Arrogant Condescention

So, occasionally I decide to put a post on Facebook about politics. I don't do this to irritate Democrats. I don't do it to tick off liberals. I do it to educate young people. I do it because if you don't teach the importance of capitalism, socialism is the natural default.

Okay? That's why I do it.

The founders of this country knew what existed before them. They knew that 99% of people in the world lived under totalitarian dictator type governments. They lived under kings and queens or totalitarian thugs. They were denied their natural rights.

The founders changed all that. They made it so anyone born in America would not be denied these rights. This is the main reason the founders thought it was so important to educate young kids. And so this was done until about 1960-1980-ish when the government pretty much took over education in the U.S.

So, now liberals basically control what our kids learn. They don't teach about American Excpetionalism anymore. I mean, some teachers probably do. But, it's the exception today more so than the rule.

Essentially, if you don't teach American Exceptionalism, socialism is the natural default. If you don't teach conservatism, liberalism is the natural result. That's why so many people now accept socialism. They accept it even though we fought two world wars to prevent it's spread.

I don't expect lots of likes on my political posts. I don't expect it. I never get any. That's fine. But, what I do get, from time to time, is a ticked off liberal. They get so mad that I share my opinion. Most of the time they don't say anything, but occasionally they share their hatred of my opinion.

So, basically, my job as a parent is to educate.  I am a God fearing conservative. So, naturally, I want my kids to become God-fearing conservatives. So, it only makes sense that my kids are taught about God and conservative principles in school.

Why? Well, I think, as a parent, I should have a say in what my kids are taught. I don't think some nut head in Washington should be allowed to tell my kids things I don't agree with.

For example, I don't want my kids learning that global warming is a fact. They can learn about it, they can be educated about it. Sure, I'm fine with that. But I don't want my kids coming home telling me the world is overpopulated. And it's because of global warming.

That's the kind of BS I hate about our public schools. They should be training kids to think, not telling them what to think.

So, to combat this, I put an occasional post on my Facebook page. I'm not a fan of memes. Mostly, I just put videos or quotes that tell the truth about America and its founding. It may about the economy. It may be the truth about tax cuts, or the true story of Thanksgiving. You know, stuff like that.

But I get lots of hate from my Democrat friends. Now, we are still friends. Political differences have never gotten in the way of friendships, at least not in my world. We bicker about it, but then we hug and drink a beer. Okay? So, it's not like political fighting is going to ruin friendships.

Still, I find that my liberal friends can't handle to learn. It's like, I teach and they get really irritated with me. It's like, I offer facts. I have all the facts on my side. But, still, it doesn't matter with them. They talk down to me in an arrogant and condescending matter, like I'm stupid.

There is a term for this. It's called Arrogant condescention. They talk as though they are annoyed that you could be so stupid. They talk down to you

They are always right no matter what. I am always wrong no matter what. It doesn't matter what facts I present. They don't even bother listening to the facts. They just get mad. Their attempt is to make me feel guilty so I shut up and quit posting.

But, all along, they do it themselves. They post on their Facebook pages whatever they want. They post about how stupid conservatives are; how naive they are. And I'm supposed to just like it. And if I disagree, I'm refusing to accept change; I'm an idiot; I'm a racist; I'm a homophobe; I'm backwoods.

So, I present facts to my kids. I present facts on my Facebook page. I mean, it's my Facebook page. It's my home. I can put anything on it I want. If you don't like it, just ignore it. Or, you can do what some of my friends have done, just unfollow me. I mean, it's that easy.

But, they don't. They continue to follow me. And when they disagree with what I post, they write hate messages. It doesn't matter how truthful I am. Why? Because they don't care about the truth.

Greg Gutfeld explained the differences between conservatives and liberals to a tee. I thought it was a very good video. So, I posted it on my Facebook page. My liberal friends did not care what Gutfeld said. They weren't attempting to learn from what Gutfeld said. Gutfeld was just the latest figure that they attempt to disagree with.

Okay? They don't even care about being properly informed. The only thing they care about is will liberalism succeed. If anyone gets in the way, they can't stand it. That's why they hate Trump so much. That's why they hate it when I post the stuff I do.

Again, I don't post this stuff to irritate them.  I don't even make a habit of posting about politics. Still, I have the right to do so. They have a right to block me. I'm fine with it.

You know, I would love to get into an intelligent discussion on politics. I'm open to doing it on my Facebook page, that's fine. If only my liberal friends -- and not all of them either, just a select few -- could quit being offended by the truth. If only they could quit being offended by hearing opposing viewpoints.

For crying out loud.

Trump diagnosed insane due to different world view

He's insane. He's unfit for office. He's psychologically unfit. These are things people are saying about Donald Trump. Psychologists who disagree with him are saying these things. Then they say we should invoke the 25th Amendment to remove him from office. What should we make of all this?

Look, they are not diagnosing him because they've met the man. They are trying to criminalize the man because they disagree with his politics. They did the same thing to Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan.

Diagnosing people without having met them is what they did in Russia. People were locked up in Russia because they disagreed with the mainstream; because they disagreed with the Communists. In China, if you disagreed with the government you were locked up in mental hospitals.

For those not familiar with the 25th amendment, it refers to removing a president from office if he is unfit. If the president's cabinet thinks he's unfit, they can seek to remove him from office. It was put in place after Woodrow Wilson had a stroke and his wife finished off his Presidency. So, that's what it's all about.

And, as is typical of socialists, liberals are passionate about advancing their agenda. Every time they feel they are making headway along comes a good mainstream conservative or libertarian. And, rather than oppose them politically, they try to make out that the person is psychologically unsound and unfit for office. They do this without any basis.

The reason for this is liberals have one worldview. They believe in theories. If you don't believe in their theories, you have other ideas, it's not even worth considering. If you don't accept what their view is, there must be something wrong with you.

Look, their president dominated for eight years. He advanced the liberal agenda. They thought Hilary was going to win. They thought he was the smartest person in the world. Anyone who agreed with him was smart. But, at the same time, he did a lot of stupid things.

He took control of one-sixth of the economy with his Obamacare. He lied to the people to make it happen. He forced people to buy health insurance. The healthcare system is now in shambles. And it was all by design so the government could take it over. And the man who did this is said to be a genius.

He presided over one of the worsts periods of economic growth in our history. He enabled thug dictators to get on a path to nuclear weapons. He destabilized Iraq and allowed Isis to form. He placed regulations before the military so they couldn't defend themselves. He put out country in a bad place. And yet he was the genius.

So, because of decisions of this so-called smart man, we lived in a country that didn't see one period of 3% economic growth. This was the only President not to have one single period of 3% economic growth. He presided over an economy where a record number of people just gave up looking for work. He presided over an economy that saw a record number of people on food stamps. He presided over a country that feared terrorist attacks. And we were told this was the new normal. That this was just how it was going to be from now on.

And you have a man who replaces him in the office named Donald Trump. And he makes smart decisions to stop what this so-called genius is doing. He says he wants to fix what this so-called genius did to make America great again. And they say he is a moron who is unfit for office.

So, this man who is unfit for office turns the economy around in less than 12 months. He gets rid of unnecessary Obama regulations. He undoes all the Obama policies he can. And the economy begins to soar even before tax cuts are passed. The economy grows so fast it grows at twice the rate it ever grew under Obama. The stock market soars to it's highest levels ever. People are beginning to prosper. Isis is all but eliminated. People no longer fear for their lives. And he's considered the moron who is unfit for office. They say he is not smart.

Look, they thought Hillary was going to win. They were actually salivating at the idea. They were salivating. Then someone comes in with a different worldview, and this man wins an election, and it became panic time. The left has become unhinged.

They cannot fathom that someone would actually disagree with them. And they can't fathom the idea that someone who disagrees with them would actually get elected. So they make up this notion that this man is unhinged. That he is unfit for office. That he is psychologically deranged. They say he shouldn't be around buttons attached to bombs. They say he's going to start a nuclear war.

When he's not. And he won't. He's just a man with a different worldview. He's just a man who loves his country and has a better idea of saving it.

Socialists. Communists. Liberals. They think they know what's best for you. They have theories. They sit around and they theorize. They have a utopian worldview. They believe people are incapable of making decisions for themselves. They think people are stupid. And without them making decisions for them, the world would collapse.

This is why they have so much faith and trust in government. They think the government is the answer to every problem out there. And someone comes along and says this is poppycock, that people are smart and can solve their own problems. They go unhinged. They go nuts! They just can't fathom the idea that their theories could be argued with.

They think they are smart. Anyone who disagrees with them is not smart. That's the basis that Donald Trump is a moron. This is why they say the 25th amendment should be invoked.

And I'm not just talking about Democrats here. I'm talking about establishment Republicans too. I'm talking guys like John McCain. I'm talking guys like Mitt Romney. Sure, they may differ on some issues. But, when it comes down to it, they all think alike and they all believe alike. They believe in the status quo. They believe in their theories.

They have a worldview, and anyone who disagrees with them is psychologically unfit for office. That's the grounds of the Daisy add when Goldwater was running for president. Okay? They actually believed someone who disagreed with them would be sitting on a nuclear button ready to push it. Not true. There was never any basis for this claim.

They said the same things about Reagan. And now they are saying the same things about Trump. The truth is he is not unstable. He is not stupid. He is not unfit for office. He is actually smarter than they are and they just don't know it. They cannot fathom the idea that they might be wrong. They can not fathom the idea their theories might possibly be wrong.

So, now this takes us back to our argument of what is smart. How do you define smart? Who is smart, the man who raises taxes and increases regulations? Or the man who cuts taxes and lets people decide what to do with their own money. Who is smart, the man who lets terrorist thug, dictator nations get on a path to nuclear weapons, or the man who aims to stop it?

Like, who is smart and who is dumb? The Washington establishment (Obama, McCain) believe smart is defined by where you come from. They believe it's defined by your worldview. They are incapable of understanding anyone, not of their worldview. And keep in mind their worldview is completely based on theories.

They do not worry about facts. You can throw all the facts you want at them, if they don't fit into their theories, they are just ignored. I explained this in my series, "How Do You Define Smart?"

In any case, if you disagree with them, you are not smart. That's what we are dealing with here. If you disagree with them, you are insane, unfit for office. You must be stopped at all costs, even if that means lying about Rusian spying.

Teddy Roosevelt: The Stewardship Theory

Teddy Roosevelt turned the presidency into the "bully pulpit."  While most presidents before him, except during times of war, were inactive, Roosevelt made it to a president could be active even during times of peace, especially when he believed something was in the best interest of the populace, or "for your own good."

He explained this in his autobiography:

I declined to aosevdopt the view that what was imperatively necessary for the Nation could not be done by the President unless he could find some specific authorization to do it. My belief was that it was not only his right but his duty to do anything that the needs of the Nation demanded unless such action was forbidden by the Constitution or by the laws. Under this interpretation of executive power I did and caused to be done many things not previously done by the President and the heads of the departments. I did not usurp power, but I did greatly broaden the use of executive power. In other words, I acted for the public welfare, I acted for the common well-being of all our people, whenever and in whatever manner was necessary, unless prevented by direct constitutional or legislative prohibition.

William Howard Taft referred to this as the Stewardship Theory.  Not only must a president do what the Constitution commands him to do, he must also push forth his agenda if he believes it serves the general welfare.  The exception here is "unless he is expressly forbidden not do it" by the Constitution.

The problem with this is that many future progressive presidents took this a step further, and made it so their own personal agenda was prioritized above and beyond the Constitution.  When this started to happen was when chaos in our nation started to ensue.

How to defeat an atheist

One of the most difficult choices we can make as humans is to believe in God. There are simply so many people who have chosen not to believe in him for one reason or another, and many of them work hard to try to pull you away from God. So what do you do in the face of such challenges? What do you say? 

Here is a list of some of the things people might say to challenge your faith, and what you may consider saying to them.

1.  Science proves God does not exist.  Einstein believed in God, and said that he saw no reason why God and science cannot co-exist. He said, "Science without religion is lame. Religion without science is blind."

2.  Well, Einstein found the Bible Primitive, Childish.  That's because the Bible IS primitive and childish. That's just how people wrote back then. It was allegorical. 

3.  Nobody lives the way the Bible preaches. No person lives completely by their Faith, which is why we have forgiveness. For example Chris Kyle had Faith and he carried the Bible with him, but he did not read from it every day

4.  The Bible is not historically accurate. Actually, whether you believe in God or not, the Bible is one of the most significant historical documents ever written. I have read many history books where the Bible is used as a reference to paint a picture of the era in which it was written.

5.  The Bible is not factual.  Christians believe everything in the Bible is true.  If everything in the Bible is true, does this mean that Christians have to choose between science and the Bible.  The key to understanding the Bible is to understand the difference between truth and fact.  Simply put, something can be truthful without being factual.  For example, if you are trying to download a large file onto your computer and it is taking a long time, you might say that it is "taking a million years." You would be speaking the truth: the file is taking a long time to download.  Figurative language such as this communicates truth without relying totally on facts.  We say that as Christians, we believe everything in the Bible is true.  What we mean is that the Bible teaches us, without error, the truth about God.  Although the Bible does contain historical information, the authors of the Bible were not primarily concerned with historical or scientific facts.  Their goal was to teach the truth about God.

6.  Science proves that God could not have created the world in seven days.  The first creation story in the Book of Genesis is true, although it does not attempt to teach scientific facts.  It teaches us truths about God and his relationship with creation, such as: God is the author of all creation, God brings order out of chaos, human beings are created in God's image, and everything God created is good. As Christians, we can learn from what scientists are teaching us about creation and, at the same time, learn from the Book of Genesis about the religious truth of Creation. Besides, God actually created the world over six eras.

7.  Adam could not have lived 930 years.   Once again, you have to consider the era in which the Bible was written.  People back then never even considered the idea of keeping track of a person's time in this world.  When the Bible says that Adam lived to be 930 years old, it is teaching the religious truth that he lived a long life, which is a sign of God's blessing. 

8.  The story of Noah could not have happened.  Actually, there is historical evidence of a great flood that wiped out much of the population of the world that then existed.  So this story is based on this historical fact.  However, the story of Noah teaches the truth that we drown in sin and only those who obey God's voice are saved. 

9.  Jonah could not have lived in a fish.  The story of Jonah is true: when you say no to God's will, you will find yourself in darkness. You see, much of the Bible is told allegorically.  This was simply how people wrote back then.  

10.  The entire old testament is poppycock.  Look, again, don't be concerned with historical fact or scientific fact when reading the Old Testament.  What you should be concerned with is learning the truth about God.  Remember, everything in the Bible is true.  After all, God has given us his Word.

We do know what dead people thought!!!

We do know what they thought because they wrote a lot.

Quite often I find myself quoting the founding fathers or other dead people.  Recently I did this while debating with a friend of mine who happens to be a liberal and an atheist.  I essentially was explaining to her that belief in God is integral to any functioning society, and the founding fathers knew this.

She argued that there is no way I could know what the founding fathers were thinking.  She said there are many times people like me (meaning God fearing conservatives) say that they know what people of the past were thinking, and that this is not possible. Her exact words were:  "But, you shouldn't claim that dead people believed things that you can't personally witness."

To this I said: "Isn't that the purpose of writing, to share what you witness?"

Thomas Jefferson was a founding father, and we have many copies of things he wrote while he was alive, and it is through these writings that we know what he thought on various issues. It's often believed that he did not believe in God. Whether this is true or not does not matter.  

Jefferson and John Adams wrote many letters back and forth, and in many of these letters they discussed the importance of religion.  They discussed how the young United States could not afford to keep up a military, and therefore they were concerned that the nation would be able to prevent people from committing crimes that might destroy the nation from within.  

By their review of history, they believed that no nation could exist without people who were fearful of a greater power.  They believed that nations that feared God and the Devil were able to keep their people under control.  

It was for this reason the founding fathers believed it was essential for America to be a Christian Nation. It was for this reason the Ten Commandments are etched on the walls where the Senate meets.  It's for this reason "In God We Trust" is engraved on coins.  

This strategy worked, thus holding the nation together through some really defenseless and tough times early on it its existence.  This strategy worked until the 1960s, when progressives started to break down the infrastructure of this nation, first and foremost by their efforts to extricate God from schools and God from Government.  

My point here is that we do too know what dead people thought, especially when these dead people wrote their thoughts and opinions when they were alive.  

However, despite her claims that there is no way I could know what dead people thought, she wrote: "Einstein found the Bible 'childish, primitive.'  

So, while I can't say that dead people believed things, she did the same thing.  So obviously, either she has been reading the writings of Einstein, a dead person, or she somehow knows what a dead person thinks.  Yet since she doesn't believe in God, nor angels, then how is it that she can possibly speak with dead people? 

So I come back with this: "Einstein believed in God, and said that he sees no reason why God and science cannot co-exist. He said, 'Science without religion is lame. Religion without science is blind.'

Rush Limbaugh once said that liberalism is the cowardly choice, because all you have to do to be a liberal is say you care for something or someone, and come up with a solution that someone else pays for.  Then when someone criticizes your idea, you attack them with vitriol such as: "You are an idiot, Nazi, child hater, women hater, homophobe, racist."  Sometimes they say nice things like, "You are not being nice."

In this case, such vitriol came out as, "You can't possibly know what dead people thought." In other words, she had no argument to refute what I said, so she attacked my words.  She did this even though what she said was untrue, made no sense, and was hypocritical.    

I'm used to this, as this is what usually happens when you debate someone who has no facts to back up their opinion.  That's how these discussions usually go.  This is what I'm used to, considering I like to challenge people with facts and logic.  Sometimes though, as was the case here, continuing the discussion wasn't worth my time. 

My point here is not to criticize my friend's comments. My point is that I often like to quote the founding fathers to prove a point that my liberal friends have no counter argument for.  So, instead of citing facts, they attack me with vitriol like, "There's no way you can possibly know what dead people thought.  

Quite the contrary: "You can know what dead people thought."

Ben Franklin's 13 Subjects

Ben Franklin was smart enough to know that even though he was a brilliant man, he could, by himself, make himself an even better man. It was in this light that he described a game he played with himself, one that many now refer to as Ben Franklin's 13 Subjects.

He described the game in the first half of his autobiography, the part he wrote before the Revolutionary War when he still had a good relationship with his son.

He created the 13 Subjects, which were essentially qualities that were necessary or desirable for him to acquire and try to master in order to be the perfect Ben Franklin. Each week he would focus on one of the subjects and try to master it.

He would sit down each night and record moments when he succeeded at mastering it, and also the times when he failed. This was his attempt to keep track of how he was doing in order to get batter at each subject.

He was able to go through the entire list in thirteen weeks, and repeat th process four times a year.

In 1960, Frank Bettger wrote "How I Raised Myself from Failure to Success in Sales.” In his book he said that if a man as successful as Ben Franklin had created a method of making his life better, then, perhaps, it would be wise for other people who wished to succeed in life to follow his plan, or develop an individual plan of their own based on his.

That said, here are Franklin's 13 Subjects.

• Temperance: Eat not to dullness, drink not to elevation. 
• Silence: Speak not but what may benefit others or yourself; avoid trifling conversation. 
• Order: Let all you things have their places; let each part of your business have its time. 
• Resolution: Resolve to perform what you ought; perform without fail what you resolve. 
• Frugality: Make no expense but to do good to others or yourself; i.e., waste nothing. 
• Industry: Lose no time; be always employed in something useful; cut off all unnecessary actions. 
• Sincerity: Use no harmful deceits; think innocently & justly, and if you speak, speak accordingly. 
• Moderation: Avoid extremes; further resenting injuries so much as you think they deserve. 
• Justice: Wrong none by doing injuries, or emitting the benefits that are your duty. 
• Cleanliness: Tolerate no unseemliness in body, clothes or habitation. 
• Tranquility: Be not disturbed at trifles, or at accidents common or unavoidable. 
• Chastity: Rarely use venery but for health or offspring, never to dullness, weakness, or the injury of our own or another’s peace or reputation. 
• Humility: Imitate Jesus and Socrates. 

He admitted that he had occasions where he failed at these, but would always make himself aware of his fault, either immediately or in the evening when he reviewed how he did. Then he'd come up with a method to prevent himself from repeating his errors.

We are a Judeo-Christian nation

America is a Judeo-Christian nation.  This is important, because this is what all our laws are based on. This is what our Constitution is based on.  This is where our basic rules come from: don't lie, don't steal, don't cheat, don't covet your neighbor's wife.

It is from this that our basic values and morals come from.  It is from this that the founding fathers conceived the idea of natural rights, or those liberties that we are born with, or those liberties that were handed down from a higher power: God.

Everything that our nation was founded on is based on the fact that we are, at the core, a Judeo-Christian nation.  It is by reading the Judeo-Christian Bible that our children learn the basic values that are essential to holding this nation together.

It is from this that we learn to be kind to other people, and to respect other people.  It is from this that we learn to respect ourselves.  It is from this that we learn to take responsibility for our own actions.  It is from this that we learn to resist temptations, such as the temptation to steal, or the temptation to covet your neighbor's wife, or the temptation to consent to mutual sex before marriage.

These are all behaviors, or actions, that lead to controversies.  They are actions that the Bible preaches against in order to create a better world.

When you teach about God, when we read the Bible, we are learning the very values and morals that hold this nation together.  It is only when we get away from this does our nation start to fall apart.  It is only when you ignore the Bible do evil things happen, things that the Bible teaches are sins.

It is only when we get away from the Bible does evil occur.  Lacking a Judeo-Christian upbringing, children are more likely to have children out of wedlock. Lacking the two-parent structure, studies have confirmed (again and again) the age old suspicion that children are less likely learn the Bible, and therefore less likely to become good, honest, and productive members of society.

As a nation we have learned to tolerate such behavior.  We have learned to tolerate the fact that atheists do not want the Judeo-Christian Bible taught in public schools.  And there's this old saying: "What one generation tolerates the next embraces."

Today we tolerate households where children are brought up by only mothers. The next generation will just accept it as the way it is.  Today we tolerate abortion, yet the next generation will just accept it as the way it is.  Yesterday we tolerated atheists attempts to remove Bibles from schools, and now it is just the accepted norm.

By becoming increasingly tolerant we are becoming openly hostile to our own nation; we are becoming increasingly tolerant to the morals and values that set us up as a nation.  We have learned to tolerate, and sometimes even embrace, principles that are the antithesis of our founding principles.

Today we have learned to tolerate certain behavior because we are afraid of causing controversy, or because we want to shut them up.  We have learned to tolerate.  We have become a politically correct nation in our attempt to not make waves, or to take the path of least resistance.

Surely it sounds good when you are a teenager to marry the first person you fall in love with.  But when this happens you set yourself up for a lifetime of misery, as you do not have a job, you will not be able to provide the kind of security your child needs.  How could you?  You haven't even finished your education yet.

But more and more we have become tolerant to this sort of behavior.  Look at Bill Clinton as a perfect example.  He was married, and yet he gave in to the temptation of another woman. Chances are he did this more than once.  Because what he did was against Judeo-Christian values, it did nothing but cause controversy for Mr. Clinton.  It tarnished his reputation.

Yet for those lacking Judeo-Christian values, Mr. Clinton's actions were acceptable.  Many of the people who liked what he was doing as president simply tolerated his actions.  They said things like "that's just what men do."

The best way to reverse this trend is to start with yourself.  Live your life as Jesus would.  Read the Bible every day.  Live by the values taught by the Bible, and set a good example for others to follow.

Slavery didn't cause "strife in the black community"

Thomas Sowel, who is a very successful black man by the way, wrote a nice column explaining why people need to quit blaming slavery for "strife in the black community."

He wrote:

Were children raised with one parent as common at any time during the first 100 years after slavery as in the first 30 years after the great expansion of the welfare state in the 1960s? As of 1960, 22 percent of black children were raised with only one parent, usually the mother. Thirty years later, two-thirds of black children were being raised without a father present. What about ghetto riots, crimes in general and murder in particular? What about low levels of labor force participation and high levels of welfare dependency? None of those things was as bad in the first 100 years after slavery as they became in the wake of the policies and notions of the 1960s. To many on the left, the 1960s were the glory days of their movements, and for some the days of their youth as well. They have a heavy emotional investment and ego investment in the ideas, aspirations, and policies of the 1960s. It might never occur to many of them to check their beliefs against some hard facts about what actually happened after their ideas and policies were put into effect. It certainly would not be pleasant to admit, even to yourself, that after promising progress toward “social justice,” what you actually delivered was a retrogression toward barbarism. The principal victims of these retrogressions are the decent, law-abiding members of black communities across the country who are prey to hoodlums and criminals. Back in the 19th century Frederick Douglass saw the dangers from well-meaning whites. He said: “Everybody has asked the question, ‘What shall we do with the Negro?’ I have had but one answer from the beginning. Do nothing with us! Your doing with us has already played the mischief with us.” Amen.

It should be noted here that blacks are responsible for over half of homicides despite making up only 13 percent of the population.  It's a fact that despite being outnumbered by whites five to one, blacks commit eight times more crimes against whites than vice-versa.  It's a fact that interracial rapes are almost exclusively black on white?  It's a also a fact that Barbary slave trade resulted in over 1 million white Christian Europeans being enslaved in North Africa until the middle of the 18th century.  The result of which did not result in an increase in crimes.

The creation and expansion of the welfare and nanny state has moved the nation away from an opportunity society to a dependency society.  This was when the government started sending checks to women who have children out of wedlock.  This did not work well for the back community, where the government became the dad.  When the welfare state started, 77 of black family homes were two-parent households, and today that number has shrunk to 25 percent, meaning that the government has replaced the dad.  One of the unintended consequences was that the government does not teach the morals needed to keep kids out of trouble, hence the increased rate in crimes.

It is a fact that the black unemployment rate for February was 10.4 percent, or double the overall unemployment rate.  The unemployment rate for black teenagers is a whopping 40 percent.  Either these kids aren't being educated, or they don't have the dads to teach them how to get a job and keep it.  Yes, that is something I learned from my dad.

I think it is clearly evident, that lacking a father, black teenagers turn to gangs, which encourage them to turn to guns and violence.  Another replacement for the father becomes the government, which does not teach culture the way fathers do.

Further reading:

1. Allen West: Five facts we must share with every liberal
2. Thomas Sowell: The scapegoat for strife in the black community
3. Human Events:  Black America's real problem is not 'white racism'
4. Wikepedia: Barbary Slave Trade

Okay, so what is a sin anyway?

God gave us free will, the ability to reason, and a sense of moral responsibility, all with the intent that we would use these gifts to live by His law.  When we use these gifts to deviate from Gods law it's called sinning.

Original sin occurred when Adam gave into temptation and ate from the tree of knowledge.  The consequence of this is that all humans are born with an innate desire to sin, making it so that a conscious effort must be made to live by God's law and to receive God's grace.

Personal sins are all the sins that we make by our own personal lives.  There are two types of personal sins:

1. Venial: These usually involve sins that are not of grave matter.  They may also include sins you do not know you are committing, or sins you do not deliberately intend to commit. These sins do not cut you off from the Grace of God as such sins do not mean a person has rejected God.  They may be forgiven by the Sacraments of Eucharist and Reconciliation (Acts of God's Grace). 
2. Mortal: Sins that are merit damnation without reconciliation. These are sins involving a grave or serious matter, either by intentionally doing something severely wrong or by intentionally omitting something from one's life. Such sins cut the sinner off from God's grace. It's the rejection of God (spiritual death) that results in eternal punishment in Hell.  

Tempting each of us are what are often referred to as the seven deadly sins (also referred to as capital devices or cardinal sins), each of which is associated with one of the seven holy virtues, and each of which may be associated with a venial or a mortal sin.

1.  Pride (Vanity, Superbia): An unrestrained or improper appreciation of your own worth.  It's excessive belief in your own abilities to the point that it interferes with your recognition of the grace of God. It is the sin from which all other sins arise.
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2.  Envy (invidia): The desire to own that of which (traits, status, abilities, situation, materials) is not yours.

3.  Gluttony (Gula): Consuming more than what is required.

4.  Lust (extravagance, luxuria):  Inordinate craving for the desires of the body

5.  Anger (Wrath, ira):  Spurning love in favor of fury.

6.  Greed (Avarice, Covetousness, avartia):  Desire for material wealth or gain at the expense of spiritual wealth or gain.

7.  Sloth (acedia):  Avoidance of physical or spiritual work.

Stroking egos: the only way to succeed

Whether we admit it or not, we all have egos.  The most popular people around us, and the most successful, are those who excel at stroking egos.  

Look at just about any Chief Executive Officer, and the president is a perfect example here, and you will see someone who excels at stroking egos. They stroked egos all the way to the top.  

Les Giblon, in his book "How to Have Confidence and Power in Dealing with People," said that the central person in everyone is "YOU!"  When you feel good about yourself, it's because you have an ego.  You love it when someone makes you feel better.  Those who make you feel better are the people you want to hang around with.  You love it when someone strokes your ego. 

In other words, all people have an innate desire for acceptance.  The people who make us feel accepted are the people we want to be associated with. 

He said this works because the most important person in your life is YOU. And YOU have an ego whether you want to admit it or not. And YOU love it when someone strokes your ego. In other words, all we humans have an innate desire for acceptance.

So the best way to succeed in life is to become good at building up the egos -- stroking egos -- of those around you.  Nearly all great salespeople are those who excel at stroking egos.  

Some sales people may excel at speaking, although others do not.  So it is not the gift of speaking that determines success, it's what the salesperson says and does. Those who succeed say and do things that make other people feel good about themselves.  

Giblon said that if you want to succeed, you must understand some basic facts about people.  

1.  All people are all egoists

2.  All people are are more interested in themselves than anything else

3.  All people want to feel important and to 'amount to something'

4.  All people crave approval from others so they can approve of themselves

So whether you are loquacious, taciturn, or somewhere in between, you have the skills necessary to life egos and succeed, according to Giblon.  

Giblon provides us with an example.  

Say you walk into a hotel on the eveing of the 4th of July and you are in a hurry. You have just enough time to check into your room and get to the fireworks.  Yet the desk clerk says the hotel is full.

Now, easily you could become irritated here and start yelling obscenities at the clerk, but the expert ego stroking will have another technique.  He would say something like, "I know your hotel is full, but I bet if there is anyone in the world who can find me a room tonight it is you."

Some people succeed based on technical skills.  Some people succeed simply because of intelligence.  Yet even people with limited technical and intellectual skills make it to the top, and the reason is because they "have a way" with people.

He said:

There are millions of people today who are self-conscious, shy, timid, ill at ease in social situations, who feel inferior and never realize that their real problem is a human relations problem. It never seems to get across to them that their failure as a personality is really a failure in learning to deal successfully with other poeple."

Of course there are people on the other end of the spectrum too, those who are talkative, confident and "bossy."  No one wants to be around these people because they make people feel bad about themselves.  They do not boost egos other than their own.

Regardless of how hard they try, they cannot get people to listen to them, appreciate them, and cooperate with them.  In fact, these people usually have to force people to comply with their wishes.

Yet while they can force people to comply with their wishes, they cannot force people to like them.  They never really get what they want because they have never mastered the art of dealing with other people.

He said that when people have to force compliance it's because they have no confidence in their ability to deal with people.  Lack of confidence therefore results in a low self esteem, and a "low self esteem results in friction and trouble."

Thus, the best way of dealing with trouble makers is to help them like themselves better. They need to have their egos stroked, or they need to be fed ego.  So when you become the person to stroke their egos, you in turn become the person they like to be around.  They will treat you better than they treat anyone else.  

Give that person a reason to like you. Give him a personal reason to give you what you want. 

Bottom line:  Regardless of your personality, the way to succeed is to stroke egos. The way to stroke egos is to make other people feel better about themselves.  So get started!  Go stroke some egos today!

The true nature of liberty

The founding fathers came up with an idea, and it was this idea which separates our idea from the ideas of other nations.  Their idea was that rights come from God, and cannot be taken away by any government.  Other men can deny you your rights, but they cannot take them away.

Contrary to this is the notion that our rights come from governments, which are created by men.  If other men give us our rights, then other men can take them away.  If other men give us our rights, then the people we elect -- such as Obama and Joe Biden and George Bush -- can make laws to take them away.

If our freedom was derived from the pens and pencils and keyboards of men, then our freedoms would not be very secure.  It is based on this notion that men have ignored the Constitution and made laws that take away our rights to choose.

Thomas Jefferson stayed up long nights thinking of this.  By his words and his pen, he wanted to make sure the freedoms that were fought for, the very rights that were denied to 99.9 percent of all men and women who lived before him, would not be denied to any person born in the United States.

The idea he and the other founding fathers devised was that rights were not born out of the minds of men, but born out of a gift of God.  It was in this way that he would assure that no man, no lawmaker, no king, no president, would ever make any law denying us our rights.

Thomas Jefferson wrote:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

He also wrote:

"God, who gave us life, gave us liberty. Can the liberties of a nation be secure when we have removed a conviction that these liberties are the gift of God?"

He was a brilliant man, one who not only wrote to secure his own rights, but the rights of all those who would be born after him.  If you so happen to forming in a womb of a person who doesn't believe you are a life, then your rights are denied you.

If you so happen to be born in a nation like Cuba, you will be born with rights, but they will be denied you.  You may think that you hate Castro, but you will not be able to say it or you will be severely punished, maybe even killed.  If you are born in any communist country, you will be denied your rights, but you will still have them.

If you so happen to be born in the United States, you will be born with natural rights and you will be able to keep most of them.  I say most of them because progressives have made many laws to perfect the world over the past 100 years that will deny you some of your rights.

It is for this reason that we must never stop learning about our founding fathers.  This must be taught in our schools every day, that our rights come from God. And if our schools don't teach it, this is the responsibility of fathers and mothers.

We must always be vigilant to those evil people who wish to deny us our natural rights, as some of them are born right here in this Great Nation. Freedom is not free.  Many good people have put their lives on the line, and many others have died, so that you may enjoy your God given freedoms.

The lesson of Zachariah.

The founding fathers did a ton of research when working to create the new nation. They wanted to make sure mistakes of the past were not repeated.  Based on this research they believed it was important, if not essential, for Americans to have an appreciation for God and His Bible.  They therefore must have been aware of the prophet Zachariah.  

Unlike the prophet Jeremiah, who received many chapters in the Bible, Zachariah received only a few pages. Therefore many children have been named after Jeremiah, and only a few after Zachariah.  So, while Jeremiah is a well known prophet, Zachariah is not a well known prophet.

Perhaps it is for this reason that the lessons of the Book of Zachariah often go unheeded, and to the detriment of societies.  Some even suspect that it was by not heeding the lessons of Zachariah might even lead to the fall of the United States of America.  

The Book of Zachariah covers a the span of time between 518-520 B.C. 

Zachariah was a prophet during a time when the Assyrians had taken over Israel, between 518 and 520 B.C.  Assyria at that time extended from the Dead Sea to the Sea of Gibraltar. The area by the Dead Sea was mushy and mostly deserted and not worth much, but the rest of the land, the land in the West, was very fertile and worth a lot. So the Assyrians had good reason to take over this land.

The Assyrians worshiped false gods, such as those of the sun and moon. The morale of the people fell to ruin, and the economy tanked.  Since the economy was in ruin, King Darius of Persia was able to easily come in and wipe out the rulers of Israel and take over the nation.  He turned the Israelites into slaves.

Zachariah was one of the few who noticed what was going on.  He understood why the land of Judah (Israel) was in such disarray. In fact, he described the destruction of the once prosperous Israel as the result of lack of morals and values. Hence, the people of Judah had gotten their priorities in the wrong order.

The Book of Zechariah says: 

The Lord Almighty told Zachariah to say to the people, "I the Lord, was angry with your ancestors, but now I say to you, 'Return to me, and I will return to you.

What he was saying was that the economy of Judah was ruined because the people started worshiping their stuff more than they worshiped Him. 

In that way, this story is similar to the story of the Tower of Babel. There the Land of God turned to ruin because the people started worshiping false gods and stuff more so than God. They put their stuff before other people. They put their stuff before work. They put their stuff before their children.They put their stuff before learning.  They put their stuff before God.  

So instead of valuing and appreciating their wives, some grew bored of them and moved on to other women.  The divorce rate spiked.  Children were now being raised in broken homes, and did not learn the values their parents once learned. Lacking a firm set of values and morals, there was no incentive to not do things for selfish gain.  Crime rose.  The economy collapsed.  This made it easy for the enemies of Islam to take over the nation of Israel. 

Yet God, through Zechariah, was telling the people of Israel that if they wanted their country back, they would have to get their priorities straight:

1. God
2. Country
3. Spouse
4. Children
5. Other people
6. Other things

The idea that Zechariah described is mentioned later in the Bible too, because the writers wanted to prevent the people of Israel from repeating the errors that lead to the decline of Israel. Matthew 5: 1-48  mentions it and so does Paul to the Corinthians (1).  The ultimate goal hear was the Biblical authors did not want people to forget the lessons learned in the Book of Zacharia. 

Zachariah said:

But my people stubbornly refused to listen. They closed their minds and made their hearts as hard as rock. Because they would not listen to the teaching which I sent through the prophets who lived long ago, I became very angry. Because they did not listen when I spoke, I did not answer when they prayed. Like a storm I swept them away to live in foreign countries. This good land was left a desolate place, with no one living in it.

And he said:

These are the things you should do: Speak the truth to one another. In the courts give real justice-- the kind that brings peace. Do not plan ways of harming one another. Do not give false testimony under oath. I hate lying, injustice, and violence. 

Yet as so often occurs, the lessons of the past are often repeated.  And the mistakes of Islam that occurred during the time of Zachariah are occurring once more in the United States, and in Europe.  

"Then the angel said, 'almighty Lord, you have been angry with Jerusalem and the cities of Judah for seventy years now. How much longer will it be before you show them mercy."

With the Lord's help, the people of Judah once again turned to Him.  They once again learned the importance of fearing God and His Bible.  Priorities were once more placed in the right order, with God as the top priority.

Then God said to His poeple: 

"So I have come back to Jerusalem to show mercy to the city. my Temple (values) will be restored, and the city will be rebuilt... The Lord has promised that he himself will be a wall of fire around the city to protect it and that he will live there in all his glory."

To the enemies of Israel, the Lord said through Zachariah:

The Lord himself will fight against you and you will be plundered by the people who were once your servants."

Zachariah said: 

"Long ago I gave these commands to my people: 'You must see that justice is done, and must show kindness and mercy to one another. Do not oppress widows, orphans, foreigners who live among you, or anyone else in need. And do not plan ways of harming one another.'"

So, as the Lord saved Israel during the time of Zachariah, he will save the nation he created that spread freedom through the land.

He said: 

Once again old men and women, so old men and women, so old that they use canes when they walk, will be sitting in the city squares. And the streets will again be full of boys and girls playing. This may seem impossible to those of the nation who are now left, but it's not impossible to me. I will rescue my people from the lands where they have been taken...

Have courage! You are now hearing the same words the prophets." You must never quit trying. You must believe. You who see what is wrong must not stop trying to change it. You must have courage.

So there is hope for returning America to it's former Glory.  There is hope for a return to unbridled American Exceptionalism.

And the idea of freedom will spread.

In those days ten foreigners will come to one Jew and say, 'We want to share in your destiny, because we have heard that God is with you.'

The first step is to return to traditional American values, which include teaching classical liberalism and the Christian Bible.   

Must the GOP cave on social issues to win in 2016?

So it's 2 a.m. on a Thursday night at work.  I'm sitting with a couple nurses at one of the nurses stations.  This is a time when we are tired enough that we get loose-lipped; this is a time when we start conversations we wouldn't normally start.  But here we are overly tired, and so we get loose-lipped; we get brave.

So we talk about a variety of things, and the conversation, as it often does, segues into politics.  One of the nurses starts to talk about how she is tired of conservatives pushing their social agenda on the rest of us.  She said, "She is just sick of it."

As I so often do, I stay out of the conversation.  Surely sometimes I like to participate, but sometimes I just like to listen so I can get ideas for my blog.  The idea is that if I interject the course of the conversation will be impacted, and if I don't interject I can get a true feel for what other people think.

So I say nothing: I listen.  The conversation goes on to the modern world and the Internet.  The liberal nurse says, "Our parents and grandparents have old fashioned social views because they lived in a bubble; they didn't have access to all the information we do.  If they had access to what we do, they wouldn't be so old fashioned."

"Oh, yeah!" I wanted to say, "I can disprove your theory right here.  I have access to all the same information you do, and it only strengthens my religious believes; my social views.

And I also wanted to say, "Conservatives don't push social issues, that's what liberals do.  Conservatives defend, liberals try to change tradition."

"What do you mean," my liberal friend would have said.

I would have replied, "Conservatives want to conserve culture.  We want marriage to stay in the traditional sense of marriage.  We want to make Detroit better by encouraging men and women to not have premarital sex, and to get married before having children.  Then black children will enjoy the same benefits as the rest of society.  Statistics show that children born of a mother and father are 80% more likely to be productive members of society; they are 80% less likely to end up in prisons, and so on and so forth.  The studies are overwhelming in this regard."

I would have added, if given the chance, "As it is right now, 9 of 10 black children are born to single mothers.  Black teenagers are having sex, and they are having kids out of wedlock.  This means that these kids are growing up with no dads to teach them culture.  They are growing up with mothers who are too busy working to teach them culture.

"So these black kids don't grow up with the same advantages as kids born to a mother and a father.  They end up in poverty, and they end up in jails.  However, as a society, we enable impoverished blacks by giving them foodstamps and welfare and trapping them in their own poverty.  They cannot get out.  They are trapped.  It's a never ending cycle.

"Instead of encouraging marriage and tradition on the poor black communities, we enable them by saying it's okay to have sex before marriage, and it's okay to have kids out of wedlock.  So they never break out of the system.  They never get better.  So call black cities like Detroit go bankrupt."

Of course if I say this the liberal will get mad at me and the conversation would be over.  I would be called radical or old fashioned.  I would be called insensitive to poor black people, even though my actions would give them a better chance of improving their lot in life than anything a liberal would propose.

A similar discussion was started on the blogosphere when Business Insider published a post on June 13, 2015, by Linette Lopez, "Wall Street is getting tired of funding socially conservative Republicans running for president."  The article begins:

"For years, when it came to presidential candidates, Wall Street made huge compromises in order to support the Republican Party. The money men in New York City set aside their socially liberal views in order to support fiscally conservative candidates because that was the only way to get on the same page as the GOP base. The result has been a series of candidates Wall Street's big donors didn't really want.

"It seems those donors are getting tired of that outcome. Hedge fund billionaire Leon Cooperman recently vented his frustration with this arrangement on an episode of Wall Street Week. 'I tend to be more Republican in my views, but socially very liberal. I'm going to have trouble with any Republican that does not disavow a fixation with social issues,' he said."

This is similar to members of the media claiming that the republican party cannot win in 2016 unless it changes it gives in on social issues, to give up our core principles, in order to win.  This is essentially saying that the republicans need to be the same as democrats on social issues to win.  It's poppycock!

The truth is that republicans must not cave on social issues.  They must continue to convince kids to hold on to traditional principles that are proven to work, as opposed to going with the consensus opinion of the times because that's the best way to avoid controversy.

Many of us on both sides of the aisle would agree that our culture is rotting.  It's not rotting where traditional views are held on to; it's rotting where liberal social views have grown roots.

Further reading:

• Wall Street is getting tired of funding socially conservative Republicans running for president
• Media wrong about 2016 GOP prospects
• Fiorina supports civil and traditional marriage

Challenge the theory: 'Think for yourself'

I remember my grandma telling me to think for myself.  That was, like, 30 years ago or maybe even longer ago.  But when you're a kid and your grandma tells you things like that, you really don't understand the true meaning of what she's saying until many years later -- unless you're a genius kid, which I was not.

So you have a consensus that global warming is a fact, and then you have all these people believing global warming is a fact.  Then everybody follows the consensus because that's the path of least resistance, or the path of least destruction. Because everybody else supports a theory, if you oppose it then tension arises.  You are called things like a 'cook' or a 'denier.'

So it's easier just to go with the flow and believe in global warming.

Recently I asked one of my liberal friends during a midnight chat, "Do you believe in global warming?"

He said, "Yes I do."

I said, "Then why has there been no increase in global temperatures in 18 years?"

He said, confidently, "Because the heat is now under the ocean."  He was referring to a study released in the summer of 2014 that showed that the heat has been being sucked into the Atlantic Ocean, and is hiding about a mile down.

Here we are just two guys trying to pass the time; we were walking that fine line of politics, and neither of us wanted to tick off the other (we were both chickens, you might say). So we left this conversation hanging and moved on to something else.

But here is when I started to think about what my grandma said.  I started thinking that with all the information thrown at us about global warming and how it is a fact, it would be so easy to believe it all if I didn't think for myself.

In other words, if you go with the consensus, if you take the path of least resistance, you don't have to think for yourself: all you have to do is believe everything that is said.

If there weren't people who thought for themselves and did their own research, we would probably still be living under the British Monarch, and about 90% of us would be poor.

If people around 1950 didn't start thinking for themselves and begin to challenge the medical consensus that asthma was all in the asthmatic's head, physicians would still be treating asthma as a psychological disease rather than an actual disease.

If you do not think for yourself, then you just become another sheep in the herd. If all you want to do in life is be popular, if all you want to do is be liked, then you might be fine being a sheep.  But if you want to truly make the world better, you best 'think for yourself."

Further Reading:

• The global warming debate: let the children decide
• Atlantic Ocean hiding global warming?
• We must continue to resist becoming sheep
• Theories are just theories

Be careful with platitudes

Two of the most common platitudes used in the political realm are "I want to make a difference" and "I want to change the world."  The problem with these two "sayings" is this: "Who doesn't?"

I watched a Mrs. U.S.A. pageant a few years ago, perhaps the last time I will ever do this, and nearly half the women on stage said something along the lines of "I want to make a difference."

I watch the Disney Channel every day too, and listen as the children are made to say things like "we need people like x and x to show that together we can make a difference."

Look, both Hitler and Stalin had goals to make a difference, and they created fascist governments with social reforms that forced people to give up personal liberties for the good of the state.  Then they forced people to comply by killing them if they didn't.

But don't worry, because they did it to make a difference.

Why is the Fifth Commandment so important?

Stalin once said that, even while he believed in God, he must extricate God and his Bible from society because God teaches capitalism, and capitalism encourages individualism. Since socialism is all about giving up personal liberties for the good of the state, then Biblical teachings must be prevented.

It was for this reason that Stalin got rid of all the churches, and prevented people from learning about God.  It is also for this main reason that most all totalitarian dictatorships fight against Christianity.  Surely there might be other noted reasons for this, but the real reason is because Christianity teaches individualism, and individualism is the antithesis of state control.

The Bible, therefore, gives us all the right to choose, although it holds us accountable for our actions.  For example, a person may make the choice of taking advantage of the poor for personal gain in life, the end result will be eternal damnation.  For example, a person may sacrifice personal gain for the benefit of society, and the end result will be eternal life in peace.

So while the right choices may lead to eternal peace in Heaven, the wrong choices may doom us to eternal damnation in hell.  Yet the end result, according to the Bible, is that the greatest rewards come from the greatest individual decisions.

So you can see that it was in this way that Christianity is what ultimately lead the assimilation from totalitarianism to the creation creation of the U.S. Constitution and American Exceptionalism that followed. It was for this reason that God and His Bible remained the Cornerstone of the American educational system until the 1960s, when the state gained control of education.

There are various names for totalitarianism depending on where you live. In some countries it is called fascism, in others socialism, and still others it's communism. Here in the U.S. it was referred to as progressivism, yet when that name soured it became known as liberalism.  Liberalism is now sour, so many are referring to it as progressivism once again.

The progressives understood that if they wanted to move forth their agenda of perfecting society, they had to extricate the Bible from society.  So that is why they created the state run school system, and why they champion for the "separation of church and state."  It is in this way they prevent Biblical teachings.

So it is here where the fifth amendment comes into play.

Dennis Prager, in his column "You Don't Have to Love Your Parents: But you do have to honor them. The Ten Commandments has it right, for families and society."  He said:

“Honor your father and your mother.” 

This commandment is so important that it is one of the only commandments in the entire Bible that gives a reason for observing it:

“That your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you.”

Many people read that part of the Fifth Commandment as a reward. But while it may be regarded as a reward, the fact remains that it is a reason: If you build a society in which children honor their parents, your society will long survive.

And the corollary is: A society in which children do not honor their parents is doomed to self-destruction.

In our time, this connection between honoring parents and maintaining civilization is not widely recognized. On the contrary, many of the best-educated parents do not believe that their children need to show them honor, since “honoring” implies an authority figure and that is a status many modern parents reject.

Then he adds:

Without a father and mother to honor, children lose out on having one of the most important things they can have — mothers and fathers exercising parental authority.

So, then, why is honoring parents so important? Why does the Ten Commandments believe that society could not survive if this commandment were widely violated?

One reason is that we, as children, need it. Parents may want to be honored — and they should want to be — but children need to honor parents, too. A father and a mother who are not honored are essentially adult peers of their children. They are not parents.

No generation knows better than ours the terrible consequences of growing up without a father. Fatherless boys are far more likely to grow up and commit violent crime, mistreat women, and act out against society in every other way. Girls who do not have a father to honor — and, hopefully, to love as well — are more likely to seek the wrong men and to be promiscuous at an early age.

Second, honoring parents is how nearly all of us come to recognize that there is a moral authority above us to whom we are morally accountable. And without this, we cannot create or maintain a moral society.

Of course, for the Ten Commandments, the ultimate moral authority is God, who is therefore higher than even our parents. But it is very difficult to come to honor God without having had a parent, especially a father, to honor. Sigmund Freud, the father of psychiatry and an atheist, theorized that one’s attitude toward one’s father largely shaped one’s attitude toward God.

There is one more reason why honoring parents is fundamental to a good society. Honoring parents is the best antidote to totalitarianism. One of the first things totalitarian movements seek to do is to break the child–parent bond. The child’s allegiance is shifted from parents to the state. Even in democratic societies, the larger the state becomes, the more it usurps the parental role.

Emphasis was added there by me.  To advance their agenda, first the progressives had to extricate parental control from society.  But the way to achieve this was to create a state run educational system where children are extricated from parental control and molded and shaped into good little progressives.

In the euphoric state-run society, schools are the parent.  It is teachers that kids look up to, and teachers who are taught to indoctrinate children to agree with the state.  It is here where they are taught to believe in man made global warming, and so forth.

So it's understandable that people who champion for state control would also seek to get rid of God from society.  If God is extricated from society, children start to treat their parents as just other members of society who must give up their liberties for the good of the state.

The Fifth Amendment is important because the alternative is honoring thy state. To honor the state means to give up some of our liberties for the good of that state.

How progressives destroyed educational system

Education was once tailored to suit the needs of the student
which created the best and the brightest minds in the world
Now education is a one-size-fits-all system that fails many,
and has resulted in a weakening of the American Dream.

Most of us are used to an educational system whereby our children get up in the morning and are rushed off to state-run schools.  They are then offered an education by trained educators hired by the state. These educators, therefore, have complete control over the minds of our children for 6-8 hours, 5 days a week. This system allows the state to shape and molds their minds.

This is not a knock on individual teachers, as most of them are excellent at their jobs.  Plus it's not their fault the system is the way it is. So keep that in mind as you read on.

The current system began in the 1960s, so it's relatively new.  It was an attempt by liberals to fix something that was working rather well.  However, let's put that aside for a moment and look into what the American educational system looked like from the founding until the 1960s.

Most, if not all, of the founding fathers, were educated by their parents.  These are men who became some of the brightest men in all the world, and they were educated for free at home. Some didn't even have access to books and learned simply by reading the Bible.

This is how it was for most of history.  Parents either taught their children, or groups of parents banned together to hire the teacher of their choosing, someone who had similar morals and values as they did.  These children were taught about God, and they were taught about natural rights and American Exceptionalism.

These kids knew more about American history, and world history, and Geography, and mathematics at the age of ten than most kids today.  It was in this way that the American educational system became the best in the world.  America gave birth to the brightest and the best minds, from which gave birth to the electric light, the refrigerator, the air conditioner, the computer, the generator, the telephone, the automobile, the assembly line, etc.

It was in this way, by the creating of the best educational system in the world, that America became the greatest nation on the planet, the envy of all the world. Despite the failures of today's educational system, and even while 9 of 10 American children grew up on isolated farms, 9 of 10 of these children were literate.

Yet then it came to an abrupt halt.  Why?

First of all, tests for children privately educated were all in the form of an essay, and therefore the child was forced to fully understand the subject and be able to form an opinion on it.  Here is an example of an 8th-grade world history test:

U.S. History (Time, 45 minutes)

1. Give the epochs into which U.S. History is divided.
2. Give an account of the discovery of America by Columbus.
3. Relate the causes and results of the Revolutionary War.
4. Show the territorial growth of the United States.
5. Tell what you can of the history of Kansas.
6. Describe three of the most prominent battles of the Rebellion.
7. Who were the following: Morse, Whitney, Fulton, Bell, Lincoln, Penn, and Howe?
8. Name events connected with the following dates: 1607, 1620, 1800, 1849, and 1865?

That's pretty thorough.  Most Americans today could not answer those questions.  But this is what all 8th graders were expected to know.  I highly doubt most college graduates would be able to answer most of these questions.  

So the downward trend in our educational system began among a small group of individuals in the 19th century who decided that they could make our already great educational system even better.  Yet they didn't see it as great, they saw it as flawed, and they believed they could perfect it by creating rules and regulations.  

What the progressives wanted to do was very unpopular.  People inherently do not want to be told what they can and cannot do, or can and cannot buy.  They do not want to be told they have to buy healthcare, or that they have to exercise, or that they have to eat only healthy food.  

Surely they wanted a perfect society, but the one created by god and his capitalism was about as close to perfection as was ever going to be achieved.

Yet the progressives challenged parents, claiming that the state could better educate their children.  Parents wanted nothing of this, so progressives came up with a plan to extricate God from society, and to do that they needed first to assimilate the educational system from the parents to a state-run educational system.  

Here is how the gradual assimilation from effective parental education to a failed state-run education took place:

1. The first public school appeared in the U.S. in 1821
2. In 1867 the Department of Education was formed, although it was called Office of Education.  It was created on a budget of $15,000 to study how we could make education better (remember, it was already the best in the world)
3. In 1874, the Massachusetts Board of Education said: “The child should be taught to consider his instructor, in many respects, superior to the parent in point of authority.” 
4. In 1919, Oregon made it illegal to not attend a state-run school.  The goal was to squeeze out the religious schools, and religious education. The Supreme Court shot this down, however. 
5. In 1865 the Elementary and Secondary Education Act was passed by Congress and signed by Lyndon Johnson, paving the way for governmental control of education through funding.  Essentially, state-run schools were provided for free, making it so other school systems could not compete. In other words, they essentially forced parents to conform.
6. In 1979 (October 17), President Jimmy Carter signed the Department of Education Organization Act, thereby creating the Department of Education. 
7. 2014, the educational system now receives $72 billion each year, God is not taught, the Bible is not allowed, and the educational system is so watered down that it is failing many of our children.
8. Our educational system is failing, especially in inner 
9. High school graduation rates are 9% lower than the national average, according to the National Center for Education Statistics.
10. High school dropout rate for African Americans in 2014 was 7.4%, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. This is higher than the national average. 
11. As of November 2011, the U.S. is ranked 4th in the world among developed countries, according to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development. 
12. The U.S. is ranked 4th in the world on per pupil spending, and that comes to $11,600 per student. Despite this, the U.S. is ranking among developed countries is 17th in reading, 19th in science, and 26th in math, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. 
13. Despite the failures of the state-run educational system, and the previous successes of the free parental system that existed prior to the current system, people continue to ask for more money to make education better.  Yet despite annual increases in education funding, our educational system continues to fail our kids.

So, while progressives aimed to perfect an already great educational system through government control, they made education worse.  Yet what they did accomplish is taking kids out of the home in order to mold and shape them into good progressives.

As these kids mature into adults, it's difficult to convince them that the root cause of a failed American educational system is that God has been extricated from teaching, and that, above all else, the parents have been taken out of the loop.

Yet these were intended consequences for progressives, and this has resulted in them moving forth their agenda. So they certainly aren't going to insist on making changes in the opposite direction.

In fact, now that they have succeeded in brainwashing many of our children.  Worse, if you don't send them to schools you can be jailed.  Some people home school their children or send them to private schools, but federal regulations have even found a way to taint a child's education regardless of where it is taught.

They also now want to create a government pre-school system to remove kids from their parents even earlier.  Yikes!

Using the state-run educational system, state experts have succeeded in convincing many people that they -- human beings -- are responsible for creating climate change, giving government experts permission to tax and regulate to resolve this problem. This results in even less freedom.

The bottom line is that progressives in Washington have managed to abuse their power to advance their agenda.  This is something George Washington and most presidents prior to Teddy Roosevelt did not do. And considering a majority are convinced this is a good system, it may never be fixed.

 Now progressives are trying to fix a healthcare system that was considered by many to be the best in the world.  Early evidence suggests they are failing at that too. 

Here's how to be the best at everything you do in life... and also how to get to Heaven

If you want to be a better person....

If you want to be the best person you can be.... Id you want to be seen by others in a positive light... If you want to give yourself the best chance of being observed by the bosses, and the best chance of moving up the latter... if you want to get to Heaven, there are basically 2 things you need to do:

1. Love God with all your mind, heart and soul
2. Love your neighbor with all your mind heart and soul.

Basically, you can take every self help book ever made and you can sum it down to these two things. You can even consider the 10 commandments, and they are all basically these two things. Don't kill, don't lie, don't covet thy neighbor's wife, don't covet thy neighbor's property, and the rest all tie into love thy neighbor.

So now we must define love. What is love?

Love is not an emotion or a feeling. Love is a choice. You have to choose to make sacrifices to put other people before yourself.

Examples of this include:

1. A doctor writes a stupid order.  Instead of complaining, you treat the doctor with love and respect.

2. So you and your wife go to a baseball game and it's 90 degrees. It's the best game you've ever watched, and you want to stay. Yet your wife wants to leave in the 5th inning. So you sacrifice the game to make your wife happy. You choose your wife over your game.

3. It's 90 degrees out and you want to sit inside in the air conditioning, yet in order to put food on the table you decide not to purchase air conditioning. You are frugal for love of your family. You choose your family over your own comfort.

4. It's 90 degrees out and you want to blog or gossip online, yet your son wants to play catch with you. Even though you're sweating your butt off, you play catch with a smile on your face.

Bottom line: It's important you keep your priorities in the right order, and God and other people are right up there at the top.

If you love God and other people before all else, you should have to make no further effort at improving your image, the way people view you historically (note to politicians), and your ability to view your own life as a success.

Speaking in platitudes

The following is a column published by Economist Donald Boundreaux in the August 12, 2014, issue of Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.  This one is worth publishing in its entirety.

This post is about platitudes.  To understand it better it's a good idea to have a clear understanding of what platitudes are.

According to merriam-webster.com, a platitude is a "statement that expresses an idea that is not new." Dictionary.com defines it as "a flat, dull, or trite remark, especially one uttered as if it were fresh or profound."

So, basically it's a statement that expresses an idea that is not new, although it's used as though it were.  Some examples of platitudes are:

• Our party is for world peace
• I just want you to be happy
• It's God's will
• Just be yourself
• You look good.
• I want to end world hunger
• I'm for helping the poor 
• I want everyone to have healthcare (who doesn't?)
• Well, here' we are (where else would we be?
• Only the good die young (then I don't want to be good)
• For a greater list of platitudes you can click here.  Or, better yet, click here. 

That said, here is our column of the day.  

Unsustainable Platitudes

Platitudes are a poor basis for policy. The reason is that, no matter how melodious they sound, platitudes are practically meaningless. People who utter platitudes often seem to be saying something meaningful when in fact they're merely stating the obvious.

A good way to test if someone is speaking in platitudes is to ask yourself if you can imagine a normal human adult believing the opposite.

Suppose someone informs you that he favors policies that promote human happiness. Can you imagine, say, your neighbor responding, “I disagree. I favor policies that promote human misery”? Probably not.

If you cannot imagine any normal person disagreeing with some proclamation, then that proclamation is a platitude. It tells you nothing of substance.

Consider today's fashionable calls for “sustainability.” The academy, media, cyberspace are full of people proclaiming support for policies that promote economic and environmental “sustainability.” So whenever you hear such proclamations, ask if you can envision a sane adult sincerely disagreeing.

You'll discover, of course, that you can't imagine anyone seriously supporting “unsustainability.” Therefore, you should conclude that mere expressions of support for “sustainability” are empty. And they can be downright harmful if they mislead people into supporting counterproductive government policies.

Substantive issues involving sustainability invoke questions that have non-obvious answers. For example: At what rate must the supply of a resource fall before we conclude that continued use of that resource is unsustainable? Fifty percent annually? Ten percent? One percent?

Because the correct answer to this question depends (among other factors) on how much humans care about the future — and because there's no good reason why we humans should care about the world as it might be many years from now as much as we care about the world as it might be a few days from now — policies and activities that will eventually result in the depletion of some resource are not necessarily unsustainable in any sense that really matters to humans today. If the appropriate human time horizon is, say, 500 years, then activities that will cause petroleum supplies to be exhausted in 550 years are “sustainable” within our relevant time horizon.

Economically sophisticated readers will respond, “Not so fast! Even if we won't completely run out of petroleum until well past the time that is relevant for human beings alive today, falling supplies of petroleum will start to raise the price of petroleum long before 500 years from now.” This claim is true — but it's a reason to worry less, not more, about “sustainability.”

A rising price of petroleum serves as a spur to sustainable practices. First, the rising price prompts consumers voluntarily to cut back on the use of petroleum. Second, this rising price creates incentives for entrepreneurs to find or create petroleum substitutes. And the steeper the price rise, the stronger are these incentives.

Nearly every resource commonly used today likely has potential substitutes — recall that newly discovered petroleum in the 19th century quickly substituted for wood, coal and whale oil. So to focus only on “sustainability” of resources commonly used today is to lose sight of the fact that these resources likely have substitutes that will become available if supplies of today's resources fall below critical levels.