Two sides...

One side sees government as the tool to effect social change. To education, to heal, to eliminate poverty - to improve the human condition.

One side sees government as a tool to protect our rights to live and act freely - be that from others, from corporations or from foreign influence/action.

An argument can be made (and it is) that government can do both, but it is a failure to understand the means by which government can to the former - it must have the authority to take from some people to give it to others: It must pay teachers and fund schools, it must pay doctors and nurses and fund hospitals, it must pay for food and housing and it must prevent actions by individuals that hurt or harm others. That authority, once given, is seldom restricted or recalled. A phone tax intended to support efforts in World War One was finally repealed in the 1980s. If you demand government teach, you either specify exactly what it teaches or accept that it will teach what benefits the teachers. You lose control of the tool of change.

Easiest example: government controlled by one party tells teachers to tell students that gay marriage is ok. Then government is controlled by another party that tells teachers to tell students that gay marriage is bad.

We get students of different ages told different things - each objectionable by one side or the other. Both arguing about what was taught but neither arguing that the teachers shouldn't be teaching EITHER side.

You can not give government the power to impose "good" on people without fundamentally destroying both liberty and good government.

So, while one side sees effecting social change as a morally good thing, the other side sees it as morally corrupt liberty destroying.

One side is evil. The road to perdition is paved with good intentions.

Trust

It is not common knowledge, but most economists will tell you that paper currency ABSOLUTELY relies upon people accepting that it has value. When you work, offer your labor, in return for a piece of paper that represents more pieces of paper so that you can exchange them for food, fuel, shelter, you support a currency based solely on that trust.

What happens when that trust disappears? If you bought a car or a house, how much actual cash did you use? Or was it all 'paper' electronically exchanges solely based on your signature?

What happens when the value of the car or house, based on your paper purchase price, is suddenly questioned? When the bank realizes that the $200,000 it gave the seller of the house you bought in return for a mortgage against that house, represents much more than the house is actually worth?

Our trust in our currency and in our financial system is the ONLY thing that allows it to continue. Remove that trust (as happened in 2008 among banks and the financial community), and things quickly begin to unravel.

But it is the same with our electoral process. We have to trust that the system is fair (and Democrats screamed for years that the Bush presidency was illegitimate), or it too begins to unravel.

If you are unaware of the videos and wikileaks that show conspiracy to subvert the electoral process, you get your news from sources part of that conspiracy. I hate to offer a 'conspiracy theory - though it is clear it is more than theory - but it goes back to trust, large parts of the electorate are beginning to question the process and once that happens in a majority way, like the financial system, our governance system will start to unravel.

Trust. Fundamental to all relationships, personal, financial, governmental. Lose it and it all comes apart. And the tears are bigger than you think...

Offended I tell ya, OFFENDED!

A hallmark of free speech is the ability to offend. As a matter of fact, it was specifically called upon to protect political speech that stopped short of slander and defamation, but left every person that heard it offended.

Now, I don't like to use the term 'offended' because like 'racist' it is overused to the point of meaninglessness. Yet, if speech DOESN'T offend you at some point you are living in a bubble you truly need to get out of more often.

Getting out of your comfort zone is a sign you are stretching - if you only get out of the comfort zone by someone's speech, then YOU have failed in a basic human endeavor: growth.

All of this doesn't mean that you should burn your ears with loud, obnoxious, vulgar, hateful (not speaking of some pathetic "hate speech" code), diarrhea of the mouth. My brother could string together grammatically correct swear words, which were more humorous than what he was aiming for... No, calling someone corrupt, or a liar in order to protect the sensitive ears is treating people like four year olds. While they might WANT to be treated like four year olds, we really have to raise the next generation of twenty somethings to take on the real world.

So, next time someone 'offends you' with something they say, take a second to really listen and see if the problem is not what you are hearing, but what you are thinking.

A quiet time...

Waiting for the movie to start I relaxed and thought of the time I spend just sitting. It is a lost art I think.

Whether you call it prayer, meditation, contemplation or navel gazing, time spent sitting and trying to NOT think about what you need to do next, or when you stand up again is getting to be almost impossible in our 24/7 connected lives.

Two plus years ago, sitting in the RCU (Recuperative Care Unit of the homeless shelter), I spent 16 hours a day sitting in a chair, sitting in a hallway four and a half feet wide staring at the wall. Then the floor. Back to the wall. Floor. Wall....and so on. I listened to the people walking back and forth in the hallway. I could hear the TV in the room at the end of the hallway with Judge Judy and Jerry Springer. But after a couple of days...well, not much to think about when there is NOTHING to do next when I stood up, not that standing up was something I was happy to be doing.

So. I just listened. Mostly I tried to ignore the barely audible brain destroying TV (I swear I could feel brain cells dying whenever I walked into that room). In the evening when people started coming back in for overnight...there were conversations but mostly, 16 hours of sitting.

A funny thing happened. I can't tell you WHAT it is, but I can tell you that I heard things. Not voices, not rumblings. I began to be aware that I knew things I had no particular way to know

I would start to say something and as I was getting ready to speak, I knew that it wasn't right...and the words died before passing out.

I would say something and knew it was right the second I said it. I said things to people that others had told them miles and hours earlier. I said what they needed to hear. I was just spouting my usual pretentious stuff...you know, the stuff I say HERE!

This is of course not turning out as sage as it sounded while I waited for the movie to start....guess that's what happens 7 hours later.

What I want you to do is to find a comfortable place (no, the RCU hallway was NOT comfortable!), relax. Turn off the phone, TV, radio, IPod, turn it ALL off. And listen. Take a shot at 10 minutes, work your way up to an hour over the next month. Try every day.

The Universe is trying to tell you a lot, but ya got to LISTEN.

Women's view?

Woman's advocate on the Left describes Ivanka Trump as a 'character'.

Melania Trump is being criticized for not being out stumping for her husband....as if that is the best use of her time - she does have a career of her own....

Trump is being criticized for 'picking on a woman' by calling her overweight - weight shaming her - when the premier issue of her position was IMAGE....you know, that thing women are always complaining about beauty pagents....so when her image 'slipped' and he was the owner of the pagent, complaining about her image was the JOB DESCRIPTION.
People are dismissing Trump's apparent coming attack on Bill's sexual predator attacks as 'old news' their bringing up Trumps words from 20 years ago as a private citizen is truly hypocritical and politically motivated. Hillary talked about believing women that accuse someone of sexual abuse, except when they accused Bill (and he later admitted to several of them). Hillary talks about Trump TALKING about women, while ignoring Bill's actual physical attacks. Hillary talks about respecting women while Bill abused a 21 yr old in the OVAL OFFICE. Right, abused. See, just 10 years previously, a famous senator lost his job because he had an affair with a woman 25 years his junior in his office BECAUSE women of the Left said he was using his POWER to overwhelm the young woman's judgment. What was Monica but a 21 yr old intern...

Sorry. Either the issue is important or it is not. Either judgment is important or it is not. Either the actions of elected officials in office is important or it is not.

Hillary Clinton had classified material on her private computer - that is a felony. Intent is not a factor. Scooter Libby was convicted under the same issue...you remember him, the Left was apoplectic about it.

I'm used to double standards...but the Left isn't even bothering with a standard at this point, one standard for everyone else, anything goes for Clinton.