In honor of Earth Day, I would like to bust a few myths out there. How can you solve a problem without being honest about it?? First, hybrid cars are actually WORSE for the environment over the long term, due to the highly toxic battery that never biodegrades (and that you have to replace twice over the life of the car, approximately). One of the leading causes of deforestation of the Amazon? Soybeans... yes you tofu eaters, you thought you were being environmentally friendly, didn’t you... This situation is exacerbated by the high levels of corn we grow in the United States (that pushed out the soybean crop) in order to create ethanol. Ethanol being the highly praised alternative fuel that requires just as much fuel to make it as it produces. So why do so many grow corn for ethanol, pushing out actual consumable crops? Government subsidies! These farmers get paid to grow a crop that is of no real worth to the American people because our beloved government decided to throw our money at ANY alternative fuel creation, despite whether or not it is viable. Even though we now know all of this, we are still subsidizing it!!! (I personally think hydrogen is the way to go, but I could be wrong.) Some organic farming (a small portion) is highly destructive to the environment. For example, instead of using a pest control that is required by law to biodegrade, they use mulched copper, which after several years of use renders the farm land unusable.
The root of the problem is that we rarely ever get the facts about the pros and cons of the currently vogue method of “saving the planet” and end up making shoot from the hip decisions that end up hurting rather than helping. This is why alarmists like Al Gore can be so counterproductive to the environmentalist movement. If you are told that that earth is going to be irrevocably decimated in ten years and the gluttonous homo sapiens who mar its serene surface are shortly to be beyond hope of amendment (like Al Gore proclaimed with all the reliability and self-indulgence of a doomsday soothsayer on the corner of a New York street with a sign stretching around his overfed carcass of a neck declaring he is the prophet of the apocalypse) you start making sloppy decisions and not really evaluating the best choices to coexist with our remarkably beautiful planet. (Which, I need not add, is an absolute farce since the amount of toxic gases that the earth emits of its own accord through volcanoes, plate rifts, swamps, animals, and, according to recent research, our sinister earth-hating pets, all make the United States’ carbon footprint look so much more manageable and yet the earth is able to surprise us and continually renew itself. Anyone seen Mount St. Helens recently?)
The reality is that vast majority of us want our water to be clean, our air to be healthy and our wild places to be pristine to hand down to our children. We have more in common on this issue than many of us realize, but we are being force fed what politicians think will get them the most support. It is all political posturing to divide right from left, liberal from conservative and not about solving the problem. I think we forget how far we have come since the 1970s: how much smog choked our cities, how many endangered species have been nursed back from the brink, and anyone remember the non-biodegradable styrofoam containers? Of course, we have new problems now, but I really believe being honest about our choices would make finding truly sustainable solutions to taking care of our planet much more attainable. It will take time, but I have faith that we will get there. The question is how many large and costly blunders we will make along the way because our politicians can’t help themselves by playing the game and not solving the problem.
Thursday, April 22, 2010
Friday, December 11, 2009
Christmas Narration 2008
Again, this is for preservation purposes. I wrote this last year for the Christmas program at our church. The punctuation is grammatically perfect because it is punctuated for being read aloud.
Wonderful, Counsellor, The Mighty God, The Everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace: Isaiah gave Him these titles 700 years before He was even born. The Savior, The Redeemer, The King of the Jews, Jehovah, Jesus the Christ. He has been the subject of prophecy since the time of Adam and Eve. He is the Hope of the World, The Son of God, The Only-Begotten of the Father. His arrival had been anticipated for centuries, for he would lead all who would follow Him to salvation. His birth was prophecy fulfilled; Jehovah had entered into mortality. Few, though, could have anticipated how He would enter into His earthly ministry. Indeed, the least of Jesus’ titles was the heir to the throne of David and yet in Bethlehem, the city of David, He had to be born in a stable because there was no room at the inn. That he came into the world in the most humble of surroundings set the tone for His life and ministry. President Monson said ““No room in the inn” was not a singular expression of rejection—just the first.” And yet, Jesus spent His mortal ministry inviting all to come and follow Him. Yes, countless prophets testified of His coming, angels sang of the heavenly birth, trumpets had blared, a star had shone bright in the heavens. The Messiah had finally come… and He rested, a tiny new baby, in a simple manger full of straw.
-Sing Baby in a Manger
Bethlehem was filled to the brim. There must have been many there in the city of David the night of the Christ-child’s birth. Was it only the shepherds who came to worship the baby Jesus that first night? Why in a city overrun with people did so few come? Did they not see the star? Hear the angels singing “Hallelujah, Glory to God”? The wise men traveled from far away in the east to see the King of the Jews. Yet, so many, so close never participated. Why did the greatest event to happen on the earth thus far, go unnoticed by so many? Were they thinking of the taxes soon to be paid, how uncomfortable they were at the cramped inn, how tired they were? Was it the petty mundane concerns of life that blinded them to what was happening on their very doorstep? The miracle of the birth of the Savior of the World, the Messiah they had been long awaiting.
Where will we be on Christmas day? This, the a time set aside to celebrate Christ’s birth. Will we be too concerned with the trappings of world to look to the heavens? Will we be too busy to witness miracles? When the angels appeared to the shepherds and told them where to find the babe, did they worry about what to do with their sheep? They were shepherds and their sheep were their entire livelihood. Did they take some extra time and make arrangements for their flocks? Did they decide to go later after they got some much-needed rest? No. Luke 2:15-16 reads “And it came to pass, as the angels were gone away from them into heaven, the shepherds said one to another, “Let us now go even unto Bethlehem, and see this thing which is come to pass, which the Lord hath made known unto us. And they came with haste, and found Mary, and Joseph, and the babe lying in a manger.”
They did not delay one moment longer. They came with haste. The shepherds understood the significance of what they had just seen and what they were about to behold. How blessed were they to witness the holy child on the night of His birth. We would hope that we too would make haste to see the babe as the shepherds had done. The shepherds, though, were not the only ones to be told of the birth: Luke 2:17-18 goes on to read: “And when they had seen it, they made known abroad the saying which was told them concerning this child. And all they that heard it wondered at those things which were told them by the shepherds.”
The shepherds told others, many others, and they simply wondered. They did not come to view the holy sight that all the world had been waiting for, they wondered. They did not come with haste to worship their Redeemer, they wondered. They had the opportunity to participate in one of the most hopeful, inspiring, humbling, and divine moments in all human history and, instead, they wondered. May we be like the shepherds and come with haste when our Savior calls us. May we be humble enough to take part in the miracle of Christ’s birth.
-Sing Where You There That Christmas Night
“NOW when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold, there came wise men from the east to Jerusalem, Saying, Where is he that is born King of the Jews? for we have seen his star in the east, and are come to worship him. “ (Matthew 2:1-2)
The story of the wise men was one of faith. They were learned men, men that spent their lives studying prophecies and signs, men wealthy enough to be welcomed into King Herod’s circle. We do not know their names, but we know that they traveled far, probably for months to find the Christ-child. In a land where they were strangers, they had not but a star to guide them. They were traveling to a house they had never seen to find people whose names they did not know, but they wandered through deserts and mountains and unknown hardship because they had faith that the star would guide them to the King of kings. What probably made it even more difficult for them was that the coming of the Messiah was still so little known of in the Messiah’s own land. This must have astonished the wise men greatly. They had come so far by simply following a star just to offer their gifts and worship at the feet of the divine child and yet the people of Judea had little idea of an occurrence of any significance. The wise men came to see a king and found a child unrecognized by His own people, in humble surroundings.
-Sing Once Within a Lowly Stable
“With the birth of the babe in Bethlehem, there emerged a great endowment, a power stronger than weapons, a wealth more lasting than the coins of Caesar. This child was to be the King of kings and Lord of lords, the promised Messiah—even Jesus Christ, the Son of God.
Born in a stable, cradled in a manger, He came forth from heaven to live on earth as mortal man and to establish the kingdom of God. During His earthly ministry, He taught men the higher law. His glorious gospel reshaped the thinking of the world. He blessed the sick. He caused the lame to walk, the blind to see, the deaf to hear. He even raised the dead to life.” - President Thomas S. Monson
Oh, what a miraculous sight to behold! The holy birth marked a change in the world. The earth and it’s inhabitants were to be forever altered. “Lift up your head and be of good cheer…” Angels proclaimed salvation and “good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people.” “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.”
-Sing Hark! The Herald Angels Sing
John 3:16-17. “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved.”
On this first Christmas, we were given the most wondrous of gifts. We were given the Son of God to teach us and atone for our sins. What will we give in return? The Savior himself counseled us that if we love Him we are to feed His sheep. There are spiritual and physical needs to be met all over the world this Christmas. The need is in our neighborhoods, our schools, our places of work and in our church. The most important gifts we give this Christmas season will not take the form of presents under the tree. They will be gifts we give from the heart.
The poet Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote: “Rings and jewels are not gifts, but apologies for gifts. The only [true] gift is a portion of thyself.”
Food given, joy spread, a listening ear, but most importantly, time spent. President Monson reminded us, “There is no shortage of opportunities to forget self and think of others. Such opportunities, however limitless they may be, are also perishable. There are hearts to gladden. There are kind words to say. There are gifts to be given. There are deeds to be done. There are souls to be saved.” Don’t hesitate to give to your fellow man. For”…as ye have done it unto one of the least of these ye have done it unto me.” This is how we show our gratitude to our Savior for giving the greatest gift anyone can give. Themselves. Let us follow His example. Don’t rush through helping one another like another chore to be done during the Christmas season. This is what the season is about.
President David O. McKay said: “True happiness comes only by making others happy—the practical application of the Savior’s doctrine of losing one’s life to gain it. In short, the Christmas spirit is the Christ spirit, that makes our hearts glow in brotherly love and friendship and prompts us to kind deeds of service.
“It is the spirit of the gospel of Jesus Christ, obedience to which will bring ‘peace on earth,’ because it means—good will toward all men.”
This Christmas, let us remember that our Heavenly Father gave His Only-Begotten as the Savior for our sins and what it means to give of ourselves. Let us never forget what a profound and wonderful gift was given to us all that holy night in Bethlehem
-Sing O Holy Night
“This is a glorious time of the year, simple in origin, deep in meaning, beautiful in tradition and custom, rich in memories, and charitable in spirit. It has an attraction to which our hearts are readily drawn. This joyful season brings to each of us a measure of happiness that corresponds to the degree in which we have turned our mind, feelings, and actions to the spirit of Christmas…”
“As we seek Christ, as we find Him, as we follow Him, we shall have the Christmas spirit, not for one fleeting day each year, but as a companion always. We shall learn to forget ourselves. We shall turn our thoughts to the greater benefit of others…”
“There is no better time than now, this very Christmas season, for all of us to rededicate ourselves to the principles taught by Jesus the Christ. It is the time to love the Lord our God with all our heart—and our neighbors as ourselves. It is well to remember that he who gives money gives much, he who gives time gives more, but he who gives of himself gives all.” –President Thomas S. Monson
-Sing I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day
Wonderful, Counsellor, The Mighty God, The Everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace: Isaiah gave Him these titles 700 years before He was even born. The Savior, The Redeemer, The King of the Jews, Jehovah, Jesus the Christ. He has been the subject of prophecy since the time of Adam and Eve. He is the Hope of the World, The Son of God, The Only-Begotten of the Father. His arrival had been anticipated for centuries, for he would lead all who would follow Him to salvation. His birth was prophecy fulfilled; Jehovah had entered into mortality. Few, though, could have anticipated how He would enter into His earthly ministry. Indeed, the least of Jesus’ titles was the heir to the throne of David and yet in Bethlehem, the city of David, He had to be born in a stable because there was no room at the inn. That he came into the world in the most humble of surroundings set the tone for His life and ministry. President Monson said ““No room in the inn” was not a singular expression of rejection—just the first.” And yet, Jesus spent His mortal ministry inviting all to come and follow Him. Yes, countless prophets testified of His coming, angels sang of the heavenly birth, trumpets had blared, a star had shone bright in the heavens. The Messiah had finally come… and He rested, a tiny new baby, in a simple manger full of straw.
-Sing Baby in a Manger
Bethlehem was filled to the brim. There must have been many there in the city of David the night of the Christ-child’s birth. Was it only the shepherds who came to worship the baby Jesus that first night? Why in a city overrun with people did so few come? Did they not see the star? Hear the angels singing “Hallelujah, Glory to God”? The wise men traveled from far away in the east to see the King of the Jews. Yet, so many, so close never participated. Why did the greatest event to happen on the earth thus far, go unnoticed by so many? Were they thinking of the taxes soon to be paid, how uncomfortable they were at the cramped inn, how tired they were? Was it the petty mundane concerns of life that blinded them to what was happening on their very doorstep? The miracle of the birth of the Savior of the World, the Messiah they had been long awaiting.
Where will we be on Christmas day? This, the a time set aside to celebrate Christ’s birth. Will we be too concerned with the trappings of world to look to the heavens? Will we be too busy to witness miracles? When the angels appeared to the shepherds and told them where to find the babe, did they worry about what to do with their sheep? They were shepherds and their sheep were their entire livelihood. Did they take some extra time and make arrangements for their flocks? Did they decide to go later after they got some much-needed rest? No. Luke 2:15-16 reads “And it came to pass, as the angels were gone away from them into heaven, the shepherds said one to another, “Let us now go even unto Bethlehem, and see this thing which is come to pass, which the Lord hath made known unto us. And they came with haste, and found Mary, and Joseph, and the babe lying in a manger.”
They did not delay one moment longer. They came with haste. The shepherds understood the significance of what they had just seen and what they were about to behold. How blessed were they to witness the holy child on the night of His birth. We would hope that we too would make haste to see the babe as the shepherds had done. The shepherds, though, were not the only ones to be told of the birth: Luke 2:17-18 goes on to read: “And when they had seen it, they made known abroad the saying which was told them concerning this child. And all they that heard it wondered at those things which were told them by the shepherds.”
The shepherds told others, many others, and they simply wondered. They did not come to view the holy sight that all the world had been waiting for, they wondered. They did not come with haste to worship their Redeemer, they wondered. They had the opportunity to participate in one of the most hopeful, inspiring, humbling, and divine moments in all human history and, instead, they wondered. May we be like the shepherds and come with haste when our Savior calls us. May we be humble enough to take part in the miracle of Christ’s birth.
-Sing Where You There That Christmas Night
“NOW when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold, there came wise men from the east to Jerusalem, Saying, Where is he that is born King of the Jews? for we have seen his star in the east, and are come to worship him. “ (Matthew 2:1-2)
The story of the wise men was one of faith. They were learned men, men that spent their lives studying prophecies and signs, men wealthy enough to be welcomed into King Herod’s circle. We do not know their names, but we know that they traveled far, probably for months to find the Christ-child. In a land where they were strangers, they had not but a star to guide them. They were traveling to a house they had never seen to find people whose names they did not know, but they wandered through deserts and mountains and unknown hardship because they had faith that the star would guide them to the King of kings. What probably made it even more difficult for them was that the coming of the Messiah was still so little known of in the Messiah’s own land. This must have astonished the wise men greatly. They had come so far by simply following a star just to offer their gifts and worship at the feet of the divine child and yet the people of Judea had little idea of an occurrence of any significance. The wise men came to see a king and found a child unrecognized by His own people, in humble surroundings.
-Sing Once Within a Lowly Stable
“With the birth of the babe in Bethlehem, there emerged a great endowment, a power stronger than weapons, a wealth more lasting than the coins of Caesar. This child was to be the King of kings and Lord of lords, the promised Messiah—even Jesus Christ, the Son of God.
Born in a stable, cradled in a manger, He came forth from heaven to live on earth as mortal man and to establish the kingdom of God. During His earthly ministry, He taught men the higher law. His glorious gospel reshaped the thinking of the world. He blessed the sick. He caused the lame to walk, the blind to see, the deaf to hear. He even raised the dead to life.” - President Thomas S. Monson
Oh, what a miraculous sight to behold! The holy birth marked a change in the world. The earth and it’s inhabitants were to be forever altered. “Lift up your head and be of good cheer…” Angels proclaimed salvation and “good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people.” “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.”
-Sing Hark! The Herald Angels Sing
John 3:16-17. “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved.”
On this first Christmas, we were given the most wondrous of gifts. We were given the Son of God to teach us and atone for our sins. What will we give in return? The Savior himself counseled us that if we love Him we are to feed His sheep. There are spiritual and physical needs to be met all over the world this Christmas. The need is in our neighborhoods, our schools, our places of work and in our church. The most important gifts we give this Christmas season will not take the form of presents under the tree. They will be gifts we give from the heart.
The poet Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote: “Rings and jewels are not gifts, but apologies for gifts. The only [true] gift is a portion of thyself.”
Food given, joy spread, a listening ear, but most importantly, time spent. President Monson reminded us, “There is no shortage of opportunities to forget self and think of others. Such opportunities, however limitless they may be, are also perishable. There are hearts to gladden. There are kind words to say. There are gifts to be given. There are deeds to be done. There are souls to be saved.” Don’t hesitate to give to your fellow man. For”…as ye have done it unto one of the least of these ye have done it unto me.” This is how we show our gratitude to our Savior for giving the greatest gift anyone can give. Themselves. Let us follow His example. Don’t rush through helping one another like another chore to be done during the Christmas season. This is what the season is about.
President David O. McKay said: “True happiness comes only by making others happy—the practical application of the Savior’s doctrine of losing one’s life to gain it. In short, the Christmas spirit is the Christ spirit, that makes our hearts glow in brotherly love and friendship and prompts us to kind deeds of service.
“It is the spirit of the gospel of Jesus Christ, obedience to which will bring ‘peace on earth,’ because it means—good will toward all men.”
This Christmas, let us remember that our Heavenly Father gave His Only-Begotten as the Savior for our sins and what it means to give of ourselves. Let us never forget what a profound and wonderful gift was given to us all that holy night in Bethlehem
-Sing O Holy Night
“This is a glorious time of the year, simple in origin, deep in meaning, beautiful in tradition and custom, rich in memories, and charitable in spirit. It has an attraction to which our hearts are readily drawn. This joyful season brings to each of us a measure of happiness that corresponds to the degree in which we have turned our mind, feelings, and actions to the spirit of Christmas…”
“As we seek Christ, as we find Him, as we follow Him, we shall have the Christmas spirit, not for one fleeting day each year, but as a companion always. We shall learn to forget ourselves. We shall turn our thoughts to the greater benefit of others…”
“There is no better time than now, this very Christmas season, for all of us to rededicate ourselves to the principles taught by Jesus the Christ. It is the time to love the Lord our God with all our heart—and our neighbors as ourselves. It is well to remember that he who gives money gives much, he who gives time gives more, but he who gives of himself gives all.” –President Thomas S. Monson
-Sing I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day
Monday, November 16, 2009
Gratitude Talk 2008
Just wanted to put this somewhere where I can get at it and not lose it:
On June 15, 1775, George Washington was named the commander in chief of the continental forces. He took command at Cambridge, Mass., and found not an army but a force of unorganized, poorly disciplined, short-term enlisted militia, officered by men who were often insubordinate. During the next six years Washington dealt with overwhelming odds in fighting the American Revolution. The continental congress often neglected to pay the troops. He, more than once, paid the wages of his army from his own pocket when he himself never received any pay for the entirety of the war. Washington dealt with shortages of food, clothing, arms, and gunpowder, an essential part of fighting a war. The magnitude of the British army was overwhelming and in sheer numbers Washington, in fact, lost more battles than he won. The effects of such hardship and resistance from the very army, citizens and congress that he was sacrificing to protect could have embittered him. He had every right, by our standards, to feel resentful of that period of his life. Yet when he wrote of the American Revolution years after he said "...The man must be bad indeed who can look upon the events of the American Revolution without feeling the warmest gratitude towards the great author of the Universe whose divine interposition was so frequently manifested in our behalf. And it is my earnest prayer that we may so conduct ourselves as to merit a continuance of those blessings with which we have hitherto been favored."
When many saw just the trials, Washington saw the miracles. On December 5, 1833, the Prophet Joseph Smith wrote to Church leaders presiding over the Saints who were being persecuted in Missouri: “Remember not to murmur at the dealings of God with His creatures. You are not as yet brought into as trying circumstances as were the ancient Prophets and Apostles. Call to mind a Daniel, the three Hebrew children [Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego], Jeremiah, Paul, Stephen, and many others, too numerous to mention, who were stoned, sawn asunder, tempted, slain with the sword, and [who] wandered about in sheep skins and goat skins, being destitute, afflicted, tormented, of whom the world was not worthy. They wandered in deserts and in mountains, and hid in dens and caves of the earth; yet they all obtained a good report through faith and amidst all their afflictions they rejoiced that they were counted worthy to receive persecutions for Christ’s sake.”
In fact, it seems that if one looks at history: the prophets, the founding fathers, even biographies of those that aren’t as well known, those that had the greatest cause to complain were often found praising God and enumerating the many ways in which they are blessed.
Cicero said “Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all the others.” Putting that statement to the test, we might say that if you were looking to cultivate more patience, remembering and being thankful for all the times others were patient while teaching or helping us when they had better things to do would help us. If we are struggling to forgive another, might we first recognize how grateful we were for the many times we have fallen short or trespassed another and were still forgiven. Even charity, the pure love of Christ, could not hope to be attained with an ungrateful attitude.
D&C 59:21 reads “And in nothing doth man offend God, or against none is his wrath kindled, save those who confess not his hand in all things, and obey not his commandments.” From this scripture it is evident that Heavenly Father considers a grateful heart to be an essential attribute of his people. “…Ingratitude is self-centered. It is form of pride.” (Faust) In 1 Thessalonians 5:18, we are told by the Apostle Paul, “In every thing give thanks: for this is the will of God.” Both scriptures demonstrate that God takes the sin of ingratitude very seriously and even considers gratitude a commandment.
And, of course, as with all commandments given us Heavenly Father rewards us greatly for having the spirit of gratitude in our lives. D&C 78:19 states, “And he who receiveth all things with thankfulness shall be made glorious; and the things of this earth shall be added unto him, even an hundred fold, yea, more.” The Lord promises great blessings if we are humble enough to recognize His hand. The power of gratitude can be life transforming and the great thing is it doesn’t require anything more than simply seeing what has been right in front of our face the entire time.
The power of gratitude is evident in the oft sung hymn Count Your Blessings:
1. When upon life’s billows you are tempest-tossed,
When you are discouraged, thinking all is lost,
Count your many blessings; name them one by one,
And it will surprise you what the Lord has done.
2. Are you ever burdened with a load of care?
Does the cross seem heavy you are called to bear?
Count your many blessings; ev’ry doubt will fly,
And you will be singing as the days go by.
3. When you look at others with their lands and gold,
Think that Christ has promised you his wealth untold.
Count your many blessings; money cannot buy
Your reward in heaven nor your home on high.
4. So amid the conflict, whether great or small,
Do not be discouraged; God is over all.
Count your many blessings; angels will attend,
Help and comfort give you to your journey’s end.
Counting your blessings is an admittedly simple solution to some very complicated problems in life. But it is guaranteed to lighten burdens and put our seemingly insurmountable problems in a more manageable perspective.
I loved President Monson’s talk in October’s conference. He said that recognizing our blessings were essential to understanding how precious life is. President Monson mentioned Thornton Wilder’s play Our Town.
“In the play Emily Webb dies in childbirth, and we read of the lonely grief of her young husband, George, left with their four-year-old son. Emily does not wish to rest in peace; she wants to experience again the joys of her life. She is granted the privilege of returning to earth and reliving her 12th birthday. At first it is exciting to be young again, but the excitement wears off quickly. The day holds no joy now that Emily knows what is in store for the future. It is unbearably painful to realize how unaware she had been of the meaning and wonder of life while she was alive. Before returning to her resting place, Emily laments, “Do … human beings ever realize life while they live it—every, every minute?”
President Monson goes on to say: “Our realization of what is most important in life goes hand in hand with gratitude for our blessings.
Said one well-known author: “Both abundance and lack [of abundance] exist simultaneously in our lives, as parallel realities. It is always our conscious choice which secret garden we will tend … when we choose not to focus on what is missing from our lives but are grateful for the abundance that’s present—love, health, family, friends, work, the joys of nature, and personal pursuits that bring us [happiness]—the wasteland of illusion falls away and we experience heaven on earth.”
Often we cannot control when the times of feast or famine come, but we can control how we treat those around us, how hard we work and how we look upon the abundance that we do have. It seems to be the human condition that we are to look to the future or some other place and think “I will be happy when…” President Monson pointed out that living life in the now, being thankful for what you have now is essential for happiness. He related a story that Arthur Gordon wrote in a national magazine:
“When I was around thirteen and my brother ten, Father had promised to take us to the circus. But at lunchtime there was a phone call; some urgent business required his attention downtown. We braced ourselves for disappointment. Then we heard him say [into the phone], ‘No, I won’t be down. It’ll have to wait.’
“When he came back to the table, Mother smiled. ‘The circus keeps coming back, you know,’ [she said.]
“‘I know,’ said Father. ‘But childhood doesn’t.’”2
President Monson continues: “If you have children who are grown and gone, in all likelihood you have occasionally felt pangs of loss and the recognition that you didn’t appreciate that time of life as much as you should have. Of course, there is no going back, but only forward. Rather than dwelling on the past, we should make the most of today, of the here and now, doing all we can to provide pleasant memories for the future.
If you are still in the process of raising children, be aware that the tiny fingerprints that show up on almost every newly cleaned surface, the toys scattered about the house, the piles and piles of laundry to be tackled will disappear all too soon and that you will—to your surprise—miss them profoundly.”
This statement, of course, made a particular impression on me as I am constantly feeling like a hamster in its wheel while taking care of my three young children, cleaning up after them, tripping on their toys, cooking them food they don’t want to eat. In fact, for me, the most terrifying part of giving talks today was not me standing up here speaking, but sitting down there with three toddlers trying to keep them quiet while their Dad is up here speaking. But this is an essential part of gratitude. We cannot put off our happiness until tomorrow. We, too often find ourselves looking forward or back to say “We will be happy when…” We are effectively saying “We will be grateful when…” and when we are saying that… what message are we sending to our Father in Heaven? That despite all He has given us, the abundance with which He has blessed us, we can not be grateful for it all until our terms for happiness are met. Our own agenda for what we believe will make us happy is fulfilled. We will never be happy if we are not grateful with what we have now.
So what do we do to feel gratitude now? In the story I just related the father had a choice of what to spend his time doing. Many times we do not have a choice, we must be working. But when we have a choice, we should choose to cultivate those relationships that matter. Be it close friends, fellow ward members, but most especially family. Nothing increases your gratitude for you loved ones like spending quality time with them often.
Secondly, we should make it a habit of expressing our gratitude. Often we do this privately in our own minds, but we should take the opportunity to express it out loud. Make it a habit! William Arthur Ward said, “Feeling gratitude and not expressing it is like wrapping a present and not giving it.” Gratitude left unsaid does little good to either party. There is so much negativity out there in the world, saying something nice to someone too often takes them aback and they are at a loss off how to respond. That is a terrible shame.
President Monson suggested: ”Send that note to the friend you’ve been neglecting; give your child a hug; give your parents a hug; say “I love you” more; always express your thanks. Never let a problem to be solved become more important than a person to be loved. Friends move away, children grow up, loved ones pass on. It’s so easy to take others for granted, until that day when they’re gone from our lives and we are left with feelings of “what if” and “if only.” Said author Harriet Beecher Stowe, “The bitterest tears shed over graves are for words left unsaid and deeds left undone.”
When Blake and I were sealed, our sealer gave us a piece of advice. He told us that when we knelt for our nightly prayers as a couple (and we were to trade off who was to say them), that we were to thank Heavenly Father for our spouse and pray to be worthy of them. I have never forgotten that advise and it has actually made for some pretty funny situations when one of us was mad at the other and we had to be thankful for them and pray to be worthy of them. But, even in times of anger, it had a great impact on me mentally when I expressed thanks for my spouse, because it brought to my mind all those things he had done for me lately and made me more grateful for him.
I also had a teacher for a missionary prep course at BYU who said that his wife had told him everyday of their forty-year marriage that she was so grateful to be married to him and that she was the luckiest woman in the world. He openly admitted that this was probably far from the truth, but, he saidm it had a profound effect on him being told that everyday. He said that it made him a better person, just knowing that his wife was grateful for him made him strive to be the husband she already believed him to be. Gratitude expressed can have a powerful effect on both parties.
Of course a huge part of gratitude is to express thanks to our Father in Heaven. I remember a talk where the speaker told us to try praying in the morning for that which we needed, but leave the evening prayer to simply express thanks. Not to ask for anything, but to count your blessings. What a wonderful opportunity it is to set aside time in your day to get on your knees and count your blessings; to say simply “Thank You” without asking for anything; to just allow yourself to feel grateful.
Another idea is to keep a gratitude journal. It doesn’t have to be involved. Just write a line a day of things you are thankful for. You will be surprised at how fast it will grow. It also help us by reminding us daily to be thankful for what we have and helps us appreciate the little blessings that come to us often, but we take no notice.
Doing just a few more things a day to express gratitude to our Heavenly Father and to others around us can have the potential to change our lives for the better. We will be happier, we will be more content and we will start seeing the miracles that occur right in front of our face everyday. And who knows, we might actually stop focusing on our trials. Melodie Beattie said:
“Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos into order, confusion into clarity.... It turns problems into gifts, failures into success, the unexpected into perfect timing, and mistakes into important events. Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today and creates a vision for tomorrow.”
On June 15, 1775, George Washington was named the commander in chief of the continental forces. He took command at Cambridge, Mass., and found not an army but a force of unorganized, poorly disciplined, short-term enlisted militia, officered by men who were often insubordinate. During the next six years Washington dealt with overwhelming odds in fighting the American Revolution. The continental congress often neglected to pay the troops. He, more than once, paid the wages of his army from his own pocket when he himself never received any pay for the entirety of the war. Washington dealt with shortages of food, clothing, arms, and gunpowder, an essential part of fighting a war. The magnitude of the British army was overwhelming and in sheer numbers Washington, in fact, lost more battles than he won. The effects of such hardship and resistance from the very army, citizens and congress that he was sacrificing to protect could have embittered him. He had every right, by our standards, to feel resentful of that period of his life. Yet when he wrote of the American Revolution years after he said "...The man must be bad indeed who can look upon the events of the American Revolution without feeling the warmest gratitude towards the great author of the Universe whose divine interposition was so frequently manifested in our behalf. And it is my earnest prayer that we may so conduct ourselves as to merit a continuance of those blessings with which we have hitherto been favored."
When many saw just the trials, Washington saw the miracles. On December 5, 1833, the Prophet Joseph Smith wrote to Church leaders presiding over the Saints who were being persecuted in Missouri: “Remember not to murmur at the dealings of God with His creatures. You are not as yet brought into as trying circumstances as were the ancient Prophets and Apostles. Call to mind a Daniel, the three Hebrew children [Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego], Jeremiah, Paul, Stephen, and many others, too numerous to mention, who were stoned, sawn asunder, tempted, slain with the sword, and [who] wandered about in sheep skins and goat skins, being destitute, afflicted, tormented, of whom the world was not worthy. They wandered in deserts and in mountains, and hid in dens and caves of the earth; yet they all obtained a good report through faith and amidst all their afflictions they rejoiced that they were counted worthy to receive persecutions for Christ’s sake.”
In fact, it seems that if one looks at history: the prophets, the founding fathers, even biographies of those that aren’t as well known, those that had the greatest cause to complain were often found praising God and enumerating the many ways in which they are blessed.
Cicero said “Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all the others.” Putting that statement to the test, we might say that if you were looking to cultivate more patience, remembering and being thankful for all the times others were patient while teaching or helping us when they had better things to do would help us. If we are struggling to forgive another, might we first recognize how grateful we were for the many times we have fallen short or trespassed another and were still forgiven. Even charity, the pure love of Christ, could not hope to be attained with an ungrateful attitude.
D&C 59:21 reads “And in nothing doth man offend God, or against none is his wrath kindled, save those who confess not his hand in all things, and obey not his commandments.” From this scripture it is evident that Heavenly Father considers a grateful heart to be an essential attribute of his people. “…Ingratitude is self-centered. It is form of pride.” (Faust) In 1 Thessalonians 5:18, we are told by the Apostle Paul, “In every thing give thanks: for this is the will of God.” Both scriptures demonstrate that God takes the sin of ingratitude very seriously and even considers gratitude a commandment.
And, of course, as with all commandments given us Heavenly Father rewards us greatly for having the spirit of gratitude in our lives. D&C 78:19 states, “And he who receiveth all things with thankfulness shall be made glorious; and the things of this earth shall be added unto him, even an hundred fold, yea, more.” The Lord promises great blessings if we are humble enough to recognize His hand. The power of gratitude can be life transforming and the great thing is it doesn’t require anything more than simply seeing what has been right in front of our face the entire time.
The power of gratitude is evident in the oft sung hymn Count Your Blessings:
1. When upon life’s billows you are tempest-tossed,
When you are discouraged, thinking all is lost,
Count your many blessings; name them one by one,
And it will surprise you what the Lord has done.
2. Are you ever burdened with a load of care?
Does the cross seem heavy you are called to bear?
Count your many blessings; ev’ry doubt will fly,
And you will be singing as the days go by.
3. When you look at others with their lands and gold,
Think that Christ has promised you his wealth untold.
Count your many blessings; money cannot buy
Your reward in heaven nor your home on high.
4. So amid the conflict, whether great or small,
Do not be discouraged; God is over all.
Count your many blessings; angels will attend,
Help and comfort give you to your journey’s end.
Counting your blessings is an admittedly simple solution to some very complicated problems in life. But it is guaranteed to lighten burdens and put our seemingly insurmountable problems in a more manageable perspective.
I loved President Monson’s talk in October’s conference. He said that recognizing our blessings were essential to understanding how precious life is. President Monson mentioned Thornton Wilder’s play Our Town.
“In the play Emily Webb dies in childbirth, and we read of the lonely grief of her young husband, George, left with their four-year-old son. Emily does not wish to rest in peace; she wants to experience again the joys of her life. She is granted the privilege of returning to earth and reliving her 12th birthday. At first it is exciting to be young again, but the excitement wears off quickly. The day holds no joy now that Emily knows what is in store for the future. It is unbearably painful to realize how unaware she had been of the meaning and wonder of life while she was alive. Before returning to her resting place, Emily laments, “Do … human beings ever realize life while they live it—every, every minute?”
President Monson goes on to say: “Our realization of what is most important in life goes hand in hand with gratitude for our blessings.
Said one well-known author: “Both abundance and lack [of abundance] exist simultaneously in our lives, as parallel realities. It is always our conscious choice which secret garden we will tend … when we choose not to focus on what is missing from our lives but are grateful for the abundance that’s present—love, health, family, friends, work, the joys of nature, and personal pursuits that bring us [happiness]—the wasteland of illusion falls away and we experience heaven on earth.”
Often we cannot control when the times of feast or famine come, but we can control how we treat those around us, how hard we work and how we look upon the abundance that we do have. It seems to be the human condition that we are to look to the future or some other place and think “I will be happy when…” President Monson pointed out that living life in the now, being thankful for what you have now is essential for happiness. He related a story that Arthur Gordon wrote in a national magazine:
“When I was around thirteen and my brother ten, Father had promised to take us to the circus. But at lunchtime there was a phone call; some urgent business required his attention downtown. We braced ourselves for disappointment. Then we heard him say [into the phone], ‘No, I won’t be down. It’ll have to wait.’
“When he came back to the table, Mother smiled. ‘The circus keeps coming back, you know,’ [she said.]
“‘I know,’ said Father. ‘But childhood doesn’t.’”2
President Monson continues: “If you have children who are grown and gone, in all likelihood you have occasionally felt pangs of loss and the recognition that you didn’t appreciate that time of life as much as you should have. Of course, there is no going back, but only forward. Rather than dwelling on the past, we should make the most of today, of the here and now, doing all we can to provide pleasant memories for the future.
If you are still in the process of raising children, be aware that the tiny fingerprints that show up on almost every newly cleaned surface, the toys scattered about the house, the piles and piles of laundry to be tackled will disappear all too soon and that you will—to your surprise—miss them profoundly.”
This statement, of course, made a particular impression on me as I am constantly feeling like a hamster in its wheel while taking care of my three young children, cleaning up after them, tripping on their toys, cooking them food they don’t want to eat. In fact, for me, the most terrifying part of giving talks today was not me standing up here speaking, but sitting down there with three toddlers trying to keep them quiet while their Dad is up here speaking. But this is an essential part of gratitude. We cannot put off our happiness until tomorrow. We, too often find ourselves looking forward or back to say “We will be happy when…” We are effectively saying “We will be grateful when…” and when we are saying that… what message are we sending to our Father in Heaven? That despite all He has given us, the abundance with which He has blessed us, we can not be grateful for it all until our terms for happiness are met. Our own agenda for what we believe will make us happy is fulfilled. We will never be happy if we are not grateful with what we have now.
So what do we do to feel gratitude now? In the story I just related the father had a choice of what to spend his time doing. Many times we do not have a choice, we must be working. But when we have a choice, we should choose to cultivate those relationships that matter. Be it close friends, fellow ward members, but most especially family. Nothing increases your gratitude for you loved ones like spending quality time with them often.
Secondly, we should make it a habit of expressing our gratitude. Often we do this privately in our own minds, but we should take the opportunity to express it out loud. Make it a habit! William Arthur Ward said, “Feeling gratitude and not expressing it is like wrapping a present and not giving it.” Gratitude left unsaid does little good to either party. There is so much negativity out there in the world, saying something nice to someone too often takes them aback and they are at a loss off how to respond. That is a terrible shame.
President Monson suggested: ”Send that note to the friend you’ve been neglecting; give your child a hug; give your parents a hug; say “I love you” more; always express your thanks. Never let a problem to be solved become more important than a person to be loved. Friends move away, children grow up, loved ones pass on. It’s so easy to take others for granted, until that day when they’re gone from our lives and we are left with feelings of “what if” and “if only.” Said author Harriet Beecher Stowe, “The bitterest tears shed over graves are for words left unsaid and deeds left undone.”
When Blake and I were sealed, our sealer gave us a piece of advice. He told us that when we knelt for our nightly prayers as a couple (and we were to trade off who was to say them), that we were to thank Heavenly Father for our spouse and pray to be worthy of them. I have never forgotten that advise and it has actually made for some pretty funny situations when one of us was mad at the other and we had to be thankful for them and pray to be worthy of them. But, even in times of anger, it had a great impact on me mentally when I expressed thanks for my spouse, because it brought to my mind all those things he had done for me lately and made me more grateful for him.
I also had a teacher for a missionary prep course at BYU who said that his wife had told him everyday of their forty-year marriage that she was so grateful to be married to him and that she was the luckiest woman in the world. He openly admitted that this was probably far from the truth, but, he saidm it had a profound effect on him being told that everyday. He said that it made him a better person, just knowing that his wife was grateful for him made him strive to be the husband she already believed him to be. Gratitude expressed can have a powerful effect on both parties.
Of course a huge part of gratitude is to express thanks to our Father in Heaven. I remember a talk where the speaker told us to try praying in the morning for that which we needed, but leave the evening prayer to simply express thanks. Not to ask for anything, but to count your blessings. What a wonderful opportunity it is to set aside time in your day to get on your knees and count your blessings; to say simply “Thank You” without asking for anything; to just allow yourself to feel grateful.
Another idea is to keep a gratitude journal. It doesn’t have to be involved. Just write a line a day of things you are thankful for. You will be surprised at how fast it will grow. It also help us by reminding us daily to be thankful for what we have and helps us appreciate the little blessings that come to us often, but we take no notice.
Doing just a few more things a day to express gratitude to our Heavenly Father and to others around us can have the potential to change our lives for the better. We will be happier, we will be more content and we will start seeing the miracles that occur right in front of our face everyday. And who knows, we might actually stop focusing on our trials. Melodie Beattie said:
“Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos into order, confusion into clarity.... It turns problems into gifts, failures into success, the unexpected into perfect timing, and mistakes into important events. Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today and creates a vision for tomorrow.”
Thursday, August 20, 2009
Quotes, Quotes and More Quotes
Although I complain that we live in a soundbite age and I think we too hastly form opinions based on them (I feel another blog coming on), I love quotes, especially from the founding fathers. I'll probably being adding to these as I find them.
“I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.” -Thomas Jefferson
"Be not intimidated... nor suffer yourselves to be wheedled out of your liberties by any pretense of politeness, delicacy, or decency. These, as they are often used, are but three different names for hypocrisy, chicanery and cowardice." -John Adams
"Very few people spend other people's money as carefully as they spend their own." -Milton Friedman on the logical defects with the welfare and entitlement state.
“I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it.” -Thomas Jefferson
"If Congress can do whatever in their discretion can be done by money, and will promote the General Welfare, the Government is no longer a limited one, possessing enumerated powers, but an indefinite one, subject to particular exceptions." -James Madison
“Educate and inform the whole mass of the people… They are the only sure reliance for the preservation of our liberty.” — Thomas Jefferson
"All the perplexities, confusion and distress in America arise, not from defects in their Constitution or Confederation, not from want of honor or virtue, so much as from the downright ignorance of the nature of coin, credit and circulation."- John Adams
"Democracy... while it lasts is more bloody than either aristocracy or monarchy. Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There is never a democracy that did not commit suicide."- John Adams
"It behooves every man who values liberty of conscience for himself, to resist invasions of it in the case of others: or their case may, by change of circumstances, become his own."- Thomas Jefferson
"Power always thinks... that it is doing God's service when it is violating all his laws."- John Adams
"When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty."-Thomas Jefferson
"Our defense is in the preservation of the spirit which prizes liberty as a heritage of all men, in all lands, everywhere. Destroy this spirit and you have planted the seeds of despotism around your own doors." - Abraham Lincoln
"There are no necessary evils in government. Its evils exist only in its abuses." -Andrew Jackson
"Every government degenerates when trusted to the rulers of the people alone. The people themselves therefore are its only safe depositories." -Thomas Jefferson
"Government is not the solution to out problem, Government IS the Problem." -Ronald Reagan
"A Government Big Enough To Give You Everything You Want, Is Big Enough To Take Everything You Have." -Thomas Jefferson
“You cannot legislate the poor into prosperity by legislating the wealthy out of prosperity. What one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving. The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else. When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for, that my dear friend, is the beginning of the end of any nation. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it." -Adrian Rogers, 1931
“Concentrated power is not rendered harmless by the good intentions of those who create it.” - Milton Friedman
“He who knows nothing is closer to the truth than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods and errors.” -Thomas Jefferson
“The only way to come closest to the truth is to rigorously question your own beliefs.” -Common Sense
“If once the people become inattentive to the public affairs, you and I, and Congress and Assemblies, Judges and Governors, shall all become wolves. It seems to be the law of our general nature, in spite of individual exceptions.” - Thomas Jefferson
"The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money." Margaret Thatcher
“I can never fear that things will go far wrong where common sense has fair play.” -Thomas Jefferson
“It is weakness rather than wickedness which renders men unfit to be trusted with unlimited power” -John Adams
“The American people will never knowingly adopt socialism. But, under the name of “liberalism,” they will adopt every fragment of the socialist program, until one day America will be a socialist nation, without knowing how it happened.” -Norman Thomas, 6 time presidential candidate for the American Socialist Party
He also said: “I no longer need to run as a Presidential Candidate for the Socialist Party. The Democratic Party has adopted our platform.”The sad truth is that the Republican Party has also adopted elements of it under the guise of “compassionate conservatism”.
"The arrogance of officialdom should be tempered and controlled, and assistance to foreign hands should be curtailed, lest Rome fall" -Cicero 106-43 B.C.
“That government is best which governs least.” Thomas Paine
“It does not require a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority keen to set brush fires in people’s minds.”— Samuel Adams
"Good intentions will always be pleaded for every assumption of authority. It is hardly too strong to say that the Constitution was made to guard the people against the dangers of good intentions. There are men in all ages who mean to govern w...ell, but they mean to govern. They promise to be good masters, but they mean to be masters." -Daniel Webster
“Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it.” - Thomas Paine
“I never considered a difference of opinion in politics, in religion, in philosophy, as cause for withdrawing from a friend.” -Thomas Jefferson
"There is no worse tyranny than to force a man to pay for what he does not want merely because you think it would be good for him." – Robert Heinlein
“It is no dishonor to be in a minority in the cause of liberty and virtue” -Samuel Adams
"Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect everyone who approaches that jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but downright force. Whenever you give up that force, you are inevitably ruined." -Patrick Henry
Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty, or give me death! -Patrick Henry
"In a time of universal decit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act" -George Orwell
“The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public's money.” - Alexis de Tocqueville
"Timid men prefer the calm of despotism to the tempestuous sea of liberty." -Thomas Jefferson
"People willing to trade their freedom for temporary security deserve neither and will lose both." -Benjamin Franklin
"All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent." -Thomas Jefferson
"The laws of man may bind him in chains or may put him to death, but they never can make him wise, virtuous, or happy."-John Quincy Adams
"The study of history is a powerful antidote to contemporary arrogance. It is humbling to discover how many of our glib assumptions, which seem to us novel and plausible, have been tested before, not once but many times and in innumerable guises...; and discovered to be, at great human cost, wholly false." -Paul Johnson (British Historian, 1928- )
“How strangely will the tools of a tyrant pervert the plain meaning of words!” - Samuel Adams
“When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men living together in society, they create for themselves in the course of time a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that glorifies it. But how is this legal plunder to be identified? Quite simply. See if the law takes from some persons what belongs to them, and gives it to other persons to whom it does not belong. See if the law benefits one citizen at the expense of another by doing what the citizen himself cannot do without committing a crime.” - Frederic Bastiat
“I sincerely believe that banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies, and that the principles of spending money to be paid by posterity, under the name of funding, is but swindling futurity on a large scale” — Thomas Jefferson
“The threat of people acting in their own enlightened and rational self-interest strikes bureaucrats, politicians and social workers as ominous and dangerous.” - W. G. Hill
“All propaganda must be so popular and on such an intellectual level, that even the most stupid of those toward whom it is directed will understand it... Through clever and constant application of propaganda, people can be made to see paradise as hell, and also the other way around, to consider the most wretched sort of life as paradise.” - Adolf Hitler
“He who joyfully marches to music in rank and file has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would fully suffice.” - Albert Einstein
“With the exception only of the period of the gold standard, practically all governments of history have used their exclusive power to issue money to defraud and plunder the people.” - Fredrich August von Hayek
“It is well enough that people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning.” –Henry Ford
"If the only motive was to help people who could not afford education, advocates of government involvement would have simply proposed tuition subsidies." -Milton Friedman
"As we all learned from the sorry experience of state-sanctioned bureaucracies in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, decentralization [in education] is crucial to both freedom and excellence." -Jerry Brown
"Every central government worships uniformity: uniformity relieves it from inquiry into an infinity of details." -Alexis de Tocqueville
"The education of all children, from the moment that they can get along without a mother's care, shall be in state institutions at state expense." -Karl Marx
"Always vote for principle, though you may vote alone, and you may cherish the sweetest reflection that your vote is never lost." - John Quincy Adams
“When a government is dependent upon bankers for money, they and not the leaders of the government control the situation, since the hand that gives is above the hand that takes. Money has no motherland; financiers are without patriotism and without d...ecency; their sole object is gain.” - Napoleon Bonaparte
“I want people to be able to get what they need to live: enough food, a place to live, and an education for their children. Government does not provide these as well as private charities and businesses.” - Davy Crockett
"One of the best ways to get yourself a reputation as a dangerous citizen these days is to go about repeating the very phrases which our founding fathers used in the great struggle for independence."-Charles A. Beard
"The truth can stand up for itself - it is error alone which needs the support of government" - Thomas Jefferson
“The Constitution is like paper currency, they are both worthless pieces of paper unless there is something to back them up. In the case of money, we need gold or its equivalent. In the case of the Constitution, we need the vigilance of the American people.” – Common Sense
"The man who fears no truths has nothing to fear from lies." -Sir Francis Bacon
"But with respect to future debt; would it not be wise and just for that nation to declare in the constitution they are forming that neither the legislature, nor the nation itself can validly contract more debt, than they may pay within their own age, or within the term of 19 years." Thomas Jefferson
"The cause of America is in a great measure the cause of all mankind." Thomas Paine
"The Constitution is not an instrument for the government to restrain the people, it is an instrument for the people to restrain the government - lest it come to dominate our lives and interests." Patrick Henry
"I'll bet you never dreamed you'd look back at Jimmy Carter as the good old days."Mitt Romney
"All government without the consent of the governed is the very definition of slavery."Jonathan Swift
"The people never give up their liberties but under some delusion."Edmund Burke
"Your noble intentions should not come at the expense of my liberty."Andrew Wilkow
"Whenever a separation is made between liberty and justice, neither is safe."Edmund Burke
"A nation without borders is not a nation." --Ronald Reagan
"Republicans believe every day is the 4th of July, but the Democrats believe every day is April 15."--Ronald Reagan
"Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other."-- John Adams
"The United States remains the last best hope for a mankind plagued by tyranny and deprivation."-- Ronald Reagan
"If you're not a liberal at 20, you have no heart, and if you're not a conservative at 40, you have no head."Winston Churchill
"History does not long entrust the care of freedom to the weak or timid."-- Dwight D. Eisenhower
"Abortion is advocated only by persons who have themselves been born."--Ronald Reagan
"The true character of liberty is independence, maintained by force."-- Voltaire
"There can be no fifty-fifty Americanism in this country. There is room here for only 100 per cent Americanism, only for those who are Americans and nothing else."-- Theodore Roosevelt
"God grants liberty only to those who love it, and are always ready to guard and defend it."--Daniel Webster
"You and I have a rendezvous with destiny. We will preserve for our children this, the last best hope of man on earth, or we will sentence them to take the first step into..."--Ronald Reagan
"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has." - Margaret Mead
“Nothing is so permanent as a temporary government program.” -Milton Friedman
"None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free." -Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
"Most economic fallacies derive from the tendency to assume that there is a fixed pie, that one party can gain only at the expense of another." -Milton Friedman
"If pigs could vote, the man with the slop bucket would be elected swineherd every time, no matter how much slaughtering he did on the side."- Orson Scott Card
"Experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms of government those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny." - Thomas Jefferson
"To compel a man to furnish funds for the propagation of ideas he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical." - Thomas Jefferson
"It used to be the boast of free men that, so long as they kept within the bounds of the known law, there was no need to ask anybody's permission or to obey anybody's orders. It is doubtful whether any of us can make this claim today."- Fredrich August von Hayek
"Any attempt to replace a personal conscience by a collective conscience does violence to the individual and is the first step toward totalitarianism."-Herman Hesse
"If we wish to be free, if we mean to preserve inviolate those inestimable privileges for which we have been so long contending, if we mean not basely to abandon the noble struggle in which we have been so long engaged, and which we have pledged... ourselves never to abandon until the glorious object of our contest shall be obtained - we must fight!" -Patrick Henry
"Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet depreciate agitation, are men who want rain without thunder and lightning." - Frederick Douglass
“I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.” -Thomas Jefferson
"Be not intimidated... nor suffer yourselves to be wheedled out of your liberties by any pretense of politeness, delicacy, or decency. These, as they are often used, are but three different names for hypocrisy, chicanery and cowardice." -John Adams
"Very few people spend other people's money as carefully as they spend their own." -Milton Friedman on the logical defects with the welfare and entitlement state.
“I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it.” -Thomas Jefferson
"If Congress can do whatever in their discretion can be done by money, and will promote the General Welfare, the Government is no longer a limited one, possessing enumerated powers, but an indefinite one, subject to particular exceptions." -James Madison
“Educate and inform the whole mass of the people… They are the only sure reliance for the preservation of our liberty.” — Thomas Jefferson
"All the perplexities, confusion and distress in America arise, not from defects in their Constitution or Confederation, not from want of honor or virtue, so much as from the downright ignorance of the nature of coin, credit and circulation."- John Adams
"Democracy... while it lasts is more bloody than either aristocracy or monarchy. Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There is never a democracy that did not commit suicide."- John Adams
"It behooves every man who values liberty of conscience for himself, to resist invasions of it in the case of others: or their case may, by change of circumstances, become his own."- Thomas Jefferson
"Power always thinks... that it is doing God's service when it is violating all his laws."- John Adams
"When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty."-Thomas Jefferson
"Our defense is in the preservation of the spirit which prizes liberty as a heritage of all men, in all lands, everywhere. Destroy this spirit and you have planted the seeds of despotism around your own doors." - Abraham Lincoln
"There are no necessary evils in government. Its evils exist only in its abuses." -Andrew Jackson
"Every government degenerates when trusted to the rulers of the people alone. The people themselves therefore are its only safe depositories." -Thomas Jefferson
"Government is not the solution to out problem, Government IS the Problem." -Ronald Reagan
"A Government Big Enough To Give You Everything You Want, Is Big Enough To Take Everything You Have." -Thomas Jefferson
“You cannot legislate the poor into prosperity by legislating the wealthy out of prosperity. What one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving. The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else. When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for, that my dear friend, is the beginning of the end of any nation. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it." -Adrian Rogers, 1931
“Concentrated power is not rendered harmless by the good intentions of those who create it.” - Milton Friedman
“He who knows nothing is closer to the truth than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods and errors.” -Thomas Jefferson
“The only way to come closest to the truth is to rigorously question your own beliefs.” -Common Sense
“If once the people become inattentive to the public affairs, you and I, and Congress and Assemblies, Judges and Governors, shall all become wolves. It seems to be the law of our general nature, in spite of individual exceptions.” - Thomas Jefferson
"The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money." Margaret Thatcher
“I can never fear that things will go far wrong where common sense has fair play.” -Thomas Jefferson
“It is weakness rather than wickedness which renders men unfit to be trusted with unlimited power” -John Adams
“The American people will never knowingly adopt socialism. But, under the name of “liberalism,” they will adopt every fragment of the socialist program, until one day America will be a socialist nation, without knowing how it happened.” -Norman Thomas, 6 time presidential candidate for the American Socialist Party
He also said: “I no longer need to run as a Presidential Candidate for the Socialist Party. The Democratic Party has adopted our platform.”The sad truth is that the Republican Party has also adopted elements of it under the guise of “compassionate conservatism”.
"The arrogance of officialdom should be tempered and controlled, and assistance to foreign hands should be curtailed, lest Rome fall" -Cicero 106-43 B.C.
“That government is best which governs least.” Thomas Paine
“It does not require a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority keen to set brush fires in people’s minds.”— Samuel Adams
"Good intentions will always be pleaded for every assumption of authority. It is hardly too strong to say that the Constitution was made to guard the people against the dangers of good intentions. There are men in all ages who mean to govern w...ell, but they mean to govern. They promise to be good masters, but they mean to be masters." -Daniel Webster
“Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it.” - Thomas Paine
“I never considered a difference of opinion in politics, in religion, in philosophy, as cause for withdrawing from a friend.” -Thomas Jefferson
"There is no worse tyranny than to force a man to pay for what he does not want merely because you think it would be good for him." – Robert Heinlein
“It is no dishonor to be in a minority in the cause of liberty and virtue” -Samuel Adams
"Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect everyone who approaches that jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but downright force. Whenever you give up that force, you are inevitably ruined." -Patrick Henry
Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty, or give me death! -Patrick Henry
"In a time of universal decit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act" -George Orwell
“The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public's money.” - Alexis de Tocqueville
"Timid men prefer the calm of despotism to the tempestuous sea of liberty." -Thomas Jefferson
"People willing to trade their freedom for temporary security deserve neither and will lose both." -Benjamin Franklin
"All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent." -Thomas Jefferson
"The laws of man may bind him in chains or may put him to death, but they never can make him wise, virtuous, or happy."-John Quincy Adams
"The study of history is a powerful antidote to contemporary arrogance. It is humbling to discover how many of our glib assumptions, which seem to us novel and plausible, have been tested before, not once but many times and in innumerable guises...; and discovered to be, at great human cost, wholly false." -Paul Johnson (British Historian, 1928- )
“How strangely will the tools of a tyrant pervert the plain meaning of words!” - Samuel Adams
“When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men living together in society, they create for themselves in the course of time a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that glorifies it. But how is this legal plunder to be identified? Quite simply. See if the law takes from some persons what belongs to them, and gives it to other persons to whom it does not belong. See if the law benefits one citizen at the expense of another by doing what the citizen himself cannot do without committing a crime.” - Frederic Bastiat
“I sincerely believe that banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies, and that the principles of spending money to be paid by posterity, under the name of funding, is but swindling futurity on a large scale” — Thomas Jefferson
“The threat of people acting in their own enlightened and rational self-interest strikes bureaucrats, politicians and social workers as ominous and dangerous.” - W. G. Hill
“All propaganda must be so popular and on such an intellectual level, that even the most stupid of those toward whom it is directed will understand it... Through clever and constant application of propaganda, people can be made to see paradise as hell, and also the other way around, to consider the most wretched sort of life as paradise.” - Adolf Hitler
“He who joyfully marches to music in rank and file has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would fully suffice.” - Albert Einstein
“With the exception only of the period of the gold standard, practically all governments of history have used their exclusive power to issue money to defraud and plunder the people.” - Fredrich August von Hayek
“It is well enough that people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning.” –Henry Ford
"If the only motive was to help people who could not afford education, advocates of government involvement would have simply proposed tuition subsidies." -Milton Friedman
"As we all learned from the sorry experience of state-sanctioned bureaucracies in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, decentralization [in education] is crucial to both freedom and excellence." -Jerry Brown
"Every central government worships uniformity: uniformity relieves it from inquiry into an infinity of details." -Alexis de Tocqueville
"The education of all children, from the moment that they can get along without a mother's care, shall be in state institutions at state expense." -Karl Marx
"Always vote for principle, though you may vote alone, and you may cherish the sweetest reflection that your vote is never lost." - John Quincy Adams
“When a government is dependent upon bankers for money, they and not the leaders of the government control the situation, since the hand that gives is above the hand that takes. Money has no motherland; financiers are without patriotism and without d...ecency; their sole object is gain.” - Napoleon Bonaparte
“I want people to be able to get what they need to live: enough food, a place to live, and an education for their children. Government does not provide these as well as private charities and businesses.” - Davy Crockett
"One of the best ways to get yourself a reputation as a dangerous citizen these days is to go about repeating the very phrases which our founding fathers used in the great struggle for independence."-Charles A. Beard
"The truth can stand up for itself - it is error alone which needs the support of government" - Thomas Jefferson
“The Constitution is like paper currency, they are both worthless pieces of paper unless there is something to back them up. In the case of money, we need gold or its equivalent. In the case of the Constitution, we need the vigilance of the American people.” – Common Sense
"The man who fears no truths has nothing to fear from lies." -Sir Francis Bacon
"But with respect to future debt; would it not be wise and just for that nation to declare in the constitution they are forming that neither the legislature, nor the nation itself can validly contract more debt, than they may pay within their own age, or within the term of 19 years." Thomas Jefferson
"The cause of America is in a great measure the cause of all mankind." Thomas Paine
"The Constitution is not an instrument for the government to restrain the people, it is an instrument for the people to restrain the government - lest it come to dominate our lives and interests." Patrick Henry
"I'll bet you never dreamed you'd look back at Jimmy Carter as the good old days."Mitt Romney
"All government without the consent of the governed is the very definition of slavery."Jonathan Swift
"The people never give up their liberties but under some delusion."Edmund Burke
"Your noble intentions should not come at the expense of my liberty."Andrew Wilkow
"Whenever a separation is made between liberty and justice, neither is safe."Edmund Burke
"A nation without borders is not a nation." --Ronald Reagan
"Republicans believe every day is the 4th of July, but the Democrats believe every day is April 15."--Ronald Reagan
"Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other."-- John Adams
"The United States remains the last best hope for a mankind plagued by tyranny and deprivation."-- Ronald Reagan
"If you're not a liberal at 20, you have no heart, and if you're not a conservative at 40, you have no head."Winston Churchill
"History does not long entrust the care of freedom to the weak or timid."-- Dwight D. Eisenhower
"Abortion is advocated only by persons who have themselves been born."--Ronald Reagan
"The true character of liberty is independence, maintained by force."-- Voltaire
"There can be no fifty-fifty Americanism in this country. There is room here for only 100 per cent Americanism, only for those who are Americans and nothing else."-- Theodore Roosevelt
"God grants liberty only to those who love it, and are always ready to guard and defend it."--Daniel Webster
"You and I have a rendezvous with destiny. We will preserve for our children this, the last best hope of man on earth, or we will sentence them to take the first step into..."--Ronald Reagan
"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has." - Margaret Mead
“Nothing is so permanent as a temporary government program.” -Milton Friedman
"None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free." -Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
"Most economic fallacies derive from the tendency to assume that there is a fixed pie, that one party can gain only at the expense of another." -Milton Friedman
"If pigs could vote, the man with the slop bucket would be elected swineherd every time, no matter how much slaughtering he did on the side."- Orson Scott Card
"Experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms of government those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny." - Thomas Jefferson
"To compel a man to furnish funds for the propagation of ideas he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical." - Thomas Jefferson
"It used to be the boast of free men that, so long as they kept within the bounds of the known law, there was no need to ask anybody's permission or to obey anybody's orders. It is doubtful whether any of us can make this claim today."- Fredrich August von Hayek
"Any attempt to replace a personal conscience by a collective conscience does violence to the individual and is the first step toward totalitarianism."-Herman Hesse
"If we wish to be free, if we mean to preserve inviolate those inestimable privileges for which we have been so long contending, if we mean not basely to abandon the noble struggle in which we have been so long engaged, and which we have pledged... ourselves never to abandon until the glorious object of our contest shall be obtained - we must fight!" -Patrick Henry
"Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet depreciate agitation, are men who want rain without thunder and lightning." - Frederick Douglass
Health Care In My Head
In the health care debate I think something very significant has been overlooked: the fact that we have no money to pay for it! This link explains it so eloquently that I need to say nothing else on the subject. It was a story that ran during the excessive spending of the Bush administration and we are digging a bigger hole now.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OS2fI2p9iVs
Ok, now that you have seen that, we can discuss the problem of health care in America. I know that a lot of other countries have universal health care, some successfully. Many of those countries have much smaller population and much higher taxes. In France (who is held up as having an excellent health care system), health care is bankrupting the country, to the point that they are starting to shut down clinics in smaller populated areas, which ultimately causes rationing of care. They tried requiring co-pays and the population had a collective meltdown. I think we need to take our next steps carefully and while I think everyone agrees that we need to make a change, the change we choose could have some far-reaching consequences.
First off I have to admit that I am anti-entitlement and think that the New Deal was one of the worst financial mistakes that could’ve ever happened to this country (besides the fact that it just made the Great Depression last seven years longer according to a study by UCLA). That is so you already know where I stand and that I am crazy. It is not a leap for me to despise Medicare and the way it is run. (I think anyone giving an opinion should tell where their political affiliations are, so you can read their piece more objectively.)
With foreign officials openly laughing at press conferences where our treasury secretary says "Don't worry. US treasury bonds are still of value continue to buy them," we have limited options of where to get all this magical money from the sky that is going to fund these programs. We need to get real. There are many reasons why I am not in favor of a public option, besides the fact that there is simply no money to pay for it and you already heard that argument so let me go to the others. I have yet to see a government program run anything efficiently and humanely… which I think people were looking for in a government sponsored insurance. For example, the way our wounded vets are treated when they are injured. It is no secret that it has been an absolute scandal the way these men and women who were injured in the name of our country were treated…. or not treated… in sub-standard facilities, not getting the tests, care, and attention they needed. It was like the government didn’t expect servicemen and women to be actually wounded in a war. Every single one of them was on government insurance.
The American auto industry was kept alive by government money for the past two decades. Instead of letting failing companies fail and letting new innovative ones take their place, we kept them on life support while they continued to fail. Foreign car companies came in and made better cars… and here is the kicker… for MORE money and people bought them because they were better cars. Americans were pushed out of the auto industry because the government wouldn’t allow us to fail. No amount of government money will ensure any kind of success no matter how many committees we put in charge of them. The government throws more and more money at education every year and the test scores are worse…. so we lower test standards. Absurd! Instead of having the guts to change the system, we throw more money that we don’t have at it and call it “doing something.”
Then, of course, there is Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac which I give the distinction of causing, or contributing greatly, to the current economic crisis since it was mandated by Congress that through Fannie and Freddie we would finance all those lovely sub-prime mortgages that ultimately no one could actually afford. Barney Frank, since he provided the Congressional oversight, was celebrating that home ownership was up right until the moment that he couldn’t deny that the system was crashing around all of us. That is the point where we decided to spend MORE money to fix the problem that the government helped create! Ok, I am done with the list of governmental sins. I just wanted to establish WHY I don’t trust the government with health care.
The big assumption made by most right now in this debate and the point that is largely ignored is that government health care is available. Almost any child in any state has a health care plan available to them, if needed. If you can't afford health care, there is usually a state-run health care plan that you can get already.
The root of the healthcare problem is that, as I read to eloquently last week, we want it now and we want it perfect. If a doctor messes up, we sue him. We don’t allow for any kind of human error without financial restitution. So doctors, nurses and hospitals need expensive malpractice insurance. The FDA takes 15 years to approve drugs which drive up the cost of pharmaceuticals, BIG TIME. Since we all must have the latest and greatest pill that was advertised on television, we cost our insurance companies more because the generic isn’t available yet. Don’t forget that 15 years we still not enough time to approve the drug since some particularly vicious side-effects were not known until it was let loose on the public. Make way for another lawsuit… where you can only sue the company who made it not the FDA who approved it for use. If we overhaul the system it has got to be from the fundamentals up, or we are just masking the problems that created the mess in the first place.
Another point that is never mentioned is that America leads the world in medical and pharmaceutical breakthroughs, the cost of which is passed on to Americans. These breakthroughs benefit the world… I guess the question is: Are we willing to do without them? It is quite the Catch-22. We don’t want to pay for it, but we want the latest and greatest. I submit that the companies creating these breakthroughs would not be the world leaders if their innovation was not closely ties to their pocketbooks.
Ok, so we know the problems and since I am obviously not in favor of a public option what do we do? I have been thinking of some ideas that could at least make health care affordable to most. (I say most, because I could never say ALL and be honest about it.) Some of these were literally thought up today while I was doing dishes, so I am sure they are full of holes, but the idea I think is to reform the industry itself, not create another government money pit. So here it goes:
First, insurance is too complicated. Hospitals and private practices alike pay teams of lawyers and insurance billers to interpret codes, coverage, etc. and the insurance companies themselves employ teams of lawyers and other staff to find ways to get out of paying, interpret policies, look for insurance fraud, etc. We change all of that a save both side a ton of money by requiring insurance companies to only sell policies that pay certain percentages of coverage. For example, if you want 100% coverage you pay a higher premium that the person who chose the plan that paid 60% coverage. That is it. (Actually, I would include a contingent policy that would include paying for alternative and experimental treatments that you would have to pay extra for if you wanted that, because I know that would be an issue.) The insurance companies would pay for any test or treatment deemed necessary by the doctor. No refusal of coverage. Now keep in mind, both sides should be saving money by not having teams of coverage interpreters, so hospital bills should be lower and insurance companies are not spending as much on employee salaries and benefits. If an insurance company thinks a doctor or hospital orders too many unnecessary tests or provides unnecessary treatments than they can choose not to have them be one of their care providers, which keeps costs down also.
There are clinics out there that do not accept insurance at all, to keep costs down and I think I remember that a doctor’s visit was $20-$30. That is a huge difference from what my doctor now charges an insurance company (around $85 for the visit alone)!
I also submit that this would further cut down on costs because of the emergency room factor. I have seen a lot of struggling and self-employed couples around here carry the emergency room only insurance. So what do they do when their child has 104 degree fever? They take them to the ER even though it is not an emergency. The trip costs $2000 instead of the $150 it would cost to go to the doctor. This happens way too much. It is called and EMERGENCY room for a reason, but it has become a source of primary care for too many. This insurance coverage change would greatly increase preventative care also and if diseases are caught earlier they are easier to treat and therefore cheaper.
Next, we cap how much a hospital and private practitioners can be sued for. This cuts down on malpractice insurance costs and settlement costs which, ultimately, we pay for. As an alternative, I suggest, since we don’t want the terrible doctors to stay in business, we provide a patient feedback database. This would be a private company (or companies) that could function much like 1-800-dentist, with on-line or over the phone reviews of doctors including histories of complaint, positive feedback, if they have been deemed negligent in any court proceedings, etc. I know these are already in existence to some extent, but I am thinking of a more far-reaching and comprehensive database that would include which insurance they would accept and whether they are accepting patients. Since it would be privatized, you would have to pay a small fee, maybe $3-$5 for a family search. I am sure there would be competing companies, which would improve the ease of service and thoroughness of information provided.
I also propose independent oversight of the drug companies. We provide a government contract (I’d guarantee they would function on half the money the FDA functions on) that would be responsible for the drug companies FDA approval of drugs. I am still wondering about this idea myself, but hear me out. This company would function on 3-5 year contracts and if significant lacks of oversight, like drugs passing through that were harmful, the drug company and the oversight company would be held responsible. The oversight company’s contract would go somewhere else, so they would have to be diligent in making sure they were doing their job. The FDA is not held responsible, individuals in the FDA take kick-backs from the drug companies themselves and they will never be put out of business for making a horrible call. This would change all of that. They take kick-backs… they are gone. In addition to that I would halt all drug companies’ advertisements of their new drugs on television and in magazines. This, theoretically, saves the drug company money, lessens the need the newest and greatest, which would allow for the proper amount of time for a smaller group of people to see what the drug does (instead of the huge amounts now) and allow time for a generic alternative. I would like to outlaw all those damn pens and mouse pads that all the drug reps push on the doctors to save cost, but that is going a bit far I guess. Perhaps limit the ways a drug rep can contact a medical facility. I would hesitate at that action as well, but I you can see where I am going with this. They have to still make enough of a profit though for them to stay in the business, so I don’t know. Half of the drug companies’ problem is government paperwork… we need to streamline the system and make it easier for all involved and lower costs.
Last, and least popular, I would announce that anyone 35 and under will not be receiving Medicare benefits when they come of age. Unfortunately, they will be paying for it, either way we would’ve been anyway… now at least they are upfront about our need to prepare to not be covered and to save and plan accordingly. There will still be Medicaid available to the lower income brackets, but for the majority of Americans, it will not be made available. This is drastic, but seeing as we cannot actually pay for the program anyway it is, at least, honest. I would fit into the under 35 category here, so I am not choosing the age so I will get under the wire. I just think 35 is still enough time to save for alternative means. I am willing to pay for a benefit I will not receive; I do that all the time through taxes anyway, if it means that my country will be fiscally sound in the future. Hopefully, by that time, we have reformed the system to be more affordable and cost-efficient.
Again, I know these ideas probably have holes all over the place, but this is just what I thought of at my kitchen sink! Surely others should have ideas that would be even better and more efficient than just throwing money we don’t have at the problem. We need REAL reform, not a band-aid! Let’s get the conversations started!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OS2fI2p9iVs
Ok, now that you have seen that, we can discuss the problem of health care in America. I know that a lot of other countries have universal health care, some successfully. Many of those countries have much smaller population and much higher taxes. In France (who is held up as having an excellent health care system), health care is bankrupting the country, to the point that they are starting to shut down clinics in smaller populated areas, which ultimately causes rationing of care. They tried requiring co-pays and the population had a collective meltdown. I think we need to take our next steps carefully and while I think everyone agrees that we need to make a change, the change we choose could have some far-reaching consequences.
First off I have to admit that I am anti-entitlement and think that the New Deal was one of the worst financial mistakes that could’ve ever happened to this country (besides the fact that it just made the Great Depression last seven years longer according to a study by UCLA). That is so you already know where I stand and that I am crazy. It is not a leap for me to despise Medicare and the way it is run. (I think anyone giving an opinion should tell where their political affiliations are, so you can read their piece more objectively.)
With foreign officials openly laughing at press conferences where our treasury secretary says "Don't worry. US treasury bonds are still of value continue to buy them," we have limited options of where to get all this magical money from the sky that is going to fund these programs. We need to get real. There are many reasons why I am not in favor of a public option, besides the fact that there is simply no money to pay for it and you already heard that argument so let me go to the others. I have yet to see a government program run anything efficiently and humanely… which I think people were looking for in a government sponsored insurance. For example, the way our wounded vets are treated when they are injured. It is no secret that it has been an absolute scandal the way these men and women who were injured in the name of our country were treated…. or not treated… in sub-standard facilities, not getting the tests, care, and attention they needed. It was like the government didn’t expect servicemen and women to be actually wounded in a war. Every single one of them was on government insurance.
The American auto industry was kept alive by government money for the past two decades. Instead of letting failing companies fail and letting new innovative ones take their place, we kept them on life support while they continued to fail. Foreign car companies came in and made better cars… and here is the kicker… for MORE money and people bought them because they were better cars. Americans were pushed out of the auto industry because the government wouldn’t allow us to fail. No amount of government money will ensure any kind of success no matter how many committees we put in charge of them. The government throws more and more money at education every year and the test scores are worse…. so we lower test standards. Absurd! Instead of having the guts to change the system, we throw more money that we don’t have at it and call it “doing something.”
Then, of course, there is Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac which I give the distinction of causing, or contributing greatly, to the current economic crisis since it was mandated by Congress that through Fannie and Freddie we would finance all those lovely sub-prime mortgages that ultimately no one could actually afford. Barney Frank, since he provided the Congressional oversight, was celebrating that home ownership was up right until the moment that he couldn’t deny that the system was crashing around all of us. That is the point where we decided to spend MORE money to fix the problem that the government helped create! Ok, I am done with the list of governmental sins. I just wanted to establish WHY I don’t trust the government with health care.
The big assumption made by most right now in this debate and the point that is largely ignored is that government health care is available. Almost any child in any state has a health care plan available to them, if needed. If you can't afford health care, there is usually a state-run health care plan that you can get already.
The root of the healthcare problem is that, as I read to eloquently last week, we want it now and we want it perfect. If a doctor messes up, we sue him. We don’t allow for any kind of human error without financial restitution. So doctors, nurses and hospitals need expensive malpractice insurance. The FDA takes 15 years to approve drugs which drive up the cost of pharmaceuticals, BIG TIME. Since we all must have the latest and greatest pill that was advertised on television, we cost our insurance companies more because the generic isn’t available yet. Don’t forget that 15 years we still not enough time to approve the drug since some particularly vicious side-effects were not known until it was let loose on the public. Make way for another lawsuit… where you can only sue the company who made it not the FDA who approved it for use. If we overhaul the system it has got to be from the fundamentals up, or we are just masking the problems that created the mess in the first place.
Another point that is never mentioned is that America leads the world in medical and pharmaceutical breakthroughs, the cost of which is passed on to Americans. These breakthroughs benefit the world… I guess the question is: Are we willing to do without them? It is quite the Catch-22. We don’t want to pay for it, but we want the latest and greatest. I submit that the companies creating these breakthroughs would not be the world leaders if their innovation was not closely ties to their pocketbooks.
Ok, so we know the problems and since I am obviously not in favor of a public option what do we do? I have been thinking of some ideas that could at least make health care affordable to most. (I say most, because I could never say ALL and be honest about it.) Some of these were literally thought up today while I was doing dishes, so I am sure they are full of holes, but the idea I think is to reform the industry itself, not create another government money pit. So here it goes:
First, insurance is too complicated. Hospitals and private practices alike pay teams of lawyers and insurance billers to interpret codes, coverage, etc. and the insurance companies themselves employ teams of lawyers and other staff to find ways to get out of paying, interpret policies, look for insurance fraud, etc. We change all of that a save both side a ton of money by requiring insurance companies to only sell policies that pay certain percentages of coverage. For example, if you want 100% coverage you pay a higher premium that the person who chose the plan that paid 60% coverage. That is it. (Actually, I would include a contingent policy that would include paying for alternative and experimental treatments that you would have to pay extra for if you wanted that, because I know that would be an issue.) The insurance companies would pay for any test or treatment deemed necessary by the doctor. No refusal of coverage. Now keep in mind, both sides should be saving money by not having teams of coverage interpreters, so hospital bills should be lower and insurance companies are not spending as much on employee salaries and benefits. If an insurance company thinks a doctor or hospital orders too many unnecessary tests or provides unnecessary treatments than they can choose not to have them be one of their care providers, which keeps costs down also.
There are clinics out there that do not accept insurance at all, to keep costs down and I think I remember that a doctor’s visit was $20-$30. That is a huge difference from what my doctor now charges an insurance company (around $85 for the visit alone)!
I also submit that this would further cut down on costs because of the emergency room factor. I have seen a lot of struggling and self-employed couples around here carry the emergency room only insurance. So what do they do when their child has 104 degree fever? They take them to the ER even though it is not an emergency. The trip costs $2000 instead of the $150 it would cost to go to the doctor. This happens way too much. It is called and EMERGENCY room for a reason, but it has become a source of primary care for too many. This insurance coverage change would greatly increase preventative care also and if diseases are caught earlier they are easier to treat and therefore cheaper.
Next, we cap how much a hospital and private practitioners can be sued for. This cuts down on malpractice insurance costs and settlement costs which, ultimately, we pay for. As an alternative, I suggest, since we don’t want the terrible doctors to stay in business, we provide a patient feedback database. This would be a private company (or companies) that could function much like 1-800-dentist, with on-line or over the phone reviews of doctors including histories of complaint, positive feedback, if they have been deemed negligent in any court proceedings, etc. I know these are already in existence to some extent, but I am thinking of a more far-reaching and comprehensive database that would include which insurance they would accept and whether they are accepting patients. Since it would be privatized, you would have to pay a small fee, maybe $3-$5 for a family search. I am sure there would be competing companies, which would improve the ease of service and thoroughness of information provided.
I also propose independent oversight of the drug companies. We provide a government contract (I’d guarantee they would function on half the money the FDA functions on) that would be responsible for the drug companies FDA approval of drugs. I am still wondering about this idea myself, but hear me out. This company would function on 3-5 year contracts and if significant lacks of oversight, like drugs passing through that were harmful, the drug company and the oversight company would be held responsible. The oversight company’s contract would go somewhere else, so they would have to be diligent in making sure they were doing their job. The FDA is not held responsible, individuals in the FDA take kick-backs from the drug companies themselves and they will never be put out of business for making a horrible call. This would change all of that. They take kick-backs… they are gone. In addition to that I would halt all drug companies’ advertisements of their new drugs on television and in magazines. This, theoretically, saves the drug company money, lessens the need the newest and greatest, which would allow for the proper amount of time for a smaller group of people to see what the drug does (instead of the huge amounts now) and allow time for a generic alternative. I would like to outlaw all those damn pens and mouse pads that all the drug reps push on the doctors to save cost, but that is going a bit far I guess. Perhaps limit the ways a drug rep can contact a medical facility. I would hesitate at that action as well, but I you can see where I am going with this. They have to still make enough of a profit though for them to stay in the business, so I don’t know. Half of the drug companies’ problem is government paperwork… we need to streamline the system and make it easier for all involved and lower costs.
Last, and least popular, I would announce that anyone 35 and under will not be receiving Medicare benefits when they come of age. Unfortunately, they will be paying for it, either way we would’ve been anyway… now at least they are upfront about our need to prepare to not be covered and to save and plan accordingly. There will still be Medicaid available to the lower income brackets, but for the majority of Americans, it will not be made available. This is drastic, but seeing as we cannot actually pay for the program anyway it is, at least, honest. I would fit into the under 35 category here, so I am not choosing the age so I will get under the wire. I just think 35 is still enough time to save for alternative means. I am willing to pay for a benefit I will not receive; I do that all the time through taxes anyway, if it means that my country will be fiscally sound in the future. Hopefully, by that time, we have reformed the system to be more affordable and cost-efficient.
Again, I know these ideas probably have holes all over the place, but this is just what I thought of at my kitchen sink! Surely others should have ideas that would be even better and more efficient than just throwing money we don’t have at the problem. We need REAL reform, not a band-aid! Let’s get the conversations started!
Saturday, February 28, 2009
I Rant, Therefore I Am
I have always had an interest in politics. You bring up an issue and I inevitably had something to say, unfortunately for those around me. The past few years my love of politics has morphed into a disgust. Perhaps because the years have made me less idealistic and more pragmatic, I have a hard time being inspired by the political process these days.
Every politician says one thing and means something else. They make promises they don't intend to keep. Glenn Beck was on a show yesterday and said that"...words have no meaning." He was referring to politicians' tendency to lie about everything: i.e. "This section of the proposed budget is not an earmark" when it clearly is. The truth has no value.
The media used to be our watchdogs. Their job was to keep the politicians honest and in check. It was one of the checks-and-balances that the founding fathers were depending on. Now the media is unabashedly biased, feeling no need to apologize for their lack of real reporting. Here forms the perfect storm of the fall of freedom: crooked politicians on both sides of the isle, well-funded lobbyist that have more influence than the voting masses, an ideological media and therefore an ill-informed public. I must say, though, it seems the public often only cares about issues when it affects them and usually only AFTER the bill that effects them has passed. We get the government that we deserve and perhaps it has been our lack of vigilance that has created these huge problems in the economy and in the government.
Every politician says one thing and means something else. They make promises they don't intend to keep. Glenn Beck was on a show yesterday and said that"...words have no meaning." He was referring to politicians' tendency to lie about everything: i.e. "This section of the proposed budget is not an earmark" when it clearly is. The truth has no value.
The media used to be our watchdogs. Their job was to keep the politicians honest and in check. It was one of the checks-and-balances that the founding fathers were depending on. Now the media is unabashedly biased, feeling no need to apologize for their lack of real reporting. Here forms the perfect storm of the fall of freedom: crooked politicians on both sides of the isle, well-funded lobbyist that have more influence than the voting masses, an ideological media and therefore an ill-informed public. I must say, though, it seems the public often only cares about issues when it affects them and usually only AFTER the bill that effects them has passed. We get the government that we deserve and perhaps it has been our lack of vigilance that has created these huge problems in the economy and in the government.
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