Finally A New Entry

My brother Tyler implored me to get back to writing on my blog... so here I am. Life has been moving faster than the speed of light and things have been happening so fast and so much that my brain can not condense it into words. So what has been up?

Well, I went on the Glenn Beck Program on Fox News Channel a few weeks ago with some friends. It was a neat experience. He invited me up onto the stage for a demonstration. I was also able to get a few laughs from the crowd.

I have been getting more involved in the Liberty Bell Center for Constitutional Studies where I have now been made the Chairman. We have monthly discussion group meetings to discuss the Constitution and the beliefs of our founding fathers and how they apply to our country and world today. And on June 5 we are having our first LBCCS movie night where we will be watching "A More Perfect Union" which is an awesome dramatization of the Constitutional convention where they put together our current Constitution, the most incredible political document in history. I am excited about that. I have been working with a man named Paul Fiske who founded LBCCS and it is neat to pick his old, wise brain :-).

I have been doing lots of reading about economics and history... my usual.

Work is going fine, nothing special.

Financially we are strapped right now. The old woman Hannah helped died a week ago so Hannah is now without a job (and unable to start a new one with the baby coming). So I have been desperately trying to cut down our monthly bills and expenses so we have some money for food and gas (what Hannah was providing for). We will see how it all plays out. Both of our cars are out of gas until Thursday when I get a check.

Funfun.

I am tired also. Riley Joy is such a handful right now and because of all her new teeth coming in kept waking up last night in the middle of the night and singing and climbing on us. But even though I lost sleep because of her, just writing this down makes me smile. There is nothing in this world like having a child :-).

Racism... Again.

So a few weeks ago I was up getting my tea out of the microwave at work when I saw a paper posted on the bulletin board there. It was a picture printed off of someone's computer. The picture was of a large airplane that was supposed to be Air Force One. On the front of the airplane there was a picture of a monkey eating a watermelon and on the rear of the plane there was a picture of President Obama eating a watermelon and the caption said, "The Watermelon Express."

WHAT! WHO WOULD POSSIBLY THINK THAT WAS AN OK THING TO POST UP THERE! I am not a politically correct person and I enjoy stereotypical humor, but that picture was making two unmistakably racist references!

What is wrong with some people? Who would possibly think that was appropriate... or even funny?

Why we MUST focus on the state and local level

(I just posted this on the local We Surround Them message board)

I received the minutes from the meeting last Friday in my email today. I read through it and saw one piece that bothered me enough to want to bring it up. Under the topics discussed, the point was made that:

"Though our future leaders will start locally, we really need to focus on national issues. Things are taking place so quickly in Washington and that's the ball we really need to concentrate on right now."

That really toubles me. First of all, I do not necessarily remember this being discussed at all. At least a discussion on whether Federal issues should take precedence over local issues. I think we have been listening to a statist lie for too long. They believe that all power should be centralized in the federal government, a belief not supported by our nations founding fathers. As result, the federal government is now making decisions dealing with our everyday lives... and as result of this, the focus of political action has moved from the local and state levels to almost 100% on the federal level.

It is worth noting that the 10th Amendment to the Constitution states that "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."

I think this is often overlooked by people. Unless the Federal Government passes an amendment, they have no Constitutional authority to tell us what to do on the state and local levels. We have seen San Francisco recently pass ordinances in direct opposition to federal statues, and though that was just outright beligerence on their part, they still have the right to do so.

The federal government is trampling on state, local, and individual rights, and while the fight in Washington is desperately important, we must remember that we still have the power of the Constitution on our side! We need to put local and state officials into office who will say, "ENOUGH! YOU HAVE NO RIGHT TO MAKE THAT DECISION FOR ME AND MY CONSTITUANTS!" Washington is too far gone right now to spend all of our time on it. We need to slowly chip away at it while (in my opinion) spending the majority of our time and energy watching and supporting local and especially state level politicians.

Life

Oh dear me, so much is happening right now. I will try and condense it into a short entry.

Garden:

We decided to start a garden. With the dollar poised to lose much of its value in the coming inflation, we all need to learn to live with far less than we currently do. One of our ways to prepare is planting a huge vegetable garden. We have basically turned our backyard into a giant garden. It is 22' by 22' which comes to 484 sq ft. Two weekends ago we broke ground and I dug up bushes and roto-tilled the whole patch. This last weekend I borrowed a friend's pickup and went and got two truckloads of compost from the local yard waste facility (free compost!) and spread it over the whole area. Then came the real work... mixing it in. I got the shovel and finished about 1/3 of the garden. I will just have to do the rest over the next few days. We have started our tomatoes, green peppers, eggplant and some other plants indoors so they will be ready to plant outside. On top of those, we will be planting colored peppers, zucchini, acorn squash, winter squash, sugar snap peas (we are starting those soon), cucumbers, pumpkins and herbs. I probably missed some, but it is a lot, and we are excited. Rather than call it a "crisis garden" like many are nowadays, we are calling ours a "Glory Garden" because we want to focus on God when we are working in it. I want our gardening to be a form of worship. I want the focus to be on glorifying Him, not trying to survive the current crisis.

We Surround Them:

On Friday we went to the local We Surround Them (9/12 Project) meeting. It was very neat. It is so nice to know that there are people who believe like we do. You would never know this from watching the news. I also made lots of connections with local conservative/libertarian politicians. I hope to become more involved with them and their organizations.

Why We Need to Arm Ourselves

I read an article today titled "Deadly Rampages Rack the Nation" and was not too surprised at what I found. I do not know about you, but it has seemed to me that there have been a lot more shooting around the country recently... and it is true. It is no surprise to me that as more people lose their jobs and disenfranchisement continues to grow, these shooting are spreading. We are bound to see more of it. So what should we do? These situations to could be averted or at least cut short by responsible citizens armed with guns. I love what Michael Badnarik (2004 Libertarian Pres. Candidate) said about capital punishment. He said when someone attacks him and he shoots them dead, that is capital punishment. Makes sense to me! Rather than restricting our gun rights, now is the time for the government to sit back and let the populace arm themselves in preparation for the extremely hard times coming.

I have armed myself and am probably going to start carrying everywhere I go. I feel it is nothing short of a moral obligation.

My Daugter Kissed Ron Paul

We often hear of and see politicians kissing babies. But how often do we see babies kissing politicians? I was watching part of a show on the internet and there were a number of guests discussing various topics and issues. At one point John Stossel can onto the screen. My 15 month old daughter saw him and leaned forward and went "mmmmwaaa" and planted a big kiss right on his face! Then she sat back and continued watching with me until Ron Paul came on. When she saw him she leaned forward and again, "mmmmwaaa" placed a big kiss on his face on the computer screen. It made me laugh. My daughter kissed Ron Paul and John Stossel... she has good taste :-).

Quote From "The Alamo"

I sat down to watch "The Alamo" last night and really got swept off my feet (in a good way). This particular quote from John Wayne's Davy Crocket really got me:

"Republic. I like the sound of the word. It means people can live free, talk free, go or come, buy or sell, be drunk or sober, however they choose. Some words give you a feeling. Republic is one of those words that makes me tight in the throat - the same tightness a man gets when his baby takes his first step or his first baby shaves and makes his first sound as a man. Some words can give you a feeling that makes your heart warm. Republic is one of those words."