Allergies and Toleration

    A few years ago a study showed that children who are exposed to dirty environments like barns and hay fields are much less likely to develop allergies later as adults  (see allergy study).    The reason for this is that children's immune systems are much more active in their early years and by being exposed to MORE allergens they become less likely to develop allergies (which are really cases where the body over-reacts to an allergen to remove it from the body).   From the study, doctors proposed that putting our children in a allergen-and-bacteria-free-bubble their first 3 years does more harm than good to them (explains why my brother who grew up in the city has more allergies than myself who grew up in the country).

     So also, one could make the same argument in regards to political correctness and the concept of
toleration and being offended.   We all too often hear of cases where school teachers and principals make decisions on ending some school activity or dress code because some child might be offended.   In the effort to protect these children's feelings or emotional states a long list of banned activities is created and enforced with Nazi-like strictness.    This PC-bubble-wrap we engulf our children in will only hurt them more in the future as adults as their minds have not grappled with differences in behavior, style of dress, political views,  religious convictions, language or mannerisms.   Like our bodies re-actions to allergens (foreign substances the body does not recognize), these children will grow up LESS tolerant of differences rather than MORE tolerant.    Our jobs as parents and adults dealing with children is NOT to shelter them from the world, but instead help them to understand it and accept it.    If we take away every opportunity to expose them to these differences then we have done them a major disservice.   After all, wasn't that the whole purpose of the desegregation of schools back in the 60's and 70's?   Wasn't it to expose them to different kids from different neighborhoods?  

All that seems to have been forgotten now.

    Take for example the case of Lt. Col.  Sherwood Baker of Rochester NY who as told he could not walk on school property dressed in his Army uniform.   A school official said that they ban all military uniforms from on campus as it might "confuse some children and some might be offended by it".   (see article here ).   Let's imagine that such a child did exist on the high school campus.  and that boy or girl might be offended by a military person (their parents may be leftists who think all military is bad) and it may cause them to be angry inside as they walked to their next class.   But that boy or girl might realize that in their next class they have a test or quiz coming up and they need to focus their attention on the job ahead rather than on the military person walking down the hallway.   Their minds just re-enforced an important ability to staying on task and staying focused.   They also learned to not let their emotions rule them and to "tolerate others of different views".    Had the father gone home and changed his clothes, that boy or girl would have been robbed of the opportunity to learn those invaluable life lessons and abilities.  

They would have missed a chance to grow into adulthood. 

All joking aside...

   I love a good laugh as well as the next guy (often my wife and kids make fun of my laugh when I get going... too loud I guess).  Comedians for ages have made fun of their leaders and I think for the most part that is good.   Even in the first century,  Rome joked about their emperors.   Take for example of all people: Nero.  He fell in love with one of his male servants so much so, he had the lad castrated and then performed a mock marriage ceremony between himself and the servant.   The joke around Rome after this was:  "Too bad Nero did not have mother like this" (meaning Nero would never have been born).

   The late great Johnny Carson took mocking leaders to a whole new level.  His late night monologue was heard by millions of people and it was said that when Johnny mocked you in his monologue, your career as a politician was probably over (or at least on its way out).  This was no better shown than when Johnny mocked then President Nixon's Watergate scandal.  It was only a few days later that Nixon was resigning from the office.

   Where I draw the line, however, is when comedians use their comedy to make light of issues that are not light at all.   Having people laugh at the demise of other people who are trying to stay alive is not funny at all.  Recently Stewart used his show to paint the Israeli's as being unfair in their treatment of Gaza.   Making Israel look unfair that they can protect their people with their "iron dome" and Gaza cannot, even though Hamas in Gaza is launching rockets constantly at Israel and using schools and hospitals as human shields to protect their rocket launching facilities.  As the Prime Minister of Israel put it:

"Israel uses rockets (iron dome) to protect its citizens while Hamas uses citizens to protect its rockets".

    By making people laugh at these attacks, Jon Stewart and others like him create an illusion where
everything (including relentless bombing of Israel by Hamas) is a joke and no one is being hurt or killed in the process.  His viewers are thereby lulled into not seeing the real seriousness of the problem.   If  Stewart lived in 1938, would he be making light of  Kritallnacht ("Night of Broken Glass") when the Germans forced the Jews out of their homes and businesses into slums?    Would he joke that Jewish window repair people became overnight millionaires??  Would he joke that the Jews were in the process of selling back their new homes in the slums for more than they were bought for?   

     Sadly, we have become a society where it seems that nothing is serious anymore and our young people are so misinformed.  Many of our young people treat shows like Colbert and Stewart's as semi-news shows in which the news anchor presents the days issues in a light hearted format that is easy for their sensitive and drug-infused brains to assimilate.  Sort of like when a mother bird regurgitates its stomach contents into the baby birds mouth so he can more easily digest it so also Stewart and Colbert take very serious subjects and dumb them down for their audience to receive.  To see this, you only need to watch on-line videos of young people being questioned on our college campuses about our world's events and see that many have no clue what-so-ever on what is going on around them.  Many of these young people will say with pride that they get their news from watching Jon Stewart on Comedy Central.

  To them the world is a joke and their audiences laugh as the world burns.

Jetsoneers are growing in numbers

     I always laughed when I watched "The Jetsons" and saw George Jetson go off to work where he did nothing but push buttons all day.  His actions were almost mechanical in nature in that they seemed to require no real thinking on his part, yet he considered it to be "work".   He would just sit at is desk pushing the same damn button over and over again until it was time to go home and then complain how worn out his button pushing finger was at the end of the day.


   Now as an engineer I think we are starting to see the beginning stages of George Jetson coming into real life.   I am amazed how little engineers these days come out of school knowing.  I have interviewed countless candidates and all to often I see a real lack of knowledge and logical reasoning.  I often want to ask these candidates "What are they teaching you these days in school?".   Not only do so many come out not knowing basic engineering principles but also lack any ability to "think outside the box".    It's like as if they have gone through college filling out "multiple-choice" type tests (you know the type where you darken in the little oval and a computer grades it) and never really having to think.  That is the problem with these computer-graded tests is that it GIVES the student the answer and all they have to do is deduce the BEST possible answer from the 4 given.   Life is not like that.  It does not always give you the answers.  Most of the time you must think through the problem at hand and determine the answer for yourself without any help.

   It frustrates me to have people ask me what I perceive as the most basic of questions when they have a problem.   Take for example compiling a C program.   I have had countless encounters with engineers who have come out of college who seemingly have forgotten their C/C++ training in school (it's a required language to learn in all engineering colleges).   They will compile some C code and get an error like:

     error:  undeclared variable: count

     Now for those who don't know C, you have to declare any variable you use in C and tell it what type it is.  Is it an integer, a floating-point-number, or even a string of characters.   This is the MOST basic of error messages and it practically tells you what is wrong.  Yet I get countless calls from engineers (I now like to call  Jetson-eers), who need help understanding these basic problems.  (note: I have NEVER taken a C class in my life and have become proficient in it by learning it on my own)

     Another example just happened as I was writing this blog.  A Jetson-eer instant-messaged (IM) me to help with a problem.  A program was aborting (exiting from an error) and giving a error message



#0  0x00002aaaab4ddd90 in strlen () from /lib64/libc.so.6
#1  0x00002aaaab4afdb0 in vfprintf () from /lib64/libc.so.6
#2  0x00002aaaab4b5458 in fprintf () from /lib64/libc.so.6
#3  0x00000000006dbd6e in dpi_IdiPcuRegisterAccess (rxwb=1 '\001', 
    address=0x7ffffffdd4a0, beb=0x7ffffffdd490, wdata=0x7ffffffdd480, 
    rdata=0x153f008, rdecode=0x7ffffffdd470)
    at /nfs/fm/disks/fm_cnlgt_00431/sle.gen10/pipegt.DISK6/src/units/pcu_bfm/pcu_bfm.cpp:3112
#4  0x000000000095d09e in bhv__CheckCallerFunctions ()
    at tbx.dir/c_files/tbxbindings_cview.cxx:68557

this is the path to the model

 
Looking at the file it references (it even tells you what line to look at. line# 3112)

if (fp != NULL) {
      fprintf(fp,"TIME=%12llu ns: %s addr=0x%08x rdecode=%d, beb=%x wdata=%08x  rdata=%08x_%08x\n",
                  GetTime(),         address[0], rdecode[0], beb[0], wdata[0],  rdata[1], rdata[0]);

      fflush(fp);
      }

     The problem area I have highlighted and put in bold font.  The fprintf function wants a "string" argument printed, but none of the arguments given is a string variable (granted the C compiler should have thrown a flag but it didn't).    This problem took me under 20 seconds to figure out and yet it seems I am the only one who can do this.

     I think we are training engineers to just do repetitive tasks and not to think anymore.   When I first started at this company I was:

• building models
• synthesizing designs
• fixing design problems
• writing programs and scripts
• designing test boards (designed 3 in 1 year)
• developing bus functional models
• finding ways to run hardware at slow speeds (I do hardware emulation)
• finding ways to interface TTL logic to non-TTL logic devices
• modifying BIOS assembly language code
• helping debug problems
• plan new projects

And that was just in 1 year.

But today, most engineers I see would only have 1 or 2 things to list for their years accomplishments and that seems fine to many managers.  They are happy I guess that all they have are well trained monkeys to press their computer buttons (hopefully in the right order) to get their jobs done rather than forward thinking engineers developing new innovations to advance the field.

    It is this reason that I agree with most educators that our current system of computerized testing is negatively influencing our next generation of thinkers.  We need our schools to get back to teaching our kids HOW to think and not WHAT to think.  Common-Core only takes our current system and puts it on steroids with even more testing and even less thinking involved which if it does unchecked will only result in more ....

Jetson-eers

I desire mercy.... not sacrifice

     I have been thinking about this a lot this week and then this morning at church as we heard Jesus say,

"Go and learn what this means, 'I desire mercy and not sacrifice'

  In today's sermon we heard the story of the 'Good Samaritan' and now a man who was not Jewish had taken care of stranger who was Jewish and beaten down by robbers and even paid for the mans needs out of his own pocket.    In our world today you could maybe replace the characters with "tea partier" and "democrat" or  "gay" and "straight people" or "Jewish" and "Muslim" or any other combination of people who don't agree.   

    Too many Christians today seek to "sacrifice" themselves for the faith thinking it will earn them points with God even though it is Christ's sacrifice on the cross that has earned for us all the points with God we would ever need.   Recently I read an article about a couple who owned a bakery who did not want to make a wedding cake for a gay couple feeling it would infringe on their faith and they would be sinning against God.   Like the story of the Good Samaritan where a priest and levite both pass by the beaten man on the road.  To touch a man bloodied and possibly dead would possibly make them unfit to serve in the temple until they had gone through a long process of cleansing.   So also this couple felt it would sully them as well.   Jesus commanded us to be "in the world but not of the world".  Would baking a cake make them guilty of being gay?   Of course not.    Instead, it would give them a chance to share their faith.

    At the same time I begrudge the gay couple for suing the Christian couple for obeying their consciences.  Will everyone agree with you all the time?  Should you take to court everyone who disagrees with you on every point?  Of course not.   You would be spending your entire life in the courtroom if that were so. 

    What this world needs more of on both side is this...

     GRACE!

    Grace says I disagree with you but that is okay.  Grace says I am willing to accept those differences and move on in my life.   Grace says I will still be there for you even though we are different. 

    Does it mean that homosexuality (or other sexual sins) no longer matters?  Absolutely not.  It's all about context.  Paul writes in I Corinthians 5:12

¹² What business is it of mine to judge those outside the church? Are you not to judge those inside? ¹³ God will judge those outside. “Expel the wicked person from among you.”

     The context being whether or not that person considers themselves to be a member of the body of Christ or not.   If they don't (and they are outside the church), then we are not to pass judgement on them and be loving towards them for they don't know any better.   If they are inside the church then they are not being true to the faith and we should in love expel them so they might come to their senses.   In fact in the very same book of I Corinthians Paul has them do this to a man who is sleeping with his father's wife (most likely a second marriage) and then in 2 Corinthians he has them restore the man after he has relinquished the relationship. 

    In both cases, inside the church and outside, we are to always act in love to reach them for Christ so GRACE may abound.






    

GIVE IT BACK!

   GIVE IT BACK!
  
   This is something heard by parents in their homes or teachers on the playground by children who
have been robbed of something that belongs to them.   It could be a ball, a toy or even an item of clothing such as a hat or coat.   The command often goes unheeded by the one who currently holds the item.   Often that person tries even harder to withhold the item even more until hopefully an adult steps in to right the wrong.

    While that is all good for childhood playgrounds and backyards, it has now made its way into the world of adults as we see people picketing businesses with signs demanding their "fair share" of the profits the company has acquired.  
  
Adults are the new children of the 21st century

     Personally, I have come to loath the phrase
    
             "Give back to the community".

      I see it everywhere these days as countless corporations are pushed to spend more of their own profits to help the communities they reside in.  You can't watch a WalMart or Target commercial these days without there being some reference to this slogan.  Some ads exist solely to tout what they are spending their money on.  Whether its planting trees, fixing up homes, providing money for schools or giving food to shelters its all done under this premise.   While these are all noble causes and I have nothing against us helping our neighbors,  I detest this phrase for multiple reasons. 

    First of all, the implication something was "taken from the community" for you cannot "give back" unless first you "took it from".   This phrase implies that the company stole the money from the community and in its generosity it has decided to pay some of its ill-gotten goods back.  But unless you are a con-artist who sold an empty bag of goods,  your customers did not get ripped off at all.  In capitalism, both the seller and the buyer come away with more than they left with.  This may seem
implausible but its true.   Say I am hungry and I go into Wendy's and by a single hamburger and a soda.   The bill comes to $5.78 and I pay the amount and receive what I had requested.  I am better off because I have staved off starvation and have more energy to continue my day.  Wendy's is better off because they have my $5.78 added to their profits from which they can satisfy the needs of their stockholders.  I win.  They win.  We both win.   No where in the transaction did Wendy's pull out a gun and force me to give $5.78 for nothing.  We both willingly went into the transaction.  Only in the case of the worker not putting what I requested in the bag would I demand Wendy's "give back" my money.

   Another reason they should not be shamed into "giving back" is because they have already given to the community in the first place.  They have already provided our communities with programs that stimulate our citizens and keep them out of trouble.  Its called:

JOBS

  By providing JOBS to our communities we are supplied with work (which keeps us productive as humans) and money to spend in our communities.  Let's consider that first perk of "jobs" : productivity.   We don't often realize that work in itself, regardless of income level, is beneficial to us because it helps fill our time and stimulates our egos.  This benefit cannot be measured in dollars and cents, a stock market chart or even a government report.   We have seen cases in the news of people who became wealthy over night by a lottery or hitting it big at Vegas.  Often these people are found later to have ruined their lives because they filled their purpose as humans with consumption rather than with production.  The ones who didn't ruin their lives could be found still working at their "day job" even though monetarily they did not need it.   A job helps fill the soul in ways no government handout could ever do.  It says "I did this today!"  whereas a welfare check says "You did nothing today".   These companies supply our citizens with personal pride and self love and for that we should be thankful.

    Secondly, taxes collected by our communities from these companies fills their coffers and is used to pay for schools, roads, parks and clinics.  The "give back" campaigns therefore amount to a second level of taxation.  Call it a "voluntary tax".   Those in Chicago are familiar with these "voluntary taxes" as small businesses would often be besieged by mobsters who would come in and offer a deal for them to buy "insurance".  Referred to as a "shake down" businesses would comply for fear that their business would be burned down in the night.  These tactics are used by progressives who visit

these companies and offer their "give back" programs as a insurance against possibility that groups of citizens may organize and campaign against the company and destroy their standing and reputation.  They are the REAL bullies in our world and they TAKE from our companies with no intention of ever GIVING BACK.

    Like the childhood bullies who stole our basketballs,  the best way to diffuse their power is not to demand they give it back, but instead to pretend we don't have need of it anyway.  Often the bully will drop the item in frustration as they can clearly see you are not playing their little game.  So also, companies should tell these bullies to go away and pretend they don't matter.  Eventually they will see that their power is gone and go away
  

Better ONE man should die....

  In the gospel of John (John 11:50) the high priest says of Jesus,

"You do not realize that it is better for you that one man die for the people than that the whole nation perish."

   It is nothing new for people to think that a little evil can make the world a better place to live.  Back during the cold-war many liberals felt we could make a deal with Russia and accept their form of government as being just as legitimate as ours.  They called their policy "accommodation" and it sacrificed the rights and freedoms of those behind the iron curtain for our own peace and prosperity.  Reagan said of this in 1964,

"We cannot buy our security, our freedom from the threat of the bomb by committing an immorality so great as saying to a billion human beings now enslaved behind the Iron Curtain, "Give up your dreams of freedom because to save our own skins, we're willing to make a deal with your slave masters."   

    Today, some feel that their peace and prosperity is threatened by those in the Middle East.   Arabs in those countries tell us to not stand with Israel and to leave their side.   They say to the world "Let Israel die and we will go away and leave everyone in peace".   Sadly, many have believed their message of "Peace thru Annihilation" and want the US to look the other way for in their view:

"Better for one COUNTRY to be annihilated than for the whole WORLD to go into chaos and war."

Let me leave you with the time honored words of Alexander Hamilton,

"A nation which can prefer disgrace to danger is prepared for a master, and deserves one."

I see a pattern emerging

   Pattern matching is an important ability in engineering (or really any job for that matter).  The ability to spot patterns of behavior can help in debugging a problem in the lab for example.  Sometimes you are looking at a pattern of memory that has been written in correctly and you need to use that information to deduce where the data or address is getting messed up.  Or another area is if the problem only occurs on a certain machine or network but no where else.  Doctors use pattern matching as well to deduce what causes things like allergic reactions or outbreaks of flu or other diseases.  Bank auditors use pattern matching to see illegal activity that occurs in their systems.

    Patterns are common place.  Even in human behavior.  Because we often are in a hurry we do things the same way without even knowing it.  We drive the same route to work.   We shop at the same stores.  We get gas from the same stations.   It simplifies our life and we don't have to think as much.   Patterns for the most part are helpful and save time and energy.

   But some patterns can be destructive.  You may think I am going to discuss patterns like addictions to porn, drugs , alcohol, work etc..  but I am not (although it would make for a good blog later).  Instead the patterns I want to discuss primarily concern the behaviors of our DOJ Attorney General Eric Holder.  It seems to me that when things get tough on the White House, out comes Eric Holder to "re-ignite the race discussion".   This causes the media to take their focus off of what is currently under discussion (border issues, VA scandal, etc).   I say this because it happens too often and without provocation.   Take for example the most recent occurrence in which Holder is being interviewed on ABC News.   With all that is going on in the border and terrorism threats to our country, Eric Holder decides that a discussion on race is more applicable at this time and especially in regards to those who oppose him and President Obama.  He claims to be able to look into the hearts of these opponents and extract the real reason for their dislike of the presidents policies... racism.  Oh he says its very "subtle" and "hidden" from view but its there.   It may not be as obvious as the Clippers owner Donald Sterling... but its there ... and he knows it.  

    Those who have fought in war know the use of creating a  distraction when you are under fire.  The enemy is attacking a friend who is pinned down and often the best way to get them out is to launch some grenades in another location to cause the enemy to change their position and their attention to another area so your guy can get out.

   This is the tactic Eric Holder is using and the media is only more than glad to help him use it.  No one ever calls him on it either in the media.  Why didn't ABC in their interview stop Eric Holder and say "That's interesting.. but what about what is happening on the border?  Why aren't we stopping this influx of Central Americans from coming in?"     Instead they take the bait and change the discussion just as Eric Holder wanted them to.

   Eric Holder doesn't really care about racism.  He only wants change the conversation to something else.... ANYTHING else.

    

We need a refugee camp

    Many of us have probably experienced a family or friend that was in need of a place to stay for a while until things got better or they could find a job.  A few years ago a friend of mine was in dire straights (he suffered a mental breakdown).   I wanted to help him (and did visit him to see what I could do), but at the same time I had my own issues to deal with at home that needed my attention as well.   It was a tough time and difficult to say I could not help.   But that is often the case for many people.  We all have limited resources, limited amounts of time and energy.   We wish we could do more but we simply can't without hurting our own families in the process.
  
    People fleeing war torn areas is really nothing new.  All around the world we have seen people walking hundreds and even thousands of miles to get away from violence inflicted upon them by other countries or even factions within their country.   For example, in the past couple of years a civil war in Syria has caused millions to flee to their neighboring country Turkey and the people of Turkey and the UN have stepped up to help these people.  Hopefully the civil war in their country will end (and hopefully Assad is outed as president) and a better country emerges for these refugees to return back to.

   We in the US are now experiencing a very similar influx of people fleeing their countries.  These countries of Honduras, Guatemala and Nicaragua however are not war torn regions or countries experiencing genocide.  Instead these countries are experiencing the effects of decades of experimentation with Communism and Socialism.  These experiments have brought nothing but economic destruction and hardship on these people and those in power are unlikely to give it up.   The people of these countries are  willing to walk (and drive) hundreds and thousands of miles to find a better place to live.   Our president sent out the invite a few years ago by telling the world that we were not going to enforce the immigration laws on women and children who come here.   They heard it loud and clear and decided to take the risk of coming here.  

    There is are  some distinct differences between what is happening in Turkey and what is happening here.   The biggest difference is that in Turkey the Turkish people are not being asked to assimilate these refugees into their own countries.  They are not being asked to give up their jobs, their homes, their schools and their medical care.  The refugees are held in a single place where they are fed, clothed and taken care of but they are not allowed to venture out into Turkey and take jobs, vote, gain government assistance or lay down roots.  

    Also, we here in the US are not in a good position right now to help these people.  Our president has ratcheted up the national debt to almost 18 Trillion dollars, our economy remains very weak and our unemployment is stagnated.   In the past we might have welcomed these refugees but right now we just cannot do it.   

    I believe the right thing to do is set up a refugee camp in Texas.  There we can help these children (hopefully reunite them with their parents) and eventually send them back to their countries.  We also need to call in the Texas National Guard to secure the border and prevent further lawlessness from occurring on our borders for we simply cannot harbor all of these countries people without collapsing our own.   

   Is America closed?   Maybe for short while until we can get our own legs under us again and revitalize our economy so we can be in a better position in the future to help those whose countries have failed them.

Equality: What does it mean?

   Raised as a Lutheran I was brought up learning Luther's Small Catechism in which a common question is raised: 

"What does this mean?" 

   Every 13 year-old boy or girl is expected to memorize large parts of the catechism and recite it word for word in a ceremony called the "examination night".  Doing so insures that future generations of Lutherans are well versed in what they believe and not be taken in my false doctrine.
 
   Maybe as Americans we need to take a page from the Lutherans and put together an American "catechism" in which our children will learn the REAL meaning of freedom, liberty, and justice. We can teach them for example what phases like "All men are created equal" really means.

   For many people our minds conger up visions of black, white, hispanic, asian people standing shoulder to shoulder and arm in arm.   We view it though a racial lens and not through a political lens thinking it only applies to ______-Americans.   Instead our founders were referring to its relationship to a KING and NOBILITY and not in regard to each other racially.   Thomas Paine penned one of the most important books up his time called: Common Sense (from where I get the title of my blog).  In this small book, Paine systematically destroys the idea of the need for a king.   He shows that both religiously and non-religiously why having a king is illogical and the idea of "royal blood lines" is utter nonsense.  His book becomes the spark behind the phrase "All men are created equal" that now emblazons our Declaration of Independence.

    Our country showed the world that people can rule themselves without the need for authoritarian ruler to dictate their lives and other countries soon followed suite.  We were established on this very principle that the same laws apply to all people ( something that was not done under British rule which allowed for the nobility to live under different rules than the commoners).   This is the EQUALITY they were speaking of when they wrote those words.  

    But many today have erased their original meaning and are trying to replace it with a more communistic for in which all people must have all things equal at all times.    We see a ruling class at work in Washington that arrogantly flaunts itself as if the rules that apply to you and me don't apply to them.   Take for example the IRS.  We are ordered to keep all of our records for 7 years (maybe even longer) to the point we almost become "hoarders" for if we don't we may face extreme penalties and even prison time.   But if the IRS loses its emails and destroys information against laws forbidding such actions, well... that's okay.   Are all men still created "equal" or are some people a little more equal than others?


















   

  

Sometimes you have to let death come

   My father was a wonderful man.  The son of a Lutheran pastor he grew up during the depression in a small town in Illinois.  He entered the Air Force  in order to attain a college education.  He taught himself how to play the organ and became a elementary Lutheran school teacher.  He taught everything from single grades to one-room school houses.  In 1989 my mom passed away and shortly afterward, my father retired from teaching after 32 years he fulfilled a life-long passion of becoming a Lutheran pastor and preached for 8 years. 

    Then he developed Alzheimer's and slowly over a few short years he became a shadow of his former self.   Our family tried everything they could to get him care at home but it was too much and we put him in a care home that specialized in Alzheimer's patients.   They worked with him as much as they could but still the disease progressed.  Eventually he forgot how to even swallow and it was this problem that was what took his life.   He was eating some jello and it went down the wrong way.  The nurse sent for help but it took longer than expected to help him and he passed away.

     The United States is like my father riddled with Alzheimer's in that it is a shadow of its former self.   America has forgotten who they are and what they stood for in the 19th and 20th century.   The parasites have embedded themselves deep in its flesh convinced that what they are doing will create a better more "equatable" country and they will not let go until the host is dead.

    Death may be the only answer left.  Maybe our problems as a nation will not end until the radicals have their way and our country lives out their warped fantasy of a Socialist America.  Maybe after a 100 years the people will rise up again and learn that liberty does not come without bloodshed.  Maybe our children and grandchildren will need to suffer under the oppression of Socialism/Communism for them to be re-animated and America to come back to life.

A life of appeasement is not worth living

     You've probably heard the phrase:

                    "If you don't stand for something, you will will fall for anything".


     I was listening to Ronald Reagan's famous 1960 Destiny speech in which he makes the argument against "accommodation" saying that accommodation is really appeasement and that by appeasing the enemy you eventually have to answer the "final ultimatum"... and what then.  He gave this speech at the height of the cold war with communist Russia and in the speech says that the path to true peace is not backing down, but instead standing up to our enemies and telling them "there is a price we will not pay, a point at which they must not advance".


     I started to look at this speech at a more personal level in my own life and our children's lives.  It began when I heard of Riley Stratton, a girl in a Minnesota high school, who was forced to hand over the password to her laptop and Facebook account to her principal under the threat of dismissal (there was also a police officer in attendance as well).  She was "broken" by her masters and ended up complying with their demands (while in tears).   Like that girl we are all called upon to "accommodate" the government and their demands on us and as a Christian, I can agree with that for the most part (Paul tells us "if taxes, then pay taxes, if honor , then pay honor") but that does not mean we need to appease them and their demands.

     We all just want to get through life.  I can hear the parents now telling their daughter, "just give them the password and move on.  You will be in college next year...don't make any waves".   Then their daughter will go on to college and there too she will be forced to accommodate the college and their beliefs.  She again will be told, "Just give them what they want ... you will be out of there soon and working on your own".   Then later she will be out of college and working (maybe for the government) and she will be pressured to accommodate the workplace and make unethical decisions so she can make her way up the ladder.   All the time, accommodating, retreating, backing down and losing more and more of her soul until there is nothing left.

     I find it interesting that in Reagan's speech he talks about how the Russian leader said that when the final demand is made on the USA,

"Our surrender will be voluntary because by that time we will be weakened from within: spiritually, morally and economically".   

     What does that have to do with accommodation?  The answer is everything.   If you go back to my first paragraph, I say "If you don't stand for something, you will fall for anything".  You see, living a life of appeasement never ends well. By accommodating EVIL in our lives, the GOOD in us shrinks (never the other way around).  By appeasing we give evil a base to work from in our hearts and souls and in the end we must face the final demand:  total and unquestioning control of our lives.

     Going back to the girl in Minnesota, what would happen if she refused to hand over her PRIVATE information to the school principal (who has no legal authority to request such information in the first place).   Well, she might have been suspended for a time, maybe even have to leave that school to go to a different school.  Maybe that mark on her record would keep her from going to the ivy-league college she dreamed of and would have to live with going to a state-school instead.  Because she went to a state-school she might have to take a less prestigious job and start on a lower rung of the corporate ladder.

    But she would have maintained her soul intact.

    Jesus showed how priceless one's soul was by using hyperbole when he said, 

"What does it profit a man to gain the WHOLE world and yet lose his own soul".  

    He said this to get across to us the importance of not accommodating evil in our lives.  Reagan spoke of this as well in his speech when he said,

 "You and I do not believe that life is so dear and peace so sweet that it should be purchased at the price of the chains of slavery".   

     We all need to stand together and reclaim our rights as citizens and stop appeasing the government and handing over our rights.  Whether it's our right to not be searched and seized without warrant, or our right to privacy or our right to say what is on our minds and in our hearts, or our faith in God, or our right to protect ourselves and our families or even our right to a speedy trial by our peers.  We all have this constitution in common.  We may not agree with each other on other matters, but we all need to fight for each others rights to be free citizens. 

     To end, I would like to finish with Reagan's final words in his "Rendezvous with Destiny" speech. 

"You and I have a rendezvous with destiny.  We will preserve for ourselves and our children this the best hope yet for mankind on earth or we will sentence them to take the final step into a thousand years of darkness". 

Using Capitalism to Control Free Speech

   There's an old Marxist phrase that says:

      "The capitalist will sell you the rope you intend to hang him with"

     It essentially means that money means more to the capitalist than his freedom (or in this case his life) and no truer words were ever spoken than these as we see this played out today in our country.

     I remember when the term "politically correct" (PC) first came out.  At first it was used by people on the left from college campuses and we were taught that it was just about us policing our speech to be more tolerant for others.  Black was replaced with African-American.  Chinese was replaced with Asian-American.  Alternative-Lifestyle replaced words like gay, queer or homosexual.  For the most part we bought into the new terminology and accepted it as fashionable or accepting of others (although I was always confused why "white" never was given a PC term and continues to be used today).

    But the march of the PC police did not simply stop with our terminology.  Today the left hunts down those with politically "incorrect" views and ideas regardless of whether those views are of any concern.   By using the capitalist system, they have managed to do what they were never able to do through the power of the government: instill fear into the American mind.  Communists for years tried to use government to squelch speech and thought, but were stymied by our 1st Amendment rights which guarantee these freedoms to its citizens.   So they turned to the "free market" system to do their dirty work by taking the freedom out of the free market and like the phrase says, the capitalists have been more than will to "sell them the rope".

    Take for example the former CEO of Mozilla, Brendan Eich, who in 2008 gave $1000 to support California Prop-8 (a traditional marriage proposition).  His PERSONAL contribution mysteriously becomes public knowledge in 2014 and a pro-gay organization mounted a campaign to boycott Mozilla.  Fearing lost revenues the board decided to fire Eich from his position rather than stand up for Eich's right to hold his own personal views.    Did Eich not hire gay workers?  No.  Did he write a company policy on hiring gay workers? No.  Did he have his company give money to anti-gay organizations?  No.  Did he have his company put anti-gay statements on their companies website?  No.  He merely gave a $1000 to a political organization from his personal account on his own personal time.

    Another more recent example is Miami Dolphins safety Don Jones.  He recently made a tweet about being offended by viewing Michael Sam (NFL's first openly gay player) kissing his boyfriend on national TV after being drafted.   The Miami Dolphins acted quickly having fined Don Jones and barring him from team activities until he has finished "training classes for his recent remarks".   So now it is not enough to be fined, he will have to go through extensive "brainwashing" in order to keep his job as a professional football player.  Did he say he would not play with a gay player?  No.  Did he make remarks about what he would do in the showers with a gay player? No.   He just stated how he felt about what he saw.

     Then there is the story of the Benham brothers.  Twin brothers who own a home remodeling company were to be stars of their own show on HGTV called "Flipping it forward" in which they would help poor people renovate their houses.   The two brothers are outspoken and unabashed Christians.  A group called "Right Wing Watch" dug up statements they made on gay marriage and abortion advocated for the show to be boycotted.   HGTV, like all the rest,  crumbled like a cheap lawn chair and caved to the pressure by pulling the show.    Of course after doing some research (and who has time to do that these days) it can be found that the statements used were completely out of context and misstated altogether.   Were the two brothers only helping Christians? No.  Where they espousing gays be rounded up and re-educated?  No.  Were they advocating for abortion doctors to be killed or lose their license to practice? No.

   Finally there is the story of Don Sterling, owner of the LA Clippers.   Recently his views were made public by an escort who illegally recorded him making racist remarks regarding black people.  First off, he's a fool and an idiot! But the last I saw there's no law against being either (if it were Washington DC would be void of people for they would all be in jail).  The NBA, fearing reprisal from the black community now wants to force the sale of the LA Clippers from Donald Sterling, while still others want to make it even MORE permanent by making it illegal for anyone of Sterling's descendents to EVER own an NBA team (punishing the children for the sins of the father).   Did Don Sterling pay black players less than white players?  No.  Did Don Sterling order only white players should be hired?  No.   Did Don Sterling order only white people can be season ticket holders?  No.  Did any of us even know Don Sterling held racist views before this came out?  No.  Did Sterling have separate seating for blacks and whites?  No.  He is just a stupid old man who is too trusting of the people around him.

Putting Profit Over Principle

    In each of the above cases, a corporation fearing a loss of revenues (no matter how small) is willing to trample on a persons freedom of thought and expression (even if that expressions was thought to be private).   But these knee-jerk decisions are shortsighted.  Like the capitalist selling the rope to the hangman, eventually his willingness to sell off freedom will come back and kill him.  Recently a conference took place in Madison Wisconsin, called the White Privilege Conference in which teachers, administrators and high school students were indoctrinated for 3 days on the idea that "racism drives everything in our country"  and that "capitalism == racism".   Hidden video has been leaked out from the conference showing some of the most vile and hateful statements on race I have ever heard.  In my opinion, the PC police will not stop until they control everything in this country.  Will organizers boycott any company that does not have a black (or at least non-white, non-heterosexual, non-christian) CEO at their helm?   What about their board of directors?  How many of them are white or non-white?     Have they given money to "racist parties" (sarcasm added) like the GOP?   Are they racist if they believe in small government and low taxes?

     Maybe you consider me to be an alarmist, but many also sneered and mocked the PC movement in the 90's and now lament as to where it has gotten us.  If the "White Privilege Movement" takes root in our country like the PC movement we will see our country slide into the same racial hatred that Nazi Germany experienced in the 1930's.   To me, the White Privilege Movement is not much dissimilar than the Aryan Movement used to by Hitler to rouse hatred of the disenfranchised in his country.  Hitler used this hatred to put him into power and once in power he no longer needed these people and had many of them murdered in "The Night of Long Knives".  

    Finally, this "racial-bullying" will not end until the companies wake up to what is happening and see that the noose is tightening around them and they stand up to these PC bullies for the rights of their employees to believe and speak what they believe.   Until they do that the PC bullies will only get more extreme and more demanding until free speech is a faint thing of the past.

    Otherwise company execs, the only question left for you is this:

                         "Do you want your noose made of nylon or hemp rope?"