This election of Donald Trump to be the next President of the United States has really stressed me out. I am reeling and in dire need of a series of safe spaces in near every place which I visit. I go get coffee at my usual place and there it is in my face, Donald Trump will be President come January 20, 2017. Dinner out, more Trump is pushed in my face. Where are my safe spaces like all those lucky college children have access to while their professors cancel exams and hold weep-ins instead of lectures. Even going to the grocery store and you pass the newsstand where you are reminded about President elect Trump and all that entails and there will always be somebody who just has to discuss the election and if unlucky the checkout person who might just decide to want to speak about the election knowing I blog on politics. There is absolutely no way to run to a safe place when at the checkout counters. One cannot escape waiters, especially those who know you blog politics, from their asking your take on Donald Trump. Where are my safe spaces from these people who insist on knowing what my advice is to survive the coming apocalypse known as the Trump Presidency? Where do I go to escape these hurt feeling leftists who automatically believe because I appear intelligent (and who knows, I might actually be intelligent, but that is not for me to claim) I must be appalled by Trump winning the election. Honestly, we who actually are glad that Trump won need safe places from these leftists who believe that Trump won without anybody actually supporting his candidacy. They even believe that there cannot be anybody in their lives who might support Trump. Then, lastly, why am I being so silly as everybody knows that supporters of Trump are not allowed in safe places. Trump supporters are evil and must be shrieked at in a fashion eerily resembling the pod people from Invasion of the Body Snatchers.
Then there are the ongoing horrors on the faces when these mind-numbed people finally figure out the bored and fed up look on your face is not your traumatized look due to Trump being elected but your growing impatience with people assuming you could never have supported such a person. Funny, that is how I feel about people who voted for Hillary Clinton. These infantile people think that if they continually bombard you with question on how you can explain how each appointee can be explained or even pretend to have any experience which would qualify them for each position. Really? Like how can a retired general who commanded military intelligence could ever be considered qualified to be security advisor since he did not take the right elective courses, attend Columbia, Harvard or Yale, and obviously does not possess the sensitivity to feel the right direction and how to softly apply American presence in such a manner as to not upset any snowflakes who are currently coloring books, playing with play-dough, cuddling puppies and sipping herbal teas hoping to continue at these projects until somebody sensitive is elected to the Presidency.
There has to be a way to permit those so taken out-of-sorts by a simple election not agreeing with their perceived correct choice, to opt out of any future election. As their ability to understand any differing opinion than their own is to opt out of any activity within the real world and allow them to continue with their puppy cuddling, coloring-book coloring, tea sipping and joint primal screaming sessions insulated from the real world so it does not hurt them and their influence does not harm the rest of us. There are those who chose Hillary Clinton for actual reasoning and who can actually explain why they did so and also explain why the idea of a President Trump is troubling to them rather than simply repeating the accusations of Trump is a racist, hater, idiot, fascist, not nice, evil, the devil, scary or any of any number of one to three word slogans which can be seen on the vast majority of protest signs. Mind you, the signs with the big red hearts followed by Trumps Hate or Love Trumps Hate are so intelligent except how do they apply to the election of Donald Trump? Are they implying that Love is Trump or that Trump Hates or are they simply using a phrase they saw and thought was like way kewl and just so smart that it had to be the thing. Bad news for these brilliant minds, it is absolutely meaningless as we all wish that Love Trumps Hate and do not see where that implies anything about the President elect except that the word Trumps contains the letters T-R-U-M-P in the sign and thus might imply something about the President elect, but sorry, it doesn’t really mean anything obvious and definitely that Trump Hates as the chant which has accompanied these signs implies. Signs are supposed to be intuitively obvious and not confusing or vague as you are conveying a message and not a trite saying which everybody would love to actually describe an actual truth in life. We all hope that Love (or big heart) Trumps Hate but we do not automatically equate that with Trump Hates as we do not just take the last words from the sign and move the ‘s’ from Trump to hate and feel so smug and smart.
Safe Space with Puppy Cuddle
Now here is some advice for these people who are all bent and forlorn. Start looking for a candidate who can garner the support of more people than Hillary Clinton was capable of snaring. Hint, Elizabeth Warren might be a better candidate as would Bernie but they are both very extreme in their beliefs and many Americans do not share their beliefs. Many Americans do not agree with everything Trump has said but many believed that the one thing Donald Trump would be capable of doing is choosing solid and qualified people to advise him and be responsible for the different areas and Cabinet posts. Work to find candidates for position less lofty than President and see if during the next elections you can win back the House of Representatives or the Senate and then work with a President Trump to assist in the recovery necessary in both the economy and in the United States international standing. Democrats should be seen as desiring a better America rather than striving for an extremist agenda which does not function, and candidates who believe the United States is a necessary force for good and what is right in the world and forges a greater peace. The exit from the world over the past eight years or so has brought disaster down on many parts of the world including many allies in Europe, Asia, Africa and elsewhere. Work toward a constructive presence and not simply choose to find reasons to tear the nation apart and complain that things are not going just as you desire because you need to take effort and compromise in order to make friends and win elections. Ideologues usually find their way difficult and opposition strong while those willing to listen to others and work together accomplish far more. The last though, let us all work to make a President Trump as successful taking America forward and improving all our lives and making the United States important again as when America acts with means which prove important, the world usually wins. America has been one of the greatest forces for good and it would be horrific if America ever became a force for evil, and Donald Trump does not desire an evil future for America no matter what you may have heard. At least wait and see what he does and judge him on his actions and policies and not on hearsay from people who refuse to even grant the man any chance to prove he is not the bringer of the Apocalypse.
Normally we would not make such a direct argument on the election, but this is anything but a normative election. First and foremost, please get out and vote for good, solid conservatives for the House of Representatives and the Senate. Start a committee if there is not yet one and take back your schools and local school boards. Install a curriculum which represents traditional Judeo-Christian values even if that requires eschewing Federal Education Aid Dollars as they come with more than strings, they come with ropes, cables and dictates on who you may hire as teachers, what your courses must contain, and even what courses based in liberal and immoral lessons must be taught. Their money leads to free condoms for students in all grades; sexual education which teaches if you desire, act; the school will teach you untruths as truth your parents are too ignorant to know and other means which breaks down the traditional family. Lastly on education, partner with private small and medium local companies and some carefully vetted national or international companies who employ in your area and see if apprenticeships can be arranged and even some classes taught by company personnel whose salary might be subsidized by the company or even some school funding directly from the companies. Choose your teachers carefully and monitor their classes and be wary of teachers’ unions and make your school system free of their poisonous influence. Taking back our schools in the United States is the first, most necessary and vital step to winning back our nation, governments and families.
Next is to select judges with care. Vote solely for vetted judges whose rulings and beliefs are known and tested. Newly appointed judges need to be monitored and vetted. Similar systems need be in place for every level of judgeship, police officials, sheriff’s department and any other elected official. Take the required steps to free your local jurisdiction from virtually, if not all, Federal oversight even if it costs reasonable and affordable loss of controlling funds from Washington D.C. If the healthcare system is not returned to a free market system then health maintenance groups may be required setting up with local physicians and hospital privileges with church, synagogue and other houses of worship as the central planners. Take back every single part of your local community. Start with your block, your neighbors; then the local community using churches, synagogues and worship centers; enjoin civic and business groups and clubs including Elks, VFW, Masonic Temples, Lions, shooting clubs and any others who are willing; and eventually with increasing success you will regain control of your community, then the county, and perhaps the state and a nation reborn working as was the original vision, from the bottom up with less power the higher in governance one rises. The community must become the highest nexus of power in the land in affecting individuals’ lives.
Finally to voting for either Trump or Clinton which we assume will be difficult no matter whom one has chosen, as this election places two very different choices with each having their own litany of sins against Hashem and against our laws. First thing we must remember as was taught by the sages and ever since and as the title of a short piece about mitzvah (deeds sanctified by Hashem and Torah) by Rabbi Eliyahu Safran titled, “Love the Sinner, Not the Sin.” This does not mean forget the sin but would recommend we investigate the person over the transgressions. The first question is are the allegations true as hearsay, rumor, innuendo, false accusations, lies and motivated accusations serving a desired end have ruined many people even beyond politics, and countless politicians through the ages. Plays and novels are written of such ruinous lies. Too bad many classics such as The Count of Monte Cristo are no longer on required reading lists as they teach valuable lessons in writing, morals and life. Then one need seek to see if the accused has taken ownership and made an honest repentance. Finally, if time has passed, do their current actions depict one who has altered their wrongful ways. Finally, if all else is not favorable, are there indicators the person wishes change. Vote your conscience, your heart, even your gut because there is one last little quibble which is about the uniqueness of the United States in today’s world. The United States is the sole backing of the modern free world by her own design. Here is a lesson for Donald Trump from that day in American History class that he apparently missed. At the end of World War II and as a part of setting up the newly liberated Europe the United States made a little demand largely of London but also Paris and Berlin. No longer was the United States going to come to the rescue Europe from another debacle and to make this a certainty the British were to scuttle much of their naval vessels making them scrap to be smelted and all three powers were to keep military strength below levels acceptable to the United States. In return, the United States would assist greatly in protecting them from outside threats, namely the U.S.S.R. There was no real demand for payment as not returning to end another conflict was payment enough.
The Ten Commandments
This deal passed down an unspoken but sacred in nature promise to the world which stretches back to the receiving of The Law at Mount Sinai. Let us trace from the giving of The Law, the Ten Commandments and Torah. Also reestablished was the basic code for civil society, the Noahic Code which was to be required to be accepted by those residing within Israelite Lands as the minimum of acceptable comportment. The code of Noah was spread along with the Ten Commandments throughout the greater campsite, both the Israelites and the others who sojourned with them from Egypt. These two camps went their separate ways after the initial fighting started claiming not to have any argument with the locals and some claim they fashioned boats and set off into the Great Sea (Mediterranean Sea). There has been some archeological evidence from gold and silver jewelry and many of the basic laws expounded by the early Greek philosophers with references to limited power of a king or ruler, rights of the individual, and even the republic which was reminiscent of the power structure of the tribes under Moses once his father-in-law, Jethro, suggested that he delegate and allow more local authority to tend to the minor and daily demands. From the Greeks, this freedom, liberty and individual rights covenant was passed to the Romans where it was written in the many languages of the empire. The covenant fell all but lost but reemerged in Britain with the Magna Carta. These ideas spread and with the birth of the United States exploded in France and were heard across the political and philosophical world. This covenant of freedom, liberty and individual rights was kept by Britain, France and attempted to spread to Germany by the Weimar Republic and Russia after the Czars with the Временное правительство России (Vremennoye pravitel’stvo Rossii or the government of the Russian Republic) though failing and falling to dictatorships much as France had after her revolution for Revolution de Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité which dissolved, bringing Napoleon while the Germans wrought Hitler and the Russians Lenin and Stalin.
Please let us never know what monster the dissolution of the United States governance based on freedom, liberty, individual rights and societal respect might produce. Just a little reminder of what values the United States fought for in the American Revolution and a hope that these elegant and humanely noble thoughts never be allowed removed from the human conscience. Next to the Bible they are probably the most noble of declarations of the holy spirit which resides in every person.
The Declaration of Independence
July 4 1776
When in the course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.
That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.
He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected, whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to complete the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.
In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.
We, therefore, the Representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these united Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States, that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. — And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.
Declaration of Independence of the United States of America
In the most recent times there has seemingly been a war waged over who is responsible for raising children. This battle was best epitomized when Hillary Clinton came out and stated at the 1996 Democrat National Convention as if it were established fact, “It takes a village to raise a child,” (Full Speech Below). The entire speech may have been her best presentation despite her almost Al Gore like metered cadence throughout the entire speech though once in a while she appeared almost attached to or excited by what she was proposing and her meter increased briefly. But the advice that the village, a euphemism for the government, is vitally interested in the raising of the child is a direct threat to the stability and autonomy of the family. This has become the watchword for the school teachers who receive additional training through approved courses which instruct that the teachers and school nurse or other medical officer and the principal are the first line of defense against improper ideas and concepts from being introduced to children because parents have been known to introduce archaic religious “indoctrination,” their phrasing, not ours, which must be instead replaced with the new age socialized concepts where the whole society teaches that which is beneficial to the society instead and above that which is beneficial to the family. The society is known by another name, another reference and that is government. But before we can even address the war against parents and government as the first parent of every child, we must first look back at an earlier conflict between science and religion which morphed into a battle between government and religion and has brought us to the world we have today.
The first concept required is to realize that all relationships whether private, public, familiar, governmental, religious and whatever; can be studied as living entities where the healthy and most adaptable grows in scope, influence and power and the lesser entities wither and eventually die. The earliest times in human existence, even before Homo Sapiens appeared, the basic unit was the family. This was because most of the groupings were clan based and one could tell your stature, standing, history and almost everything else about you by your name as it was an indicator of to what clan from which you arose. Different clans would have cooperative agreements often sealed with the exchange of women to show good faith and create and actual binding between the two families. This also served genetic diversity thus avoiding to some extent the genetic failings such as hemophilia and other disorders. With time clans merged to forge stronger and more capable collections which would supersede the family or clan unit. These groups were the first tribes which granted greater genetic diversity. All of this arose before the first modern man but was instrumental to development of complex society. The tribes grew to include numerous clans with some better at hunting and others at gathering knowing what was and was not edible while still others showed aptitude for healing and tending the young. In these more primitive conditions there were those whose task was the care of the youngest children but as they grew they would be trained in the skill they showed the best attributes by others such as a huntsman would train the young hunters, the gatherers would train the next generation of gatherers and so on. Tribes also began the concept of history, then simply known as the story. The story was one which was uplifting and always made the hunters as great warriors defending the tribe and the gatherer who risked life regularly trying new untested fruits and vegetables and if they survived and approved the tribe would add another plant to their diet which could have allowed the tribe to use previously unexplored lands. Such a person who would live to old age was likely rare but one who had along with the oldest hunters who reached an age where their use became telling of the stories. These positions evolved to become the job of an entire group who were to be the first priests who would eventually weave a set of codes which made the first religions.
With the onset of herding and farming, the time of city-states appeared and by now the tribal leaders were chosen by some method of testing or perhaps a single family’s eldest surviving son at the time of their father’s demise became the next ruler and the age of government had begun. It is important to note that the family was the initial and earliest defined obligation followed by clan and then tribe. With tribe we had the loosest governmental forms but religion grew into an actual class with priests who may have also been a warrior class which led the defense or assaults taken on by the tribe. Finally, about the time of the first cities, which would soon become city-states, did actual government take root amongst mankind. This was the first time that there would be actual laws enforced with proscribed punishment or at least delegating the one who proscribed the punishment for a particular crime. There came formalizations with religion already having led the way in this and they were followed by government. There came positions assigned with likely the first being the close guards who protected the ruling figure, then the ranking members of an enforcement group, the forerunners of modern police and judicial system. Often times the judicial system was also run by the clerical priest class as they were also the most learned class. This started the initial conflict between religion and government, even when a wise leader tied religion and government, blurring the difference and thus granting themselves the highest position in governance and religion. This was exactly what the Pharaohs of Egypt did when they proscribed for themselves a godly aura and was closely imitated by the Caesars of Rome.
There were a few exceptions to the basic complete authority of the governing leader or even the governing and clerical leaders which we have discussed a few times before, and that was the Torah which was the founding document for the Israelites who became over time today’s Jews. The rules given approximately three-thousand to three-thousand-five-hundred years ago were the framing of some of the ideas used by the Founding Fathers when drafting the United States Constitution leading to the proposed tight restraints on the Presidency. Such restrictions such as a President being withheld from granting themselves property or wealth derived from their knowledge of government workings nor could they simply invent and apply laws without the consent of Congress and were made answerable to both the Congress or the Supreme Court should they stray from the defined limitations of their office. These concepts along with the right of a state to leave the Union if they would so choose and do so in a prescribed manner and other limitations on a President were badly damaged or destroyed by Abraham Lincoln who basically became the government during the Civil War as he all but declared formally a State of Emergency permitting the President all but unopposable powers. Still, the limitations which were first set in Torah, the laws given at Mount Sinai in the book of Deuteronomy 17:14-17 which found their way even presumably to the present day in limits on the President of the United States and were placed as the very first laws limiting the powers and impositions of Kings where it read:
14 When you have come into the land that the Lord your God is giving you, and have taken possession of it and settled in it, and you say, “I will set a king over me, like all the nations that are around me,”
15 you may indeed set over you a king whom the Lord your God will choose. One of your own communities you may set as king over you; you are not permitted to put a foreigner over you, who are not of your own community.
16 Even so, he must not acquire many horses for himself, or return the people to Egypt in order to acquire more horses, since the Lord has said to you, “You must never return that way again.”
17 And he must not acquire many wives for himself, or else his heart will turn away; also silver and gold he must not acquire in great quantity for himself.
Meanwhile, somewhere between the gathering at Mount Sinai where the Israelites responded to the coming giving of “The Law” said, according to many translations, “We will obey and we will listen,” and today in much of Europe and the developed world where the people would not even listen to the religious codes and laws, let alone obey them as religion has been supplanted by government and the new priests are the lawyers who believe themselves the ultimate interpreters and applicators of the law twisting it to their will and whim. At some point around the rise of Persia and the rise of Rome religion and government became permanently separated in what would become Europe and much of the rest which came under either Greek or Roman rule. This began the contest between the two main centers of power outside the family unit. At that time the two still crossed boundaries with government infringing on religion for their advantage and religion infringing on government very much to their advantage. A sign of both comes as part of the Inquisition. Where it was an obvious usurpation of prosecutorial powers taken into the hand of the Church striping that power for the priest class who acted as judge, jury and often executioner, their prosecutions were also abused by government to destroy adversaries or other challenges to the throne or regional power structures. At the same time King Philip II of Spain used the purification edicts from the Church in Spain to raise and launch the famous invasion fleet of the Spanish Armada against England and Queen Elizabeth I which ran afoul of vicious storms and the fleet of English gunboats which were smaller, faster and more maneuverable capable of passing between the huge troop carrying Armada frigates who when firing at the English fleet had their shot pass over the top of the low slung English ships and simply blasted the other Armada ships in their own fleet. Almost all of the Spanish ships sunk and the remainder limped home and that ended this threat to England and its Church of England, a Protestant Church closely tied to the Tudors after being created by Henry VIII. The creation of the Church of England was another perfect example of religion out of the needs of the ruling monarch. Henry VIII needed a divorce which the Pope refused him; so he made his own Church after he went home.
Spanish Armada of Giant Frigates Holding Hundreds of Troops and Cannon Ports Only capable of Shooting Over the English Fleets Comprised of Sleeker and Low Slung Ships with Deck Cannons and by the Hand of G0d Seen as the Weather
Over the ensuing years as science explains more and more of the unknowns and all appears to be explainable, the place of religion has diminished in the developed world. The need for religion to explain those things we did not understand had been greatly diminished but the final understanding is just as far out of the grasp of science now as it has ever been. The question surrounding the why, what and who caused the explosion which science has named the Big Bang is unknown and seemingly will remain unknown for the foreseeable future. Using Einstein’s equation of E=MC2 where ‘C’ is the speed of light which is times itself and multiplied just by the weight of the objects in our own little solar system and one gets a very large number and should that computation be done for all of the presumed objects just in our galaxy, the Milky Way, and that number almost becomes unimaginable and finally, if we add the viewable estimated number of Galaxies which the Ultra Deep Field Hubble Telescope took of a postage stamp piece of the sky thought to be virtually empty by all previous observations and that number is unimaginable by the average physicist, let alone the rest of us (see image below).
Ultra Deep Field Hubble Telescope Picture Each Smudge and Pinprick of Light is an Entire Galaxy
Using science as a weapon of ultimate destruction, government in the developed world has assailed religion attempting to make any religious belief or system presumably archaic, its practices the equivalence of a rain dance, the prayers comparable to a voice at a séance, and its commandments, covenants, decrees or other rulings as the equivalence to Ouija board revelations. Concurrently government has replaced religion as the determiner of right and wrong, the provider of charity, the reason for a Sabbath renamed weekend, collector of alms as an integral portion of taxes and slowly rendered any expression of religious observance unacceptable in public. About the only suppressive action government has yet to take concerning religion has been to make religion illegal. The reason is likely because should they actually make religion illegal, religion would likely make a comeback just because it was outlawed. Especially any reference to Judaeo-Christian ethics,codes, holidays, prayer, deity, prophet or Bible passage, the government put the final clasp subduing even the slightest religious thought from the marketplace of ideas. Meanwhile, ignoring the dangers, those in governments are permitting Islamic religious teachings claiming that it is study of culture and comparison of governance and civics. This plus an extra-judicial importance placed on a statistically insignificant threat posed by anti-Islamic acts which have remained relatively constant since 2002 after a noticeable rise in the second half of 2001 while anti-Semitism acts are rising in some locations many folds but these acts are minimized or completely ignored. There have been those who have theorized the governments’ in the developed world preferences for Islam stem from the Islamic anti-Semitic and anti-Christian ethos and actions. This may also be behind the initial rush for European and developed nations taking in of “Syrian refugees” while not considering taking in Christian refugees facing persecutions in the Sudan and other nations in the Middle East and North Africa.
Finally we get to the family and the initial start of governmental infringements on the family unit. One of the initial assaults on the family used the equality for women fight to weaken any male claim of being better suited at any particular field of employment due to the differences which were previously thought to differentiate men and women. The most ridiculous of the denied differentiations was the strength requirement as it was agreed that strength requirements for men had to be restructured for women such that they required a similar percentile for women to be passed. One of the first to be altered was the strength testing to be a firefighter. The requirement for men to carry a full body double along with his fire suppression and breathing gear including wearing the mask down two flights of stairs and out of a building under fire simulated conditions had to be scalable. They had to take the weight of the dummy and scale it to meet the same percentile as women as it took for men to pass as well as scaled gear weight and so forth. This required new sized dummies and smaller breathing apparatus and other expenses just to train and test women applicants. The argument made by one Fire and Rescue company in court that in an actual fire the size of the person who may need be carried would not be scalable was rejected when they had a number of fire squad captains admit that they often set an order of people entering a building or if inside chose the largest and strongest to be tasked with such carries and thus the test really was not about actually carrying a real person from the building but actually a strength test and thus would meet those requirements for scalable testing. This argument was also the initial scaling of military combat arms testing including for Ranger, Green Beret, Seal and other special forces testing and training. The real aim was just as much blurring differences between men and women and removing any male dominated jobs from having such as their label. This blurring has continued that there exist work environments where the surname for all employees has been simplified to the unisex denotation using the letter ‘M’ for both genders. Then came the real punch to the gut, when some schools began to use a new picture book titled “Heather Has Two Mommies,” to depict that a family was not the conventional one of a Mom and one Dad. Such attacks were later continued with any combination which desired the status of a ‘family’ to be so denoted.
The gender wars and war on conventional definitions continued and we even saw women enter the military training at all levels until today women have been cleared to serve in any combat role even in actual combat condition, though this has not been tested to the best of our knowledge, not even in Europe where such equanimous ideas go to be tested. There was the court challenge against the classical definition of the family in a number of states establishing the right for other than heterosexual couples to adopt children. Eventually, we suspect, that multi-coupled relations will also seek equal rights in adoption as well as tax codes dealing with deductions for married couples where communal communities will be permitted treatment as what will likely be referred to as a ‘greater family’ or a ‘communal family’ and demand they receive treatment equal to a traditionally defined family. Eventually, through whatever means are required, the definition of what constitutes a family will be so weakened such that a person suffering from having multiple personalities will be able to be granted status as a family. Then, as with religion, the government will claim that they are the ultimate family and thus children will be raised by a licensed individual who will soon become a government employee much in the manner that teachers are now government employees. In an age gone-by, some name it the frontier age but really was anywhere a town was small enough and in an unpopulated area where there is no overseeing governance, when the citizens, particularly parents, desired a teacher who was knowledgeable in what was called the three ‘R’s (Reading, wRiting and aRithmatic, they were very adaptable) the wealthy peoples or person would hire a teacher and the one-room schoolhouse would be erected by the townsfolk and that was how early schooling was accomplished. Eventually the town would grow where grades by age groups, usually the young, middle and advanced groups, and multiple teachers were required, where in some fortunate places the wealthy people still provided the salary for the required teachers but eventually the entire community would jointly provide the teachers’ salaries with each parent paying their share according to the number of children they placed in school. This would eventually become some form of taxation collected by the governing body who also hired teachers and this will eventually become the department of child-rearing with the law eventually requiring all children to be raised from birth by the government.
Caring, educating and making every individual dependent on the state for everything from birth to death, cradle to grave care, thus makes everyone completely comfortable with doing exactly what the governing bodies demand. Just pray that by that time some overseeing the governing has been taken over by a self-repairing computer system and not by very fallible human politicians such as the wonderful and kind imbeciles who are elected or appointed in far too many societies for such to become all-powerful. Still, it is the nature of any organism, be it an individual organism, a collection of similar organisms, a collection of differing mutually beneficial organisms, a collection of balanced organisms, a collection of prey and hunter organisms, an organism composed of a collection of organ or any other imaginable system of organisms as such as today’s political class where they are dependent on others on which they prey (we are somewhat unsure which class they fall into to be honest) which exist in the many strata which we find defined in our modern society. The government grows by replacing existing and often very functional systems by meddling and regulating until they have subsumed the entire system and then they start to lower the expectations such that they are able to claim by the lowered standards how government run programs are superior. They will always point to the area where by their own defined criteria they prove to be superior. Often the criteria they point to first is inclusion as they will find groups which was at the margins or preferably outside the margins of the private run systems were capable of including and claim superiority due to the sheer numbers served. This has been evident most often with schooling where minorities of students are able to afford private school and the public education system serves all including those who would be unable to afford private school at the current cost. What they hide is that should they give parents a voucher which can only be used for attending private schools, that the very students they point to would easily be able to afford private school education. The truth is that there would be an entire market of schools which would educate children for less. The same would very likely be true in other government run institutions, but government has two basic advantages; first is they accomplish the assigned tasks with the minimal amount of effort from the people served and, even more importantly, they can make their providing of the assigned services required to be provided by government trained and licensed individuals thus making only government the sole provider by law/regulation.
The last thing which is an evil by which government grows and makes the government the beginning and the end in all places government desires to control is the power of laws made by fiat and without review by elected officials. The Federal Government is the most guilty of this intrusion and dictation over the people without review by the people’s elected representatives. This mechanism is known as regulations. The House of Representatives and the Senate will all too often pass legislation which sets goals and not mechanisms and then assign the flushing out of the how to accomplish these goals to a cabinet or department within the government to figure out who, what, where, when and how these goals will be defined and met. They do this without any input beyond the vague and often amorphous set of goals even leaving the final definitions of the goals and then formulate regulations. http://hls.harvard.edu/faculty/directory/10871/Sunstein/ target=blank>Cass Sunstein was appointed by President Obama to be his Administrator of the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs Regulatory Affairs and assigned to review existing Federal Laws and find those laws which would allow for new and varied regulations to be fashioned in order to complete desired acts, actions, positions and requirements desired by President Obama and his team of Czars so that they could accomplish policy goals without involving Congress. Many of the regulations which Cass Sunstein wrote will lay waiting for complimenting laws and regulations to be passed or written and then they will also be applied. Very few if anyone other than the President and his former Administrator of the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs actually know all of what was found, written and sitting waiting for the appropriate time that these regulations will be required for government to accomplish another expansion of its powers. The regulatory route is what is most vital for government to grow and expand into new and various areas.
Sometimes one is required to look back centuries and research deeply into cultures and societies in order to see that which has changed. One area where this is particularly true is printing. There have been some radical advances in printing made because of computers but that is more in preparation as when printing mass numbers of items such as newspapers and books, the methods used have remained very constant since the invention of moveable type which was where each letter of the alphabet and each number from 0 to 9 along with spacers and punctuation were made on individual pieces as blocks and thus could be arranged in any order. With enough of each particular block one could print many pages of the same letters very quickly. Before that invention printing was done by a specialist carving out a master copy reversed often in wood and it would be used but had a limit on how long they lasted. Additionally, the letters carved into the master were permanently in place and could not be used in another page. A whole new master would need to be made. Before this method, things were even slower as the only people making books were a few crafts-people known as calligraphers and specialist Monks trained in calligraphy. Books in these times as well as anything else we would print today and requiring more than one copy were all made each copy by hand individually. The Monks trained in calligraphy would spend their entire lives on one book if many, many copies were required and those who had the finest styling and abilities would be permitted to make copies of the Bible. Making a Bible was the highest form of calligraphy. There are still some who are studied in this art who are hired to make such books and these books are rare, often one of a kind, and are extremely expensive, some priceless. There are still books and scrolls made today by hand. Torah scrolls are one such example and are written by trained Rabbis who often spend years making a special Torah scroll and months making normal Torahs. Just for the record, the government used to hire private companies to make their respective printed material such as pamphlets, maps, tourist informational material, records of Congressional actions and other necessary items. Today most of these are printed by the government with a vast number done at their Pueblo, Colorado printing facility. Of course all money is printed by the government at the mint. Thus far, schoolbooks are written and printed by private companies often following set guidelines set by, you guessed it, regulations. These regulations are changed at intervals as the government, the Department of Education, change their requirements or decide to emphasize different concepts. From some of the most recent textbooks we have read, it appears that much of what we were required to learn in school has changed drastically and not necessarily for the better. Concepts such as whole word recognition which replaced phonics and sounding out worlds, new math or newer new math, and history as well as civics texts have changed drastically. There is a reason so many college educated students know so little about history and government which may make for great fun on the Lettermen Show but is less funny when these same people vote. The lack of making informed choices was made, if one follows the news, obvious to many ‘informed experts’ by the two choices made as the candidates for President by the two major parties. We believe it could have been worse, but it might have been better. Our closing remark is a quote from Thomas Jefferson. It may be a reference to Jefferson’s comment to his nephew Peter Carr, “State a moral case to a ploughman and a professor. The former will decide it as well, and often better than the latter, because he has not been led astray by artificial rules.” As noted in Jefferson to Peter Carr, Paris, August 10, 1787, in Papers of Thomas Jefferson, 12:15.
Beyond the Cusp 