Oh, I should have written this a couple of weeks ago...

Okay…so I keep hearing how irritated people are with all the election flyers, and especially the automated calls, and the surveys.

Some of you are so irritated that you say you won’t even vote for a candidate who employs the auto call method…

…in which case, I don’t know WHO you WILL vote for…because I think they all do it.

And why do they choose to use this irritating tactic?

I submit to you that these tactics have become necessary because of the irresponsibility of the voters. And I’m not referring to those who are ultimately irresponsible in that they don’t vote at all. No – I am referring to the many which do not know the candidates, or the issues, but feel that they SHOULD vote. They fill out their ballot by ticking the names they recognize, or simply looking for an ‘R’ or a ‘D’ to make a mark by. They are voting in ignorance.

So, in effect, the candidates must find a way to go to the voters, as the voters will not come to them.

And thus, you get the automated calls…and lots and lots of flyers.

Surveys can have a different purpose. They are used to gauge a candidate’s support, and define the demographics in which he is lacking. I suggest that when you receive a survey call, come out strongly for your candidate. You will be identified as someone who does not need to be persuaded by either candidate, and will be less likely to be called again. Help out your candidate by showing him where to spend his money, and where not to spend it.

If you do not want to talk to anyone about anything having to do with the election, hang up on the automated call, or politely interrupt the live caller and say so. You are doing the kind thing by saving their time.

A more important issue when it come to automated calls and the blanket bombing of the flyers is that too many times that votes come down to name recognition. If you have a lot of money, you can buy a lot of name recognition. So the independently wealthy, or a candidate supported by national/regional organizations can, in effect, buy a seat in local government.

This should not be so, and it is possible because people are irresponsible voters. I believe everyone who is registered should take this responsibility seriously and should vote…but if you are voting, do some research! Take the time, first, to know what you believe and support, then seek out the candidate that most closely lines up with that. Go beyond the flyers, as these are often akin to sound bites edited without context.

I can hear your weary sighs…I know you’d rather not have to mess with all the conflict, complex issues, and confusing claims…But it really matters! Every year (not just presidential years) there are people and issues that will affect your everyday life here locally. Have a say – and don’t just brush off the election process because you find it irritating. It MATTERS! You can influence your quality of life if you avail yourself of the opportunity.

“The penalty a man pays for not participating in politics is to be governed by men worse than himself.” -- Plato

It's just like that fairy tale...

…where the emperor had no clothes.

I was embarrassed yesterday as I watched Congressman Adam Smith, from our fair state of Washington, comment on the Benghazi situation. He was a guest of Chris Wallace on Fox News Sunday.

Chris challenged him to respond to the newly disseminated facts that talking points about the attack were revised 12 times before they came out with the false story that a demonstration against an internet video resulted in violence and the deaths of our Ambassador to Libya, and 3 others.

Despite early video of presidential spokesman, Jay Carney, insisting that there was only one change made to the talking points about the Benghazi attack – they changed the term “consulate” to “diplomatic facility” – our honorable representative would not admit that it was a lie.

He danced round and round the evidence, obfuscating, and denying that a lie was perpetuated.

He looked absolutely stupid.

I watch this and wonder what kind of a man Rep. Smith is that he willingly supports the lie when clear evidence to the contrary is presented. Does he not have at least a modicum of personal pride and integrity that he would not shame himself? How can he justify denying the obvious? What is the payback to him for making such a fool of himself?

His behavior points to the likelihood that he is committed to some agenda (on which I will not speculate) more than he is committed to truth. What use is he if this is so? He’s willing to play the fool more than he is willing to serve his constituents. What service can he render his country if he will not deal with reality? He’d rather believe a fantasy, than make his government better, or work to defend our State Department employees from further danger.

From what I saw yesterday, I would recommend that his district throw the rascal out! You can’t trust someone who chooses to be blind to truth for whatever reason. He’s wasting the office.

I can’t fathom what he hopes to accomplish by this behavior.

The ban on shame...

Yesterday I heard Dave Ross say this: "We have to know how he {Tamerlan Tsarnaev} got radicalized because, since this is something anybody could do, we have to figure out how to make sure nobody wants to."

This could be pretty difficult because we live in a society that seems to be committed to making everyone comfortable with their choices. Let's make alternative lifestyles normal. Let's make pot legal. Let's reward the lazy with a free ride. Let's explain away evil as the result of a bad childhood ...and so on and so on...

A lot of effort has been spent making shame shameful. I don't think it's helping.

At the base of this is the rejection of absolutes...If you reject shame, you reject that there are truths that apply to everyone. How can you make something unattractive without imposing shame on the activity? How can you make sure nobody wants to bomb innocents without imposing your truth on them?

It seems that moral relativism is all well and good -- until somebody you love gets hurt. Then come the demands to impose your particular belief system on everyone.

But you can't have it both ways...There ARE absolute truths -- absolute morals, and shame is appropriate when they are flouted.

Certainly, every culture has misapplied shame, and probably always will to some extent, but we are foolish to attempt to make everyone feel good by eliminating the emotion instead of the action.

A little bit of shame could go a long way, in my opinion.

Stop talking about the Second Amendment...

I’m weary of hearing about gun control and I think that its opponents are making a fundamental mistake in their argument.

First, let it be said that I am not for more gun control laws. I don’t want our Second Amendment rights to be diminished…And I don’t own a gun.

 

But, correct as it may be, focusing the argument against gun control as a loss of our rights and our freedoms is a mistake. Consider the audience they are trying to persuade.

The right to bear arms is a right most people do not exercise. Frankly, most people don’t care if they can get a gun or not. They don’t see a loss where there is none for them. It’s someone else’s problem. More gun control laws won’t have a direct effect on most people’s lives, and when this is so, they don’t really care about the subject. The loss of rights argument is moot to them.

They do care about 20 little kids who were killed by a madman.

If gun control opponents want to gain support from the general population, I think they should be focusing on the fact that the regulations being proposed will not work. They wouldn’t have protected those kids and teachers at Sandy Hook, and they won’t stop the next madman either. This is what they should be talking about – over and over and over. It should be stated as fact that laws cannot make us safe and secure. Security from the law is dependent on people who have the will to obey it. Madmen are not usually amongst this group…

The protracted discussions on what gun laws to implement; the endless arguments; the laws that will be passed are just a monumental waste of time, and a dishonor to those who died.

We are a foolish people indeed to think that a law about how many bullets you can carry will protect us from evil. If that is our solution to the tragedy at Sandy Hook, I would be embarrassed to look into the eyes of those little angels who faced the darkness and tell them it’s all okay now.

Because it’s not…and until we resolve to meet evil from a position of strength, it won’t be.

And that’s what gun control opponents should be talking about.

Newtown, Conneticut

Newtown, Connecticut…quite far away from my corner of the world, but my heart is still heavy with the grief of the losses suffered there. Just a few years ago, I was a school secretary and would have been the first line of defense for any threat that tried to enter the front door of the elementary school.

I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about what I would have done…and how my heart would have been crushed to fail at such a mission…and how those women in Connecticut gave their all, literally, to save the kids.

And still, not all of them were saved.

So immediately, there is the rush to outrage, and blame, and demands that such tragedies be prevented…

But what if we can’t? What if it is no one’s fault? What if we cannot always stop evil?

Our immaturity causes us to demand new laws that, in reality, cannot produce the desired result. Even worse, we are satisfied with the symbolism of such laws and consider the problem addressed, resolved.

We are content to say, “Someone should stop that!” instead of, “I will not let that happen again.”

Evil is real, and present in our world. Thank God that we are not blasé about the loss of life, the terror and the tragedy…But there are countries in our world where it is an everyday occurrence…where it is never a given that everyone will come home each night. It is good for us to realize that security is not guaranteed, nor can it be. There are madmen out there from whom there is no protection. And we are fools if we think that we can quarantine evil by laws directed at the lawless.

Rather than look for someone else to secure our safety, we need to wisely consider how we will face the madman when that day comes. Perhaps it will be our day to give it all to save some…something that cannot be done unless one is certain of their purpose, and believes that ultimate security is in the hand of God.

In the meantime, perhaps we should be standing against evil by coming alongside the family of the difficult child, the mentally ill, the addicted, the out-of-control rebel. The first defense against evil is not another law, but for each of us to love our neighbor…in deed and in truth…

“Ask not for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee…”

Favorite Excerpts & Quotes from Atlas Shrugged...

Words from Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand

"So you think money is the root of all evil? Have you ever asked what is the root of money? Money is a tool of exchange, which can't exist unless there are goods produced and men able to produce them. Money is the material shape of the priniciple that men who wish to deal with one another must deal by trade and give value for value. Money is not the tool of moochers, who claim your product by tears, or of looters who take it from you by force. Money is made possible only by the men who produce. Is that what you consider evil?"

"An honest man is one who knows that he can't consume more than he has produced."

"Money will always remain an effect and refuse to replace you as the cause. Money is the product of virtue, but it will not give you virtue and it will not redeem your vices. Money will not give you the unearned, neither in matter or in spirit."

"There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals, one MAKES them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws."

"A viler evil than to murder a man, is to sell him suicide as an act of virtue. A viler evil than to throw a man into a sacrificial furnace, is to demand that he leap in of his own will, and that he build the furnace besides."

"I work for nothing but my own profit -- which I make by selling a product they need to men who are willing and able to buy it. I do not produce it for their benefit at the expense of mine, and they do not buy it for my benefit at the expense of theirs; I do not sacrifice my interests to them, nor do they sacrifice theirs to me; we deal as equals by mutual consent to mutual advantage..."

"...the purpose of a military fleet is to protect from violence the citizens who paid for it, which is a proper function of government."

"There was an air of luxury about the room, but it was the luxury of expert simplicity...This was Mullingan's concept of wealth, she thought -- the wealth of selection, not of accumulation."

"Mr. Rearden," said Francisco, his voice solemnly calm, "if you saw Atlas, the giant who holds the world on his shoulders, if you saw that he stood, blood running down his chest, his knees buckling, his arms trembling, but still trying to hold the world aloft with the last of his strength, and the greater his effort, the heavier the world bore down upon his shoulders -- what would you tell him to do?
          "I...don't know. What...could he do? What would you tell him?"
"To shrug."

Part II: The Sanction of the Victim

The second theme from Atlas Shrugged that has occupied my thoughts is the concept of “the sanction of the victim”.

There are many pages of dialogue explaining to the wealthy steel magnate,  character Henry Reardon, that his indifference to the increasing taxation and intrusion of his business by the government had made him complicit in the final takeover of his company. In effect, his passivity was a sanction to those who were abusing his rights.

Reardon’s friend admonishes: “By their {the government} own statement, it is they who need you and have nothing to offer you in return. By their own statement, you must support them because they cannot survive without you. Consider the obscenity of offering their impotence and their need – their need of you – as a justification for your torture. Are you willing to accept it? Do you care to purchase – at the price of your great endurance, at the price of your agony – the satisfaction of the needs of your destroyers?”

Wow! I had to ruminate over this. The inevitable question is: How am I sanctioning my own victimization? What should I be doing to avoid giving sanction to the government when they diminish my rights?

I have to admit that after all these months of consideration, I don’t have many good answers. But – I do see many regulations and government requirements in a new light, and take time to examine my response to them. I do not want to be giving the sanction of the victim. I believe, as God says, that I am subject to the governing authorities, and respect that God has put them there. However, I will not be passive or silent any more in my response to any attempt to diminish my rights as a citizen.

And that conviction to action does scare me, but I feel it very strongly, and even more so after the revelations of the 2012 election.

I think this is the most valuable concept I learned from Atlas Shrugged, though there are many more that have become part of my thinking as well. It’s a very good book, worth the many pages of reading, and the discipline of thinking through the principles therein. My only wish is that it was written with a underpinning of belief in God. Ayn Rand, the author, was an atheist, and so it makes for some curious reading when she writes of “motive power” as your moral code. A moral code based on what? Character John Galt describes that moral code “which holds that man is an end in himself and not a means to any end of others”.

I couldn’t disagree more…and I think how much greater this story would be with the inclusion of grace and redemption. Ayn Rand missed out on the beauty of that – but nonetheless, it is a book that has informed my beliefs and convictions, and has made me a better thinker.

It has also given me a vision of where our country may be going, that is, the consequences that may be ahead. While the possibilities frighten me, again I take inspiration from the Tramp’s words: “…I think it’s a sin to sit down and let your life go, without making a try for it.”

Or to let your country go…I’m more determined than ever to protect our right to freedom, and the country that is the freest in the world.