They don't know what they are doing!

    Ever go to a city park and see a person screaming at a tree or a park bench?  Clearly you know that this person is not in their right mind.  They, of course, do not know this.  To them what they are doing is completely sane.  You don't get angry at people like this but instead you pity them and pray they get help.

    Jesus uttered these words from cross, "Father, Forgive them for they know NOT what they do!"

    While it may appear that Jesus was saying this to the Pharisees standing below, I think those words were for ALL of us. Like the insane person in the park, he looks at us with pity and feeling for us as he sees us make bad decision after bad decision.  Bad choice after bad choice.  As Isaiah says, "We all like sheep have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way".

    As I watched the movie "The Passion" , I was impressed by Mel Gibson's use of Satan wandering around in the background during Jesus' trial and flogging.  Not acting as a spectator, but instead as an instigator of the evil being done.  The people doing the evil were not doing it fully on their own accord.  They were merely puppets on a larger stage and the battle was not between Jesus and the Jews or Jesus and the Romans, but was really a battle between Jesus, the Son of God, and Satan.

  Last Friday I watched a video showing a Planned Parenthood spokes person give testimony to a Florida state board on a bill called "Infants Born Alive" in which a baby born after a botched abortion should be allowed to get medical attention.  The spokes-person for Planned-Parenthood , Alisa LaPolt Snow, argued against this bill siting that the decision should be between the mother and the physician.  One congressman argues, "I think that at that point the patient would be the child struggling there on the table. Wouldn't you agree?"   Her look was one of confusion. She looked as if she had never considered that as an option before. (To see the rest of the discussion go here)

   At first I was angry that someone could be so cold and heartless towards a newborn baby.  But now I see that I must have "the mind of Christ" and say to them as well, "God forgive them for they know not what they do".  They don't see what they are doing as evil.

  Like the person screaming in the park, they are lost .... they just don't know it.

Should we ban all digital cameras?

   Recently during a heated discussion between Senator Cruz (TX) and Senator Feinstein (CA) over gun control, Sen. Feinstein referred to assault weapons as a form of "pornography".  Using the illustration that pornography is not covered under the 1st amendment, so also AR-15's should not be covered under 2nd amendment.

   Here is the problem with her analogy.

   First, pornography is considered an illegal USE of the 1st amendment.   Owning an AR-15 is NOT an illegal USE of the 2nd amendment.   Using it to kill people who pose no threat to to your life or property (self-protection) is what is illegal.   Second, we do not prosecute law-abiding citizens for what they posses (felons do not fall in this category) but instead for how they USE their possessions.

   For example, owning a digital camera is not illegal.  Many of us own them (in fact I haven't seen anyone use a film-camera in over a decade).  They are very handy tools that make recording our lives very simple.  No more do I have to go to the store to develop pictures and then store them in albums or boxes.   I can simply download them and share them with family and friends over the internet.  Because of that, it has allowed me to have more privacy as to where I went on vacation and who I went on vacation with.  But it has a dark-side as well.  Since the advent of the digital camera child-pornography has been on the rise. 

No longer do they need to have their own private darkrooms to develop their filth.  Now they can snap away and send their sick photos to others who are diseased in their thinking as well.   Should we ban all digital cameras since these devices can be misused by some and do harm to thousands of children?  After all, they are the "tool of choice" for child-pornographers.



 Of course not!

   Instead we prosecute the offenders and those who misuse their RIGHTS (1st or 2nd) to do others harm. The owning of an AR-15 should not be illegal and it should be protected under the 2nd amendment, while the illegal use of such weapon should be prosecuted and heavily discouraged.

Removing a tree

      Recently I had a couple of trees removed from our property.  Both were Bradford Pear trees and were a lot of work to maintain.  Combine that with the fact that their limbs become brittle as they age and their roots become shallow and invasive and you can see why we needed to have them removed.  I called a tree-removal person who was recommended to me by our neighbor and he came over to give me a quote.  I feared he would not be able to remove the tree in the backyard given its close proximity to our house and our neighbor's house.  But to my surprise he said it would be no problem at all.   His method was what I call "eating the elephant" method (one piece at a time).  It was amazing watching him work (all alone mind you).  He took out the lower branches from the ground as much as possible.  Then he climbed the tree and tied a rope to as near to the top of the tree he could go (about 30 ft).  He tied the other end to himself and then would shimmy out onto the other branches and slowly take each branch apart little by little.  The trick he said to me later is to NOT get ahead of yourself and take too much off as it could damage what is below (he would take what he cut and throw it down into a "safe area").   "Patience" he said is your biggest need.  You need lots of it to do this kind of work. 

   















    So to it is with ANYTHING you want transformed.  Whether its turning a tree into a stump or transforming a capitalist system into a socialist/communist system.  Transformation can be accomplished if you move slowly enough and we are now witnessing what they are doing.  Many of the branches of our political system have been already "trimmed".   The Supreme court and Federal courts no longer concern themselves with the original meaning of the Constitution but only with their modern interpretation of it.   The Executive Branch writes its own laws in the form of Executive Orders or in recess appointments when they don't want to involve Congress.   Congress no longer reviews their laws in the Constitution and passes "taxes" as "penalties" (healthcare bill) so they can move things through the Senate.  The FBI can now invade homes without warrants if they propose you might be a "terrorist threat" (whatever that means) and the military has been granted the power to arrest and detain indefinitely citizens "suspected of terrorism" without trial or legal representation (Can you say "disappear" ?)

    But now it seems the Democrats have made some hasty decisions. Their patience is running thin now and some say they are getting ahead of themselves.  I believe many of the baby-boomers who were raised in the communists-60's are getting up in age now.  The end of their lives is coming near and they want to see the grand-finale before they die and so they have picked up the pace now.  They are no longer removing small twigs and minor branches but now are in full main-branch removal mode and we below are beginning to feel pain.

   Let's hope it's not too late yet to yell "STOP!"

The right to home-school

Well it appears the WH has stepped into "it" again, by making the claim that "no one has the right to home-school their children".  This statement was made recently when the WH decided to get involved in a deportation hearing involving a family from German that fled to the US in 2008 because they faced imprisonment by the German government for home-schooling their children.  In Germany, all children are required by law to attend public school.  Uwe and Hannelore Romeikie are the parents of 6 children and risk losing their children if they return back to Germany. 

This is where the Obama administration stepped in it.

They involved themselves in the asylum case and claimed that "no one has the right to home-school their children and the German government has done nothing wrong".   Yet this same administration just recently released thousands of illegal immigrants from jail that came here ILLEGALLY, but this family which immigrated here LEGALLY and is facing losing their children for their religious freedom.  

If I were a home-schooling parent right now (and I wish I had) I would be shaking in my boots right now.  If this is our President's view on home-schooling in other countries, then it will not be long before this WH has them in their sights as well.

Write the WH and tell them that Christian families need protection too.

Do our politicians not own a dictionary?

Our California and US lawmakers are in need of dictionaries.  They are now considering passing a "sin tax" on guns and bullets sold here in the golden-state (its not real gold anymore... just painted gold).  Their aim is too make owning or operating a gun so expensive no one will want to.

At the Federal level , Rep. Linda Sanchez, D-Calif., proposed a bill that would impose a 10 percent tax on "any concealable" firearm. The revenue would be used to help fund a national gun buyback program. The bill is still in committee.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/03/11/lawmakers-eye-new-taxes-for-guns-ammo/#ixzz2NFbMsZIu

If you Google the word "infringed" you get the following



Looking at the 2nd definition it clearly means to "limit or undermine".   Yet our politicians in DC have yet to learn this meaning in their committee meetings on "limiting" our 2nd amendment rights.

This is what is known as a political-two-fer (2 for 1).   They get to limit our access to guns AND they can raise more revenue for more crappy government programs.  To them its a win-win!

But for us it's a lose-lose.

Contact your representatives immediately!

Divorce Lawyer Ad on the refrigerator

I once heard a person on the radio give the advice that if you want your husband to be faithful, put a newspaper advertisement for a divorce lawyer on the refrigerator as a reminder that things can get ugly if he goes astray. 

Now of course this is not a sentimental piece of advice you want to hear on Valentine's Day, but I thought it was fitting in our discussion of the Constitution.  To me, the 2nd Amendment is the "divorce lawyer ad" and its purpose is to remind the federal government that things can and will get ugly if they choose to go astray and abolish this contract we have with them.   Its very presence stands as a daily reminder and incentive to listen to "WE THE PEOPLE".   It is not the "Hunting Amendment" or the "Self-Defense Amendment" or the "Marksmanship Amendment" but instead it is the "Well Armed Militia Amendment".  

Do I advocate for people donning camouflage and running around in the woods with high-power rifles? ABSOLUTELY NOT!

To me, the 2nd amendment is the LAST LAST LAST resort of a country in which its government decides to end the relationship by abolishing the contract that had bound them to the people (The Constitution).    Like marriage, we have the tools to fix the relationship.  We can vote those who are in office, out of office.   We can bring our grievances to the Supreme Court and have the laws changed or abolished that take away from our rights to life liberty and the pursuit of happiness.  If necessary, we can run for office and change how things operate in Washington (Please Dr. Carson take this into consideration!)

Baking a cake without eggs

No I haven't started writing a blog about healthy eating now.

I was baking a cake for my wife's birthday (German Chocolate of course!) and the recipe called for 3 eggs.  As I was baking the cake I thought about the importance of the eggs in the mixture.  They add the "glue" to the cake and help it "bind it together".  If I left it out, the cake would just crumble apart into a giant chocolate blob.

The Constitution is a recipe for a successful Republic, with checks and balances to allow the government to function well enough to get the important things done without trampling on the rights of the citizens.   But like my cake recipe, a key ingredient is necessary to bind it altogether. 

Religion.

Religion is the egg of our Republic and just like the egg doesn't need the cake mix (it's just fine being an egg), the cake mix cannot work without the egg.   Religion provides the ability and the necessity that men be honest, decent and truthful. To me, a person who knows he will be called accountable for his actions here on earth will be more inclined to be honest, decent and truthful.

Bill Clinton pushed the "honest,decent and truthful" meter far to the left and those who supported him told us "what difference does it make what he does in his private life?".  Since his reign, we have seen things only get worse and not better and we are paying the price for it.

Until our country is willing to put religion back into our politics this "cake" is destined to become an ugly pile of slop no one will want to have.

Fear ruled the day

Fear ruled the day when..

• The progressives newspapers of the 20's wrote about the dangers alcohol on society
• we passed the 18th amendment to ban the production and sale of alcohol making law-abiding citizens criminals over night.

• The Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor 
• we interred 110,000 Japanese American citizens in camps on FDR's executive order 9066, taking away their land and property (many never got their farms back after the war).

• The Cold War with Russia caused 
• the black listing of American citizens based on "hear-say" arguments under McCarthy

• When 19 hijackers flew 4 planes into 3 buildings and killed over 3000 American citizens
• we gave away our right to not be unlawfully searched and seized to the TSA
• we passed the Patriot Act allowing the FBI to do warrant-less wire-tapes and searches
• we passed the defense bill giving the military the power to arrest indefinitely without trial any American citizen if they are "suspected" of terrorism.

• When 20 children and 6 teachers were gunned down by mentally disturbed boy
• Congress wanted to put limits on the 2nd amendment banning the sale of certain guns and limiting the amount of ammunition a person can carry.

Will we ever learn?

Do we really know the true meaning to the words:

        "The land of the FREE and the home of the BRAVE"

No one needs...

It all starts with those 3 simple words:  "No one needs"

No one needs.... a 32 oz. soda  (Mayor Bloomberg of NYC)
No one needs.... a incandescent light bulb  (Obama's EPA)
No one needs.... to expect privacy with their emails (Patriot Act)
No one needs.... to make over a million dollars (Obama's Tax)
No one needs.... to fail (Bank bailout and our Education System)
No one needs.... to learn from their mistakes (Housing bailout)

Also used by progressives is the direct opposite preamble: "Everyone needs...."

Everyone needs.... cheap health care
Everyone needs.... a college education
Everyone needs.... a house
Everyone needs.... an equatable wage to live on
Everyone needs.... easy access to abortion

But where does it end?

Using those words, a government can claim any and all decisions and property of its citizens.  As I wrote in an earlier piece, what is at the very heart of this discussion is the question of "self-determination".  Progressives hate that word with a passion, because to them the average citizen is too stupid to make the right choice and therefore all bad possible decisions must be taken away.   They liken us to little-children who must be watched over and protected with safety-locks, video-monitors, fences and dull plastic toys.  They see themselves as the parents who know better in all circumstances what is best for all of us.

[NOTE: I find it ironic that they still trust us to vote for the right politicians]

One must also find out where these progressives have gotten this new found power to peer in ALL of our lives at once and make these assertions.  Do they have magical powers?  Do they have crystal balls to gaze at?  Are they God?  But of course they don't have any of the former abilities, but no one ever calls them on it.  

Today the discussion is all about gun control and what kind of guns and amounts of ammo the citizen needs to protect themselves (forget the fact that the 2nd amendment was written to allow citizens to protect themselves from an out of control government that ignores the constitution).  Senators snub their noses at us and tell us, "6 bullets in a clip should be adequate protection from any home invasion you might encounter".    To them, they are being more than gracious after all many feel that if left up to them we wouldn't be allowed to own anything this dangerous in the first place.

But let's consider a less life-or-death area of life. Let's consider the category of "Climate Change" and how the words "no one needs" could be used to take away more of your self-determination

• Can the government decide how big of a house you can live in?  
• No one needs a house larger than 2000 sq-ft.   
• Can they dictate what kind of car you drive? 
• No on needs a car that goes over 100 mph.   
• Can they dictate how many children you can have?  
• No one needs to have more than 2 children.   
• Can they dictate how far you live from work?  
• No one needs to live in the suburbs.  
• Can they dictate how you get to work?  
• No one needs to drive their own car to work you can all take the train  
• Can they dictate what your thermostat is set to?  
• No needs to have their house heated above 66 or cooled below 78.

Now of course some of those statements look absurd in today's world (like not having more than 1 child), but given enough time and brain-washing from the education system, any of these can become reality. 

The question isn't IF ... but WHEN.
  

My "needs"

Piers Morgan on CNN LOVES to ask his guests on his show, "Who needs an AR-15?"  or "Who needs a magazine that can hold over 10 rounds of bullets?".  The answer he wants is "No one" of course.

The question I would like to ask him is "Who needs a house over 4000 square feet in size?".  It's the same basic question, and most likely he would be as hesitant to give an answer of "No one"  for the same reason as I would not give him the same answer for his question.  It shows the absurdness and the audacity of it all.  Who are YOU to question MY NEEDS!   I alone will determine the level of protection I need now or in the distant future and not you!

The whole gun debate falls on 2 central basic human rights.

• Self-Determination
• Self-Preservation

Self-Determination
It's very easy for people like Piers Morgan to sit on their lofty perches and snobbishly look down their noses at us little-people and determine for us what our "needs" should be or not.  Our country was founded on the principle that that individual knows best.   They know best, because they see the evil that is around them.  They are there in the trenches.  If they live in Detroit they might need more protection.  If they live in suburbia, they might (for the time-being) need less protection.  But government can only implement a "one-size-fits-all-approach" for all 300+ million of us and it doesn't work.  Our founders said that they trust the average citizen to be good, decent, caring and to do the right thing.  To people like Mr. Morgan I say, "I ALONE WILL DETERMINE MY NEEDS IN THIS LIFE AND NOT YOU!"

Self-Preservation
From the time we are born (and even conceived) life wants to go on living.  Every animal on this earth yearns to live another day and see another sunrise.  The founding fathers called this "nature's law" and to violate this law was wrong.    Even those who don't believe in God, must accept at least these fundamental and self-evident principles.   To prevent or inhibit a person's basic need to protect themselves is a crime against humanity itself.

People like Piers Morgan have elaborate security-guards following them to and from home each day and most likely each of those guards is carrying one or more guns with 6 or more bullets each.  If necessary his security detail could unleash a flurry of bullets on any would-be assailant.  Piers Morgan would need to be the one to determine if that level of protection is warranted or not to preserve HIS life.

All I ask is to be given the same basic right as well

Never again!

The 2 words, "Never" and "Again" are diametrically opposed to each other and seem odd to put them together.  On the face they seem like an oxymoron, but these are often the words spoken at tragedies like Sandy-Hook by politicians who want us to believe that their next law will somehow prevent such tragedies from re-occurring.

After WWII, we uttered these same words as well, for after the attack on Pearl Harbor we imprisoned thousands of law-abiding Japanese-American citizens.  We did this because we were afraid of them.  They were a different culture which we did not fully understand and we were very suspect of their patriotism.   Because we wanted to sleep better at night we took away the right to "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" from a group of law-abiding citizens.

Now here we are "again", fearing for our children's safety and willing to "sacrifice" the freedoms of others for our security.   We say the 2nd amendment must have "limits" and freedoms must be curtailed... sound familiar?

Will we ever learn!

PS - there are over 55 million elementary school children in our country and on the day that Sandy-Hook occurred,  which means that 99.99995% of all children who went to school that day came home safely.

Crying WOLF!

We all remember the story of "The Little Boy Who Cried Wolf" from our kindergarten days.  In the story a boy decides to cry wolf to get the towns people to run out to help him as a joke.  But after several "jokes", the towns people turn a deaf ear when the boy cries "wolf" for real and he is eaten by the wolf.

Today, conspiracy theories have run a muck in our country.   The JFK conspiracy made for a good movie by Oliver Stone in the 90's.   After 9-11, conspiracy theories arose that our own government ran planes into buildings to start a war with Iraq and Afghanistan. Then during the Katrina catastrophe, conspiracy theorists said that Bush ordered the dikes to be blown up to create a larger amount of destruction. 

Now we have Sandy-Hook conspiracy theorists saying that our own government sent agents into an elementary school to shook 20 children and 6 adults and blame the shooting on a mentally ill teenage boy and his mother (some theorists even want you to believe that it never even happened) all so the government could drum up support to remove the 2nd amendment.

To me most of these theories are from people who, like the boy-who-cried-wolf, desperately want attention and to get that attention they are willing to "fool us" any way they can.   They want to appear smarter and more informed than everyone else and thanks to the internet now, they can even get paid for it on YouTube by how many clicks they get.  We, then, are reinforcing their sickness by visiting their videos and passing them along to our friends.

Why do we want to  believe conspiracy theories?

We don't like random acts of evil
Because they help us make sense of the world.  We don't like random acts of violence in our lives.  It makes us feel uneasy about our world and what might happen to us.   We would rather believe there is someone behind the scenes pulling the strings because then it becomes less random.  While it does make our world more sinister on one hand, on the other hand it makes our life more ordered.  This especially becomes more necessary when dealing with situations in which people who are either mentally disturbed or influenced in a diabolical way such as the case with radical Islam.  We would rather think that "rational" people are behind the action rather than to accept the fact that not everyone in this world is "rational".  It's easier to believe that men in room somewhere are flying the planes like giant drones into the Twin Towers rather than 19 middle eastern men who had been living among us planning our destruction.

Reinforces our views
It also reinforces our dislike for those in power.  When Bush was in power, the left loved the conspiracy theories, because it reinforced their belief that Bush was evil and not to be trusted.  It provided "proof" to them that he as a "war-monger" and capable of great harm to the world.   Now that Obama is in power, many on the right are drawn by the Sandy-Hook conspiracy because it reinforces their belief that Obama is evil and willing to do anything to spark a revolution in the country. 

The sad thing is that these conspiracy theories will eventually jade us to such a level that we will not recognize a REAL conspiracy when it does occur and we will have lost ALL faith in our government officials in the end as well.

Local Governments: our Achillie's Heel

While our attention is focused on what is happening in Washington DC (inauguration, debt debates, scandals, speeches, etc..) others are working at a much much lower level in our country.  Recently it came to my attention that back in 1991 our country, thanks to George H Bush, signed on with the UN and their Agenda 21 (21st agenda) program.  While this program was never ratified by the Congress as it is not a treaty but instead a "non-binding voluntarily implemented action plan" (see Wikipedia) which seeks to establish "sustainable development". (Is this what George H Bush was talking about when he said in his inauguration, "We see the forming of a new world order" ?)    

This is what is called a "bottoms up program" as it does not go through Congress down to the states, but instead works at the local level across our country.   Through its attachment to the UN it is viewed as having the "power of law" when in fact it has none of it.   It is socialism on a world-wide scale, but its implementation is in our own communities. 

This brings me to my discussion of Achilles Heel.  According to the myth, Achilles mother Thetis, dips him in the river Styx (which separates the living world from the under-world) making him immortal in all places except of course, his heel.   Achilles goes on to be a great warrior and invincible in battle, until the battle of Troy where he is shot by Paris with an arrow in the heel and kills him. 

The moral of the story is that we are only as strong as our weakest point just as a chain is only as strong as its weakest link.   For our country, our weakest point is not a single point but instead many single points spread over our country in the form of local boards.  These local boards dictate to us what we can build, where we can build, how we build and for whom we build.  The people on these boards are often voted into office with only a few votes being cast in our elections as they are largely ignored by us.   Yet these officials can and will have the most visible impact on our local families and lives. 

Armed with fancy brochures from "planners" who have been trained by people connected with Agenda 21, they will push for things like "smart growth", and "sustainable development".   They will say that growth must take into account the needs of future generations (so we are supposed to have crystal balls to help us determine what those needs are?).   They will gather communities together in small groups to gain "consensus" saying "what do you think about our plans for your community?".  But they are not interested in your input.  No one will be taking notes. There will be no follow up or modifications of their plans.   Your attendance is all that is needed, for by doing so they can claim that you gave them your "OK" and they have your consensus to go ahead with what they had planned already.

Does this sound too much like "Conspiracy Theory"?   It's not.  I urge you to go to the following links:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agenda_21

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ICLEI_Local_Governments_for_Sustainability_USA

Also, please check out the follow YouTube video from a Democrat who is trying to get the word out on this.  (Its over an hour long... but very well worth the time)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CEHWsdimVO4