Bring Back The Good Old Days

You could tell who was naughty or nice by the clothes they wore. Modesty was the norm, and if you wore tight pants it meant new ones weren’t in the family budget until fall. Hand-me-downs were expected, fashion changed every decade or so, and closets were small because space there was a waste: with five school days, who needed more than five outfits? Girls dreamed in the Sears and Roebuck catalog, then made their own dresses.

Schools taught reading, writing and arithmetic, the Pledge of Allegiance and the Constitution. America was grand — free and respected throughout the world, from all anyone could see. Everybody went to church on Sunday to learn about God, and you knew what was right and wrong because the minister told you; you had no reason to disbelieve. On Sunday night, the family played a game together—Monopoly, Fish, or Pick-Up Sticks.

 To those who grew up in the 1950s, life was uncomplicated and innocent. It’s a time to remember with longing.

In the 50s, families were large and houses were small, with a kitchen that you ate in, one bathroom, and a few bedrooms filled with your brothers and sisters. Divorce was rare; almost everyone had a head-of-the-household dad and a mom who stayed home and cooked real food with real ingredients. You ate with the family morning and night, with a blessing on the food, lots of jokes and a few parental sermons for seasoning. Everybody had chores and did them; parents were strict, and nobody you knew sassed their parents.

After school, every kid headed outside to climb trees, jump rope and play hopscotch. Vacant lots were for baseball, to the detriment of nearby windows. By the 50s, every household had one telephone and a three-digit phone number, and unless you could afford more, your phone was on a party line. You could listen in on the local gossip club that tied up the line half the day, but you couldn’t butt in — it wasn’t polite. So, forget about calling your friends; just meet the gang on the corner lot. You could ride a bike — your most prized possession — to a friend’s house alone, play outside after dark, and be gone for hours without panicking your parents.

Saturday afternoons were for the movies. Almost every kid in town hit the 2:00 PM Saturday matinee. Cars discharged expectant children, each clutching the quarter that would buy a ticket and a candy bar or popcorn — your choice. No one worried about the movies. They were always innocent — a kid who got in trouble, made a mess and said he was sorry, a slapstick comedy for your funny bone, or a western with good guys in white hats who rode white horses and always won. TV was occasional: Leave it to Beaver and The Ozzie and Harriet Show, starring every girl’s heartthrob, Ricky Nelson. If his song, Travelin’Man, meant anything shady, you never suspected.

Nobody had much money and kids never saw that their parents worried about it much. If your dad clerked at the local grocery store, his occupation was honorable. Policemen were universally respected and obeyed, and some little boys really did grow up to be firemen.

Sadly, times have changed. Families are small and houses are large. Closets bulge with annual fashion changes, T-shirts are the new business cards, and recreation means shopping at the mall. A game is a screen and a remote, and kids can go days without seeing the sun. (Do they even know how to play outside anymore?) We talk to each other through smart phones, rather than smart relationships. Broken homes are commonplace; dads are often missing-in-action, and too many moms are gone into the workplace. Everybody aims to be a professional, parents work long hours, and the family can maybe grab a meal together on Sundays.

Dinner comes from the drive through window, home-cooked means the microwave, and you’d better read labels on your food. Friends have replaced brothers and sisters, without the unfailing loyalty a sibling brings. Kids don’t do chores, they sass their parents and teachers, and church attendance is dropping steadily. Music is raunchy and TV offends more than it entertains. Morals are in jeopardy if you go to the movies much, so don’t forget to check the ratings before you take the kids. Out of wedlock pregnancies are celebrated, rather than shameful, and people spend money they don’t have, so they borrow, and borrow some more.

Most progress is good, but some is not. Modern benefits, such as communication and transportation, with its interconnected highways, were only dreamed of in the 50s. Wouldn’t it be grand if we could bring back the simplicity of the 50s, added to the positives of the 21st century? The world would be a more stable place if we did.

Nevada’s Cattle: The Rest of the Story

I was in a meeting last night with Sheriff Richard Mack and heard the rest of the story on the Cliven Bundy matter in Nevada. The Bundys are the last of 53 ranchers that lived and ranched that area with their cattle—the others have all been driven off by the federal government. The stsory was difficult to hear.

Sheriff Mack was 20 minutes away from ground zero, stopped still in freeway traffic that was at a halt because of the incident. As he fretted, he received a call from a 15 year veteran of the sheriff’s office at the Bundy scene, who told him: “They are going to kill us. Tell my wife I love her.”

Sheriff Mack jumped the traffic line and took to the shoulder of the road behind emergency vehicles, including an ambulance, headed to the scene. When he arrived, the BLM (Bureau of Land Management) officers had left, without the incident having erupted. He relates the story as it was told to him.

The men and women with the Bundys were unarmed. The BLM and its SWAT team, with weapons, trained marksmen and military vehicles, had erected two corrals at the scene: one for the cattle, and one for humans—anyone who wanted to speak out in the expected conflict. A sign marked the second corral: “First amendment speech area”, and anyone who spoke without being put in the corral first would be arrested.

Note that this is a gross violation of constitutional rights—to deny a citizen the right to speak, under any circumstances. To herd that individual into a corral before some government official gives him permission to speak and threatens arrest if he speaks outside the corral is unbelievable. We are human beings, not cattle! No citizen of the United States should be treated that way!

 

The situation was unimaginably tense. Sheriff Mack later asked a reporter present at the scene if he really believed the BLM would fire on them. His reply:” We had no doubt.” At what was surely the last moment, a reporter called out, “You will be on film and remembered forever for shooting these innocent people!”

Nevada sheriff’s deputy Tom Roberts then stepped between BLM troops and the unarmed civilians and said to the federal officers: ”You are better than this.” The deputy then turned to Bundy and said, “What do you want us to do?” Bundy asked the federal officers to take 10 steps back, to cool the situation down. Roberts turned to the SWAT team and said, “It’s time for you to leave.” They did.

A lot of things jump out to the reader of this story. First, why does the BLM need a SWAT team and protective vehicles? Only to go to war with America’s citizens, and only if wrenching their rightful property from them.

Second, how many other people has this happened to? Stories rage across the country from other states, where the BLM has turned militant and is committing felonies against Americans over their private property.

Third, note the power of one man. One journalist had the sense and wits to show the federal troops the infamy that waited them. One other man, Deputy Tom Roberts, had the courage to intervene. Without either man, we might have Nevada and possibly the entire West might now be engaged in a war with federal troops.

Make no mistake: the federal government is in the wrong here. Cliven Bundy refused to pay federal land use fees because those fees were illegal. He paid the state costs—those were constitutional. Bundy took a stand against tyranny, just as did the Tea Party patriots more than two hundred and fifty years ago. He has set a pattern for us: peaceful but determined resistance to federal larceny.

Last, what a travesty! Our federal government has turned to stealing property, treating Americans like animals, and threatening to murder innocent citizens to get their land. What has America come to?!

Jello Jigglers: the Law in Chaos

The law is in chaos.  Judge Andrew Hartman ruled yesterday that it’s permissible for Boulder Colorado County Clerk and Recorder Hillary Hall to break the law. It is Judge Hartman’s job to require Hall to obey the law, not second her right to break it.

Colorado’s same sex marriage ban is on hold, by federal order, while the case makes its way to the Supreme Court. Hall, from Boulder’s “Berkeley of the West”,  has been violating the law by issuing marriage licenses anyway--more than 100 of them since the stay was put in place. The State Attorney General has sued her, saying that her actions are causing “legal chaos”, but Hall continues. According to the Associated Press, she insists the marriage ban violates the Constitution; that “an unjust law is not law at all” and she is justified in disregarding it. At this hour, two other county recorders have followed suit.

Judge Hartman has patted her on the head gently, saying it’s OK—she isn’t harming anyone by her actions.

They must be kidding. It doesn’t harm anyone for a government official to disobey the law and for a judge to tell her she doesn’t have to obey it?  It doesn’t harm anyone if they turn the legal system upside down? Law governs our world; it keeps us safe. If law doesn’t count, there is no safety.

If Hall says the marriage ban violates the Constitution she obviously hasn’t read it. The judge must not have, either, for that matter. Try to find marriage in the federal Constitution. It isn’t there; it never mentions marriage. Liberals who insist gay marriage is a constitutional right invented it. Its bogus—a total fabrication rising from a new, radical definition of equality.

Marriage is a state matter and Hall, as a state official, is under oath to obey state law.  It is not the responsibility of a county official to decide this matter. As they say in the military, this is above her pay grade. Hall’s stand—that she is acting on moral law and justice—is skewed. Gay marriage denies rights to the next generation—the right of each child to have a father and a mother. Rights and equality are not a one-generation matter. We respect the rights of all, including future generations: the right of children to have both a father and a mother.

Hall and her cronies believe their wants should be rights. What happens when other groups do the same—when the National Association of Bank Robbers, for instance, decides they don’t have to obey the law to not rob banks? Will Judge Hartman tell them it’s OK? How about the Association for the Advancement of Pedophilia—can they get a waiver, as well? Or, consider the illegals swarming across the border. Will Judge Hartman give them your house if they want it? If one law is to be ignored, these laws can be ignored, also. But, you say, this won’t happen; everybody knows robbing banks, pedophilia and taking away your house are wrong. Think again; we once thought homosexuality was wrong. With time and the right media campaign these illegalities can become rights, as well.

The issue here is not gay marriage, it’s insubordination, violation of the oath of office, and destruction of the Rule of Law. At stake is every law in the United States and your safety. Laws were not designed to be Jello Jigglers, they were written to be firm and obeyed. Clerk Hall should be removed and Judge Hartman should be impeached—now.

Planned Distractions and Local Efforts

I visited yesterday with Val Arbon, a friend in the freedom movement and I like his perspective. (I love ahah! moments!) He shared the following:

It’s all about local and state power. We fret over federal shenanigans—the things we have almost no chance of changing. This distracts us from the place where we can make a difference—our local communities.

Can any of us really change national politics? We raise our tiny voices to ask over and over: ”What can we do?” The echo returns: “Nothing! Nothing! Nothing! The problem is too big and you are too little.”

We’ve missed it: the place to make a difference is in local and state politics. When communities get it right they prompt states to get it right, and healthy states insist on federal limitations.

How else can it work? We yell at Congress and the president (and the TV!) and it doesn’t even ruffle the leaves on Washington’s trees. “If you do what you’ve always done, you’ll get what you’ve always gotten.”

So let’s do something different—clean up government near to us.

Let’s help our communities by junking Agenda 21’s property grabs. Let’s get to know the county sheriff and encourage his protection. Let’s get Common Core out of our state schools by drumming on the governor’s door.

The states “made” the federal government. We were here first. It shouldn’t be able to boss us around. It does, because we let it. We didn’t invent a federal government so it could take our power away. The power is in the states.

Thomas Jefferson got it. He wanted to be in Virginia to help draft its state constitution in summer of 1776, when he penned the Declaration of Independence. It was the more important process. He was told to stay in Philadelphia and stay focused on the national effort, and he did. What a blessing! “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights; that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness…” I love those words! I’m so glad he stayed in Philadelphia.

The voice of the people spoke for freedom, but they contracted with the states to be their working agents. The task was to create a new nation. Eleven years later it was to create a workable government. (The first attempt, the Articles of Confederation, was a bomb.)  The “chain of command” runs as follows: the people authorized the states to build a federal structure. Liberty was the goal; the states were the agents empowered to make it happen.

Currently, the shenanigans of the federal government distract us from doing what really works: get it right at home, first. Our two political parties are either the willing or unwitting agents of distraction. These two parties, Democrats and Slow Democrats* (you do realize the Republican Party has disappeared, right?) both work to build party power. Forget the well-being of the nation. It’s disheartening. Sometimes it even seems hopeless.

It’s not hopeless. We can fix “home” and spread the repairs upward. It won’t be fast, but it will be real. It’s actually a time for real hope. More people “get it”—they care. More families are teaching the Constitution at home. More parents are homeschooling. They center their lives on the church. The sleeping giant is waking up.

We are on the way up! Let’s put our action at the local level and build a foundation of freedom.

* Thanks to my husband for this description of the current political scene.

The Rules for Creating “Rights”

Perhaps you’ve wondered how to create a “right”. Its simple. Consult one of the many playbooks of progressives, such as Saul Alinsky’s “Rules for Radicals”. The five-step technique is as old as time.

 

First, make up your “right”. What do you want? Don’t limit yourself; you can get anything if you follow the pattern. Look at other created “rights”: the “right” to free contraceptives for your escapades, the “right” of sex with guys-for-guys and girls-with girls, the potty “right” to any bathroom in the school, regardless of gender, the “right” to kill an inconvenient fetus, the “right” to a hefty cut of Wall Street’s profits, the “right” to be paid for not working—whatever. Logic and reason are immaterial, so go for it, baby!

Second, gather others that want this goody. Spend a lot of time together. Develop your “doctrine”, spin your need, make yourselves victims through deprivation. Find a catchphrase to hook the public—equality works well. If history won’t cooperate, rewrite it; few will notice. Practice makes perfect, so the more you spin your story, the more it’s believed. Remember, you’re going for non-thinking people.

Third, take your “right” to the world. Preach it to the press; they’re suckers for wants become “rights”. Hold parades; do press releases, interviews, speeches in the park. Suck in the rich and famous who have more dollars than sense. Find those who need something to bleed for and make them mascots. Tell heart-wrenching stories of those denied their “rights” to get yourself and your mascots on TV. Demand favorable legislation. Elected representatives, desperate for re-election, will take up your cause so they look good and get favorable press. Seduce legislators, mayors and governors with your need; heck, go for the big time—get the president on board. Get money behind you and buy power; don’t let anything stand in your way. Many Americans are too distracted, lazy, or apathetic to care, so there’s isn’t much to stop you at this stage.

Eventually, opposition will build, so the fourth step is to destroy your opponents. Forget right and wrong; you junked that long ago and its baggage now. Believe this “right” is real; that your security and happiness depend on it, so you can speak with force and gumption. Slam anyone who disagrees. Call the non-believers names—bigot, glutton, homophobe, terrorist, tyrant—whatever. Contemptuously rub their principles and morals in social mud. Attack their reputations, picket their businesses, blame the other party, take them to court. Hold sit-ins, love-ins and rallies. Master the 60 second soundbyte and give the panting press plenty for the evening news and the front page. Throw crumbs of approval and attention to the mainstream’s useful idiots who help you.

Step five is the easiest. You now have your “right”, but don’t rest; more ”rights” are waiting. Build on your success. Help others who are creating “rights”. No good society-smasher ever stops with his initial objective; there’s always more to want, more “rights” to create, more morals and principles to destroy. If you rest, your conscience might catch you, putting you at risk to lose everything you’ve plundered.

There you have it: the Rules for Creating “Rights”. This age old process is tattered from overuse. Interesting that so few have put it together……………