I Declare
I declare that the Declaration of Independence IS still relevant.
I declare that all people ARE created equal.
I declare that we ARE endowed by our Creator with unalienable rights.
I declare that we DO have the right to our own lives.
I declare that we DO have the right to Liberty.
I declare that we DO have the right to pursue our own happiness.
I declare that the PROPER role of government is to secure these rights.
I declare that a government exercises JUST power when, and only when, acting in this capacity.
I declare that WE DO have the power and authority to protect our own rights individually.
I declare that government ONLY has power and authority given to it by US.
I declare that when a government becomes destructive to that purpose, THE PEOPLE have the right to alter or abolish it through whatever means are required.
I declare that I will not exercise this right for light or transient reasons.
I declare that I will suffer the evils of an unjust government, so long as those evils are sufferable.
I declare that when those evils sink to absolute despotism, I will exercise my rights to their fullest.
I declare that I will prepare with due diligence, for the day when I may be called upon to exercise that right.
Saturday, July 2, 2011
Saturday, June 11, 2011
Lazy Americans, and Chinese plywood
So, today, I need to run out to the local home improvement store for 3 sheets of plywood for a project this weekend. The identity of the store is not important, as this scene could just as easily played itself out in either of the two big box retailers here in town.
I am the typical male shopper. I know what I want. I know where it is (most of the time). I know what I am willing to pay for it, and what I am not. I found my target grade of plywood. The price fell within my value range for the product, so the deal was done.....wait a minute....where are the lumber carts?
Usually, I would have grabbed a lumber cart as soon as I saw one after walking in the door, but it has dawned on me that I have passed no such carts. I start walking up and down aisles looking for carts. As I'm walking (and not seeing ANY carts), I keep hearing a loud 'BANG'.....'BANG'.....'BANG'. The sound, is clearly heavy lumber being thrown (not dropped) somewhere in the store.
I finally make my way to the last aisle. As I turn the corner, the first thing I see is 3 of the store employees, quite loudly discussing their plans for later on that evening. The next thing I see is the source of the thrown lumber. Two customers are going through 2X8's (framing grade lumber mind you). Their 'rejects', they are literally throwing over the cart to land pixie stick style in the middle of the aisle. The aisle is impassable by the time I come upon this spectacle, and ALL of this is within view of the gaggle of employees. I hear one of the customers exclaim (quite loudly I may add) that they ARE going to find 2X8's in that stack without knots. My thought was, "No you're not, but you can believe that if you want".
So, now I have witnessed 2 retarded customers, and 3 store employees who don't seem to care enough about their store to do something to help avoid it being trashed; and I STILL haven't found a lumber cart. I decide that if they are not in the store, I will most likely find some outside. I walk by the cashier at the head of the lumber aisle. She pays me no attention. I'm not sure what had her attention, but it sure wasn't me. I walk out, and there, in all their glory, sits nearly every lumber cart in the store's inventory (or so it seems to me). I take hold of my quarry, and head right back to the door I came out (exit door mind you). I clunk..clunk my way in past the same cashier. She still has better things going on. I head back to the plywood (I can still hear the bang bang brothers). I load my cart up.
Now, not patting myself on the back, but I know that they need to scan this stuff, so in an effort to make the check out process a bit smoother, I usually try to make sure one barcode is facing so that the cashier can scan it easily (although she may have enjoyed the distraction of searching for it). I flipped the last sheet around so the barcode was faced out, and what did I see? At the bottom of the tag, in big, bold letters.....MADE IN CHINA! Serious! Are you freaking kidding me!? We are importing plywood from CHINA!!??
I feel like I could write something akin to a doctoral thesis on this, but suffice it to say:
- America, you have grown lazy. You have spent so much time and energy protecting people from the consequences of their bad decisions, that there are no longer any precipitable consequences. Unfortunately, that is a gross distortion of reality, and it will come home to roost. It is possible that it is too late to repair the damage, but we have to do something. People! WE ARE BETTER THAN THIS!! Take some pride in yourself! Take some pride in what you do! Don't pander to the lowest common denominator! We must hold ourselves to a standard, and achieve it!
My 2 cents worth, adjusted for inflation
I am the typical male shopper. I know what I want. I know where it is (most of the time). I know what I am willing to pay for it, and what I am not. I found my target grade of plywood. The price fell within my value range for the product, so the deal was done.....wait a minute....where are the lumber carts?
Usually, I would have grabbed a lumber cart as soon as I saw one after walking in the door, but it has dawned on me that I have passed no such carts. I start walking up and down aisles looking for carts. As I'm walking (and not seeing ANY carts), I keep hearing a loud 'BANG'.....'BANG'.....'BANG'. The sound, is clearly heavy lumber being thrown (not dropped) somewhere in the store.
I finally make my way to the last aisle. As I turn the corner, the first thing I see is 3 of the store employees, quite loudly discussing their plans for later on that evening. The next thing I see is the source of the thrown lumber. Two customers are going through 2X8's (framing grade lumber mind you). Their 'rejects', they are literally throwing over the cart to land pixie stick style in the middle of the aisle. The aisle is impassable by the time I come upon this spectacle, and ALL of this is within view of the gaggle of employees. I hear one of the customers exclaim (quite loudly I may add) that they ARE going to find 2X8's in that stack without knots. My thought was, "No you're not, but you can believe that if you want".
So, now I have witnessed 2 retarded customers, and 3 store employees who don't seem to care enough about their store to do something to help avoid it being trashed; and I STILL haven't found a lumber cart. I decide that if they are not in the store, I will most likely find some outside. I walk by the cashier at the head of the lumber aisle. She pays me no attention. I'm not sure what had her attention, but it sure wasn't me. I walk out, and there, in all their glory, sits nearly every lumber cart in the store's inventory (or so it seems to me). I take hold of my quarry, and head right back to the door I came out (exit door mind you). I clunk..clunk my way in past the same cashier. She still has better things going on. I head back to the plywood (I can still hear the bang bang brothers). I load my cart up.
Now, not patting myself on the back, but I know that they need to scan this stuff, so in an effort to make the check out process a bit smoother, I usually try to make sure one barcode is facing so that the cashier can scan it easily (although she may have enjoyed the distraction of searching for it). I flipped the last sheet around so the barcode was faced out, and what did I see? At the bottom of the tag, in big, bold letters.....MADE IN CHINA! Serious! Are you freaking kidding me!? We are importing plywood from CHINA!!??
I feel like I could write something akin to a doctoral thesis on this, but suffice it to say:
- America, you have grown lazy. You have spent so much time and energy protecting people from the consequences of their bad decisions, that there are no longer any precipitable consequences. Unfortunately, that is a gross distortion of reality, and it will come home to roost. It is possible that it is too late to repair the damage, but we have to do something. People! WE ARE BETTER THAN THIS!! Take some pride in yourself! Take some pride in what you do! Don't pander to the lowest common denominator! We must hold ourselves to a standard, and achieve it!
My 2 cents worth, adjusted for inflation
Thursday, May 26, 2011
The US Financial Crisis in numbers one can understand: Imagine a family that makes 47,620 dollars per year. They spend $71,040, therefore putting 23,420 on a credit card. Theres already $281,560 that they already owe on credit cards, and every day $82.79 dollars is added to the credit card in interest. We talk about this in the "Trillions" and most tune out. Break it down to a point where everyone can relate.
I copied and pasted this blurb from a FB friend today. Now, I haven't troubled myself to verify the accuracy of the numbers, and honestly, it is not necessary.
We can circumvent the accuracy argument by breaking it down even further:
Our government has a certain 'income' based on tax revenue
Every year, our government spends more that it brings in in taxes.
This is possible by 'borrowing money'. They do that by selling bonds and notes; mostly to foreign governments. They could also 'just print' money, but doing so lessens the value of the total amount of money (called inflation). This has happened to a certain extent, but the bulk of our 'budget deficit' comes from borrowing.
We have hit our credit limit. Now, if you are at your kitchen table discussing your financial problems with your spouse; the conversation invariably goes to stop spending more than you make, or borrow more (open a new credit card, or otherwise increase your credit limit). Could you imagine making the decision to borrow more and go further into debt because you 'have' to maintain your standard of living? That is exactly what our congress critters are debating... raising our credit limit so that we can borrow more to maintain an untenable life style.
Yep, that'll work.
I copied and pasted this blurb from a FB friend today. Now, I haven't troubled myself to verify the accuracy of the numbers, and honestly, it is not necessary.
We can circumvent the accuracy argument by breaking it down even further:
Our government has a certain 'income' based on tax revenue
Every year, our government spends more that it brings in in taxes.
This is possible by 'borrowing money'. They do that by selling bonds and notes; mostly to foreign governments. They could also 'just print' money, but doing so lessens the value of the total amount of money (called inflation). This has happened to a certain extent, but the bulk of our 'budget deficit' comes from borrowing.
We have hit our credit limit. Now, if you are at your kitchen table discussing your financial problems with your spouse; the conversation invariably goes to stop spending more than you make, or borrow more (open a new credit card, or otherwise increase your credit limit). Could you imagine making the decision to borrow more and go further into debt because you 'have' to maintain your standard of living? That is exactly what our congress critters are debating... raising our credit limit so that we can borrow more to maintain an untenable life style.
Yep, that'll work.
Saturday, May 21, 2011
Either no one in Australia was 'worthy' and got left behind, or the nut jobs can crawl back in their cave....either way, we return you to your life, already in progress.
We have all had a lot of fun at this guy's expense. I saw his name, but failed to commit it to memory...some preacher based in California? Well, that explains a lot!
But seriously, what is the motivation at work here? Most Christians believe the Bible to be the 100%, infallible, perfect, word of God. I am Christian, but I do not believe that myself. I DO believe that even though the Bible is imperfect (being written by the hands of man, and all), there is a GREAT deal to be learned there. I am particularly intrigued by the parable of the prodigal son. That will be a blog for another day.
So, where is this guy coming from?
If he is Christian, and a pastor, no less; surely he has at least heard about the verse where Jesus tells us that no man shall know the day or hour of his return. Surely he knows that the day can not be calculated, as he has claimed to have done, no more than God's existence can be 'proven' through man's limited scope of logic and fact.
So, what does that leave us to draw about him?
1) He has no touch with reality, and is completely delusional.
2) He is quite rational, but has a motive that we have not yet explored.
Of the two, I believe #1 to be the case, but let us examine #2 a bit as an intellectual exercise. Perhaps we can learn something about ourselves and the modern church by doing so.
If he is rational, yet makes his doomsday predictions, in spite of the Biblical evidence, he does so for a reason. Why?
- He is not a Christian, and seeks to discredit Christianity by claiming to be one and making an absolute mockery of the faith. - Is this plausible? I have not wasted much time to look very deeply into this guys past, but the published claim is that he was a pastor of a church in California. For now, we will accept that as fact, although for any serious discussion to take place here, we should trouble ourselves to confirm it. It would also appear to be fact that he has spent a great deal of personal wealth on 'getting the word out'. In order to spend the time he did as a Christian leader, and go through the expense he has, if this is a discrediting campaign, it would come as the result of a severe disappointment,or anger with his former faith. I believe if this were the root, he would be pointing to the event that shook his world and screaming, "see, what GOD would allow this to happen?" We see this frequently with the death of loved ones, especially sudden deaths, or young ones where the survivors are ill prepared to handle the trauma. My vote is - Not plausible.
- He is Christian, and sees this as a tool to 'save the masses'. Drive them into a fear of eternal damnation on a definite time line, and watch them pour into the church for their helping of salvation. That is pretty crappy, right? I mean, let's not show people what God says about this, then we can use their own fear of the unknown to drive them into our waiting and loving arms, then we get credit for being the one who led them to Christ. Pretty crappy, right? Wait a minute....does the modern church not do this anyway? He has carried the tactic to the pinnacle, but this pastor has done nothing more than expand an already existent page in the Christian playbook. God tells us that Jesus died for our salvation......PERIOD! His love is unconditional....PERIOD! He requires nothing from us for that salvation. It has already been given. Do we hear that in our churches? What we hear in the church is a punch list of things we have to do in order to receive salvation. The punch list varies from denomination to denomination, and some denominational lists are shorter than others, but the fact of the matter remains, the list is there; and the modern church holds up the list and uses fear of consequences to herd people into checking off the items on the denominationally approved list. Let's take a trip back to the Bible for a moment, and see if we can find anyone else in Biblical history who did the same thing......ah, here we go. How about the Pharisees? This, more than the antics of our clown that brought this discussion into being, is more telling of the end of times than anything. The Pharisees claimed to represent God to the masses. They used their monopoly on theology to hold the masses in spiritual bondage. Jesus came to end that bondage and set us all free throughout the breadth of time. Now we have a modern church, who like the Pharisees, claims to represent God, I mean, after all...they are the hands and feet of Jesus, right? If you don't believe the same way they do, you, of course are condemned to hell, but they will keep praying for you until you believe the way they do.. The modern church doesn't hold a spiritual monopoly, but pretty darn close. When Jesus does come back, I believe it will be to release us from spiritual bondage again, only this time, the modern church will have taken the place of the Pharisees in the story.
Now, I still think this guy is a crack pot, but I think God has used him to show us something of His character in the process.
....my 2 cents worth, adjusted for inflation.
Friday, May 20, 2011
OK, I'll admit to the n'th degree of lameness on blogging. I could make hundreds of excuses; but the truth of the matter is, that I have not found great value for my time in blogging. I believe that is changing. I have found that documenting life, even one as mundane as mine, may actually have value.....stay tuned.
Friday, May 8, 2009
The Liberty Garden report card
Today was judgment day at Command Headquarter's Liberty Garden.
Here is the report card:
Onions - Germination was poor. 4 plants are growing with the intent to set seed
Lettuce - Still harvesting for fresh salads
Okra - Near 100% germination. This years seed is 3rd generation to Command Headquarters.
Sweet pepper - No germination yet. Will check again in a couple of weeks
Squash - Failed. Not sure why. This one should have been a no brainer.
Tomato - Failed. 3 years in a row failing on tomatoes from seed. Transplants are now looking pretty good.
Jalapeño pepper - No germination yet. Will check again in a couple of weeks.
Sweet corn - Near 100% germination.
Parsnip - Failed. Not sure why.
Sunflower - 80%+ germination
Watermelon - 100% germination
The okra and corn had to be thinned today. That is disheartening! Pulling up and throwing away perfectly good sprouts! Oh....the pain!
Here is the report card:
Onions - Germination was poor. 4 plants are growing with the intent to set seed
Lettuce - Still harvesting for fresh salads
Okra - Near 100% germination. This years seed is 3rd generation to Command Headquarters.
Sweet pepper - No germination yet. Will check again in a couple of weeks
Squash - Failed. Not sure why. This one should have been a no brainer.
Tomato - Failed. 3 years in a row failing on tomatoes from seed. Transplants are now looking pretty good.
Jalapeño pepper - No germination yet. Will check again in a couple of weeks.
Sweet corn - Near 100% germination.
Parsnip - Failed. Not sure why.
Sunflower - 80%+ germination
Watermelon - 100% germination
The okra and corn had to be thinned today. That is disheartening! Pulling up and throwing away perfectly good sprouts! Oh....the pain!
Saturday, April 25, 2009
Blogging huh...I decided that it was time to blog on some of the events going on around Command Headquarters. When I opened up the blog...I noted with great disdain how long it had been since last blogging. It also caught my attention how similar my blog entry was about to be to the last blog entry...not good. So much for creativity!
So, what has been going on around Command Headquarters any way?
Before I go into that, let us take a journey together into socio-political thought, shall we.
The state of the economy still has people down in the dumps. Of late, there are some signs of economic thawing, but who's to say how long, or how far that will take us. I started thinking about this economic thing. It seemed strange that signs are starting to look more positive, yet we haven't been hearing our political critters beat their chest and taking credit. Strange...why? 2 theories come to mind immediately.
1) They are scared to start taking credit for fear that the turn is merely a 'false blip' on the economic radar. This doesn't have a lot of credibility with me because the MO would be to take credit for the good any way, and if things start turning bad again, jump up and down and blame your political opponents for destroying economic progress.
2) Recovery is not what they want. Let's face some facts here....the politi-critters would have us believe that this is the worse economic crisis since the Great Depression, and the only way out of it is with government control and intervention. Sadly, I had bought into the 'economic crisis' theme myself. Dave Ramsey pointed out the other night in his Town Hall for Hope broadcast, that the recessions of the early 70's, and the late 80's/early 90's were much worse than our current situation; in terms of unemployment, interest rates, inflation...you name it. The only statistic that is worse now is foreclosures. Here is an interesting tid bit...50% (yes...HALF) of the foreclosures came out of 35 counties throughout the US. That is stunning in and of itself! So, if they are screaming that things are deathly bad, and that they are the only solution; and the hard data does not backup their claims.....what exactly is their motive? One need only look at their actions thus far. Their 'solution' is increasing government control of the private sector. So, why are they not claiming credit for the economic 'recovery'? Easy...they don't have the degree of control that they want of the private sector yet.
So.....now we come back to Command Headquarters. So I'm sitting around digesting the things going on around us. As I am thinking about the increasing control of government in the private sector (and getting angry at the feeling of helplessness about it), it occurred to me....government was only half of the problem! Sure, they want to control GM, Ford, CitiGroup, ect,ect...but the only way they could, was for the private sector to invite them in! The Feds used a page out of the playbook that they have been using against States for decades! You want our money....simple, do as we please. Do that, and you can have the money. States bit, and gave up the notion of States rights. Now States are merely another level of government waste to wake through, and another trough for the politi-critters to feed at. Like wise...corporate America holds out their hands for some of the government money, and find that they, like the States before them, are now irrelevant.
That is when it hit me...we have the same choice! Daily, government seeks to invade our lives. All they ask is a little control over our lives. You want to drive, follow this speed limit. Want us to educate your children, put them on mind altering drugs, Want us to pay for your medical expenses, use the doctors on our 'approved' list. Want to be a doctor on our 'approved' list, agree to get paid only this. See a pattern?
Obviously, we can' extract government from our lives in totality, even the Amish haven't been able to do that; but we CAN start to recognize the encroachments for what they are, and implement our own 'bailout' plans. It doesn't have to be on a grand scale, or Earth shattering....just make one decision, implement it, and when it is second hand, andingrained as part of your life, make another decision. In WW II, people planted Victory Gardens. At the time, the people and the government were on the same page. What about now? How about a Liberty Garden? Think about the vegetables that you won't be paying sales tax on. Will you be able to live entirely out of the garden...not likely, but it is a step!
To that end, I have been doing 'Liberty Projects" around the house today.
I already home brew wine under the Liberty Gulch label.
Today, I hand loaded ammunition under the Liberty Armory label.
Today I planted the Liberty Garden under...you guessed it, the Liberty Gardens label.
See a pattern? Create your own economic stimulus. Create your own pattern. Show government that, today, you need them just a little bit less than you did yesterday, and tomorrow, you will need them less still. Relegate them to insignificance...Oh what a feeling!
So, what has been going on around Command Headquarters any way?
Before I go into that, let us take a journey together into socio-political thought, shall we.
The state of the economy still has people down in the dumps. Of late, there are some signs of economic thawing, but who's to say how long, or how far that will take us. I started thinking about this economic thing. It seemed strange that signs are starting to look more positive, yet we haven't been hearing our political critters beat their chest and taking credit. Strange...why? 2 theories come to mind immediately.
1) They are scared to start taking credit for fear that the turn is merely a 'false blip' on the economic radar. This doesn't have a lot of credibility with me because the MO would be to take credit for the good any way, and if things start turning bad again, jump up and down and blame your political opponents for destroying economic progress.
2) Recovery is not what they want. Let's face some facts here....the politi-critters would have us believe that this is the worse economic crisis since the Great Depression, and the only way out of it is with government control and intervention. Sadly, I had bought into the 'economic crisis' theme myself. Dave Ramsey pointed out the other night in his Town Hall for Hope broadcast, that the recessions of the early 70's, and the late 80's/early 90's were much worse than our current situation; in terms of unemployment, interest rates, inflation...you name it. The only statistic that is worse now is foreclosures. Here is an interesting tid bit...50% (yes...HALF) of the foreclosures came out of 35 counties throughout the US. That is stunning in and of itself! So, if they are screaming that things are deathly bad, and that they are the only solution; and the hard data does not backup their claims.....what exactly is their motive? One need only look at their actions thus far. Their 'solution' is increasing government control of the private sector. So, why are they not claiming credit for the economic 'recovery'? Easy...they don't have the degree of control that they want of the private sector yet.
So.....now we come back to Command Headquarters. So I'm sitting around digesting the things going on around us. As I am thinking about the increasing control of government in the private sector (and getting angry at the feeling of helplessness about it), it occurred to me....government was only half of the problem! Sure, they want to control GM, Ford, CitiGroup, ect,ect...but the only way they could, was for the private sector to invite them in! The Feds used a page out of the playbook that they have been using against States for decades! You want our money....simple, do as we please. Do that, and you can have the money. States bit, and gave up the notion of States rights. Now States are merely another level of government waste to wake through, and another trough for the politi-critters to feed at. Like wise...corporate America holds out their hands for some of the government money, and find that they, like the States before them, are now irrelevant.
That is when it hit me...we have the same choice! Daily, government seeks to invade our lives. All they ask is a little control over our lives. You want to drive, follow this speed limit. Want us to educate your children, put them on mind altering drugs, Want us to pay for your medical expenses, use the doctors on our 'approved' list. Want to be a doctor on our 'approved' list, agree to get paid only this. See a pattern?
Obviously, we can' extract government from our lives in totality, even the Amish haven't been able to do that; but we CAN start to recognize the encroachments for what they are, and implement our own 'bailout' plans. It doesn't have to be on a grand scale, or Earth shattering....just make one decision, implement it, and when it is second hand, andingrained as part of your life, make another decision. In WW II, people planted Victory Gardens. At the time, the people and the government were on the same page. What about now? How about a Liberty Garden? Think about the vegetables that you won't be paying sales tax on. Will you be able to live entirely out of the garden...not likely, but it is a step!
To that end, I have been doing 'Liberty Projects" around the house today.
I already home brew wine under the Liberty Gulch label.
Today, I hand loaded ammunition under the Liberty Armory label.
Today I planted the Liberty Garden under...you guessed it, the Liberty Gardens label.
See a pattern? Create your own economic stimulus. Create your own pattern. Show government that, today, you need them just a little bit less than you did yesterday, and tomorrow, you will need them less still. Relegate them to insignificance...Oh what a feeling!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)