-annual guilt trip.

Its amazing how often someone asks you, "why did you become vegetarian?" when you actually have become vegetarian. In all honesty, I'm starting to become confused about why I initially took the plunge. There are basically three reasons to become vegetarian.

1) Diet - Doctor says I should cut back on my cholesterol, risk for heart disease, etc.
2) Extreme Pacifism - In a true Tolstoyian fassion, someone becomes passionate about not causing harm to any living thing.
3) Environmentalism - this one is often over looked, and will, obviously, be the subject of this post.

The first two reasons are easily comprehended by most folks - "I get it - you don't want to hurt anything.." or, "I get it, you can't eat meat or you will die." Stuff like that - but how is eating meat hurting the environment? After all, people have been eating meat for....ever, basically, and the world hasn't crashed down yet.

This is true. The world hasn't crashed down, and human beings, by definition, are omnivorous. What we are failing to take into consideration is that:
a) There is a whole lot more people on the earth to be eating meat now than ever before - and the population is continually rising dramatically.
b) There is a whole lot more affluent people on the earth to buy way more than their fair share of meat. People like meat, and they will eat as much of it as they can logically afford.
c) The earth has never had this unprecidented demand for meat to have to try and satiate.

The stats are easy to find. Any Google search will bring you, basically, the same information that I'm posting here:
- in the USA, people consume some where between 170- 270lbs (depending on who you ask) of meat (not including fish) per year.
- Americans are spending, on average, $550 per person per year on red meat purchases.
- 1 in 6 people go hungry each day.
- The U.S,China(25% of total world pop) plus Brazil and the EU consumes over 60 percent of the world's beef, over 70 percent of the world's poultry, and over 80 percent of the world's pork.
- Deforestation
- The world's range land covers nearly twice the area as the world's cropland.
- As the Beef consumption increases, the current rangelands are being pushed to their production limits, causing intense slash and burn policies, especially in places such as South America
- Beef production drives 60-80% of the Amazon's deforestation.
- Roughly 80% (in 2003) of Brazil's cattle production was for exports (to Europe and US)
- Amazon produces 20% of the world's oxygen.
- Between 1990-2005, Brazil lost 8.1% of its forest (15 years.) at that rate of deforestation, the Amazon will largely be gone in about 100 years.
- The very land threatened by deforestation (due to beef production) is the same land that is home to most of the world's biodiversity (plant and animal species) (in Brazil and other tropic countries.)- many of which are projected to be pushed through to extinction within the next hundred years.
- Cattle account for 28% of the methane emissions in the world (according to EPA - 20% of US methane emissions).
- pound for pound, Methane is 30 times more damaging for environment than CO2
- internationally, livestock accounts for 18% of all greenhouse gas emitions - and that is not including emmisions produced in the transportation of livestock or grain.
- In order to produce 1 lb of meat, livestock must eat around 10lbs of grain - which could go to feed all those starving folks mentioned earlier.
- One third of the world's cereal harvest is fed to farm animals.
- 95% of US soya production (nearly 100 million tons per year) is used as feed
- 73% of maize, 95% of oilmeals and 93% of fishmeal is fed to animals - all of this "feed" could be used for human consumption.
- More that 1/3 of all fossil fuels produced in the United States go towards animal agriculture. According to a study in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, the production of one calorie of animal protein requires more than ten times the fossil fuel input as a calorie of plant protein. - Vegitarianism would help more than a hybrid car.

I've left out facts and statistics about overfishing, ocean polutants, and algae endangerment (which accounts for up to 80% of the world's oxygen) - keep in mind, some stats are deflated, and some are inflated - I tried to go with the middle ground in what I've collected here.

I just don' think that people realize the environmental impact meat consumption has. If we lived in small communites and every community had one or two cows - if we were like our neolithic ancestors, meat consumption wouldn't be so bad - but with the grand levels of mass consumerism we are living today, we simply can't afford to eat meat. If The world produced enough meat for every human to consume as much meat as the average american, something like 90% of habitable land would need to be used simply for meat production - it simply couldn't happen. There isn't enough room on this planet to feed cows to the point that everyone can eat like Americans. So maybe Americans should keep that in mind next time they get the craving.

Our beloved Ensign to the Nations,...the Word of Wisdom, reads as follows: "Yea, flesh also of beasts and of the fowls of the air, I, the Lord, have ordained for the use of man with thanksgiving; nevertheless they are to be used sparingly; And it is pleasing unto me that they should not be used, only in times of winter, or of cold, or famine." Nothing new there - but, We should remember, the US, Brazil, much of China, and the EU are emphatically NOT experiencing famine. However, much of the world is, and guess what? They are the ones that don't have access to meat at all. Why is that? Well, because we are eating it all. Compare these stats - US is number 1 meat consumer with around 150kg of meat per year, vs. India - #35 highest poultry consumer (.7kg) and #49 highest beef consuming country (1.5kg) ANd that's not the end of the story, because there are 195 countries in the world. Beef, its whats for dinner.

A Case for Better Border Control

2009-02-09T12:45:00.012-07:00

A rancher on the Arizona border has been defending his property for years. Immigrants using his property to cross illegally into the U.S. have done significant damage:

He said the immigrants tore up water pumps, killed calves, destroyed fences and gates, stole trucks and broke into his home.

Some of his cattle died from ingesting the plastic bottles left behind by the immigrants, he said, adding that he installed a faucet on an 8,000-gallon water tank so the immigrants would stop damaging the tank to get water.

Mr. Barnett said some of the ranch´s established immigrant trails were littered with trash 10 inches deep, including human waste, used toilet paper, soiled diapers, cigarette packs, clothes, backpacks, empty 1-gallon water bottles, chewing-gum wrappers and aluminum foil - which supposedly is used to pack the drugs the immigrant smugglers give their "clients" to keep them running.

His government has not done much to protect him or his property. Now, let's think about this. What would you do if your property, your business, your home was being run over with vandalism and trash? Let your property (and livelihood) be ruined with trash and destruction? Consider it your God-given duty to spend time and money to clean it up because, after all, these people are just looking for a better life? Do you believe that you would have the right to protect yourself? Do you believe in private property (you know - one of those rights guaranteed in the Bill of Rights)?

This is what he did: For the past 10 years, he has been driving his truck and his dog around his ranch, looking for illegal immigrants. He carries a pistol and keeps a rifle in his truck for protection (remember, many armed drug smugglers are among the immigrants he encounters). When he finds a group, he rounds them up at gunpoint and calls the Border Patrol to come and pick them up. Since the Border Patrol has been more successful in shutting down other border crossings, his ranch has become the "avenue of choice" for illegal immigrants.

How do you feel about that? Are you as outraged as I am that this man has to physically defend his property on a daily basis because his government is failing him? But wait - it gets better (or worse, depending on how you look at it). Now he is being SUED by 16 illegal immigrants (Mexican nationals) who tried to cross his property and were detained. Here is exactly what he did:

Attorneys for the immigrants - five women and 11 men who were trying to cross illegally into the United States - have accused Mr. Barnett of holding the group captive at gunpoint, threatening to turn his dog loose on them and saying he would shoot anyone who tried to escape.

The immigrants are represented at trial by the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF), which also charged that Sheriff Dever did nothing to prevent Mr. Barnett from holding their clients at "gunpoint, yelling obscenities at them and kicking one of the women." In the lawsuit, MALDEF said Mr. Barnett approached the group as the immigrants moved through his property, and that he was carrying a pistol and threatening them in English and Spanish. At one point, it said, Mr. Barnett's dog barked at several of the women and he yelled at them in Spanish, "My dog is hungry and he's hungry for buttocks."

The lawsuit said he then called his wife and two Border Patrol agents arrived at the site. It also said Mr. Barnett acknowledged that he had turned over 12,000 illegal immigrants to the Border Patrol since 1998.

The illegal immigrants are suing for 32 MILLION DOLLARS for violating their "civil rights" and for "emotional distress". Okay, I'm not going to say he acted in the classiest of manners here, but give me a break. I can say that anyone caught breaking and entering onto my property would not be treated much better (particularly since I live in Texas where it is still legal to shoot those who enter your property illegally). What about his rights? Which of his rights are being protected here? He is a citizen of the United States, protecting his own property from violators because his government is not doing their #1 responsibility of protecting him and his property, and he gets sued? The part that really blows my mind is that the judge proclaimed there was "sufficient evidence" to continue the trial. Sufficient evidence of what?

If the government won't protect us, aren't we guaranteed the right to protect ourselves? This trial needs to be dismissed. Our government (including the judicial system) needs to start protecting the people it is supposed to protect - its own citizens - and end this insanity.

Irony, Part 2

2009-01-30T09:18:00.006-07:00

Irony? Hypocrisy? Or just another case of "Do as I say, and not as I do"? Come on, President Obama, don't make this so easy!

On the campaign trail, Obama admonished us about being environmentally-conscious:

Pitching his message to Oregon's environmentally-conscious voters, Obama called on the United States to "lead by example" on global warming, and develop new technologies at home which could be exported to developing countries.

"We can't drive our SUVs and eat as much as we want and keep our homes on 72 degrees at all times ... and then just expect that other countries are going to say OK," Obama said.

"That's not leadership. That's not going to happen," he added.

I don't know. It kind of seems like it is happening - right from our own leadership. Is this really the same man who has cranked up the thermostat in the White House?

Mr. Obama, who hates the cold, had cranked up the thermostat. “He’s from Hawaii, O.K.?” said Mr. Obama’s senior adviser, David Axelrod, who occupies the small but strategically located office next door to his boss. “He likes it warm. You could grow orchids in there.”

Huh. Now I have to admit that I am no "environmentalist". I keep my thermostat down low, but it is not out of a concern for the environment or setting an example for the rest of the world. It's because I pay the bill, and I know how much turning the heat up or down a degree does to my bottom line. So my house is as cold as we can stand it in the winter and as hot as we can stand it in the summer. Of course, Obama is not paying his electric bill - I am - so I can see why this incentive to turn the heat down doesn't apply.

But still, wasn't his point that we should "sacrifice" and "lead by example"? I guess that doesn't apply to him.

(Come on, even you liberals have to admit this one is better than Al Gore and his electricity-guzzling mansion.)

Isn't It Ironic?

2009-01-27T09:17:00.008-07:00

Irony. I love it. Ever since I heard Alanis Morrisette’s “Isn’t It Ironic?”, I have been a huge fan of irony. Irony is congratulating myself (a little early) on my son making it all the way through asthma season without any problems, and then having him go into full-blown asthma attack the next day. Ironic, really. In politics, amidst the hypocrisy, dishonesty and general idiocy, irony provides a breath of wry comedic relief - enough to remind myself to try not to take myself (or anyone else) too seriously.

Today’s tale of irony comes to us from the feminists – supporters of feminism, defined as “the movement aimed at equal rights for women”. From what I understand, they seek to end discrimination against women. One of the big platforms for feminists is unfettered access to abortion.

It’s interesting to see some of the consequences of this abortion. One is that sex-selective abortion is rampant in many countries around the world. Sex-selective abortion is when a woman waits to see what the sex of her unborn baby is (using technology like ultrasound) and then aborts it if it is the undesirable sex (primarily female). We already knew that China’s one-child policy has led to boy births outnumbering girl births 120 to 100. However, due to sex-selective abortion, the female sex ratio in India is also at an all-time low. The discrepancy is as much as "300 girls to every 1000 boys among higher caste families" in one state. Steven Mosher of the Population Research Institute says:

This is done in India in epidemic proportions. It’s done in China. It’s done in many, many of the civilizations of East Asia and Southeast Asia . . . The feminists, who want to eliminate all distinctions between men and women, are only exposing their unborn sisters to a horrible form of genocide.

Ironic, isn’t it? You might be thinking, “Well, that’s in other countries. That doesn’t happen here in America”. Not so.

Researchers contend that sex –selective abortions are reducing female births, and some of that is occurring in the United States. Female babies are being aborted largely by Asian immigrant families in America, based on the age-old cultural prejudices in their home countries.

Bill Saunders of the Family Research Council notes the “irony”:

Pro-life people are often accused of being anti-woman. The fact of the matter is legalized abortion is resulting in the disappearance of what demographers call the “girl child” around the world because a lot of potential parents are using medical technology to abort girls.

So our laws and our technology in America support sex-selective abortion, which is essentially discrimination against unborn women. How is that for feminism?

So now that this consequence is readily apparent, will anything change? Will feminists seek to reverse the killing off of their own kind? It doesn’t appear to be so. President Obama has already reversed the “Mexico City policy” so that the U.S. will now fund abortions internationally again. That’s progress. Now we’ll help more women who want to abort their daughters worldwide. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said the move will

help save lives and empower the poorest women and families to improve their quality of life and their future.

Too bad there won’t be as many women or families – kind of hard to form families when your men greatly outnumber your women. (Just ask all the sexually frustrated men in China) And my tax dollars will be paying for it. I guess “now” I’m proud to be American.

Things won’t be any different here in the U.S. either. President Obama has promised to sign the Freedom of Choice Act, which will eliminate all state restrictions on abortion. Planned Parenthood is asking for more money (after supporting his candidacy, I imagine they are looking for a “payback” like so many other liberal groups). The result will be more access to abortions, including those for the purpose of sex-selection, which means that more daughters than sons will continue to be killed off here in the U.S.

My question is directed to those of you who view yourself as both feminist and pro-choice: How do you feel about that? How do you feel about women being discriminated against (by women) in this manner? Do you support it? Do you support our tax dollars paying for it?

I suppose we’ve come a long way, baby. (Just not sure we’re headed in the right direction)

"When white will embrace what is right"

2009-01-21T09:00:00.002-07:00

Inauguration day 2009 - A long awaited and blessed day for many. As an person who is reluctant about Obama, I still enjoyed the history-making significant inauguration day. I keep high hopes for a bright future.
Watching the inauguration did not leave me feeling bitter or upset, but on the contrary, I tried to have hope....up until the final 18 words of the closing prayer (Benediction) of the ceremony.
-The Rev. Joseph E. Lowery
"Lord, in the memory of all the saints who from their labors rest, and in the joy of a new beginning, we ask you to help us work for that day when black will not be asked to get in back, when brown can stick around ... when yellow will be mellow ... when the red man can get ahead, man; and when white will embrace what is right. That all those who do justice and love mercy say Amen. " -The Rev. Joseph E. Lowery
Those words seemed to leap out as a dagger right into the backs of those (like myself) who had turned our heads to the hope of a bright future. While my face was looking for the light, my back was jabbed in the darkness of the past. As of to suggest that we are still living in the 60's, as if to suggest that we have not progressed, as if to suggest the white race is wrong or somehow keeping the black, brown, yellow and red man behind them. Have we not changed America, so much that we are now LED by a black man?
Perhaps its because I was born in the 70's and missed much of racist America, but I believe we have put those racist days behind us, and already are moving forward. I many ways, our society is a reverse racism, where Affirmative action, and diversity rule over reality and logic. I have sat through so many college classes where the discussions were lost to the topic of "Diversity" instead of the class topic. Can we let divisions go? Must we constantly reiterate the line that divides us?
Personally, I have so many friends who are not white, and many people know that I have expressed that if I were born again, I would love to be born black. There is so much to love about black (Afro-american) culture. Yet when I heard Rev. Lowery un-bury the hatchet as it were, I wondered if we will ever progress out of the past. Where would be be today if Britain was still complaining about US breaking away? They got over the past, and we now work well together in a bright future.
If we never let past go and "embrace" the new future , there will never be progress.
Anyhow, my point is just to say plainly that when a speech like that occurs, it basically tells me that come black Americans will never let racism go, iroinically, despite their call for its abolishment.
As someone who regularly chats with my black friend in southern US, and share laughs about our respective race's silliness, I believe it is time to embrace the fact that racism is not the norm any more. Yes, there are and always will be riff raff who hold on to racist beliefs. But that is not me. And I believe it is not you either. Lets focus on the progress.
Let us move forward.

Too Little, and Almost Too Late

2009-01-19T18:27:00.003-07:00

But he did the right thing. Thank you, President Bush, for commuting the sentences of Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean. I would have preferred a full pardon, but at least commuting the sentences will bring them home to their families. They have served enough time and suffered enough for their "crime". I pray that they may find jobs quickly and resume normal lives with their families (as normal as possible after you've been screwed over by your own government).

Go Michigan!

2009-01-19T07:18:00.002-07:00

Every once in a while, I read a news report that makes me smile. You know, the kind where common sense actually prevails (few and far between in our politically correct world and liberal biased media). Such was the case with this story out of Michigan. Five years ago, Michigan amended its Paternity Act to include the following (specifically referring to children born out of wedlock):

If medicaid has paid the confinement and pregnancy expenses of a mother under this section, the court shall not apportion confinement and pregnancy expenses to the mother. After the effective date of the amendatory act that added this subsection, based on the father's ability to pay and any other relevant factor, the court may apportion not more than 100% of the reasonable and necessary confinement and pregnancy costs to the father. If medicaid has not paid the confinement and pregnancy expenses of the mother under this section, the court shall require an itemized bill for the expenses upon request from the father before an apportionment is made.

The court order shall provide that if the father marries the mother after the birth of the child and provides documentation of the marriage to the friend of the court, the father's obligation for payment of any remaining unpaid confinement and pregnancy expenses is abated subject to reinstatement after notice and hearing for good cause shown, including, but not limited to, dissolution of the marriage. The remaining unpaid amount of the confinement and pregnancy expenses owed by the father is abated as of the date that documentation of the marriage is provided to the friend of the court.

To sum, if the state or Medicaid pays for the birth of a child born out of wedlock, the state can go after the father to recoup the costs. However, if the father marries the mother, he is exempt from paying for the birth. The law is actually "an incentive to maintain the sanctity of marriage". When have you heard about anything like that recently? A law intended to maintain the sanctity of marriage? Go Michigan!

Now, enter Gary Johnson and Rebecca Witt, who apparently live together but are not married. Four years ago, Witt gave birth to a daughter. Johnson is the father. The state of Michigan paid for the $3,800 birth because Witt was on Medicaid at the time. But now, under this law, the state is going after Johnson, saying "Pay up. Either marry the mother or pay the bill". (And, by the way, the daughter in question is only #2 of 3 children for Witt and Johnson).

The mother's (Witt's) response is classic:

I don't think anybody should tell me when to get married. I would like to have a nice wedding, and I can wait for it.

The only thing even more funny to me is Johnson's (the father's) response to that:

Johnson said he understood the state wants to promote marriage for parents but he respects Witt's position. "It's a woman's dream to have the best wedding she can have," he said.

Hmm. I have an idea. Pay the stinking bill. What, you don't think that anyone should tell you what to do, when you should get married? But you think you can do whatever you want and make others pay for it? Shack up and create a baby and bill the state for it? Whatever happened to personal responsibility? I'd love to see a return to personal responsibility in our country, and Michigan seems like a pretty good place to start. Michigan's economy is tanking harder than probably any other state. There's not a lot of money to go around and pay for everyone else's irresponsibility. Perhaps the economic downturn will be a good thing if it returns common sense and personal responsibility to our country.

Either that, or Michigan should just pay for their nice wedding. I mean, marriage is a fundamental "right", isn't it?

Ezra Taft Benson Predicts Economic Collapse of 2008-2009

2008-12-31T11:51:00.002-07:00

The following article was posted recently at SimpleUtahMormonPolitics.com

Ezra Taft Benson, thirteenth prophet of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, was one of the greatest statesmen that has ever lived. Not only was he prophetic when it came to spiritual things, he was equally prescient when it comes to economic issues. I have read several times the economic warnings of President Benson, but his warnings have never rung more true than now--when we are in the midst of suffering for failing to heed his warnings.

Recently I wrote about the prophetic mantle of Gordon B. Hinckley as regards the world economy. With similar prophetic insight, Ezra Taft Benson authored The Red Carpet in 1962, and in 1969, he penned An Enemy Hath Done This. What follows are selections from those two books. Warning: If you feel a sense of dizzying deja vu, don't be surprised.

Care for a stimulus package, anyone? How about a bailout? When you read the following axiom from Benson, the futility of such economic silliness will make perfect sense to you.

A nation cannot spend itself into prosperity. Nor can we preserve our prosperity and our free-enterprise system by following a reckless policy of spending beyond our income...

The Red Carpet, p. 167

Do you ever wonder why Americans have become so conditioned to spend themselves into drunken oblivion? It's because we've been encouraged to do so by the profligate monetary policies of our government Treasury and quasi-government organizations, such as the Federal Reserve.

Few policies are more capable of destroying the moral, political, and social basis of a free society than the debauching of its currency.

An Enemy Hath Done This, p. 211

Free enterprise = corporations, right? No--not very often anymore. If it was bad enough in the 1960's for Benson to write the following, imagine how bad it must be today.

...corporate entities seem to lack that social consciousness proportionate to their power and the privileges granted them by the state. Some...still fail to recognize that there are social and spiritual values...that should be considered in their operations.

The Red Carpet, p. 119

In his recent book, Bad Money, Kevin Phillips observed the insanity of the United States having nearly completely replaced its manufacturing capability with a non-productive financial sector. Forty-six years ago, Ezra Taft Benson warned against such foolishness.

In the long run, a nation enjoys in the form of goods and services only what it produces.

The Red Carpet, pp. 116-117

It has been common for economic analysts to predict that the current economic collapse will ultimately be "great"er than The Great Depression. For statesmen like Benson, this was not hard to predict almost fifty years ago.

We must reverse our present dangerous fiscal policies. If we fail to do so, we will set off an international monetary debacle that could easily make the experience of the 1930's sink into insignificance.

The Red Carpet, p. 308

Much of our program of letting the government pay for it "can be described as an attempt to better yourself by increasing your pay and then sending yourself the bill."

The Red Carpet, p. 221

Ron Paul, among others, from a closer vantage point in time, had been warning about the obviousness of the pending economic collapse, although hardly anyone would listen. But it takes a prophet to notice, from five decades hence, the obviousness of something the likes of which nearly everyone else observed only when it began affecting them personally. Part of Benson's prophecy is still yet future, however. Are we stupid enough to simply count him lucky in what he has correctly "predicted" so far?

The pending economic crisis that now faces America is painfully obvious. If even a fraction of potential foreign claims...were presented to the Treasury...the rush to get rid of dollars would rapidly accelerate the visible effects of inflation... Uncertainty over the future would cause the consumer to halt...spending. ...problems of unemployment and low production will be compounded by a monetary system that will be utterly worthless.

An Enemy Hath Done This, p. 216

Benson taught that free choice should always prevail, and that along these lines, government should never insinuate unfairness between business and labor unions. Yet with recent financial and automotive bailouts, this is precisely what's happening. Big business and labor bosses are getting the cream of the crop, and the rest of us get to pay for their indulgences.

My conscience forbids me to consent to granting exclusive privileges to either business or labor unions. ...the power of government should never...force it one way or the other.

An Enemy Hath Done This, pp. 237-239

What's the antidote? Free enterprise, says Benson, which we haven't experienced too much of lately.

The welfare state...not only fails to provide the economic security sought for, but [it] always ended in slavery---and it always will.

The Red Carpet, p. 308

We abolished slavery once in America. Now, unfortunately without most of us even noticing it, slavery is coming back in vogue.

A Smoker's Tax for Fat People

2008-12-18T13:50:00.003-07:00

I used to be fat. Solidly in the CDC's obese category at 255 lbs., I last year embarked on a serious diet and exercise routine to ditch the excess weight, and now I'm down to a very normal and healthy 175-180, depending on the day. I look so different that I have been asked by 4 different people if I have cancer. I don't, but that just kills me (no pun intended) - even if I did, that's just NOT something you come out and ask someone.

In any case, I often get the opportunity to explain to people how I lost so much weight and have been able to keep it off. The whole method is explained in excrutiating detail here, but certainly the most important change for me was a very simple dietary modification - I stopped drinking non-diet soda.

I used to consume a couple cans of soda a day, which apparently isn't that far from normal - the average American drinks 35 gallons of non-diet soda a year (just over 1 can per day). And if some people are drinking no non-diet soda (like the new me), an equal number of people are drinking a lot more than 35 gallons of the stuff.

Let's run through a simple calculation. 35 gallons converts to 4480 fluid ounces, which equals 373.3 twelve-ounce cans of soda. For our purposes, let's assume each of these cans are Moutain Dew (my personal favorite), at 170 calories a piece. Some sodas have more calories per ounce, some slightly less, but we'll use 170 for our example. That comes out to 63467 calories for the year. Now, for every 3500 calories one consumes over the amount your body burns in the same time period, one will gain a pound of body fat. So assuming the soda consumed is in excess of the body's maintenance calorie level, that's 18+ pounds of body fat gained per year. For a beverage. That's pretty disgusting, and I'm 100% certain that soda played a major, starring role in my former self's obesity.

Obesity in America has become a public health crisis. In 1998, the medical costs associated with overweightitude and obesity reached $78.5 billion, or over 9% of total U.S. healthcare expenditures. (I'll provide a 12-pack of the fabulous, zero-calorie Vanilla Coke Zero to the author of the comment featuring the best one-word noun version of "overweight"). Tack on ten years of inflation and ten more years of the horrific American high-fructose-corn-syrup-partially-hydrogenated-soybean-oil diet, and you can see where we are now. Something urgently needs to be done to mitigate a problem that has reached critical mass (pun intended this time).

New York Governor David Paterson has proposed a state budget that includes what is essentially an 18% sin tax on soft drinks and other sugary beverages. Nicholas Kristof writes in today's New York Times:

Let’s break for a quiz: What was the biggest health care breakthrough in the last 40 years in the United States? Heart bypasses? CAT scans and M.R.I.’s? New cancer treatments?

No, it was the cigarette tax. Every 10 percent price increase on cigarettes reduced sales by about 3 percent over all, and 7 percent among teenagers, according to the 2005 book “Prescription for a Healthy Nation.” Just the 1983 increase in the federal tax on cigarettes saved 40,000 lives per year.

In effect, the most promising cure for lung cancer didn’t emerge from a medical research lab but from money-grubbing politicians. Likewise, the best cure for obesity may turn out to be not a pill but a tax.

My first instinct was to think that this tax was a ridiculous money grab by a politician in a time of economic crisis, but the more I think about it, the more I think it is sound public policy. One legitimate role of government in a capitalist society, no matter your ideology, is to mitigate externalities - the costs borne by entities besides those directly involved in a transaction. Excessive consumption of this stuff doesn't just affect the consumer and the producer; we all share in the cost via higher insurance premiums.

Is it perfect? Of course not. For one thing, diet sodas aren't great for you, either, but at least they don't directly contribute to obesity. And why, as Kristof writes, is there no "Twinkie Tax" to go along with it? And I'm sure I'm sure Coke and Pepsi are going to fight this tax tooth and nail. Regardless, I am hopeful that this sort of innovative nutrition legislation (not the first to come out of New York) will at least get substantive conversations going at the national level and have a meaningful, positive impact on our consumption society.

Update!

CNN just posted an editorial piece directly from Governor Paterson regarding his proposed tax. An excerpt:

In June, New York state raised the state cigarette tax an additional $1.25. According to the Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids, this increase alone will prevent more than 243,000 kids from smoking, save more than 37,000 lives and produce more than $5 billion in health care savings.

These taxes may be unpopular, but their benefits are undeniable. Last month, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that, for the first time in generations, fewer than 20 percent of Americans smoked. Lung cancer rates have finally begun to decline. As a result, we are all healthier.

Just as the cigarette tax has helped reduce the number of smokers and smoking-related deaths, a tax on highly caloric, non-nutritional beverages can help reduce the prevalence of obesity.

"Washington Arrogance Has Fomented a Muslim Revolution"

2008-12-05T12:41:00.003-07:00

Are either Pakistan or India responsible for the attacks in Mumbai? No. The thing most responsible for the reprehensible attacks is the equally reprehensible foreign policy of the United States.

At least since 1953, when the CIA paid Iranian military leaders and civilians millions of dollars to overthrow Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh and re-install the Shah, the United States of America has been its own worst enemy. Revolution seldom has the intended consequences, and the Mumbai attacks are the latest evidence of this. In his article today, entitled Washington Arrogance Has Fomented a Muslim Revolution Paul Craig Roberts reminds us of this stark reality.

"It is not terror that Washington confronts," he says, "but revolution."

Roberts continues:

The attack on Mumbai required radicalized Muslims. Radicalized Muslims resulted from the US overthrowing the elected government in Iran and imposing the Shah; from the US stationing troops in Saudi Arabia; from the US invading and attempting to occupy Afghanistan and Iraq, bombing weddings, funerals, and children’s soccer games; from the US violating international and US law by torturing its Muslim victims; from the US enlisting Pakistan in its war against the Taliban; from the US violating Pakistan’s sovereignty by conducting military operations on Pakistani territory, killing Pakistani civilians; from the US government supporting a half century of Israeli ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from their lands, towns and villages; from the assault of American culture on Muslim values; from the US purchasing the government of Egypt to act as its puppet; from US arrogance that America is the supreme arbiter of morality.

If we could remember this one little concept--to avoid entangling alliances, like George Washington advised us to do--the world, and the United States itself, would be a much better place.

The Mess We're In

2008-11-28T12:29:00.006-07:00

So, today is Black Friday. What does that mean? Hordes and hordes of people stomping all over each other to save a few dollars (and in the interest of full disclosure, I sent my husband to Walmart this morning to buy clothes for my kids that they need for winter: jeans, pajamas, coats. Most all of it was gone at 5:15 when he got there. We ended up with a couple of items that turned out to be so cheap in quality I will likely take them back). Anyways . . .

Apparently people are cutting back on their holiday spending due to the poor state of the economy. Here are a few examples:

Even for the growing number of parents who were limiting their gift buying to just their children this year, financial troubles were forcing them to be stingy.

"I have never slept here before to save a few bucks, but with the economy so bad I thought that even a few dollars helps," said Analita Garcia of Falls Church, Va., who arrived at a local Best Buy store at 7 a.m. Thursday with 10 family members. She bought a 32-inch LCD TV for $400, slashed from $500, along with an iPod and several DVDs.

"This year a lot of people I know won't be getting Christmas presents. I have to pay the rent and bills, and I have two little ones at home to think of," Garcia added.

Oh, wow. That is rough. I am really feeling for this poor woman who has rent and bills to pay and two little ones. All she can afford is a $400 t.v. and an ipod. *sniff*

Let's take a look at another tragic story.

Inside, Kira Carinci, 33, a teacher from Cicero, N.Y., searched for the $80 "Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock" video game and guitar controller bundle for her son but said she is more concerned about money than she was last holiday season. She said she had set aside a certain amount for Christmas spending.

"I don't usually save, so this year is a little different," she said.

Wow, actually needing to save money. What a concept! Last but not least:

Joyce and Kevin Kirk of Georgetown in southwest Ohio, who arrived at Kohl's at Eastgate Mall in suburban Cincinnati, at 4 a.m Friday, bought toys for the baby and clothing for her older children, mostly at 50 percent to 60 percent off.

She said they decided to focus more on the kids this year and cut down on gifts for other people. Her husband, a construction worker, wasn't getting enough work at his company and recently switched to another company.

"We just can't do as much this year because of the economy," said Joyce Kirk, who aims to cut her holiday budget to $1,000. She usually spent $3,000 to $4,000 on Christmas gifts

Oh, this is TERRIBLE. The shock of it all. Only being able to spend $1000 on Christmas gifts for your children. HOW WILL WE SURVIVE?!?!

Okay, obviously I am being facetious, but stories like this make me want to THROW UP. What an over-privileged, spoiled, fat, greedy nation we are. A failing economy means only $1000 to spend on the kids? If only other countries (like, perhaps, Haiti, where children are starving to death) had the struggles we have. If a $400 t.v. and an ipod is "cutting back" - if people used to spend $4000 on Christmas and didn't save money, well, no wonder we are in the mess we are in! And to top it all off, a Walmart worker in New York was stampeded to death in the melee - just a martyr to the cause, I suppose. (Okay, I can't believe I wrote that last sentence. What a sickening thing to happen. What a sick, sick world when someone dies because of a bunch of greedy people wanting to shop for deals.)

In October Conference, Elder L. Tom Perry spoke on simplifying our lives. He says there are "spiritual benefits" to a simplified lifestyle and that man only really needs four things: food, clothing, shelter, and fuel. Elder D. Todd Christofferson spoke of building up Zion and said:

We might ask ourselves, living as many of us do in societies that worship possessions and pleasures, whether we are remaining aloof from covetousness and the lust to acquire more and more of this world's goods. Materialism is just one more manifestation of the idolatry and pride that characterize Babylon. Perhaps we can learn to be content with what is sufficient for our needs.

And what are our needs? Elder Christofferson quotes 1 Timothy 6:7-8

We brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out. And having food and raiment let us be therewith content.

This Thanksgiving weekend, I pray that we can all be grateful for our many, many blessings and recognize the great responsibilities associated with those blessings. I pray that we will be wise during these difficult economic times to use our resources to provide for the needs of our families and to help those around us who are less fortunate. I pray that the adversity we face as a nation can be a blessing if it humbles us to turn to God for relief. Amen.

The Wizzle is back, just in time for the whole darn economy to fall apart

2008-11-21T10:49:00.003-07:00

Hey there, it's me - the mostly absent, cautiously optimistic, baby-making, tree-hugging, flip-flopping resident bleeding heart! The newest, smallest member of my household is 8 weeks old and I'm starting to come up for air periodically, so I thought I'd write an actual post of my own - you know, instead of just lying in wait and then picking apart other people's deepest thoughts...

...although my own preference is to do less talking and more listening. It really has been enlightening and a pleasure to read everyone's perspectives on the issues we've discussed. I surely get tired sometimes of hearing my own voice talking itself in circles in my head!

I've been thinking a lot about the economy and all, as I try to calculate how many children we can reasonably stuff into our little house (since it appears that selling it for a profit is, shall we say, a pipe dream at best). While I'm calculating that, I'm studiously avoiding checking the value of our 401K and praying that BBD's job will continue to be secure. I'm sure we're all pretty much in the same boat there.

So my family's future isn't looking too bad at the moment - but I'm way out here in the Wild West. Many of the good people of Michigan, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and the rest of the Midwest are waiting this week for the other shoe to drop. The very foundations of their livelihood, the Big 3 automakers, have come groveling to the government to save them from bankruptcy. People aren't buying their products, and they're bowed low with the weight of some of the most generous pension and health care plans in the known world. Millions of people depend on Chrysler, GM, and Ford for their jobs in one way or another, and the way I see it, those people will get screwed now or they will get screwed later. The question is, are the rest of us going to go down with them?

Mitt Romney wrote an editorial for the New York Times this week that really summed up the situation very well, in my opinion. Basically, if the Big 3 bailout is shot down, the companies will declare bankruptcy. They will be able to start over and restructure the areas that are most problematic: the management that has come up a day late and a dollar short in anticipating the changing needs and expectations of the American buying public, the adversarial relationship between the management and the workers' union, the gross excesses of executive compensations and benefits that are in no way tied to company performance or the compensations of the "regular" employees, and the total lack of investment in research and development - the pioneering spirit that this country - and the American auto industry - was built on! We pioneered high-quality/low-cost cars, for crying out loud, and now practically everyone in the world makes them better and more efficiently than we do.

Bankruptcy is going to hurt the employees of the Big 3, and all the employees of other businesses in their wake. And anyone who knows me, knows that my heart breaks for those people who have given their lives to these companies, trying to support their families and just keep their heads above water. It's an honest living. But I just don't see any way around the restructuring that needs to happen. For the Big 3 to regain their competitive footing, they're going to need to address these problems sooner or later. So people's pensions are going to be smaller, their pay will be cut, their benefits reduced, because that's the only way for American car companies to keep making cars. The difference is, it can happen in 5 or 10 years anyway and the rest of the taxpayers can foot the bill, or it can happen now and we can begin the extraordinarily painful rebuilding process sooner.

Now, as I've been typing this my mind has wandered, as it so often does, and I find myself thinking: building cars that all of us drive is an honest living. We manufacture so little in this country anymore, yet our know-how and infrastructure for automobile manufacturing is so good that even many "foreign" cars are now made right here in the USA. I think we should cling to that and do it the very best that we can.

BUT.

Henry Ford built his extremely successful operation on mass production of of inexpensive cars - coupled with high wages for his employees. It was one of the critical, fundamental tenets of his business model. We are now at the point where the Big 3 can no longer afford to offer that to their workers, because Honda, Toyota, and others pay their workers less and yet churn out better products. But why is that? People used to buy cars and houses and furniture and groceries from their local vendor or producer of said items. They used to go to their physiciand and pay in cash for their treatment. They weren't all wealthy, but they didn't have to buy everything at Wal-Mart just to have enough money left over to keep the lights on.

What has changed in the world? Is there just so much more information, so much "access", that we are aware of all the "stuff" out there in the market and we perceive it to be necessary for a middle-class life? Is it globalization? Is it overpopulation? Is it the ever-growing chasm between the Haves and Have Nots? Why do we run around like chickens with our heads cut off, working more hours, spending more money, getting more stuff, but not any happier? Why can we "not afford" to shop at ethical businesses, to buy high-quality products that don't fall apart after 5 uses and sit in a landfill, to pay our honest workers a living wage? Is our income relative to our needs so much less than it used to be? Or has our perception of what we need, or deserve, grown faster than we can support it?

These are not rhetorical questions, any of them. I really don't know, and I'd really like to. I wonder if there's any hope for a society where you can only live comfortably by entering a few select professions. Teachers, auto workers, construction workers and garbage collectors provide services we need, and I would venture that they provide a great deal more benefit to us than all these executive-investment-banker-speculator number crunchers who circle over us, betting on our misfortunes, shuffling imaginary money around and profiting from the people who actually get their hands dirty and WORK.

What does the future hold? Does GM restructure its benefits, cutting back so far in the name of competition that another blue collar career becomes one that cannot support a family? Or does the new management find a way to keep Henry Ford's dream alive in a new century, a new society, and a whole new world?

A Hero

2008-11-19T16:01:00.007-07:00

I'm proud to be posting the 100th post on politicaLDS. This is really a fun site, and I've learned a lot from everyone who has participated - bloggers and commenters alike. Thank you all!

The Internet is an incredible place - Wikipedia, in particular. I was reading some articles on World War II and somehow made my way over to the entry for the Medal of Honor. The Medal of Honor is the highest decoration awarded by the American military. Seven Medals have been awarded for acts since 1990, all posthumously, to military heroes who distinguished themselves "conspicuously by gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty while engaged in an action against an enemy of the United States".

I was reading through a list of living Medal of Honor recipients and I recognized a name - Daniel K. Inouye - who is a senator from Hawaii. His story is pretty incredible and I thought I'd share it.

I'm paraphrasing/quoting liberally from this page, which you should really go and read, it's a great, uplifting story.

________

Dan Inouye was born in 1924 in Hawaii, the grandson of Japanese immigrants. His grandfather had moved to Hawaii to work, trying to earn money to pay off a debt of $400 incurred when his house burned down in 1899. They had hoped to be able to move back to Japan after five years, but with a wage of $10/month, it soon became clear they'd be staying there longer. (The debt, by the way, was eventually paid off, after thirty years of work.)

When the Pearl Harbor attacks happened, Inouye was a medical student, and gave aid and assistance. For Inouye and other Americans of Japanese ancestry, this was a difficult time:

...I was driven by an insidious sense of guilt from the instant the first Japanese plane appeared over Pearl Harbor. Of course we had nothing to feel guilty about, but we all carried this special burden. We felt it in the streets, where white men would sneer as we passed. We felt it in school when we heard our friends and neighbors called Jap-lovers. We felt it in the widely held suspicion that the nisei were a sort of built-in fifth column in Hawaii.

Not long after the war began, the military government ordered us to report all radios with shortwave bands. My father had just bought such a set. It was a beauty, picking up Tokyo and the Philippines perfectly We were all enormously proud of it for we had few possessions and had save] a long time to get it. But we promptly complied with the order, and about a week later three men came to our door. They were from Naval intelligence.

"Where is your radio?" one demanded.

"It is here," Father said. "Please come in."

"No, no. Bring it outside."

We did as he said and, without another word, he dug a screwdriver in behind the backing and ripped it off. I looked at my father. His eyes had narrowed, but he said nothing. The man with the screwdriver snapped the wiring inside the set, then reached in and removed the tubes one after another, smashing them on the ground. It was needless destruction; he could have deadened the shortwave band by disconnecting a single wire.

My father's face turned black, and I knew he would not suffer this indignity in silence.

"Here," he said, "let me help you." He reached down to the pile of wood we used for our stove and hefted his ax. Instantly all three of the Naval officials reached for the bulges under their jackets.

Father smiled sadly "Put your guns away, gentlemen," he said. "I only want to help." Then with three great swinging blows of the ax, he smashed the new radio into splinters of wood and glass. "There," he said, breathing hard from his effort and anger, "that should do it. Now you'll never have to worry about it."

He put down the ax and walked back up the steps into the house, leaving us looking at each other in silence.

Japanese-Americans were not allowed to fight in the War until January 1943, when they were permitted to form a segregated unit. Inouye was initially passed over for service because his medical service in Hawaii was perceived to be valuable; he quit the next day and was shipped out shortly thereafter:

There was a new flurry of packing and good-byes, all hasty now, and a heartfelt hug for my mother. Then my father and I caught the bus to the induction center. He was very somber. I tried to think of something to say, some way to tell him that he was important to me, and dear, but nothing came out.

After a long period of silence between us, he said unexpectedly, "You know what on means?"

"Yes," I replied. On is at the very heart of Japanese culture. On requires that when one man is aided by another, he incurs a debt that is never canceled, one that must be repaid at every opportunity.

"The Inouyes have great on for America," my father said. "It has been good to us. And now it is you who must try to return the goodness. You are my first son, and you are very precious to your mother and to me, but you must do what must be done. If it is necessary, you must be ready to. . . to. . ."

Unable to give voice to the dread word, he trailed off. "I know, Papa. I understand," I said.

"Do not bring dishonor on our name," he whispered urgently.

And then I was clambering up into the back of a GI truck, struggling to hold my balance as it rumbled off, and waving to the diminishing figure of my father.

"Good-by!" I called long after he was out of earshot, a forlorn but resolute figure standing there alone as if he never meant to leave. "Good-by!"

Inouye did not dishonor his family. Here's his account of his final battle in the War, and what happened thereafter:

We moved, and almost at once three machine guns opened up on us, pinning us down. I pulled a grenade from my belt and got up. Somebody punched me in the side, although there wasn't a soul near me, and I half fell backward. Then I counted off three seconds as I ran toward the nearest machine gun. I threw the grenade and it cleared the log bunker, exploding in a shower of dirt. When the gun crew staggered erect, I cut them down. My men were coming up now, and I waved them toward the other two emplacements.

"My God, Dan," someone yelled in my ear, "you're bleeding! Get down and I'll get an aid man." I looked down to where my right hand was clutching my stomach. Blood oozed between my fingers. I thought, "That was no punch, you dummy. You took a slug in the gut."

I wanted to keep moving. We were pinned down again and, unless we did something quickly they'd pick us off one at a time. I lurched up the hill again, and lobbed two grenades into the second emplacement before the gunners saw me. Then I fell to my knees. Somehow they wouldn't lock and I couldn't stand. I had to pull myself forward with one hand.

A man yelled, "Come on, you guys, go for broke!" And hunched over they charged into the fire of the third machine gun. I was fiercely proud of them. But they didn't have a chance against the deadly stutter of that last gun. They had to drop back and seek protection. But all that time I had been shuffling up on the flank, and at last I was close enough to pull the pin on my last grenade. As I drew my arm back, a German stood up waist-high in the bunker. He was aiming a rifle grenade at me from a range of ten yards. And then as I cocked my arm to throw, he fired, and the grenade smashed into my right elbow. It exploded and all but tore my arm off. I looked at my hand stunned. It dangled there by a few bloody shreds of tissue, my grenade still clenched in a fist that suddenly didn't belong to me anymore.

Some of my men were rushing up to help me. "Get back!" I screamed. Then I tried to pry the grenade out of that dead fist with my other hand. At last I had it free. The German was reloading his rifle, but my grenade blew up in his face. I stumbled to my feet, closing on the bunker, firing my tommy gun lefthanded, the useless right arm slapping red and wet against my side.

It was almost over. But one last German, before his death, squeezed off a final burst, and a bullet caught me in the right leg and threw me to the ground. I rolled over and over down the hill.

Some men came after me, but I yelled, "Get back up that hill! Nobody called off the war!"

After a while a medic got to me and gave me a shot of morphine. The German position was secured, and then they carried me away. It was April 21. The German resistance in our sector ended April 23. Nine days later, the war in Italy was over, and a week after that the enemy surrendered unconditionally.

To Light a Cigarette

Of course the arm had to come off. It wasn't an emotionally big deal for me. I knew it had to be done and had stopped thinking of it as belonging to me. But acceptance and rehabilitation are two different things. I had adjusted to the shock of losing my arm before the operation. My rehabilitation began almost immediately afterward.

I was staring at the ceiling my first day as an amputee, when a nurse came by and asked if I needed anything. "A cigarette would go pretty good," I said.

"Yes, surely." She smiled and walked off, resuming in a few minutes with a fresh, unopened pack. "Here you are, lieutenant," she said, still smiling, and placed it neatly on my chest and went on her way.

For a while I just stared at the pack. I fingered it with my left hand. Then I sneaked a look around the hospital ward to see if there was anyone in good enough shape to help me. But everyone seemed to be at least as badly off as I was. So I began pawing at that cursed pack, holding it under my chin and trying to rip it open with my fingernails, It kept slipping away from me and I kept trying again, sweating as profusely in my fury and frustration as if I were on a forced march. In 15 minutes I'd tom the pack and half the cigarettes to shreds, but I'd finally got one between my lips. Which was when I realized that the nurse hadn't brought me any matches.

I rang the bell and she came sashaying in, still smiling, still "tailing an aura of good cheer that made me want to clout her. "I need a light," I said.

"Oh," she said prettily, "of course you do." She pulled a pack of matches out of her pocket-she had had them all the time-and carefully put them in my hand. And she strolled off again.

If I obeyed my first impulse, I'd have bellowed after her in rage. If I'd obeyed my second impulse, I'd have burst out crying. But I couldn't let her get the best of me. I just couldn't.

So I started fooling around with the matches. I pulled them and twisted them and dropped them, and I never came remotely close to tearing one free, let alone lighting it. But this time I had decided that I'd sooner boil in oil than ask her for anything again. So I lay there, fuming silently and having extremely unchristian thoughts about that angel of mercy

I was on the verge of dozing off when she reappeared, still smiling. "What's the matter, lieutenant?" she purred. "Have you decided to quit smoking? It's just as well. . . cigarettes make you cough and.. ."

"I couldn't get the damned thing lit."

She tsk-tsked and sat on the edge of my bed. "Some amputees like to figure it out for themselves," she said. "It gives them a feeling of--well, accomplishment. There'll be lots of things you'll be reaming for yourself."

"Look," I growled, "just light the cigarette. I've been three hours trying to get this thing smoked."

"Yes, I know. But, you see, I won't be around to light your cigarettes all the time. You have only one hand with which to do all the things that you used to do with two. And you have to learn how. We'll start with the matches, all right?"

Then she opened the cover, bent a match forward, closed the cover, flicked the match down and lit it-all with one hand, all in a split second.

"See?" she asked. "Now you do it."

I did it. I lit the cigarette. And suddenly her smile was not objectionable at all. It was lovely. In a single moment she had made me see the job that lay ahead. It took me a year and a half to become fully functioning again, but I never learned a more important lesson than I did that afternoon.

He returned home from the war with numerous decorations, met and married his wife, and entered politics. He was elected to the Hawaii Territorial House of Representatives in 1954, then the Territorial Senate, and after Hawaii was granted statehood, the U.S. House of Representatives:

In 1962, then-Congressman Leo O'Brien of New York commemorated the third anniversary of Hawaii's admission to the Union by reminiscing about Dan Inouye's arrival on the national political scene. His recollection of the day Dan Inouye took the oath of office in the U.S. House was recorded in the Congressional Record:

"Tuesday last was the third anniversary of the admission of Hawaii. Today is the third anniversary of one of the most dramatic and moving scenes ever to occur in this House. On that day, a young man, just elected to Congress from the brand new state, walked into the well of the House and faced the late Speaker Sam Rayburn.

"The House was very still. It was about to witness the swearing in, not only of the first Congressman from Hawaii, but the first American of Japanese descent to serve in either House of Congress.

" Raise your right hand and repeat after me,' intoned Speaker Rayburn.

"The hush deepened as the young Congressman raised not his right hand but his left and he repeated the oath of office.

"There was no right hand, Mr. Speaker. It had been lost in combat by that young American soldier in World War II. Who can deny that, at that moment, a ton of prejudice slipped quietly to the floor of the House of Representatives."

He became a senator in 1963, and has served in the U.S. Senate ever since. On June 21, 2000, President Clinton presented him with the Medal of Honor.

________

We have a common heritage of great Americans who have come before us and served selflessly - not just in the military, but in factories, offices, and in the home. This man was not held back by racism, poverty, or bullets - rather, he was driven forward by a love of family, culture and country. I think we all have something to learn from this story. May we live up to those who have sacrificed on our behalf.

Church and State collide once again

2008-11-13T20:54:00.003-07:00

Yesterday, the U.S. Supreme Court began hearing arguments on a case involving the town of Pleasant Grove, Utah, incidentally a next-door neighbor to my childhood home of American Fork. In 1971 Pleasant Grove, accepted the donation of a statue from the Fraternal Order of Eagles depicting the tablets containing the 10 Commandments. Since that time the statue has been publicly displayed in Pioneer Park, along with a stone from the original Nauvoo temple and other historical artifacts.

In 2003, the founder of a religion known as Summum wrote a letter to the town asking to donate a similar statue containing the Seven Aphorisms of Summum for display in the park. Summumers (or whatever you call them, perhaps Summis or Summuma...) believe that these Seven Aphorisms are the higher law that Moses destroyed because he believed the Israelites were not ready for it. We LDS folk have other ideas about that, but that's very much beside the point.

Predictably, the town refused to display the monument, and Summum sued in order to force the town to treat them equally, arguing for the First Amendment protections of freedom of speech. Pleasant Grove initially won the case, but the 10th Circuit Court of ~~Nutty Liberal Activist Judges~~ Appeals overturned the original decision. The court ruled that the town must either accept the donation and display the Summum monument, or remove the monument depicting the 10 Commandments.

Summum argues that by displaying only specific religious monuments, the government's constitute a tacit endorsement of a specific religion, which would obviously contradict the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. The town argues that its role in monuments such as these is not unlike a museum curator's, responsible for the selection of historically important artifacts.

Both sides have a decent argument, and it will be fascinating to see which side prevails when the ruling is issued in the Spring. I tend to side with the fruity Summum folks on this one, despite my obvious regard for the Ten Commandments. What business is it of the government's to endorse and publicly display specific religious symbols while refusing others? I would rather the government and the church be completely separate, for mutual protection from undue influence. It is the same reason I oppose school-sponsored prayer and the unnecessary addition of the phrase "under God" to the Pledge of Allegiance in the fifties.

What if the monument in question had been a symbol of Judaism, or Islam, or even one of a Christian denomination in opposition to LDS teachings - say, the Five Points of Calvanism? Surely it would have been rejected, too. Just because there are those who don't feel Summum is a "legitimate religion" doesn't mean Summum's arguments aren't valid.

Discuss!

By the way, I hereby expressly forbid any discussion of same-sex marriage in this thread, thankyouverymuch.

Obama's Appointments

2008-11-07T12:48:00.003-07:00

Let's keep this thread open as the place to discuss Barack Obama's appointments to his administration. I'll update the post as each major appointment is made.

November 6th, 2008 - Rahm Emanuel, White House Chief of Staff
The WHCOS is a usually a very powerful position, chiefly responsible for controlling the flow of information, protecting the interests of the President, and advising the President on policy issues and politics. From what I know of Mr. Emanuel, he is regarded as very intense and direct, but above all, someone who gets things done. He has a personal relationship with Obama and they should form an effective good cop/bad cop routine. Republicans are wary of his partisan reputation, but he is not an idealogue, and his git-er-dun nature seems to make him an ideal candidate for this demanding position as a sort of realist grounding rod for the idealist Obama.

Discuss!

What now?

2008-11-05T11:51:00.006-07:00

Well, it's over. We have been hashing, arguing, debating, posturing for months now, and it has finally come to an end (for a few days). Barack Obama will be our next President. How do I feel? Dare I say "hopeful"? I learned a few things watching the election returns come in and from the speeches last night that I would like to share.

First, both McCain and Obama were incredibly gracious, and I appreciated that. They set an example the rest of us should follow in dealing with each other and working together. McCain is a good man.

Second, some parts of Obama's speech gave me hope and one part worried me. As a conservative, here are things I was glad to hear Obama say:

Let's remember that it was a man from this state who first carried the banner of the Republican party to the White House, a party founded on the values of self-reliance and individual liberty and national unity. Those are values that we all share. And while the Democratic party has won a great victory tonight, we do so with a measure of humility and determination to heal the divides that have held back our progress . . .

To those who would tear the world down: we will defeat you. To those who seek peace and security: We support you. And to all those who have wondered if America's beacon still burns as bright: Tonight we proved once more that the true strength of our nation comes not from the might of our arms or the scale of our wealth, but from the enduring power of our ideals: democracy, liberty, opportunity and unyielding hope. . .

There will be setbacks and false starts. There are many who won't agree with every decision or policy I make as president. And we know the government can't solve every problem. But I will always be honest with you about the challenges we face. I will listen to you, especially when we disagree.

I also liked the story about Ann Nixon Cooper and found it inspirational (but it is long, so please read it if you did not watch the speech). The one part of his speech where my little red flag went up was this:

So let us summon a new spirit of patriotism, of responsibility, where each of us resolves to pitch in and work harder and look after not only ourselves but each other. Let us remember that, if this financial crisis taught us anything, it's that we cannot have a thriving Wall Street while Main Street suffers. In this country, we rise or fall as one nation, as one people.

You know - it sounds good, it really does. If it were President Monson saying this same thing, I would probably stand on my car and shout "Yes we can!" But, I can't help but feel that it sounds a lot like a campaign speech for socialism, too. I guess my big question is: HOW? How are we going to pitch in and look after each other? Is this a call for individual action and charity or more government? I am nervous, Barack. Please prove me wrong.

I had an epiphany this morning. I realized that I tend to vote for and support politicians that are much more right-wing than I am. I figure that if they are extremely conservative, they will balance out all the liberals and we'll end up somewhere in the happy middle. I also realized that I DO NOT extend this same courtesy to left-wing politicians. I assume that they are going to come in and enact all their liberal agendas and lead us as a nation to the left. However, I suppose there is the possibility that with Barack being extremely liberal, he will balance out the few remaining conservatives, and we'll end up somewhere in the happy middle. Please prove me right!!

There were a couple of other interesting issues on state ballots. First, abortion. In South Dakota, a law that would implement an abortion policy very similar to the church's position failed. This tells me that abortion is not going away. It has never been my big issue. I kind of have this feeling that our nation has already spoken about abortion, and it is just not going away. So, people who vote on this one issue, please stop. It doesn't really matter if your candidate does want to abolish abortion in every case. If the people won't vote to abolish it, it isn't going to happen. And, it is way too easy for a candidate to get your vote by saying that he is pro-life but then not doing anything about it. There are other issues out there to consider. I have already established on this site that I am pro-life and support a position like the church's position. I would vote that way. But, I think that values voters are being taken advantage of by focusing on this one issue that doesn't seem feasible to change.

Second, Prop 8. It passed by a thin margin. I have to admit I am honestly surprised. Yesterday, when I saw the missionary commercial, I was afraid. I was afraid that if Prop 8 passed, Mormons (and especially missionaries) would face more persecution. But then I realized that I was letting FEAR influence my feelings rather than FAITH. I was allowing myself to be intimidated into not standing for what I feel is right, and that is WRONG.

In a lot of ways, I view Prop 8 as a battle between good and evil (or, more appropriately, truth and error). Yes, this is a great over-simplification, and I already have my shield up to protect me from internet arrows. But, for a lot of people (like me) this came down to a decision of "equality" vs. "traditional values".

The campaign in California pitted those who argued that a same-sex marriage ban was nothing more than outdated discrimination against gays and lesbians, and conservatives and Christian groups who countered that the state and the courts have no right to unilaterally change a definition of marriage that has existed for centuries.

The fact that Prop 8 won tells me that a majority of the population in California still supports traditional values, and I take heart in that. In California, that crazy liberal state, every wacky proposition out of San Francisco failed (prostitution will not be legalized, they will not name a sewage plant after George W Bush, ROTC will not be banned from high schools).

One very interesting thing I noted about the Prop 8 returns is why it passed. I had to check the California exit polls to be certain, but it appears that African Americans supported Prop 8 in great numbers.

Blacks turning out in droves to support Obama also threw their support strongly behind Proposition 8, which would overturn the state Supreme Court decision allowing gay marriage. Opposition to the ban held a small edge among whites, while Latinos and Asians were split.

I find that fascinating. Mormons may not end up being the group "blamed" for Prop 8 passing. It may be the African American population in California. Isn't that interesting that the group who fought discrimination on the basis of their skin color, who fought for true civil rights and equality chose the value of traditional marriage in this vote?

From all of the past two days, I have learned this: we don't need to let political parties define us and our values. We don't need to let them divide us. As Barack said in his speech last night:

Let's resist the temptation to fall back on the same partisanship and pettiness and immaturity that has poisoned our politics for so long.

We share values that cross party lines. The Democrats try to claim that they are the party for minorities, yet African Americans crossed party lines to support Prop 8. The Republicans claim to be the party of faith and values, and yet people who stood in support of traditional values voted for Obama. This gives me hope! We are not defined by our party. We are defined by our values. Let's work together and find shared values and possibly buck our two parties or reshape and define them.

Obama, you have my attention. As I watched the crowds of people celebrating and crying last night, I wondered, "What do they see in him that I don't see? Why do I feel like I just got punched in the gut while they feel like the world is dramatically changing for the better? What am I missing?" I don't know. But, I am willing to look. And, I pray that we all are willing to look for the good in each other and the good in each party and work together to make this a stronger, more unified America. God bless.

Congratulations, President Obama!

2008-11-04T19:57:00.003-07:00

It's over folks, and it was over the second the networks called Ohio. There is no feasible path to 270 electoral votes for John McCain. So, congratulations, Barack Obama, you are officially (well, according to me) the President-Elect. Now get to work! :)