The hallmark issues of yesterday are always easy to identify.  Those defining moments when a nation changed forever are easy to spot through the crystal clear view that we are fortunate to posses of history.  There is no doubt that the rejection of tyranny, taxation and violation of personal and property rights that spurned simple farmers, tailors and smiths to take arms against their distant masters was one of the most defining moments in not only American, but in world history as well.  Another clear hallmark in our own history was the abolition of slavery.  This forever changed the course of this nation and of an entire people in ways that could scarcely be imagined at the time.  Were you to tell a civil war soldier, even one fighting for the North, that we would eventually see black people in all walks of life, even holding the office of Commander In Chief, he might have not believed you.  In the years leading up to the Civil War, as the states in the North began to forbid slavery and reject the appeals of the South to return slaves, it might have just seemed like a simple State’s rights issue to them.  These states may not have even realized the impact that their decisions would have, bringing a nation to its knees on the brink of destruction, yet freeing an enslaved people forever.  However, looking back it is easy to see what an impact on this nation was made by their decisions. 

Some hallmarks in this nations history were clearly defined by others.  When the peaceful morning worship of Pacific island residents was shattered by explosions at Pearl Harbor or as an entire nation stood still, holding their breath, watching its people jump to their death rather than be burned alive from two stricken and doomed buildings, we changed as a people.  Other hallmarks were defined sometimes by the death of a single individual.  In a single decade, two great men fell to the shots of assassins.  One man’s legacy drove an entire species to reach beyond their planetary bounds and set foot upon another world, while the legacy of the other forced people to face the hatred and racism that still plagued this nation from a conflict that was over a hundred years old.  The deaths of John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr. were hallmark moments in the history of this nation that forever changed us as a nation and a people.

These clearly definable moments in history are easy to see and to recognize the effects they had upon this nation.  The ones not so easily defined are the one of which I wish to turn your thoughts today.  For starters, let us take one of the more contentious issues we face today, 2nd Amendment rights and gun control.  Can you tell me at what point in our history did it all of a sudden become illegal for a law abiding citizen to carry a firearm?  Can you tell me what the hallmark issue was that gave the government the right to tell you when, how and what type of gun you may buy, own or carry?  Probably not.  At the inception of our nation, carrying a firearm was not a privilege, licensed or otherwise. It was a fact, a way of life.  Fast forward a hundred years to the expansion of our nation into the West.  Again, no one ever would have challenged a citizen’s right to own or carry a gun.  Leap forward another hundred years, to just a few decades ago and now things have changed drastically.  At that time you couldn’t openly carry a sidearm, but long rifles and shotguns were still seen hanging from the racks of the pickup trucks that teenagers drove to school.  Now examin this today.  You may only carry a firearm under certain circumstances, with a license issued by a state that will allow the carrying of weapons and with a ton of restrictions upon that RIGHT.  Not upon the privilege, but upon the right to bear arms.  Now when did this happen?  What was the catalyst to cause such a drastic departure from the will our founding fathers?  What gave the government the ability to suppress your right as a citizen of this nation to carry a firearm.  Two hundred years ago if you walked into a local store, attended a political rally or just walked down the street with a weapon slung across your back no one would have paid you any mind.  Do so today and you are sure to be visited by the police and quite possibly told you cannot do that which is your basic fundamental right under the Constitution of the United States of America, bear arms.

The problem is that this did not happen in one critical defining moment in our history.  It happened slowly and deliberately over time.  Many years ago, laws began to surface that restricted where you could openly carry a weapon.  First it was in saloons, then churches, then entire communities, then states.  Finally, the Federal government stepped in and began to tell you what kinds of guns you could own, how many bullets they could hold and what type of attachments and accessories they could have.  Oddly enough, we just simply accepted these changes.  We sat back and justified our complacency with statements of how is was sensible for no one to have a gun in a saloon, or for that matter a church.  This just made sense, there was no need for a gun there.   Ah, well I guess if that city/county/state does not want people to carry guns then it is their business.  Surely we could not argue that anyone needed this certain banned type of weapon to hunt with, or that it was in anyway practical to have a clip that held more than ten bullets.  Slowly, in small steps and stages, we agreed to these restrictions and we allowed our view of what the 2nd Amendment meant to be twisted and warped into someone else’s vision, not that of the founders.  We forgot that this Amendment was never about self-protection, property protection or the ability to hunt.  Our forefathers would have seen no need to make an Amendment to convey such things as they were simply an absolute necessity and an understood way of life for them.  We have forgotten that the 2nd Amendment was designed to protect the freedom of the States against the biggest threat to life, liberty and personal property that the founders could see: the very government that they just created.  Therefore, we have allowed our rights to be stripped from us, not in one clarion moment as in the examples above, but through our apathy, complacency and willful acceptance that our government knows best.  I find it ironic that we have allowed the very entity that our founders saw as the biggest threat to our freedom, to strip away our only means of securing that freedom.

Another of these slow, creeping abrogation of rights is found in our system of taxation.  While the passing of the 16th Amendment is certainly a hallmark moment for this issue, it alone is not what has stripped us of our rights.  Can anyone tell me the percentage of taxation that prompted the colonist to throw tea into the Boston Harbor?  Was it a 30-40% tax like most of us face on our personal income?  Was it even an 8.25% tax like most here in Texas pay as a sales tax for all products?  Nope.  This nation practically started a blood war for independence over a meager 25% tax on one single item, which amounted to a tax burden of a bout 1.5% adjusted to the average earnings of a family at the time.  Now we face taxes levied on what we earn, what we purchase and even what we out right own.  This has not come in one large stroke, but again in small steps over time that have burdened us and made us beholden to the government that we are forced to surrender our personal labor to.  We are indentured servants, whether we want to admit it or not.  I hold that ANY tax on personal property is a direct violation of individual liberties and an assault on personal freedoms.  No one has the right to force you to work for free, we abolished that more than 130 years ago just to have it return in a government sanctioned method supported by an Amendment to our Constitution making it legal.  We are slaves.  Your labor is not income nor is the wage that you barter your labor for.  You have traded one hour of your labor, your personal property, for a amount of compensation that you agreed to with another party.  Taxation of this amount is a taxation of personal property and liberty.  No one has the right, other than the government, to forcibly take the money you have earned for you labor.  Should an individual walk up to you and force you to surrender 30% of the money that you made this week, threatening your very freedom if you do not surrender, you would call him a robber and you would have the right to resist him with deadly force.  When the government does this it is called taxation and you have no right to resist at all.  The same is directly true of property taxes.  If you are taxed upon the property that you own, under penalty of law and the potential loss of that property, then in reality, you own nothing.  You are merely renting that property from the government, by payment of said taxes.  Again these are direct violations of personal liberty.

So, now what are the issues that our generation faces that bear the weight of these mistakes of the past?  If healthcare is not immediately upon your tongue, then I pray for you and your children.  How people cannot understand that this is the clarion issue of our time, is beyond me.  We have already surrendered so much of our rights, piece by piece, to the control of our government, how could we ever consider giving them the control of our health and well being.  Just as many of the laws passed in our history must have seemed benevolent and wise, do not be fooled by those who tell you that they can act in your best interest far better than you can.  When a people surrender themselves to a government so wholly as to allow it to do for them what they can and should do for themselves, they become beholden to its will.  This is not a new thing upon this Earth.  It has been repeated many a time throughout history and has always ended in disaster for those who surrender their freedom so willingly.  This is the defining issue of our time.  The one that will pave the way of our future.  Will it be a future where my health or my very life is dependent on the will of a government for which I have no control or recourse?  Will it be one where the decisions of my children’s well being are taken out of my hands and made the domain of some distant, disconnected bureaucrat?  Will it become one where the decision to let my child live or die is one made by a budgetary committee that must weigh the value of my child’s life against the cost of the procedure needed?  No, it must not!  It cannot!  This must never come to pass, else the 234 year struggle for liberty dies with a pitiful whimper as we willingly surrender one of our last vestiges of freedom to the very entity that our founders new we would need to be armed to protect ourselves and our liberty from.

We must end this now.

During that primary, I learned what involvement in the political process meant and exactly what was at stake from a very personal point of view.  There was quite a bit of contention in the ‘O6 primary for our local government, so much so that it caused a schism between two major Republican women’s groups here in the county.  The race got pretty ugly at times and was very close indeed, yet it did turn out a lot of voters.  This year’s race was not so contentious, but none less critical for the issues that Texas faces.  I was very pleased yesterday to learn that we voted more than double the numbers that we did in this primary four years earlier.  Last night, sitting at one of the results parties and sipping on a Michelob Ultra, I was trying to figure out what was so different in this election versus the previous one.  Were the issues that different?  Not really.  Was there more contention between certain candidates this time?  No, actually I think there was less, or if it was the same it was more civil at least.  So, what had changed to bring over fifteen thousand people to the polls yesterday, when not even seven thousand had come before?

As I sat and talked to those around me, I began to realize that there has truly been an awakening in the past few years.  It has not just been in the movements like the TEA Party and 9/12 groups, but in everyday ordinary people, who are sick and tired of being told how to live their lives and how to spend their hard earned wealth.  I looked back to a comment made by one of the Democrat poll workers, while setting up the polling site yesterday.  She commented that she was a Democrat because she did not have enough money to be a Republican.  How odd, I thought, as I sat there through out the day watching person after person step through the door and wait in the long line for the Republican Party Primary, while the Democrat election clerk was able to cross stitch for a lack of traffic.  These people were not wealthy.  They came in to vote with the grease on their hands of a mechanic, the dirt under their nails of a farmer, the old worn boots of a ranch hand, the medical smock of a night shift nurse and the uniforms of police officers and firefighters.  The did not arrive in limousines or step out of a Lexus.  They came in all manner of vehicles from multiple different manufactures.  Many drove work trucks or small compact cars, some had SUV’s and mini-vans.  These were not wealthy bankers or captains of industry. They were everyday average people.  They were you and me.  They were the parents I meet at the soccer fields or pass by while shopping for groceries.  They were the kids that deliver my pizza and the crossing guard at my children’s school.  They were the heart of America and they were fed up.

By then end of the day, the Republican Primary at our polling site had out voted the Democrat one by 292 votes to a mere 38.  The results were more staggering county wide.  Over 14,000 Republican votes showed up at the polls yesterday, to a mere 1,200 Democrats.  The results state wide where not as drastic, but 2,082,965 Republicans voted compared to 974,454.  This is a still a significant deficit.  This is a message.  This is an awakening.

While I honor movement like the TEA Party and 9/12 Project, I have recently become very concerned with their actions and potentially their motives.  More and more it seems that they are becoming less of a protest movement aimed at stifling the extremes of government waste and championing states rights.  Some of their actions in recent days look more like a PAC than a genuine movement based on pure ideology.  During these elections in this state, these groups have come out in direct support of certain candidates while demeaning others.  Maybe it is just me, but when I first became involved with the TEA Party movement right at a year ago, I envisioned it as one not bound or beholden to any candidates.  I envisioned this movement as one that championed a conservative philosophy only, espousing the values and principles of our founding fathers and not turning into a political campaign arm for any candidate.  While I acknowledge the importance of such involvement in the election process, I always though that a movement such as the TEA Party would be a challenge to EVERY candidate, sort of a litmus test or measuring standard that they would have to meet.  I am just not sure that the spirit of the movement is still what it was at it’s inception.  I hope I am wrong and that this was just a little hiccup during a critical election, but I am concerned that if we do not focus our efforts as one united front against the oppression that we face from a heavy handed government, then wave of outrage that was felt when these movement were born, will break upon the steps of Congress like waves upon a rocky shore, leaving no lasting perceptible impact.

Conservatives from all walks of life showed up at the polls yesterday in this county and others like it across this state.  Now, we must unite them together in and face the challenges that we have ahead.  If we turn against one another now, over petty differences of opinion or slight variations in philosophy, and lose sight of the bigger picture.  We will have no chance of reversing this dangerous, destructive course that has been set for us by a distant, overbearing government.  We must set aside our smaller differences, for a time in the future when we have the luxury to argue amongst ourselves and focus on the main goal, taking our government back, one election at a time.

January 9, 2009

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In September, Navy SEALs captured Ahmed Hashim Abed – a most-wanted al Qaeda leader – during a nighttime raid. Abed is the suspected mastermind of a 2004 ambush that brutally murdered four Blackwater security contractors – including a former SEAL – in Fallujah, Iraq. The contractors were burned, mutilated, and suspended from a bridge. According to the terrorist himself and conflicting statements from another sailor, these SEALs might have hit Abed in the stomach.

The objective of Operation Neptune’s Fury is to exonerate the SEALs, who should be honored as heroes, not tried as criminals.

The charged SEALs are:

• SO2 Matthew McCabe, 24, of Perrysburg, Ohio
• SO1 Julio Huertas, 28, of Blue Island, Ill.
• SO2 Jonathon Keefe, 25, of Yorktown, Va.

All are from SEAL Team Ten in Little Creek, Va.

The Navy has just over 2,000 SEALs, and it takes years of training to become one. These men are some of the most elite warriors in the world. They accomplished their mission, yet could face discharge because the man responsible for the Fallujah ambush could have received a fat lip?

"How long before America’s front-line troops begin to wonder if the country really has their backs?" asked Lt. Col. Ralph Peters in a New York Post op-ed.

Unfortunately, they already are. As a SEAL officer told me in an interview, "SEALs are tired of having to watch their back – not only from the enemy – but also from our own leadership." These warriors clearly need our help. This is a battle that they cannot win.
Take Action!
Let the SEALs know that the United States does have their backs. Admiral Eric Olson is the Commanding Officer of Special Operations Command; he is a SEAL himself and has the authority to stop the trials. Politely inform him that the charges against the SEALs must be dropped. These elite warriors have went above and beyond the call of duty when it comes to securing our freedom, and deserve to be treated as heroes rather than tried as criminals.

Remember, what you communicate could either help or hurt these men’s careers.

1. Call Admiral Eric Olson at               (813) 826.5100         (813) 826.5100
2. Or Fax (813) 825.5109
3. Or Email: olsone@socom.mil
4. Then Forward this to as many people as possible

Sign up to receive Victory Institute Action Alerts here.

Donate to the SEALs’ Legal Defense Fund

I encourage all of you who can do this to express your opinion and your support for these men in honor of the sacrifices they make in the name of our safety and protection.  In my opinion, these men are heroes and Abed is lucky to still draw breath.  His fate has been far more kind than the fate of the men that he captured, tortured, murdered and then hung their desecrated bodies on display for the entire world to see.  Enough is enough.

What promises have they kept?  Well that is easy, we were promised justice for those held in Guantanamo Bay, they have certainly delivered on that.  In fact those who are now held at Gitmo can rest assured that they will have far more legal rights then the very soldiers that captured them on a foreign battlefield.  You see the Obama administration promised them justice and they shall have it in the form of the American civil legal system, something actually denied our brave men and women who serve and die for this nation.  No, military tribunals or courts martial was not good enough for the illegal enemy combatants who fought our soldiers overseas.  They must have far superior legal rights, attorneys paid for by the American tax payer and access to all the case law, precedence and jurisprudence afforded each and every American citizen.  Who cares that our brave servicemen and women do not get this luxury, those terrorist suspects certainly deserve it.  You see when you become a soldier, airman, sailor or marine in service to this nation, you not only pledge your life to the defense of this nation and her Constitution from enemies both foreign and domestic, you also waive your right to the very guarantees provided by the document that your are duty bound to protect.  You swear to surrender your rights and be governed by the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ).  However, now those who fight against American troops on the field of battle do not have to worry about such details.  Now they can have the same rights as any other American criminal, including the right for some sleaze ball attorney to find a legal loop hole to let them go free, because some bureaucratic bookworm did not fill out some piece of paperwork in triplicate or some soldier was insensitive to the cultural needs of a detainee.  Not to mention the fact that in their utmost lack of wisdom, the Federal government has decided to try some of these terrorist just miles from the scene of the ‘crime’.  I be New Yorkers will welcome any verdict that comes out of these trials that they will be forced to host, even if it is an innocent one, so long as the rights of these terrorist who killed 3,000 innocent New York citizen were not violated in even the slightest way.  Yes, ladies and gentlemen, this is one promise that the Obama administration has kept: Far superior legal rights and proceedings for terrorist suspects than is afforded our very own soldiers, all at the expense of the American taxpayer.

You want an American trial for these jihadist?  Well, I agree.  Here is my idea.  Dress them in bright pink jumpsuits, pick a day and time to release them in Hoboken or Queens, broadcast the location and time of release to everyone in the Tri-State area, then let them go.  If they can make it out of the city alive, they are free to go.  It is a hell of a better fate than the three thousand innocent civilians that burned to death or were buried alive in the rubble so many years ago.

What other promises have they kept?  Ah, yes, healthcare.  They told us they would ram a Federally controlled healthcare plan down our throats whether we liked it or not.  Almost a year later they are close to succeeding, but here is where some of the broken promises come in.  Now I am not talking about the one we would have plainly been fools to believe, like that he would not have any activist or lobbyist as his advisors or that he would not sign any bill with a single piece of pork attached to it.  No, I am talking about those that he repeated over and over again that gave all the naive liberal votes hope that we would see the shining light of democracy from the unprecedented transparency promised by the Obama administration.  You see he knew this healthcare thing was poisonous.  He knew that the American people would not willingly sacrifice their choices, their rights and their control over their medical decisions if they really knew what was being planned.  No secrecy would be key to the success of this agenda.  The American people could not really find out what what in this healthcare bill or they would resist, but if he promised us that we would get to see each and every deliberation about this  live on CSPAN it sounded awfully good for the campaign.  Complete transparency, it seems, is just a bit more opaque than we thought.  Where has this CSPAN coverage been?  Why now that people are demanding that he live up to his promises is he hemming and hawing about allowing his bumbling press secretary to blurt out one half-witted excuse after another?  It is funny how those promises that you never meant to keep, come around and bite you in the ass, Mr. President.

On to other promises, how about that unemployment rate?  Hey, I know this one personally.  Both my wife and I had good productive jobs to start off 2009.  Nine months later neither of us did.  So what was this about if we passed the TARP bill, or was it the Omnibus, that we would not go over 8% unemployment?  What about the transparency promised with all of these bailout an stimulus programs?  Oh, sure there was a website created and job loss numbers spewed about, but then we find out that those numbers were complete bullshit.  They included thousands of jobs that had not even started yet and did you know that almost one billion dollars, that is right $920 million of your dollars cannot be adequately accounted for from the funds that were spent in the first six months.  Oh and did you also know that much of this money did not even go to create jobs?  Well that is of the money that has actually been spent of the staggering amounts allocated for these travesties that were voted into law.  That is another thing that apparently was just a flat out lie or just something that this administration does not care much about.  You see, for weeks we were told that we had to act now to avert a crisis.  We had to infuse the economy with these staggering trillions of immediately of face collapse.  Funny, that, because as of today only about 20% of the funds for first $890 billion so called stimulus packages has been spent with another 20% or so in process to be spent within the next six months.  That does not sound like a shot in the arm, but more like a long term prescription plan.  So why the rush if we are going to sit on more than $600 billion dollars until well into 2010?  Why did we have to pass this massive bill in its entirety right then?  Could we not have slowed down and voted to spend the roughly $160 billion dollars that we have so far, then taken our time on the rest?  Hell, now there is even talk of another stimulus package, because the first one was ineffective and the economy has not recovered.  Well no shit, Sherlock.  If $890 billion dollars in funds immediately injected into the American economy was the real answer, then spending $160 billion over six months won’t have the same effect.  That is the difference between a shot and a slow drip IV, not anywhere close to the same thing.

You know there is a question that I always hear thrown around at election time.  Are you better off today than you were four years ago?  It seems that is how we are to judge the effectiveness of our leaders, most pointedly the President.  Well, Mr. President, I am not better off that I was four years ago, nor even two for that matter.  Two years ago, my wife an I both had very profitable jobs in solid industries, hers in the middle of a growing boom.  We were making significant salaries, had good future prospects, good health insurance, large life insurance policies, a healthy stock portfolio and plenty of money in the savings.  Yeah, uhm, we don’t have any of that anymore.  My wife has spent the last nine months unemployed because her industry freaked out about Cap and Trade and I joined her for two months as the economy wore into my job as well.  Hell I even worked for a government contract regulatory lab.  People HAVE to have done what we did, but it still cut into our business enough that I am not even sure my former company will survive after being in business since it was founded in 1976.  No, Mr. President I am far, far worse off now than I was before you were elected and there are many Americans who are right there with me.  You have had a year and all your policies have done is make worse an already bad situation.  You have three years left.  The clock is ticking.

Since I am in an analogy mood, this evening I will give you another one.   Let’s say you take your car into a mechanic and he charges you $890 dollars to fix your engine.  A week later you have to take it back to him for the very same problem.  This is when you discover that he only spend $160 dollars to fix your car the last time, hides the invoice when you try to look at it, can’t explain to you what some of it was spent on and tells you that it should be running better because the flux capacitor is now in synch with the primary phase coil, but he promises that if you will give him another $1,000 he will make sure it runs right.  Now, ask yourself, how likely would you be to let this man work on your car again, provided you do not punch him out straight away and take your money back forcibly.  Now ask yourself how likely would you be to let him recommend a doctor for you and your family, or decide what medical procedure you need or do not need?  Scary thought isn’t it?

I had not been affected much by the housing crisis that struck the nation in late 2008 and Texas was weathering the faltering economy very well indeed.  All that changed in for us in March.  Texas had been in a natural gas boom for the past few years, but as more serious talk of Cap and Trade laws began to percolate to the surface in Washington, the industry that my wife worked in began to hesitate.  Unsure of their future and fearing the crippling taxes that these new laws would bring, the major players in the natural gas industry began scaling back their expansion and growth.  Coupled with the collapse of Bear Stearns, a major creditor to this industry, a serious blow was dealt to the boom that had been feeding the Texas economy for the past few years.  Massive layoffs in all areas of the industry followed and my wife was caught up in them.  She lost her job early in March and we lost a good deal more than half of our household income.  We did not worry, though.  We had a good amount of money put back and my salary could sustain us, al be it not as comfortably as we had grown accustomed to.  As so many other American families were forced to do, we cut out unnecessary spending and tightened our belts quite a bit.

It was about this time that I began getting involved in the TEA Party movements.  I helped organize the first event in our community and I soon realized I had good reason to be so concerned.  It seemed there was no rest for the weary and I found out very quickly that our Federal government does not mind kicking you when you are down any more than any other pimp that expects his money the moment he demands it.  Upon filing our taxes that year, we discovered that my wife had earned just a tad bit too much money in the last two months of 2008.  This had unfortunately pushed us into an entirely different bracket than what we were before.  I also discovered that the Federal government was not content to just tax those last two months, nor even that last quarter, at the increased rate.  It seemed that since my wife was a contractor by definition, they thought it completely fair to tax her entire income at this new rate.  It essentially doubled the tax burden that we had calculated for the final quarter of 2008 and we had no where near enough to cover it, especially with only a single income now coming into our home.  We were screwed.  Because my wife had worked a few extra weekends and been a tad more successful in the last two months of 2008, we were slammed with an increased tax burden that claimed just under 40% of her annual income.  Seriously?  Forty frakking percent?  Yes, I believe that I am Taxed Enough Already.

We struggled on throughout the rest of the year and even managed a small, inexpensive vacation to Colorado because some friends of ours were kind enough to loan us their condo in Pagosa Springs free of charge, so it only cost us gas and food to take a really nice vacation with the kids.  However, upon arriving back home and returning to work, I knew things were not well.  A couple of weeks after my return I noticed people walking through my department, examining my hardware and asking questions about our internal systems.  I knew right away who these people were.  They were ‘the Bobs’.  After the second set came through and began asking pointed technical questions that were certainly not the business of any normal visitors touring our lab, I confronted my boss only to have my suspicions confirmed.  After nearly four years of service and dedication to the lab in question, countless late nights and weekends, while never receiving a raise in salary and having benefits constantly reduced as a key manager for the ‘good of the company’, it seemed that my job was being shopped out without so much as a kind word to me.   Not just my job, but my entire department.  In a brilliant stroke of idiocy, forced understandably upon them by the worsening economy, my company had decided to outsource its technology services.  Now this might be all well and good for a company our size that was a bakery or manufacturing plant, but seeing as how their entire business model consists of the acquisitions, collection, analysis and delivery of data in a timely manner to their customers, this was an insane choice.  Not to mention that our entire company operated on an complex hybrid database system that was heavily customized and modified, primarily by me, over the last few years of usage.  Should this system fail or go down, our entire operation ground to a halt.  A lesson thought to have been learned the hard way in early 2006 when such a crash almost put our laboratory out of business, yet apparently it was not.  The hammer fell in September of this last year.  After spending more than two weeks trying to train and prepare the technology outsourcing company to deal with our complicated infrastructure, a process that was supposed to have taken three days, I worked my last day.  I lost my job on September 20th, 2009, thirty-five years to the day that I was born.  After four years, I was ushered out with two weeks of severance and a ‘Sorry.  Good luck’.  It was not the best of birthday presents.  I later learned that more than a third of their workforce followed close behind me.

The next two months were hard as we had absolutely no major income coming into our home.  I had started refereeing soccer for our local association early in the fall and took to doing onsite computer service and repair for businesses in the local area, while both my wife and I frantically looked for work.  I volunteered to ref every game they would throw at me, but between it and the occasional service work I was doing it was not enough.  We began tearing through our savings very quickly.  When we had been hit with the enormous tax news five months earlier, we had decided that since there absolutely no way to cover our tax burden that we should hold on to the money that we had, just in case we had to live on it.  In hind sight, it was a wise choice.  We used it to pay off and ahead what we could and did our best to live on what I was bringing in, finally having to go on unemployment benefits for just over a month.

Finally in November we caught a glimpse of light as the company whose software I had supported for the past three years at my laboratory, decided that it would have been a shame to let my knowledge and experience with their product go to waste.  I was hired as a contractor for them in the last few weeks of November.  You can bet I was giving thanks at Thanksgiving.  It started out slowly, working only a few hours a week as they ramped up my position.  It felt nice to work for a company that was actually excited to have you on board and not leaving you with a sense that you were simply lucky to have a job.  Since they essentially created this position for me, it took a few weeks to get up to speed, but I am now pulling almost full time hours each week, with more and more on the horizon. 

The trials were not entirely over as we lost a vehicle right after I got my job.  My wife’s car just stopped running one day.  She would start and run so long as you kept feeding her gas, but the second she went to idle… dead as a post.  With only me working, and most of that being from home, we decided we could live with one vehicle and let it sit in the drive for then next few weeks.  Around this time, my wife started getting some good prospects on jobs again.  It seemed as the threat of Cap and Trade began to wane under stout resistance from the public and in the face of the Climategate discoveries, some of the oil and gas companies were cautiously looking to resume their exploration of the Barnett Shale fields, so we were once again hopeful.  On the Friday before Christmas my wife returned from dropping our children off at school with tears filling her eyes as she entered the house.  On the way back from school, the entire electrical system in my truck had failed.  Nothing worked.  By the time I got out to inspect it, the truck was dead as could be.  What now?  I was not sure how much more of this I could take.  I returned that afternoon from picking up my vehicle and the early Christmas present from my parents in the form of a new alternator for my truck, to once again find my wife in tears.  I could not imagine what had happened in the short time I had been gone, but I was fairly sure that I could easily be the last straw my sanity could take.  When I asked what was wrong she simple looked at me and said, “I got the job.  I start tomorrow.” 

Christmas was still a tight one around here, there was no where near as much under the tree as their has been in the past, but to the immense pride of a parent and credit to my children, their lists were quite small themselves this year.  They knew and in knowing they did not ask for much at all.  Thanks to the help of our families, both hers and mine, we were able to give them a decent Christmas after all.  My oldest son even got his wish for a White Christmas, something I cannot recall in at least twenty-five years in where I live.  Not one such as we had this year, complete with snowball fights, snowmen, snow ice cream and all the trappings of real winter wonderland.  At least for three days, that is.  Snow just does not last long here in Texas.

By the grace of God, we start a new year having survived a very difficult one.  It will take us some time to recover having fallen from a combined income well in excess of $150,000 to one of a couple of hundred bucks a week when worked every soccer game that I could possibly get my hands on, but just knowing it is coming is a gigantic burden lifted from my shoulders.  I now work for a wonderful software development company out of North Carolina as the regional Sales and Implementation Engineer.  I love my work  and my wife is back doing what she enjoys as well.  We are about to start a new soccer season where I will coach my new U6 Wildcats, hopefully to another winning season and cheer on my daughters U9 team and my oldest son’s U12 Select team.  Life is decent and getting better by the day. 

Time I get back to one of the things that gave me so much joy and entertainment.  More posts to follow.

Is it when our government completely fails to understand that it’s own power is derived from the consent of the governed and not by some ordained right for it to exist?  We can see plenty of examples of this today, be it the idea that the government has the right to demand, control and ultimately decide healthcare choices for each and every citizen or the false presumption that the will of the American people and the massive resistance to this idea is somehow irrelevant.  How do they respond to the demand by an even increasing segment of the population that the Federal government stay out of our healthcare and eliminate the public option from this reckless push to reform?  They pretend that we are idiots and simply change the name to something that sounds less ominous and more capitalist.  Now it is the consumer option!  That is better right?  Yeah, consumerism promotes capitalism, right?  Surely the unwashed masses will like that better, right?  Nah, none of them will actually read the changes and figure out that this new consumer option is basically the same damn thing as the previous public option.  They aren’t that smart. 

The problem is that we do read and understand far more than given credit for.  We do realize that, to quote our great leader, “putting lipstick on a pig, still makes it a pig”.  Our government honestly believes that the millions of people showing up at these TEA Party protests and 9/12 rallies are just common simpletons, spurned on by Fox News and a couple of conservative talking heads.  They are incapable of seeing that this is an underlying movement across this nations composed of average, everyday citizens who are finally finding their voices and who have had their fill of a bloated, inefficient, expansive and detached government who is no more in touch with the people that they govern than King George was with the Colonies.  Here in Texas, we do have some hope.  Our governor has already stated that Texas will not participate in any Federally back or controlled healthcare system to the point that the State of Texas will withhold her Federal tax contributions should she be forced to.  Our House of Representatives has already passed HCR 50 declaring Texas’ sovereignty under the Tenth Amendment of the Constitution of the United States, hopefully our Senate will have the wisdom to follow course and our governor the strength of will and conviction to sign it into law.  We are not alone.  Many states have already passed such legislation and are demanding that the Federal government cease its interference with the governing of the States.  Should Texas decide to resist this healthcare option, others will surely follow.  Many have expressed similar objections and warnings directed towards Congress in the passing months.  What will happen if this comes to pass?

It is at this point that I grow concerned.  Texas is a fairly conservative state except for select pockets of liberal ideology.  We as a people in general value our traditions, our rights and our way of life free from the interference of others.  Yet recently we have seen them come under almost direct assault from the Federal government.  The opposition to the bailouts, the Federal manipulation of the free market, the refusal to allow domestic drilling, the re-investment act, the gun and ammunition control measures and the healthcare initiative has been powerfully strong here in Texas.  We will not take many more direct assaults on our freedoms.  Any one of these issues could be the straw, but issues like the Blair Holt’s Firearm Licensing and Record of Sale Act of 2009, various iterations of the Ammunition Accountability Act and nationalized healthcare are ones that I fear might push Texas to say enough if enough.  Should Texas finally stand its ground what will happen then?

If Governor Perry’s promise of refusing to participate in a Federally mandated healthcare system come to fruition and Texas attempts to withhold its Federal Income Tax contributions, what will be the consequences?  There is no possible way that the Federal government could allow this to occur.  Some states might get away with such threats, but not Texas.  Texas is a donor state.  This means that we pay in more Federal Income Taxes than we receive back from the government, and we are a large donor state at that.  If you compared the Texas economy against other nations in the world we would rank the 12th largest even in these poor economic times.  The Federal government could never allow the withholding of such a significant chunk of its income.  What if other states followed suit?  What then would Washington do if say just ten states refused to participate and threatened to withhold Federal tax dollars should they be forced to?  Would the Federal government finally come to grips with the fact that the States hold the power to be governed or would it come down to another civil war?  Would the Federal government try to take by force the funds withheld by states resisting such overarching legislation that is directly in contravention to Tenth Amendment? 

Had you asked me that question ten or twenty years ago, I would have automatically assumed that the Federal government would never even consider the possibility of force to strong arm a state to participate in a nationalized healthcare system.  Today, however, I am not so sure.  A friend of mine asked me an interesting question while we were discussing the foolish cancelation of the F-22 program earlier today.  The question was simply this, “What do you think we will see first, another civil war or another world war?”  Again, had this question been asked years ago, the answer would have automatically been that we are far more likely to see another world war, than we were to see another civil one.   When I was asked today, I honestly had to stop and consider the question before giving my answer.  My answer ended up being, “I am not sure.”  Unfortunately, I find that both are as easily possible in the world that we face today.  There are still serious threats outside our borders and as America continues to weaken it status and power across the globe, the likelihood that a major conflict between large nations could erupt and spread into a global one will continue to increase.  However, there is just as likely a chance that if our Federal government continues to grow and expand as it has been doing for far too long, makes reckless, wasteful decisions with our tax dollars, continues to interfere with the free market and continues to attempt to usurp rights from its citizens and its States, that some States will finally decide that they have had enough and refuse to comply.  What then?

I honestly do not know which is more likely for us to see in the future; a major world war or one bound within our own borders.  Human history has taught us that we will suffer long before finally deciding that we have had enough.  I see signs of it today.  Never before have so many States passed legislation declaring their own sovereignty and demanding their rights to govern themselves be restored, but never before have those rights been under assaults as they have been for the past fifty years.  Never before have the States been forced to watch their own power, individuality and sovereignty wither away under a slow, but persistent assault by a detached, distant central government.

So, enough…  When is it really enough and what will become of us then?

As to other events, our soccer season is nearly at a close.  I have to say that I am very disappointed this year to see it end so quickly.  I have a wonderful group of boys on my team and cannot wait until the Spring season starts.  I have seen them grow so much in this short period of time and I am excited to think what we can accomplish next go round.  My daughter’s team is continuing to improve this season, but they still have a long way to go.  She has been amazing and it has been a real treat to see how easily she stepped into the keeper position and made it her own.  I have to continue working with her through the off-season.  She has her brother’s natural talent between the pipes, but she still has to develop it.  Our oldest has had quite the challenge this year, having only played his third out of eight scheduled games this past Sunday.  They keep canceling his games due to rain and wet field conditions.  It has been frustrating.  Top that off with him getting taken out by a clearly illegal charge on Sunday and you can see his frustration.  I have to say, I have never seen as reckless of officiating as I did from the Arlington officials on Sunday.  Our keepers were charged three separate times, all well within their box and all reckless shoulder charges when they attempted to play the ball.  The one that took my son out would have surely drawn a red card in most leagues, instead the forward was allowed to play the ball after dropping the keeper in mid-air and the score was allowed to stand.  No foul, no card, no nothing.  Nice.  Had it just been that one play, I would have chalked it up to the center simply missing the hit during play.  However, since they had already awarded a penalty shot to the opposing team for the first charge where an opposing forward impacted him while he was playing the ball well within his box and did not call a second shoulder charge on a keeper mid-air to the backup keeper that had to play when my son went down, I was supremely pissed.  As a certified UEFA/NTSA official myself, I understand that you should let the boys play soccer.  However, there are rules in place to protect the keeper from harm while playing the ball in his box.  As dangerous a position as keeper is, to expect one to engage a charging opponent with no protection from the officials is insane.  The rules governing keeper contact are designed to prevent exactly what was allowed to happen during our game on Sunday.  If a forward can simply take the keeper out with a dangerous charge while he is most vulnerable, such as when he is leaping into the air to stop a shot, what is to stop them from doing so and scoring, without regard to the safety of other players?  Nothing.  That is why the game forbids the sort of dangerous play that the center allowed to occur this weekend.  If it happened in our association, the center would be up for an A & D hearing before he knew what hit him.

Anyway, enough soccer talk.  My goal is to actually post something political tomorrow.  We will see how that goes. Until then…

I have also been quite busy in the evenings with soccer. I now have three children involved in the sport and I am more involved that I have ever been. My oldest son is playing in a competitive U12 Select league in Fort Worth and learning far more than I could ever teach him by having the depth of knowledge available in a competitive club. He has been getting to work with older keepers and is really focusing on more advanced techniques. He has begrudgingly earned the nickname ‘Air Bender’ from one of our rival teams in our indoor league, because she commented that he can jump in the air and bend in almost impossible ways to make stops. He was proud of that.

My daughter has decided to play again this year and finally landed on a good U9 recreational team. She even got to play her first games as a keeper over the past few weeks. She had begged to be put in the box and I was concerned as to how she would do, lacking the height advantage of her older brother. I was pleasantly surprised. Three games back, during a frustrating game against one of the best teams in her division, it seemed that the other team had our main keeper off balance. Our head coach decided to put my daughter in the game and see how she handled it. It was a pretty big gamble, since we had only just started working her in the box in practice, but it paid off. She even surprised me with a level of aggressiveness that I had not expected. She seemed fearless in the box… Too much so at one point as the only goal she let by her that half was caused because she came out way too far and ended up out of position. She was caught in front of her defense and the other team broke it past all of them. She learns quickly though. The rest of the game she started to manage her full backs, shouting positioning and coverages to them and then letting them do their jobs. She never left the goal open like that again. You could tell she had been watching her older brother. (Who is now proudly working with her on the skills and techniques that he is picking up.)

My youngest has been waiting for this season for a long time. He just started his first year of U6 developmental and is having a blast. I have to admit that I am as well. It has been a long time since I helped coach a U6 team and it was quite a large adjustment from coaching my U12 boys last year. I consider it a good practice when we can all stay focused long enough to learn one or two skills. If I can manage to keep the ice cream truck away, then we usually do just fine. I swear that guy preys on soccer practices… He was even diving through the parking lot at the game fields the other day. You know how quickly you can lose the attention of nine five year olds when they hear the music of an ice cream truck? Pretty damn fast, I can assure you. I have been really surprised by our success. We still have a tendency to degenerate in to a mass huddle on the soccer field, but other than our first game we have at least managed to get the ball moving in the right direction most of the time. I even noticed in our last game on Tuesday, that we are starting to learn our positions and actually stay in them a good deal of the time. Impressive for it just being our third game. We have actually won all of our games so far, although we don’t really keep track at this age, and it has been because of one little hispanic firecracker that we have on our team. This kid is amazing. He has scored 80% of our goals and kept more than a few from going in. He seems to be everywhere at once and has amazing control and shot accuracy for a five year old. The main thing though is to see how much fun these little guys are having when they are out there running around kicking and screaming. Makes it all worth the effort.

Me? Well, I am coaching the U6 team, assistant coaching my daughter’s U12 team and now I also referee for our association. I am living, breathing and bleeding soccer right now. Well, not so much bleeding as applying generous amounts of analgesic cream to sore muscles. Let me tell you, eight year old girls have far more energy, agility and stamina than I do. However, I do hope that this will help me to get in better shape. It certainly feels like it is after running around chasing plays for a couple of hours a day at least twice a week. My calf muscles are killing me, but it is all good.

Anyway, I completed my election judge training today and during the discussion about how important elections are, I started thinking about how lax I had been with the site. I will be remedying that immediately. Since I have the time, I will try to return to posting at least one article a day over critical current events. I have a wealth of material to work with lately and I only fear it will get much, much worse with the way this administration is pushing dangerous agendas upon the American people.

Therefore, the past week I have been spending what spare time I had applying for jobs. If there is anyone in the Fort Worth area that is looking for a seasoned IT professional, let me know.

While I have not been able to post an article, I have been trying to keep up with events and comments as best I could. An interesting conversation developed on the ELCA article I posted the other day. As I knew would be the case, someone came on to flame me for my intolerance and hatred. Now, I think I was plainly clear in my posting that I would never deny someone access to the word of God by telling them that they could not attend church, but I felt it wholly inappropriate for someone openly living in sin and against the will of God, to give instructions to others in His word. How that is hateful, I do not know. How it is intolerant I acknowledge, but make no apology for.

This posting is not about the issue of homosexuality in the church at all. This one is a broader examination about tolerance. We hear this word used an awful lot today. We are told that we must be tolerant of others. We must be tolerant of their behavior and their beliefs. We must be tolerant of ideas that we oppose and opinions that we do not share. What I want to know is where this comes from and why that tolerance is never offered in return. There is no tolerance for the Christian faith. It is continuously under assault and forced to change to the will of others. Christian churches have been forced to perform same sex marriages, Christmas events have been banned or relabeled to not offend others and there is now talk of hate crimes legislation against speaking the word of God. How is this tolerant? I thought Congress was to make no laws governing religion or the free exercise thereof? Was that not clear enough?

We are expected to understand when the effigy of Bush was burned in protest while people screamed offensive appellations against a sitting President. We were expected to be tolerant of people rights to protest as they called our soldiers murderers and our leaders criminal. We were expected to understand when our own political leaders betrayed the men and women serving this nation for their own political needs. We were expected to be tolerant.

Now we see people amassing to protest their rights to individual freedoms and government by their states and we are called racists, tea baggers (a sexually derogatory appellation), unruly mobs and terrorists. We protest for lower taxation, responsible spending and less government intervention in our lives and we are made out to be nothing more than angry dissenters who simply hate having a black man as our President. Where is the tolerance now? Oh, and I have some news for you… I can quickly name about five black men and one black woman that I would easily take as my President. Barack Obama is simply not one of them.

Where did this idea of tolerance come from? Were we tolerant of the British when we rebelled in Boston over a 2.5% tax on tea? When did this nation start down this path? Did we suddenly decide that it is not appropriate to speak out when we see something we believe is wrong? What exactly does tolerance mean? Should we have been tolerant of the South and their belief in slavery? Should we have learned to accept that they believed differently and that the North had no right to impose its morality upon them?

The issue of tolerance is often used as a club to stifle debate on an issue that one side does not want to face. What I find interesting is that most often though, it is those who preach tolerance the loudest who are the most intolerant of all. Just as the commenter showed in the previous post, there is absolutely no tolerance allowed for the Christian faith decide to follow the word of God and not allow certain people to instruct other in His word. There is no tolerance at all for our beliefs or what we see is right when it differs from others.

tol⋅er⋅ance – noun
1. a fair, objective, and permissive attitude toward those whose opinions, practices, race, religion, nationality, etc., differ from one’s own; freedom from bigotry.
2. a fair, objective, and permissive attitude toward opinions and practices that differ from one’s own.

So where in this definition does it say this only works one way. Furthermore, I do not like the use of the word permissive. Should I be tolerant or permissive of something I believe to be wrong?

What if I see someone stealing money from a vending machine? Should I be tolerant of this behavior because the person stealing might think that there is nothing wrong with theft?

What if I discover that my neighbor disciplines his children in a dangerous manner that I think might be abusive? Should I be tolerant of this because he thinks it is appropriate?

Why are liberals not tolerant of my desire to own an automatic weapon? I would absolutely love to own an M4 Carbine, an FN P90, an M107 SAS .50 cal or one of the new H&K MP7s. My ownership of those weapons would affect no one but me. I am a law abiding citizen who just happens to like firearms. So where is the tolerance for my desire to own them?

I welcome any serious discussion on this or explanations of why this tolerance aspect seems to only be a one way street.

To understand a little about this, requires a bit of a history lesson. The Lutheran Church and the Protestant movement in general were founded after the actions of Martin Luther in 16th century. Luther challenged the authority of the Roman Catholic Church to grant forgiveness through the power of indulgences. These indulgences were sold to offset sins committed by the buyers. They could even be sold ahead of time as sort of a sin credit. Much like the farce that we see today in the movement towards carbon credits, these indulgences allowed people to assuage their guilt for committing sins by paying the Church the appropriate amount. Luther was appalled by this practice and felt that only the word of God as written in the Bible had such authority. In the document know as “The 95 Theses”, Luther condemned the actions of the Church and claimed forgiveness was a gift from God, to be obtained not by works and deeds, but by His grace alone through faith in His Son, Jesus Christ. Luther posted “The 95 Theses” on the door of All Saint’s on October 31, 1517 and started one of the most influential shifts in religion since the death of Christ, the Protestant Reformation. Out of the Reformation arose many of the modern religions we recognize today: Baptist, Episcopalian, Methodist and, of course, Lutheran to name just a few. The teachings of these Protestant religions held the word of God as the ultimate authority and fought against the abuses of earthly power that had been rampant in the Catholic Church. This went to the point of open warfare at times as the Roman Catholic Church tried to maintain or reassert its control over the rebellious splinters forming as the Reformations religions. Ultimately, the Church was unable to maintain control and was severely damaged by the unstoppable movement that Luther had founded.

Today, these religions still hold that the word of God is the ultimate authority. They still teach that salvation comes not from our own will, intent or deeds, but as a divine grace awarded those who believe in the Son of God. They still hold that no Church or man can assume authority contrary to the word of God as given to us in the Bible, nor may they countermand His word. Therefore, the action taken recently by the ELCA causes me great concern.

In a direct departure from scripture, the ELCA has embraced the homosexual lifestyle and has decreed that it will allow homosexual clergy to lead its congregations. This is an extremely disturbing turn of events, since the act of homosexuality is specifically condemned by God everywhere it is mentioned in scripture. I can fully understand allowing members who were homosexuals, since you cannot judge the heart of a man and those members may be sincerely repentant of their sins. However, to allow sexually active, openly homosexual members into the clergy itself is clearly against the scripture. I once walked away from a church who allowed an unrepentant, adulterous pastor who had a chemical dependency problem to remain behind the pulpit and he was a heterosexual. No one who displays such unrepentant sinful behavior, deserves to lead others in the word of God. I have never claimed to be a man free from sin. The truth is far from it, but that is why I do not pretend to lead others in God’s word. I ask for forgiveness and the strength no to sin again, but know that I am one of the flock, not one of the shepherds. I can assure you that the Missouri Synod Lutheran’s will not follow the lead of our misguided sister church, for if they do, they would lose members left and right.

Homosexuality is a difficult subject to discuss for some and I am sure that this article will get me flamed almost immediately. However, just as someone who is gay has every right to believe that there is nothing wrong with it, I have every right to find it abhorrent, a sin and an affront to God based upon my beliefs. Somehow in this nation, it has become acceptable for one person’s deeply held belief to be acceptable and another’s just as deeply held belief to be suppressed. While I understand that some of this is an inevitable result of a multi-cultural, multi-national, multi-religion society, how is it that it is increasingly the majority who is oppressed in favor of the minority? I do not agree with homosexuality, because it is condemned by my faith. I have that right. I do not believe in murder, adultery, theft, idolatry, dishonesty and I cherish the sanctity of life for the exact same reasons. I have that right. I am under no obligation to surrender my principles and be forced to accept the lifestyle or actions of others that I feel are immoral or sinful. Those who do not wish to live by the precepts of my religion can go and do so in peace. However, they have no right to force my religion to adapt to or accept their choices when it stands in direct contravention to them.

I thought there were to be no laws in this nation governing religion or the free exercise thereof? That is unfortunately not how things work today. We have seen the Courts force churches to allow homosexual members and require they conduct homosexual marriages and now we see our Congress considering making it a hate crime to preach the sins of homosexuality from the pulpit. I don’t think so. You may go and believe whatever you want however you wish, but you afford me that same right. Why can homosexual protesters stand across the street from my work and protest for their rights, demanding that others accept them, but when others show to counter protest they are immediately and without questions condemned for their beliefs. I have no problem that there is a gay bar across the street from our lab, what I have a problem with is being told that I have to accept their lifestyle choices and be tolerant of them. No I do not. I will accept that they can do what they will and I will feel pity for them and their choices, but I will not accept that their lifestyle is normal because my religion says it is not. To do so would be to surrender a piece of myself, simply to assuage the guilt of someone else or to avoid offending them. I will not judge what is in their hearts nor condemn them, for that is not my place. However, I can judge their actions to be against what I believe and that most certainly is my right.

I do condemn the choice of the ELCA as their actions are directly against the word of God and do not follow Christian teachings at all. I welcome all ELCA members who feel betrayed by their church to remember their brethren in the LCMS and know that we will not walk the path of the world and accept such things. Come and join us.