Comments on the Contemporary

Listening to the wind

2009-07-31T07:58:00.003-07:00

Growing up in Arizona, especially in northeastern Arizona on the Colorado Plateau, you get a lot of opportunity to listen to the wind. The wind tells you a lot about what is happening around you and what might be coming. A wind from the south and east brings clouds and rain. A wind from the north and west comes only in the winter and brings cold and sometimes rain. Because of a huge stationary high pressure area over the Four Corners, winds blowing from the south and west seldom bring anything except hot, dry weather.

Since I was a lot younger and spending time outdoors on the Plateau, I have noticed that the wind patterns have changed. Not enough to notice from day to day, but over a year's time the clouds no longer move in the same directions and the weather is not so predictable. I used to watch the sky and could tell within a few minutes when the rain would begin, now it is not so easy. I used to watch the lightning over the White Mountains and now this is a rare event and not just because I no longer live up on the mountain.

Watching the country and our society, I see a shift in the way our country is drifting. It is just like the wind, the changes are mostly subtle and only noticeable over a long period of time, but just like the changes in the storm patterns on the Colorado Plateau, our country is fundamentally different than it used to be.

One marked change is that I notice that people have generally become entirely materialistic. They want the latest large screen TV, the latest, newest and most expensive gadget, car or phone. No one seems satisfied with what they have, they always want more, more food, more entertainment, more free time, more vacations. Almost no one lives a conservative life style, even young, newly married couples I know, want and take international cruises and trips to exotic locations. All people talk about at work, besides the latest illness or accident, is what they are going to purchase or where they are going for their next vacation. These are not wealthy people, but young married and unmarried people who are making an average or below salary.

Recently, I saw an announcement for a business expansion. The Chief Executive Officer extolled the virtues of their newly enlarged business with a "host of guest amenities, including flat-screen televisions" and "free valet drivers to park your car." The public was invited with their families for a free tour and light refreshments "so they can get acquainted with the new space first hand." You might imagine that this was a hotel or restaurant, no, this new expansion was a hospital emergency room! Just think about it, you are in the middle of having a heart attack and you think, I have to go to the new hospital because they have flat-screen televisions.

The fact that a hospital would even think it was necessary to have such advertisements is a clear indication of the change in our society. Who would have thought that I would choose my emergency room based on valet parking and light refreshments.

This attitude towards life is so materialistic as to be offensive. Nothing in the article says anything about the degree of care you might receive or the competency of the doctors, all that seems important to the hospital and probably to the general public, are the amenities. With all the current controversy over the rising cost of health care, maybe we need to see if emergency room patients really need flat-screen televisions.

We often look to a change in the wind as being beneficial. In this case the changes that are coming into our society are destructive and like the wind when it gets too strong, may end up destroying our society entirely.

What is the "kiss-in" protesting?

2009-07-19T20:28:00.002-07:00

Recent local news articles in the Salt Lake City Deseret News tell about a series of protests held by pro-homosexuals at or near The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints headquarters and Temple. The incidents have occurred, as reported, on private not public property.

These incidents could be viewed a highly local disturbance were it not for the overtones of religious persecution involved. Accounts of the incident leading up to the protests do not appear to differ much in the facts, but the characterization of the facts by the gay activists is passing into the propaganda stage.

The supposed treatment of the two gay men cited for trespassing on July 9th, is obviously not the issue. To give some perspective to the incident it is important to know that Temple Square in Salt Lake City attracts some 3 million to 5 million visitors a year, Temple Square is the most popular tourist attraction in Utah. By comparison, Utah's five National Parks —Zion, Bryce Canyon, Capitol Reef, Canyonlands, and Arches— had a combined total of 5.3 million visitors in 2005. The tourist traffic on Temple Square is also more than that of the Grand Canyon or Yellowstone National Park. Wikipedia.

With all these people every year, you can imagine that the behavior of the two men must have been out of the ordinary because over the years I have seen some pretty strange people and incidents in downtown Salt Lake City. But, having been to Temple Square many, many times, I can say that the security is almost invisible.

So why the protests? It goes without saying that if these same people were protesting almost any other establishment their actions would not be tolerated. It is only because they know that in Salt Lake and with the LDS Church, they will not be publicly excoriated that they will protest at all. It is "OK" to blatantly attack the LDS Church's sacred belief's at the center of the religion because, after all, they are just "Mormons" and it is alright to turn the arrest of two drunks into a national incident because the Mormons do not accept the Gay Rights lifestyle or agenda. At its heart, the protests are anti-religious. Their ire is directed at the Church's beliefs. What happens to freedom of religion if Gay Rights activists can attack a Church for its beliefs?

Perhaps it is a time to reflect

2009-07-05T21:24:00.001-07:00

Think about the words to this familiar song:

Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord:

He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored;

He hath loosed the fateful lightning of His terrible swift sword:

His truth is marching on.

(Chorus)

Glory, glory, hallelujah!

His truth is marching on.

I have seen Him in the watch-fires of a hundred circling camps,

They have builded Him an altar in the evening dews and damps;

I can read His righteous sentence by the dim and flaring lamps:

His day is marching on.

(Chorus)

Glory, glory, hallelujah!

His day is marching on.

I have read a fiery gospel writ in burnished rows of steel:

"As ye deal with my contemners, so with you my grace shall deal;

Let the Hero, born of woman, crush the serpent with his heel,

Since God is marching on."

(Chorus)

Glory, glory, hallelujah!

Since God is marching on.

He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat;

He is sifting out the hearts of men before His judgment-seat:

Oh, be swift, my soul, to answer Him! be jubilant, my feet!

Our God is marching on.

(Chorus)

Glory, glory, hallelujah!

Our God is marching on.

In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea,

With a glory in His bosom that transfigures you and me:

As He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free,

While God is marching on.

(Chorus)

Glory, glory, hallelujah!

While God is marching on.

He is coming like the glory of the morning on the wave,

He is Wisdom to the mighty, He is Succour to the brave,

So the world shall be His footstool, and the soul of Time His slave,

Our God is marching on.

(Chorus)

Glory, glory, hallelujah!

Our God is marching on.

How much of what Mrs. Howe wrote would be politically acceptable today?

A Failure of Morality

2009-07-01T07:21:00.005-07:00

In a descriptive sense, morality derives from either a written or unwritten code of conduct which is held by the society to be authoritative as to what is "right" or acceptable or "wrong" and therefore unacceptable. Descriptive morality is usually based on some ideal code of conduct, one which would be espoused in preference to alternatives by all rational people. Wikipedia.

No society can exist without morality. Because we live together and interact, we must have some predictive norm in our interactions. The Book of Mormon describes, in graphic detail, the collapse of a society that abandoned its moral structure. Quoting Third Nephi, Chapter 7:

2 And the people were divided one against another; and they did separate one from another into tribes, every man according to his family and his kindred and friends; and thus they did destroy the government of the land. 3 And every tribe did appoint a chief or a leader over them; and thus they became tribes and leaders of tribes. 4 Now behold, there was no man among them save he had much family and many kindreds and friends; therefore their tribes became exceedingly great. 5 Now all this was done, and there were no wars as yet among them; and all this iniquity had come upon the people because they did yield themselves unto the power of Satan. 6 And the regulations of the government were destroyed, because of the secret combination of the friends and kindreds of those who murdered the prophets. 7 And they did cause a great contention in the land, insomuch that the more righteous part of the people had nearly all become wicked; yea, there were but few righteous men among them.

This passage describes a society where "secret societies" that is, individuals who had combined to circumvent the laws and morals of the society, had succeeded in abrogating both the law of the land and norms by which the society was able to operate. Today, in the United States, we have the same challenge and perhaps, with the same results. We have specific organizations whose goals both publicly expressed and private or secret, are to destroy the social and moral fabric of our society. The most vocal of these organizations and individuals claim the protection of their rights as the basis for the destruction of the family, community and the government of the entire country. They would remake society in their own selfish, self absorbed goal of power over the rest of the country.

Again, to the Book of Mormon, at one point, the entire society of the people, the Nephites, was threatened by bands of robbers. It is noteworthy that the head or chief robber Giddianhi wrote a letter to the head of the established government, Lachoneus. Giddianhi first claimed that the existing government was not legitimate:

3 Nephi 3:2 Lachoneus, most noble and chief governor of the land, behold, I write this epistle unto you, and do give unto you exceedingly great praise because of your firmness, and also the firmness of your people, in maintaining that which ye suppose to be your right and liberty; yea, ye do stand well, as if ye were supported by the hand of a god, in the defence of your liberty, and your property, and your country, or that which ye do call so.

Noteworthy is how Giddianhi ended his claim to take over the government

3 Nephi 3:10 And I write this epistle unto you, Lachoneus, and I hope that ye will deliver up your lands and your possessions, without the shedding of blood, that this my people may recover their rights and government, who have dissented away from you because of your wickedness in retaining from them their rights of government, and except ye do this, I will avenge their wrongs. I am Giddianhi.

There is a striking parallel between the attitude of these robbers and those who would challenge our own government today. The key claim was for "rights" and the accusation against the established government was that in denying the robbers their "rights" the established government, not the robbers themselves, was "wicked." Presently there are those who would claim that personal rights as determined by the individual are superior to any other consideration. In taking this position they would ignore the very foundation of our nation, our liberty and ultimately our freedom. As it says in the Constitution of the United States of America:

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

Our founding fathers did not forge a nation of individuals asserting their individual rights above the common good, but they established a Union in order to establish justice and insure domestic tranquility. Let us remember that we are one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all and that justice mandates that we serve the common good, not to be replaced with the selfish desires of individuals who would destroy the common good for their own selfish and self serving ends.

America the Beautiful

2009-06-28T17:01:00.004-07:00

O beautiful for spacious skies,
For amber waves of grain,
For purple mountain majesties
Above the fruited plain!
America! America!
God shed his grace on thee
And crown thy good with brotherhood
From sea to shining sea!

America is a really beautiful place. It is through the brotherhood of all Americans that good comes to our fair country and through God's grace.

O beautiful for pilgrim feet
Whose stern impassioned stress
A thoroughfare of freedom beat
Across the wilderness!
America! America!
God mend thine every flaw,
Confirm thy soul in self-control,
Thy liberty in law!

Isaiah 52:7 says, "How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, that publisheth peace; that bringeth good tidings of good, that publisheth salvation; that saith unto Zion, Thy God reigneth!" The pilgrim's feet were beautiful because they published peace and because the acknowledged the hand of God in the establishment of this country.

We are so caught up in apologist rhetoric that we can no longer credit the greatness of our past of those pioneers who crossed our continent to establish our great country. America is great because it is good, if it ceases to be good, it will cease to be great.

We need to look to God for divine assistance in mending our flaws, not the government, not welfare not new federal agencies but the God of the Land who is Jesus Christ.

We are confirmed in our position of wealth and prosperity only through self control. Nihilistic self-serving narcissism is not the answer, self control and obedience to law is the answer. Only through observance of our God given system of laws can we have true liberty.

O beautiful for heroes proved
In liberating strife.
Who more than self their country loved
And mercy more than life!
America! America!
May God thy gold refine
Till all success be nobleness
And every gain divine!

The negative attitudes against our great country are a sad commentary on the sacrifices made by our valiant soldiers in war and in peace. Our gold is not just in the rocks of the earth but also in the blood running in the veins of those who have nobly sacrificed their lives to preserve our liberty. Our gains must be in accordance with divine will and there is no true success without a noble character.

O beautiful for patriot dream
That sees beyond the years
Thine alabaster cities gleam
Undimmed by human tears!
America! America!
God shed his grace on thee
And crown thy good with brotherhood
From sea to shining sea!

It was the dreams of our American patriots that gave us the great system of laws and government we have today. The only way to achieve those alabaster cities undimmed by human tears is to follow the mandates of that just God who gave us our liberty in the first place.

O beautiful for halcyon skies,
For amber waves of grain,
For purple mountain majesties
Above the enameled plain!
America! America!
God shed his grace on thee
Till souls wax fair as earth and air
And music-hearted sea!

May we all so live that we can indeed see our souls wax fair as earth and air and music-hearted sea.

O beautiful for pilgrims feet,
Whose stem impassioned stress
A thoroughfare for freedom beat
Across the wilderness!
America! America!
God shed his grace on thee
Till paths be wrought through
wilds of thought
By pilgrim foot and knee!

Again, we can only negotiate those "wilds of thought" upon the terms and conditions decreed by and through the grace of our just God.

O beautiful for glory-tale
Of liberating strife
When once and twice,
for man's avail
Men lavished precious life!
America! America!
God shed his grace on thee
Till selfish gain no longer stain
The banner of the free!

We are now in danger of losing the banner of the free, not just to flag burners and detractors, but through turning from the selfish stains on our banner of the free.

O beautiful for patriot dream
That sees beyond the years
Thine alabaster cities gleam
Undimmed by human tears!
America! America!
God shed his grace on thee
Till nobler men keep once again
Thy whiter jubilee!

The American patriots will not be forgotten as long as there is one man or one woman who treasures the hope that nobler men will once again keep God's whiter jubilee.

Behold, this is a choice land, and whatsoever nation shall possess it shall be free from bondage, and from captivity, and from all other nations under heaven, if they will but serve the God of the land, who is Jesus Christ, who hath been manifested by the things which we have written. Ether 2:12.

More Money Does Not Equal Better Education

2009-06-26T16:51:00.004-07:00

The Heritage Foundation

After a recent post about the quality of education in the U.S., I received a lengthy comment. You may wish to return to that post and read the comment. At the heart of the criticism was the following statement made about student's need to learn history and math, and I quote:

*Should* they know? of course they should. everyone should. but it won't happen until we spend more money on education - until we actually treat education as a priority. right now, schools are basicly "teaching" students how to take tests, because this is the cheapest way to do it. the whole system needs an overhaul.

This started me thinking about school funding and whether or not there was a correlation between increased spending in education and student learning. I was surprised to learn that there is a correlation, but it is a negative correlation. Actually, the more we spend the less we get for our tax dollars and the less the students learn and know.

At the beginning of this post there is a chart showing the increase in spending per-pupil over the past thirty years or so. The Heritage Foundation examines statistics from The National Center for Education Statistics of the U.S. Department of Education, which publishes extensive data on education in its annual Digest of Education Statistics.
The conclusion from an examination of the statistics is summarized as follows:

Many people believe that lack of funding is a problem in public education, but historical trends show that American spending on public education is at an all-time high. Between 1994 and 2004, average per-pupil expenditures in American public schools have increased by 23.5 percent (adjusted for inflation). Between 1984 and 2004, real expenditures per pupil increased by 49 percent. These increases follow the historical trend of ever-increasing real per-student expenditures in the nation's public schools. In fact, the per-pupil expenditures in 1970–1971 ($4,060) were less than half of per-pupil expenditures in 2005–2006 ($9,266) after adjusting for inflation.

From the figures I previously quoted concerning actual declines in academic performance, it is clear that throwing more money at the problem is not the answer, although as expressed by the commentator it is the traditional radical liberal solution to every social problem, either form a new governmental agency or spend more money.

Driven by the need to justify the expansion of spending, the education establishment has focused on extremely narrow indicators of student competence, i.e. standardized testing. It would not look good to the American public to have all that increased spending going to waste, would it? Let's make sure our standardized test scores show that the students are actually learning something, even if what they are learning is drivel.

Who benefits from this increased spending? The teachers? Median annual earnings of kindergarten, elementary, middle, and secondary school teachers ranged from $43,580 to $48,690 in May 2006; the lowest 10 percent earned $28,590 to $33,070; the top 10 percent earned $67,490 to $76,100. Median earnings for preschool teachers were $22,680. Bureau of Labor Statistics. The average salary for traditional public school teachers increased 4.5 percent in 2006-07 to $51,009, according to the AFT's latest teacher salary survey, marking the first time average teacher pay exceeded $50,000 and the first time since 2003 that teacher salaries surpassed the annual rate of inflation. American Federation of Teachers.

In short, even the teachers are being paid more, but money does not seem to address the real issues here.

More later.

No sense of historicity

2009-06-21T19:02:00.003-07:00

One of the major developments in education I have seen during my own lifetime is an almost complete collapse of the study of history in schools. By the time I went through grammar school (now a misnomer) and high school, they (the radical liberals) had managed to eliminate geography as a subject, but we did have history, even a course on the history of Arizona that was quite detailed.

With the introduction of standardized testing and standardized lesson plans, there is no longer any room in the curriculum for anything having to do with history. Now, they have "social studies" and include a very limited view of certain historical events. Children now get all the way through high school without ever hearing about the Babylonians, the Romans, the Greeks or anything else, although they might have a unit on some aspect of minority history or the U.S. Civil War but the teachers now manage to teach the Civil War without mentioning U.S. Grant.

Likely, anyone born since 1950 has only a very sketchy understanding of the history of the Americas, including the early colonies and up to the Revolutionary War. Quizzing some of my grandchildren, I find that few have heard of most of the major figures of American history and have only the vaguest idea of even major events in U.S. history, like World War I and many of my grandchildren are in "advanced placement" whatever that means.

In looking at the "social studies" books it is evident that the selection of topics is highly skewed towards those dealing with minority issues at the expense of mentioning even the most famous of our non-minority prominent people. However, this decline in an understanding of real history is only part of a greater decline in Western Culture and Civilization. Cutting ourselves off from the past only guarantees that we will lose whatever measure of civilization and civility we have left.

This decline was noted in a recent news article by the Publisher of the Deseret News in Salt Lake City, Utah. Quoting from Joseph A. Cannon,"For some years now, notable historians, philosophers and other scholars such as Jacques Barzun, John Lukacs, Alasdair MacIntyre, Pierre Manent and a host of others have diagnosed and chronicled the rise of the modern West and its gradual descent to the present. Barzun's magnum opus, "From Dawn to Decadence, 500 Years of Western Cultural Life" is one such chronicle. Lukacs, in "At the End of an Age," "describes how we in the Western world have now been living through the ending of an entire historical age that began in Western Europe almost 500 years ago."

In another quote Cannon says, "This intense focus on the emancipation of the individual led to a humanism which "is accordingly charged with inverting the relation between man and God, with atheism and the secularizing of society." The result of this individualism, humanism and emancipation from authority results in a culture that "is old and unraveling."

My observations are not unique about the decline of history education, from an article entitled "American Students and the Decline in History, by Michael Streich, he says, "In a November 25, 2007 Washington Post story, Naomi Wolf presented the bleak facts: “…only 47 percent of high school seniors have mastered a minimum level of U.S. history and civics, while only 14 percent performed at or above the ‘proficient’ level…” (“Hey, Young Americans, Here’s a Text for You”). She further writes that middle school students in most states are not even required to take classes in civics and government."

This lack of historical understanding would not be such an issue, if those who are beginning to run the country were not in the same category. The latest crop of government bureaucrats grew up during this dearth and they do not exceed the norm. In a Intercollegiate Studies Institute report on "Our Fading Heritage" the major finding include that Americans fail the test of civic literacy. The Instituter's study noted that the vast majority of Americans can no longer even recognize the language of Lincoln's Gettysburg Address and less than half of the Americans tested could name all three branches of the government.

I suggest that it would be hard to find a college student today who had read even one of the The Federalist Papers or who even recognized the name of Thomas Paine.

We are not only on our way to moral bankruptcy, we are already bankrupt of knowledge of our past and like the proverbial ship without a rudder, we are cast on the sea of the future without a guide.

Let's start today by reading some of our basic historical documents, like the U.S. Constitution and the Declaration of Independence and maybe a good history book about Western Civilization, but nothing written in the past thirty or forty years, please.

Unforeseen legal effects of same-sex marriage

2009-06-19T13:41:00.003-07:00

In the single minded focus of the liberal media and same-sex marriage advocates on granting equality in the area of same-sex marriage there is an entire disregard for the overwhelming impact legalizing same-sex marriage will have on our entire legal system. These issues must be arising in those states that recognize same-sex marriage, but they are obviously not getting any media exposure at all.

The changes in the laws will unevenly affect women and children in a negative way. Although both sexes seem to support same-sex marriage, the effect will be to dramatically reduce the advances made for the protection of women and children in our society. Many of the laws that have been passed protecting these members of our society will be modified out of existence in the name of uniformity and equality.

Here are a very few of the areas of the law that will undergo substantial adjustment assuming substantial passage throughout the country of same-sex marriage laws. entirely negative, I might add that this effect will be entirely negative.

1. The impact on divorce laws.

In every instance of same-sex marriage, if there are children involved, the children will not be the natural children of at least one member of the marital community. Although this is the case in situations involving prior divorces and remarriage, it will always be the rule for same-sex couples. Some states are adopting a new standard with respect to the traditional emphasis on the rights of a natural parent. That standard is articulated as and holding that a natural parent who voluntarily relinquishes custody of a minor child, through a court of competent jurisdiction, has forfeited the right to rely on the existing natural parent presumption. This presumption will undergo even further changes, likely eroding the rights of natural parents to custody of their own children. In many jurisdictions the mother has been given the priority of custody. That rule will undoubtedly change.

Because of no-fault divorce laws, spousal maintenance (formerly alimony) has all but disappeared in the U.S. What is left of spousal maintenance will disappear completely leaving many women in an even worse situation than they presently are.

In many divorce cases the division of property has been strongly influenced by a desire to provide for the "wife." If there is no "wife" then the laws will all change, probably to the detriment of wives everywhere.

2. Inheritance laws

Many states still recognize the dower rights of the wife. Who will be the "wife" in a same-sex marriage? Dower rights will disappear, it is impossible to predict what will replace it.

3. Real estate and personal property laws

Some states recognize community property laws instead of the common law. Community property laws developed to protect the "wife's" interest in the real property. What will happen to community property laws and the protection they provide if there is no "wife?"

Do we really want to re-design our entire legal system around the so-called rights of a small and very militant minority? Do we want to abandon our whole cultural and social system just so a vocal minority can feel good about themselves?

Gay Rights -- a cascading tyranny of nihilistic hedonism

2009-06-09T18:37:00.003-07:00

Gay Rights is a movement masking its true objectives behind a facade of equality. Support from outside the Gay community for so-called Gay Rights comes primarily from those who have no understanding of the history of modern radical liberalism. Couched and trained by those who grew up in the activist movements of the 1960s and 70s, those supporting the so-called Gay Rights have an agenda that is directly in opposition to all of the fundamental cultural and societal norms across the entire culture of the United States and beyond that the entire world. To quote the Gay Liberation Front Manifesto:

We will show you how we can use our righteous anger to uproot the present oppressive system with its decaying and constricting ideology, and how we, together with other oppressed groups, can start to form a new order, and a liberated lifestyle, from the alternatives which we offer.

Far from being the oppressed group they wish to portray to the media, they are as a group nothing more or less than an extension of radical liberalism. The societal institutions attacked by the Gay Rights agenda include the family, quoting again from the Manifesto:

The oppression of gay people starts in the most basic unit of society, the family. consisting of the man in charge, a slave as his wife, and their children on whom they force themselves as the ideal models. The very form of the family works against homosexuality.

The schools;

In the content of education, homosexuality is generally ignored, even where we know it exists, as in history and literature. Even sex education, which has been considered a new liberal dynamic of secondary schooling, proves to be little more than an extension of Christian morality. Homosexuality is again either ignored, or attacked with moralistic warnings and condemnations. The adolescent recognising his or her homosexuality might feel totally alone in the world, or a pathologically sick wreck.

The church;

Formal religious education is still part of everyone's schooling, and our whole legal structure is supposedly based on Christianity whose archaic and irrational teachings support the family and marriage as the only permitted condition for sex. Gay people have been attacked as abominable and sinful since the beginning of both Judaism and Christianity, and even if today the Church is playing down these strictures on homosexuality, its new ideology is that gay people are pathetic objects for sympathy.

They continue with attacks on the media, employment, the law, psychiatry, to continue the quote;

But gay liberation does not just mean reforms. It means a revolutionary change in our whole society.

Not even monogamy is immune from attack by the Gay Rights advocates;

Monogamy is usually based on ownership-the woman sells her services to the man in return for security for herself and her children-and is entirely bound up in the man's idea of property furthermore in our society the monogamous couple, with or without children, is an isolated, shut-in, up-tight unit, suspicious of and hostile to outsiders.

Their goal is to indoctrinate the young to abandon any semblance of our current society;

The long-term goal of Gay Liberation, which inevitably brings us into conflict with the institutionalised sexism of this society, is to rid society of the gender-role system which is at the root of our oppression. This can only be achieved by eliminating the social pressures on men and women to conform to narrowly defined gender roles. It is particularly important that children and young people be encouraged to develop their own talents and interests and to express their own individuality rather than act out stereotyped parts alien to their nature.

Here are a few of the goals of the movement;

that all discrimination against gay people, male and female, by the law, by employers, and by society at large, should end.
that all people who feel attracted to a member of their own sex be taught that such feeling are perfectly valid.
that sex education in schools stop being exclusively heterosexual.
that psychiatrists stop treating homosexuality as though it were a sickness, thereby giving gay people senseless guilt complexes.
that gay people be as legally free to contact other gay people, though newspaper ads, on the streets and by any other means they may want as are heterosexuals, and that police harassment should cease right now.
that employers should no longer be allowed to discriminate against anyone on account of their sexual preferences.
that the age of consent for gay males be reduced to the same as for straight.
that gay people be free to hold hands and kiss in public, as are heterosexuals.

In short, the goals of the Gay Rights movement include the utter destruction of our entire society. Remaking that society into a system where deference to "sexual preference" overrules every other consideration. Even if I were sympathetic to some of the goals of the Gay Rights movement, which I am not, I would still reject a stated goal that would undermine and destroy my own beliefs and cultural background in the name of someone's claim of a right to have a personal sexual orientation. I will not do that and I will not accept any such attack on my religious, cultural, legal and societal beliefs.

In my next post I will address the issue of the impact of these goals on the American legal system.

Boy Scouts place weight restrictions on some outings

2009-06-07T16:34:00.002-07:00

A recent news article noted the the Boy Scouts of America has had to place weight restrictions on leaders' participation in some activities. To quote from the article:

But the expanding waistlines of troop leaders, a widespread phenomenon fondly called the "leader belly" by Scouts, have pressed the nearly 100-year-old organization to place weight restrictions on some outings.

The restrictions, which will take effect in January, ban overweight leaders from venturing more than 30 minutes from ground transportation that can reach a hospital.

"For high-adventure activities for which medical care may be delayed, restrictions based on standardized height/weight ratios are now mandatory," says a statement on the Boy Scouts of America Web site.

From the BSA site:

It is important to note that if the event will take your unit beyond a radius wherein emergency care is more than 30 minutes by ground transportation, the height/weight chart found at the bottom of Part B should be strictly followed. Please note that individual units, districts, or councils may have policies in place to exceed this standard based on their unique risks.

Further explanation was as follows:

Q. Our camp is at least 30 minutes from the local hospital by ambulance or EMS. Does this mean that we automatically have to meet the height/weight requirements for all activities at the camp?

A. While response time for basic or advanced life support should be a consideration for a camp’s emergency action plan, it is not the record’s intent. If your travels by foot, bicycle, horseback, afloat, or whatever the mode of transportation take you more than 30 minutes off of an accessible roadway where in an emergency vehicle can reach you, you will need to meet the height/weight requirements.

Q. When does the height/weight chart apply? We have differing opinions in our unit/district.

A. When the Annual Health and Medical Record goes into effect, the height/weight chart will apply in the following known adventure activities: When your travels take you more than 30 minutes off of an accessible roadway, fire lane, camp road, etc., where you float, walk, hike, bike, or otherwise go into the backcountry. Depending on the terrain and local conditions, this might be a couple hundred yards or a couple of miles into the backcountry. Most BSA high-adventure camps that include a backcountry component (ask them about their requirements before you go). Philmont Scout Ranch has this standard in place as an example. When your lodge, unit, district, or council requires it as part of a program.

More interesting than the announcement were the many comments, including accusations against the BSA for "fat bashing." I guess we now have to worry about the civil rights of fat people. Maybe the BSA has been watching the leaders who can hardly walk from their cars to the camp fire circle. I do like this comment however, made in response to a criticism that the policy "will exclude many good leaders." "Wouldn't they be even better leaders if they led by example? Obesity is rapidly becoming the number one health issue in the United States due to all the risks involved with it. When are we as a people and individuals going to start taking personal responsibility for our actions instead of blaming someone else for our problems?"

I agree. I have personally known a number of otherwise good Scout leaders who couldn't walk a mile without pain and suffering. Is that the example we want to teach to our young men? Not from my perspective it isn't.

Gay Rights movement destroys liberty

2009-06-04T06:57:00.004-07:00

We hear a lot about "personal freedom" and the "right to chose" in today's self-centered society, but we hear almost nothing about liberty, as in "liberty and justice for all." We especially do not hear that both liberty and justice are part of one nation under God. Our Constitution speaks of securing the blessings of liberty to succeeding generations. Why then don't liberalism's radicals who support same-sex marriage and a break down of traditional family values speak of liberty? Could it be that in the eyes of a selfish self-centered society there is no longer any room for either liberty or justice?

Liberty and freedom are two completely separate and only partially compatible ideals. On the one hand freedom implies an ability to choose and to act. On the other hand, liberty, in the context of our governmental system, includes the concepts of immunity from the arbitrary exercise of authority and political independence. However, there is no liberty or freedom without law and there is no law without a basis in a consistent morality based on fundamental principles of right and wrong. To quote our second President, John Adams, "Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other."

Liberty is a fundamental principle. In a quote attributed to Thomas S. Monson, he said, "A principle in not like a rule. The rule asks nothing more of you than that you obey; a principle requires you to do your own thinking. A rule gives you credit only for being a creature; a principle gives you stature." Implicit in the concept of liberty is that it is inspired and of divine origin and that liberty is entirely dependent on obedience to just laws and upon the virtue of the adherents. To quote the Declaration of Independence, "We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed..."

In the words of Clinton Rossitor in his compilation of the The Federalist, he states that the message of The Federalist is that there can be "no happiness without liberty, no liberty without self-government, no self-government without constitutionalism, no constitutionalism without morality — and none of these great goods without stability and order."

In destroying morality the Gay Rights movement is destroying our liberty.

How can you top this?

2009-06-02T07:15:00.001-07:00

This post says it all. It is the most concise statement of conservative policy and philosophy I have ever seen at one time. Please take the time to read "It doesn't make a lick of sense."

Can anyone, including President Obama, secure Cyberspace?

2009-05-31T07:52:00.002-07:00

President Obama has announced a "comprehensive cybersecurity strategy" for the U.S. Government that includes a 76 page "Cyberspace Policy Review." This policy statement is full of words using "cyber" as a prefix, but what does it really say and what is the real threat?

Apparently, the perceived threat is big enough to establish yet another government agency and another "senior White House official, "who will have broad authority to develop strategy to protect the nation's government-run and private computer networks, according to people who have been briefed on the plan" Washington Post.

In the Preface to the Cyberspace Policy, it states:

The architecture of the Nation’s digital infrastructure, based largely upon the Internet, is not secure or resilient. Without major advances in the security of these systems or significant change in how they are constructed or operated, it is doubtful that the United States can protect itself from the growing threat of cybercrime and state-sponsored intrusions and operations. Our digital infrastructure has already suffered intrusions that have allowed criminals to steal hundreds of millions of dollars and nation-states and other entities to steal intellectual property and sensitive military information. Other intrusions threaten to damage portions of our critical infrastructure. These and other risks have the potential to undermine the Nation’s confidence in the information systems that underlie our economic and national security interests.

My response to this broad accusation is just this; name one incident. The real heart of the issue is in a couple of paragraphs later in the document:

Information and communications networks are largely owned and operated by the private sector, both nationally and internationally. Thus, addressing network security issues requires a public-private partnership as well as international cooperation and norms. The United States needs a comprehensive framework to ensure coordinated response and recovery by the government, the private sector, and our allies to a significant incident or threat.

That's the problem, "Information and communications networks are largely owned and operated by the private sector, both nationally and internationally." It is not that the government is afraid of anything in particular, it is the fact that all that information and communications ability is in private hands that make the President and his advisers nervous.

Let's get to the real issue; the government wants to nationalize the Internet. The entrenched bureaucrats cannot stand the idea the the private sector has any control over anything. Not only do they want to nationalize General Motors, they would like to nationalize everything.

The next bottom line is the usual one, "The government needs to increase investment in research that will help address cybersecurity vulnerabilities while also meeting our economic needs and national security requirements." That's it in a nutshell, nationalize the communications network and the Internet and spend more money.

Look at page "vi" of the Policy Statement at number 4: "Designate a privacy and civil liberties official to the NSC cybersecurity directorate."

Look at the Bibliography. The documents are available in the Cyberspace Policy Review. Read some of the documents. See if you can find one documented incident of "intrusions that have allowed criminals to steal hundreds of millions of dollars and nation-states and other entities to steal intellectual property and sensitive military information."

Here is one example. Carnegie Mellon University, Lynn Robert Carter, "Computing Infrastructure Risk: Issue, Analysis, and Recommendation," December 23, 2008 .
Look at this document. Here is the threat:

1. Spam
2. Distributed computing such as the SETI network.
3. Botnets
4. Unspecified "targets of the the bad guys"
5. Identity theft
6. Morphing still images, voices and videos (i.e. "Die Hard" movie)
7. von Neumann architecture
and so on.

Not one incident is mentioned or identified. I haven't had the time to look at all these documents. How about someone out there showing me where's the beef? Where is the threat to national security other than a worry that the computer network is in private hands?

The myth of computer competence

2009-05-28T08:03:00.002-07:00

There is a persistent world view that young people have grown up with computers and are therefore more competent than the "older" folks who use computers. Since I have been doing computer support for almost 30 years now, I have a little bit of a perspective on the age factor as well as overall competence in using computers. So lets look at the age factor in computer use.

I know very few, if any, teenagers who are computer competent other than playing games, sending text messages and perhaps, reading E-mail. Almost without exception, I cannot find one young person who can adequately use word processing (other than in most simple sense of typing a short school assignment), spreadsheet, presentation program or any other every day useful program. One young man I know can write short computer programs, but lacks basic skills of formatting, layout and composition.

So what are we talking about here. Young people mostly use computers like they drive cars, carelessly and without knowing how to change the oil, rotate the tires or even wash the car. Just because someone knows how to turn on the computer or operate a computer game, does not make them computer literate.

I do know younger adults who are computer professionals. They have on the job experience with networks and Internet connections. They can set up a computer and connect it to a network, but often don't know what to do with it past Facebook and or MySpace.

Most of what older people perceive as computer competence deals with learning a few basic instructions, and having the manual dexterity to operate a mouse and keyboard. But I know people in their 80s who know more about computers than a teenager could ever hope to know. The computer support staff I presently work with consists of retired engineers in their 70s who design and maintain a complex computer network of over 50 machines. Younger people may know how to drive through the computer city, but these people know where the wires, plumbing and power come from and go to.

I regularly work with groups of Boy Scouts on the computers working on the genealogy merit badge. By and large, they know absolutely nothing about the computer or how it operates. They often have to be shown how to do a simple search on Google. Just because your teenager knows how to operate the remote on the TV does not make him or her a computer expert. Get over it. Anyone at any age can learn about computers and gain competency. Sometimes, by the time a young person enters the job market, they acquire real computer skills. But even the younger office workers in my office are absolutely lost on the computers if the programs do not operate exactly as they expect them to.

It is time the older people of the world get with the program and take back the high ground of computer use. Let's change the stereotype and start having your grandchildren come to you with their computer questions.

GaySpeak invades the media

2009-05-26T18:28:00.004-07:00

Two recent article reporting developments in California regarding the so-called "Gay Rights" movement show the extent to which GaySpeak has invaded the media. GaySpeak is the transformation of ordinary phrases and words into propaganda to support the Gay Rights agenda to " uproot the present oppressive system with its decaying and constricting ideology, and how we, together with other oppressed groups, can start to form a new order, and a liberated lifestyle, from the alternatives which we offer." (Note: click on the link to see what the so-called Gay Rights movement is really all about).

The first article "Gay Curriculum Proposal Riles Elementary School Parents" although apparently trying to maintain a neutral tone, buys into GaySpeak by using the following terms as if they were not GaySpeak propaganda:

"Gay" used as euphemism for same-sex attraction.
"LGBT" another euphemism to avoid using the more offensive terms.
"sexual orientation stereotypes" is GaySpeak for traditional married couples with families.
"name-calling and bullying" is GaySpeak for any opinion that does not support the LGBT.
"respond appropriately" is GaySpeak for supporting the Gay Rights agenda.
"diversity, acceptance and understanding" is GaySpeak for supporting the Gay Rights agenda. According to GaySpeak, if you are religious you are not entitled to diversity, acceptance and understanding. For example, back to the Gay Rights Manefesto that views all opposed to their agenda as the enemy.

The second article in the New York Times is entitled, "California High Court Upholds Gay Marriage Ban."

Here it is, a "news" story in the New York Times. All you have to do is read the story and look for the GaySpeak to see the extent to which the media has been hijacked into supporting their radical agenda. By the way, one of the Gay Rights leaders is quoted as saying that "thousands of gay and lesbian Californians who woke up this morning hoping and praying their status as equal citizens of this state would be restored.” Who do they pray to?

"Gay Marriage Ban" GaySpeak for the Marriage Amendments. Rather than acknowledging the purpose of the Marriage Amendments to protect and foster the institution of marriage, the amendments are propagandized by the term "Gay marriage ban" although there is not one word in the California Marriage amendment about Gay marriage.
"civil unions" the GaySpeak equivalent of marriage.
"choose one’s life partner" is GaySpeak for same-sex relationship.
"a committed, officially recognized and protected family relationship" another GaySpeak for same sex relationship.
"Equality California" GaySpeak for a Gay Rights advocacy group.
"Outsider status" yet another GaySpeak reference to same-sex relationship.

It is sad that even a venerable institution like the New York Times can fall for GaySpeak. Professor Karl M. Manheim uses GaySpeak when he states, "The change wrought by Proposition 8 was anything but narrow, Professor Manheim said, and claiming that the word “marriage” is essentially symbolic is like telling black people that sitting in the back of the bus is not important as long as the front and the back of the bus arrive at the same time." Comparing the issue of same-sex marriage to the rights fought for by the Black community is pure GaySpeak propaganda.

The articles quoted are only two small samples of the pervasive nature of the GaySpeak propaganda machine in operation.

When is bad news good news?

2009-05-24T17:12:00.002-07:00

In a desperate attempt to put a positive spin on really bad news, the Bureau of Labor Statistics noted in it most recent employment report, that mass layoff events and initial claims for unemployment decreased from March to April. What this really meant was that "Employers took 2,712 mass layoff actions in April that resulted in the separation of 271,226 workers, seasonally adjusted, as measured by new filings for unemployment insurance benefits during the month." BLS. However, if you read a little further in the report, you find that the number of mass layoffs (defined as more than fifty people laid off at once) more than doubled the number from the previous year.

To get a small perspective of how serious things have become and how desperate the present administration is to see and end to the present crisis, you can continue reading to find that the total of mass layoffs from December 2007 to April 2009 was 34,126, while there were 2,712 in April alone, well over the average per month for the entire period.

The important number, the employment rate, hardly rates a mention in the news. The national unemployment rate was 8.9 percent in April 2009, season-ally adjusted, up from 8.5 percent the prior month and from 5.0 percent a year earlier. In April, total nonfarm payroll employment decreased by 539,000 over the month and by 5,240,000 from a year earlier.

Schools and related employers were the hardest hit. Teachers are losing their jobs in huge numbers. Of the 10 detailed industries with the largest number of mass layoff
initial claims, 6 reached their April peak: school and employee bus transportation; construction machinery manufacturing; tax preparation services; discount department stores; professional employer organizations; and hotels and motels, except casino hotels. If you are a teacher who has lost your job you can take consolation in the fact that you are part of the "good news" from your government.

Education -- an attitude not a state

2009-05-22T05:51:00.002-07:00

What does it mean to be educated? Why is education desirable or even necessary? Can these questions even be answered?

From my first day at school, it was abundantly clear that some of the other students knew a lot more than I did. Some students were always smarter. Their pencil boxes always neat and orderly. Their notebooks organized with tabs and their reports always looked professionally done. When we took tests, there was always a student who would finish early and turn in his or her test while the rest of us sat there and wondered what all these questions were talking about. Education was equated with achievement. Doing good in school meant doing your homework and getting "good" grades.

When I got into high school, once again, there were the "smart" kids and then all rest of us. We all knew who they smart kids were, they were the ones in the accelerated classes. The ones destined to go on to colleges or universities. Most of us looked forward to the day when we would "graduate" and not ever have to go back to school again. Never have to open another book. Never have to take another test. Never have to learn about anything at all.

Then it was time to graduate and go on. I chose to go on with school. I had no specific goal and no specific course of study. I did not want to be a doctor or a lawyer or a dentist or any of those things. But I also had no job skills. I had no prospects, no family business, no uncle in real estate, nothing to put me out into the working world. But I was different than most, I knew how read and loved libraries and reading. When I got to the usual state university, my first real job was in the university library. During the first two years at the university my grades were average or below. I took a big variety of classes, everything from geology to art history.

Slowly, I began to learn how to learn. I discovered that learning was hard work. Good grades did not come because I was smart, but because I knew the system and could learn what the instructor was looking for. Along the way, I began to understand what it was to be educated. It wasn't knowing any specific piece of information, it was an attitude of learning, a desire to know the answers to difficult questions, an understanding of the process of research and discovery. Learning and education involved reading, not just the assignments, but reading everything.

I slowly learned that I could trade study for credentials. When I had a degree or a certification, other people would assume that I was competent. I even found that people would pay me to do what I had learned in school. But was I educated? By whose standard? By what criteria?

My interests lead me to the sciences and then to law. There were things I would probably never learn, like calculus or medicine. I continued to read, all day, every day. When did I become educated? Did I become educated?

I think that my education and that of everyone else is a process. It is learning to love learning. It is being aware of your world, asking questions, finding answers. It is not knowing any particular piece of information. It is not passing a test or getting a good grade. Education is a life long habit of inquiry and review. It is knowing enough to know you don't know all the answers and taking the time to find out when you don't.

Are today's students coming out of high school educated? Not at all. The percentage of students who come out of high school with a desire to learn and to pay the price in hard work is vanishingly small. Fortunately, somewhere in our system, students still discover how to learn, but it is despite the system, not because of it. While I was in high school, I was taken out of school for a whole quarter to travel with my family. I was given the text books and a list of assignments. Interestingly, that was the quarter when I got the highest grades in high school, when I taught myself and did not have the distraction of the teachers.

Maybe primary schools ought to focus on teaching students to read, write and do arithmetic. What a novel idea. Maybe students need to memorize and copy long passages of material. Maybe instead of cutting funds for libraries, we should be expanding student's access to the world's great literature instead of feeding students modern trash. Maybe we need to teach in school all the things I learned on my own, outside of school.

Think about it. Really, think about it.

Wikipedia -- the battleground for social and political views

2009-05-20T06:00:00.001-07:00

It is probably true that no writing can be entirely objective, however, the collaborative encyclopedia, Wikipedia, is far from escaping from bias and propaganda. It is supposed that when an interest group is attacked or some cause espoused, that those in opposition will provide the corrections needed to guide Wikipedia back to a centrist position. But what happens if the centrist position is not legally or morally correct?

In a recent blog, US Political Scene, the blogger pointed out that a Wikipedia article on "Waterboarding" was inaccurate and lacking in any proper sourcing. But where are the critics of the methodology? The media has so far succeeded in educating the American people about the "Waterboarding" issue that apparently no one would think to question Wikipedia.

It is interesting that the Wikipedia Waterboarding article has a cross-reference to "toture." However, the torture article starts out with a definition of torture from the United Nations Convention Against Torture, hardly a neutral definition. Later on, in the same article on torture, there is a reference to human rights. The link takes one to the Wikipedia page on human rights. Once again, the definition of human rights is ceded to the United Nations.

Now, I am not commenting on the definition of waterboarding or he definition of torture, what I am commenting on is that the "accepted" definition of these politically and socially loaded terms is being set forth in a forum where there is an expectation that someone will move the article to something approximating a consensus. I do not think that defaulting to the United Nations' definition is necessarily engendering a consensus.

Like the blogger cited above, I too believe that these, and many other, Wikipedia articles are little more than political position papers and propaganda.

Note: As it turns out, the Wikipedia article on human rights is quite involved, but the first part of the article, establishing the tone, refers directly to only a United Nations definition.

Perhaps it is a good time to recognize that Wikipedia is not a "source." It is a commentary. You may rely on it for basic facts (or not) but it is not a reliable source of political or social information from any one's standpoint. It is apparent that Wikipedia may, in fact, be the new battleground for the hearts and souls of the people of the world?

Abortion is not an issue, it is the issue

2009-05-19T11:03:00.002-07:00

In his commencement address at the University of Notre Dame, President Obama noted that there were irreconcilable differences between those supporting and those opposing abortions. I will agree on that point, there are irreconcilable differences. The President went on to encourage a dialogue between the two positions. Abortion is not just an issue. Abortion is the issue.

It is not my goal to review all of the legal and social issues on the different sides of the abortion problem. But it is my goal to be clear; under no circumstances will I support any policy, politician, candidate or office holder that supports abortion on demand. There is very little grey in this argument, less than in any other major issue I am aware of. My position is exactly that of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. From the Church's Website, here is the official position:

Human life is a sacred gift from God. Elective abortion for personal or social convenience is contrary to the will and the commandments of God. Church members who submit to, perform, encourage, pay for, or arrange for such abortions may lose their membership in the Church.

This position is further expanded as follows:

Church leaders have said that some exceptional circumstances may justify an abortion, such as when pregnancy is the result of incest or rape, when the life or health of the mother is judged by competent medical authority to be in serious jeopardy, or when the fetus is known by competent medical authority to have severe defects that will not allow the baby to survive beyond birth. But even these circumstances do not automatically justify an abortion. Those who face such circumstances should consider abortion only after consulting with their local Church leaders and receiving a confirmation through earnest prayer.

This is not a negotiable position. No amount of discussion will change these fundamental truths. There is no compromise. I will not knowing vote for anyone who supports abortion on demand.

Truly, this position is irreconcilable with the deceptive arguments of the supporters. Abortion is not an issue. It is the issue.

What about my credentials?

2009-05-13T06:41:00.002-07:00

In response to a recent post, a reader made the following comment:

I suppose it's fitting that a post about "trivialization" would early on include the phrase "so-called gay rights movement" ... but then you quickly move on from trivialization to demonization ("... all but destroyed the concept of civil rights in America"? Really?). Just curious, James, but what are your credentials when it comes to defending civil rights of any kind?

My first thought was whether or not the reader had read the post at all, or was merely making a stock comment. I had to think a while about why my "credentials" in "defending civil rights" had anything to do with my commentary. Apparently, if you oppose same-sex marriage and Gay Rights you have to have credentials to have an opinion? Then I began to wonder if the person writing the comment, who identified himself by a Hispanic name, had any "credentials?" Perhaps you need credentials to make comments about civil rights also?

After more thought, I decided. Here are my credentials:

I believe the Bible to be the word of God and I believe in the teaching of God's prophets anciently as well as in the latter days.

I wonder if the commentator has taught Constitutional Law? I have. I wondered if the commentator has over 34 years of trial experience in state and Federal Courts? I do. I could go on, but I also wonder about the relevancy of credentials. Aren't we back to the same old tactic of the Gay Rights movement? If you support Gay Rights you have First Amendment Rights but if you oppose Gay Rights, you have no right to speak at all. I think that is what the commentator is really trying to say about the so-called Gay Rights movement.

The trivialization of civil rights

2009-05-05T09:52:00.004-07:00

Because of the activists in the so-called gay rights movement, the entire issue of civil rights in America has been trivialized. The important issues of the past, voting rights for blacks, Native Americans and women, adequate housing, safe working conditions, religious freedom, school segregation and the other monumental issues of the past century have been marginalized by a short sighted focus on sexual preference as an issue.

Pathetic attempts to equate the so-called oppression of gays with the sufferings of the Blacks, Chicanos and Native Americans is a smear on the memory of those who have dedicated their lives to the emancipation and racial equality of these minorities.

Gays were never denied the right to work or vote.
Gays were never marched across the country and imprisoned in reservations.
Gay churches were never bombed.
No gay man or woman suffered slavery for being gay.
Gays are not relegated to separate schools, rest rooms or drinking fountains.
Gays were never migrant farm workers.

There is no definition of a "gay person" that relies on anything more than a person's private preference. Some of the leaders of the so-called Gay Rights movement are extremely influential and wealthy individuals who have never been denied anything in their lives.

Here is a quote from the statement of purpose of the Gay Liberation Front:

"We are a revolutionary group of men and women formed with the realization that complete sexual liberation for all people cannot come about unless existing social institutions are abolished. We reject society's attempt to impose sexual roles and definitions of our nature."

In another statement of the GLF purpose Martha Shelley in 1970 wrote:

"We are women and men who, from the time of our earliest memories, have been in revolt against the sex-role structure and nuclear family structure."

Does this sound like a statement by an oppressed minority seeking equality and civil rights? At the core this movement is destructive of society as a whole. Its revolting use of the terminology of the civil rights movement has all but destroyed the concept of civil rights in America. When a majority of any state supports such a destructive goal, they are buying into their own destruction.

Living with the Swine Flu -- thoughts on modern disasters

2009-05-03T10:52:00.002-07:00

When I was in high school, some of the students who were more mechanically and electronically gifted than I was, figured out a way to tap into the school's clock system. By getting on a table and plugging some wires into one of the clocks in an empty room, they were able to do several things; one was to run all the clocks in the school backwards, another was to ring the class bells out of sequence. As a result, they got the idea to sound a fire alarm. I think security in the empty classrooms was increased dramatically after the third or fourth fire drill, marching all of the students out to the parking lots.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has a vastly more advanced system of warning for Epidemic and Pandemic Alert and Response (EPR). They have organized a Global Outbreak Alert & Response Network for the technical collaboration of existing institutions and networks who pool human and technical resources for the rapid identification, confirmation and response to outbreaks of international importance. WHO. In the current outbreak of Swine Flu (now politically correctly renamed Influenza A(H1N1) virus) in the past week, the Level of Pandemic Alert has gone to an unprecedented Level 5.

Now, I am not claiming that someone is "ringing the bells" at the World Health Organization, but I am pointing out the fact that a small input of information from an unexpected source (boys in an empty classroom) can create a huge reaction (entire school out in the parking lot). This effect comes about because the system apparently has no way to evaluate the difference between a "real" emergency and one that is part of the background noise of our complex society.

The latest report from the WHO as of May 3, 2009 showed 898 confirmed cases of Swine Flu (now influenza A(H1N1) infection world wide. There have been 19 deaths reported in Mexico and 1 death in the U.S. Otherwise, there have been no other reported deaths in the entire world.

Now, given the huge incidence of Swine Flu in the last two weeks, what can we find out from the online statistics? First of all according to the Centers for Disease Control, this specific strain of influenza, type A (H1N1) has been reported for years. In the 2007 to 2008 Flu Season, from October 1, 2007 to May 17, 2008 there were 1,020 verified cases of influenza A (H1N1) in the United States alone. Don't take my word for it, check out the source. As of June 19, 2008, 83 deaths associated with laboratory-confirmed influenza infections have occurred among children aged < 18 years during the 2007--08 influenza season that were reported to CDC. These deaths were reported from 33 states (Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Washington, and Wisconsin).

Look at the data! There is no way that the current cases of influenza could have all come from Mexico. Given the fact that this same strain of flu has been infecting people for years, there is nothing about the current outbreak that can differentiate it from the background noise of infection.

When we are standing in the parking lot, how do we know whether or not the alarm was "real" or not? In the case of Swine Flu, before you start wearing a mask outside or cancel your trip in an airplane, you might want to look a little deeper into the alarm being raised.

Who benefits from the Swine Flu scare?

2009-05-02T14:37:00.002-07:00

Here is a conundrum, we have a huge avalanche of news stories hyping a global pandemic of Swine Flu, closing schools, stopping airplane flights in mid-course, disinfecting skyscrapers, and scaring old women and children, and where is the substance? After more than a week of a constant barrage of threats and statements, who benefits from this diatribe?

I thought that this was another of those manufactured crisis designed to divert attention from some other more difficult and political issue, but there is nothing much new going on that seems to merit such a huge outlay of drivel. As of May 2, 2009 there are 160 confirmed cases of the flu in the U.S. and there has been one death, a baby from Mexico. But who is benefiting from this manufactured bogey man?

Here are a few thoughts about those who might benefit: drug manufacturers, more allocated government funds, news outlets (paid trips to Mexico?), Johnson & Johnson sells out their inventory of Purell, bloggers, school officials (it gives them something to say that doesn't relate to a budget), mothers (who told their children to wash their hands) and other related entities.

But was that enough to justify the hype and exaggeration? Not really. I think the whole world is looking for an out. Something to justify not going on with business as usual. An excuse for taking a day off. A way to avoid thinking about financial disaster, war and poverty. A good flu scare is just what the doctor ordered to give us something else to talk about for a week or so. Then we can get back to reality (whatever that is).

We are not getting the whole story of the Swine Flu

2009-05-01T13:16:00.003-07:00

It has been a long time since I have seen so many older people so concerned about a world situation. I have friends and acquaintances who are worried to go out of their houses because of the Swine Flu reports. At the other end of the age spectrum, a younger friend went to the store to buy sanitary wipes for her family (out of an abundance of caution) and found the store's supply completely wiped out (intentional).

I have one major question, who is benefiting from this absolutely incredible reaction to a disease that hasn't even proved to be serious yet?

Look at the statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. As of May 1, 2009 at 11:00 am Eastern Time, the whole U.S. had 141 confirmed cases of the Swine Flu. Actual flu cases are in the low to minimal range. For example, the weekly Influenza Surveillance Report from the CDC showed 997 positive tests for flu during the 2008 calendar year, which included 804 cases of Influenza A (H1). During 2008, one pediatric influenza-associated death was reported. Did you read about all of this in the newspaper? Did the President comment on the one flu death in 2008?

Look at the statistics. What is really different about the present flu outbreak? Maybe someone felt we needed to forget the economy for a while? Maybe, they needed to stop people coming and going to Mexico? The war in Iraq? Afghanistan? What is really the reason why this flu outbreak is front page news with schools being closed. Please note, there was not one school closed last year because of a flu outbreak.

My opinion is not that there isn't a real disease, it is just that the present reaction is so completely out of sync with the real statistics. Why aren't we getting the real story?

Swine Flu and Google Trends

2009-04-30T07:07:00.002-07:00

Google has found that certain search terms are good indicators of flu activity. These statistics from Google searches have been compiled into graphs and maps showing computer search activity. Google Flu Trends uses aggregated Google search data to estimate possible flu activity at a state level in near real-time. I, for one, find this information a lot more reliable that the "official" estimates and new releases from government agencies who may have agendas.

To quote the Google.org blog:

In November 2008 we launched Google Flu Trends after finding a close relationship between how many people search for flu-related topics and how many people actually have flu symptoms. Google Flu Trends may be able to detect influenza outbreaks earlier than other systems because it estimates flu activity in near real time.

This is a way to use actual information, not tainted by politics, to form an idea of seriousness of the Swine Flu outbreak. Google explains how it attempts to validate the information:

In the United States, we were able to validate our estimates using data from a surveillance system managed by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). We have not verified our data for Mexico in the same manner, but we've seen that Google users in Mexico (and around the world) also search for many flu-related topics when they have flu-like symptoms. Given the tremendous recent attention to swine flu, our model tries to filter out search queries that are more likely associated with topical searches rather than searches by those who may be experiencing symptoms.

Looking at the maps it is evident that flu activity is low in both Mexico and the U.S. However, there are areas of Mexico where the activity is moderate. None of these areas of higher incidence are those being mentioned in news accounts.

As Google notes:

To explore Google Flu Trends data, you can download files containing weekly influenza-like illness (ILI) estimates for the United States. Data is provided for each individual state, the nine influenza surveillance regions, and the entire United States. It is provided at the state level for Mexican states where we were able to produce more reliable estimates given a limited amount of time. Exported data may be used for any purpose, subject to the Google Terms of Service. If you choose to use the information, please make sure to appropriately attribute it to Google.

Mexican Swine Flu information cannot be correct

2009-04-29T10:20:00.002-07:00

The numbers in the stories coming out about the Swine Flu infections do not add up. Someone is not telling the truth. During the past few days the news accounts have repeated, including in today' s (April 29, 2009) news, that only 26 cases of Swine Flu have been confirmed in Mexico and "health officials there suspect the swine flu outbreak has caused more than 159 deaths and roughly 2,500 illnesses." CNN.

Mexico City, alone, has more than 20 million people. A recent estimate of the population of Mexico is 109,955,400. CIA World Factbook. The outbreak of the Swine Flu in the United States and other countries is being attributed to people who traveled to Mexico. We are collectively being expected to believe that a handful of international travelers, from the U.S., Spain, Canada, Israel and other countries all came in contact with that same 2,500 people somewhere in the middle of Mexico. It is inconceivable that the spread of the disease from Mexico could have been caused by such a small infected portion of the population.

Given the information presently available indicating the spread of the disease throughout the world, there is only one conclusion possible, the Mexican Government is not telling the whole story. The disease has to be much more extensive in the country than we are lead to believe.

Apparently, some of the countries of the world have come to the same conclusion. Japan and Indonesia and testing the temperature of people arriving from Mexico to detect the disease. They obviously do not believe that only 2,500 people have the disease.

Likewise, the reported number of people infected the U.S. is also suspect. If you read the news accounts carefully, you will see that the numbers are always portrayed as "confirmed" cases of the disease. Given the time it takes to confirm a case of flu, from personal experience, it is highly doubtful that the numbers are even nearly accurate.

There may be no need for concern, yet, but this is story that bears watching.

What is a pandemic?

2009-04-28T07:30:00.002-07:00

The outbreak of Swine Flu has the news outlets abuzz with rumors. Again and again, the newscasts refer to a possible "pandemic." Hopefully, someone out there in authority knows what this term really means. Additionally, it would be nice if someone had read a little history about the last great flu epidemic in 1918.

Unfortunately, there is no specific definition of the term "pandemic." A pandemic (from Greek παν pan all + δήμος demos people) is an epidemic of infectious disease that spreads through populations across a large region; for instance a continent, or even worldwide.Widkipedia That seems really helpful. Think of all the diseases that are already pandemic by that definition: cholera, typhus, HIV and AIDS, measles, tuberculosis, malaria, yellow fever, and many, many others.

Just to give a little bit of perspective to the term pandemic, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, each year 350–500 million cases of malaria occur worldwide, and over one million people die, most of them young children in sub-Saharan Africa. In areas of Africa with high malaria transmission, an estimated 990,000 people died of malaria in 1995 – over 2700 deaths per day, or 2 deaths per minute. Apparently, unless people are dying in New York, a disease is not our problem.

Let's get another interesting perspective, again from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the number of alcohol-induced deaths in the U.S., excluding accidents and homicides, in 2005 was 21,634. Here's another statistic, the number of Lyme Disease infections in the U.S. for 2005 were 23,305.

Maybe we ought to be a little more circumspect before throwing around the word pandemic.

What's wrong with these words?

2009-04-26T17:09:00.002-07:00

Our language has been hijacked by extremists. Here is a list of terms gleaned from a pro-same-sex marriage Website. Can you guess the definitions?

commonwealth
equality
Anti-Gay
bigoted
grassroots
fairness alliance
fairness campaign
human rights campaign
religious freedom protection
social justice issue

It might help you define these words to know that they were all used in a call to for a "full scale, online grassroots call to action against The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS) also known as the Mormons. The call to action stated: "In response to this secret action by the LDS Church, the Human Rights Campaign today launched a full scale, online grassroots call to action to its more than 35,000 Illinois based members and supporters. The take-action asks members to contact the Nauvoo, Illinois Mormon Temple and let them know these deceitful, fear-mongering tactics can no longer be done in secret."

In other words, the fairness alliance would like to target one particular Church for a campaign by a "former member of the Church" because, as they claim, "It is irrefutably clear that the LDS Church is fighting an anti-gay crusade throughout the nation, targeting any form of equality for the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender community,” Exactly what does this "anti-gay crusade" consist of? Isn't it people with strong moral values who believe in the sanctity of marriage and the family trying to defend morality and decency? Isn't targeting one particular religious group bigoted? Isn't targeting one particular religious group unfair? Isn't targeting one particular religious group, to deny them a voice in the debate a violation of the Church's members' own civil rights? Apparently not, if they disagree with a former member of the Church and his stand on gay-rights.

The law and same sex marriage-- Part Two

2009-04-22T13:07:00.002-07:00

One of the most common misunderstandings about the law involves a common phrase -- "It is against the law to...." (fill in the blank). Usually, when people use that phrase they are talking about some issue that could be enforced. Enforcement is a big deal. Let's look at the example of traffic laws. How many of my readers know that the police will not give you a ticket if you aren't speeding more than ___ miles per hour over the speed limit? This is an enforcement issue. The law is clear, exceeding the speed limit by even 1 mph constitutes a violation of the law. But we all know that the enforcement agencies (usually police, sheriffs or highway patrol) will only stop you if you exceed the limit by some arbitrary amount. Does the fact that the enforcement agency fails to enforce the law change the law? Not in the least.

The point here is that the "law" and what is enforced are sometimes vastly different.

Now, what do we mean when we say some activity is against the law? In my experience, most people only have a sort of vague understanding between civil and criminal law. From a legal standpoint the difference rather simple. Criminal laws are only enforced by governments. The plaintiff or complaining party in all criminal cases is the "state" or "municipality" or other governmental jurisdiction. Also, criminal laws routinely provide for incarceration as a consequence of a violation. In the United States there are very few civil violations that can result in going to jail. Civil laws, on the other hand may be enforced by a government entity or by a private citizen, but the remedy is monetary damages not a jail sentence. Because most people do not know the distinction, they use the phrase, "against the law" in both a civil and criminal context.

Now, is same sex marriage "against the law?" The simple answer is it depends on the jurisdiction. If a same-sex couple got married in Massachusetts and traveled to Arizona, would they get arrested? No. In that sense, same-sex marriage is not "against the law in Arizona." However, because of the Defense of Marriage Act (See my last post) Arizona does not have to treat the union as a "marriage." In this sense, a same-sex marriage is not against the law in Arizona or any other state where that form of marriage is not recognized, it is just not recognized as a marriage. Would Arizona's government authorities arrest someone because Arizona has a Marriage Amendment? Of course not, there is a vast difference between a failure to recognize a type of marriage and some sort of enforcement.

This is essentially the same issue that used to exist with divorces. Historically, many states had very restrictive divorce laws. On the other hand, some states, such as Nevada, had very liberal laws. People would travel to Nevada to get a divorce. However, the divorce may not be recognized in the person's state of residence. There are still substantial differences between the state's various divorce laws, just as there are differences between the state's marriage laws. That is not to say that a jurisdiction that did not recognize a Nevada divorce, could not pass laws making it difficult for a person with such a divorce.

Why is this distinction important? Because the rhetoric surrounding same-sex marriage is so lacking in contact with reality that in many cases it is impossible to carry on a rational conversation about the issue. One of the immediate and insistent claims made by those supporting same-sex marriage is that the citizens of Arizona (or whatever state) are depriving them of their "civil rights."

For example, Arizona is a community property state. If you make an estate plan in Ohio and then move to Arizona, you may find out that your plans do not work well or at all in Arizona. The laws are different. However, in both the estate planning situation and with divorces we don't have people claiming that their civil rights are violated merely because some states view the law differently and enforce their laws differently. It is sign of the political and social engineering aspect of the same-sex marriage issues that turn the differences into claims of violations of "civil rights" where no such rights exist or have ever existed.

More later.

The law and same sex marriage-- Part One

2009-04-20T10:09:00.006-07:00

The present controversy over the so-called same-sex marriage, has various jurisdictions in the United States implementing a variety of solutions. Some of the states have passed constitution amendments limiting the recognition of marriage to unions between men and women. Other jurisdictions' legislatures have passed laws recognizing same-sex marriage. In some states, the courts have ruled in favor of same-sex marriage and the legislatures have taken no action. There are at least a couple of states where neither the courts nor the legislatures have passed on the legality of same-sex marriage. In the next few posts, I hope to review the status of the law in general and indicate my own concerns.

The current Federal law is the Defense of Marriage Act. As cited in Wikipedia:

The Defense of Marriage Act, or DOMA, is the short title of a federal law of the United States passed on September 21, 1996 as Public Law No. 104-199, 110 Stat. 2419. Its provisions are codified at 1 U.S.C. § 7 and 28 U.S.C. § 1738C. The law has two effects:
1. No state (or other political subdivision within the United States) needs to treat a relationship between persons of the same sex as a marriage, even if the relationship is considered a marriage in another state.
2. The federal government may not treat same-sex relationships as marriages for any purpose, even if concluded or recognized by one of the states. The bill was passed by Congress by a vote of 85-14 in the Senate and a vote of 342-67 in the House of Representatives, and was signed into law by President Bill Clinton on September 21, 1996.

The present administration has indicated that it will attempt to repeal the law in the near future.
In the United States what is called the "law" arises from various sources. Since we have three major divisions in our government, the legislative, executive and judicial, all three of these divisions can create laws. However, ultimately, the power over the laws of our country lies with the people themselves. The people elect the government officers and the legislators who make the laws. In some jurisdictions, the people also vote for their judges, but some judges are appointed by the executive branches subject to the consent of the legislative branch.

The ultimate authorities for law in the United States and each of the individual states are the various constitutions. When there is a disagreement about the interpretation of the provisions of those various constitutions, the provisions are interpreted by the courts.

In the common law system such as that in the United States and Great Britain, controversies or cases are decided by judges who base their decisions on precedents, that is, following how prior cases have been decided. This method of deciding cases is called stare decisis; lower courts follow the rulings of higher courts. When a court has ruled on on specific legal issue, the decision is said to be controlling and therefore must be followed by courts deciding similar cases. If there is no case law "on point" then the judges are free to follow other authority or make "new law."

If a lower court rules against precedent or if a party disagrees with the ruling, then the party opposing the ruling can appeal to a higher court and ultimately to a State Supreme Court or, in some cases to the United States Supreme Court. In the United States, the Supreme Court Judges are nominated by the Executive Branch (the President) and their appointment confirmed by the Legislative Branch, the Senate has the authority to consent or reject the appointees.

The United States and each of the individual states, also have legislatures. The legislatures can pass laws but if someone claims that the law is not consistent with the state or Federal constitution, then the law can be challenged in the courts. In some states, the people of the state have the right to initiate laws,

Not only can the courts and the legislatures make new laws, the executive branches our our state and Federal governments can make new rules and regulations at any time. Usually, these rules and regulations have the force of law.

Because all of these entities have input into the drafting of laws and the interpretation of the existing laws, the entire legal process is always in a state of flux or change. State and Federal Statutes may be repealed at any time. Long standing case law can be overturned with the next court decision that comes along. Changes in the political administration may result in significant changes to the executive regulations and orders.

Historically, people have always tried to use the courts to make new law, especially when they became frustrated with the actions or inactions of the various legislative bodies. The present status of the same-sex marriage laws reflects the diversity of opinion as well. As of April 20, 2009, the most current status of the laws is shown in the Wikipedia as follows:

Two states (Massachusetts and Connecticut) currently allow same-sex marriage, five states recognize some alternative form of same-sex union, twelve states ban any recognition of any form of same-sex unions including civil union, twenty-eight
states have adopted amendments to their state constitution prohibiting same sex
marriage, and another twenty states have enacted statutory DOMAs. On April 27,
2009, same-sex marriage will become available in Iowa because of a ruling by that state's Supreme Court. On September 1, 2009, an act of the Vermont Legislature becomes effective and Vermont will start offering same-sex marriage as well.

More to come.

The Myth of Gay Civil Rights

2009-04-14T16:13:00.003-07:00

What is the origin of same-sex gender attraction? Is it an inherent condition determined from birth and unalterable? Does it have a cause? Or is it a series of choice made by an individual? How many people actually have the condition? Answer these and many other questions and you may be on the way to determining one of the basic requirements of the groups' so-called civil rights, that is the definition of the protected class. Without an answer to these and the many other related questions, there is no definition of the protected class and therefore any claim to civil rights is based upon a myth.

A myth is a fictional tale that attempts to explain the causes of natural phenomena. It is also a traditional story accepted as fact. Both of these definitions apply to the modern phenomena of "Gay Civil Rights."

To illustrate, look at the definitions of the following classes: race, national origin or ethnicity, religion, color, age, sex, familial status, disability, and veteran status. What is the difference between each of these classes and the the claimed class of "sexual orientation?" The answer is obvious and easily understood. Each of the other enumerated classes has a definition which is independent from personal choice and preference. You are either black or you are not. You are either from Mexico or you are not. However, some of the classes do have a "choice" component and in each case there is a plethora of case law determining whether a certain person is or is not a "member" of the class. [For example, examine the conscientious objector cases to illustrate some of the issues involved].

On the other hand, "sexual orientation" has no objective criteria that enables a rational determination of inclusion in a class. I anyone claims membership in the class, in the present mythological world of Gay Civil Rights, they are automatically included in the "class." There is no test, no indices, no basis whatsoever for exclusion or inclusion. Essentially we have to take the "word" of the person claiming inclusion. [For a more in depth discussion of this conundrum see this article]. Quoting from Tony Marco, "Gay militants are asking that gays be recognized as a protected class based on nothing but their unexamined word -- a development totally unprecedented in civil rights history." Article.

Gay civil rights is a myth.

NPR plays one side of the same-sex marriage issue

2009-04-10T18:53:00.002-07:00

On April 10, 2009, National Public Radio weighed in on the same-sex marriage controversy with a broadcast it called "The Gay Marriage Game Plan, From Both Sides." The commentator Neal Conan, interviewed William Eskridge, a law professor at Yale University and Maggie Gallagher, President of the National Organization for Marriage. Consistent with many other media productions, the comments reflected the doubletalk and propaganda language of the Gay Rights movement. During the broadcast, Mr. Eskridge, who supported Gay Marriage consistently referred to "Gay couples, many of them with children." Almost every time he referred to Gay Marriage he particularly referred to couples with children. Especially near the end of the broadcast began referring to the Marriage Amendments in California and elsewhere as "anti-marriage" amendments. Amazingly, Mr. Conan, made no attempt to correct this blatantly biased way of addressing the issues, even though Mr. Eskridge repeatedly used the term, "anti-marriage."

The NPR site has an interactive map showing the present status of passage of constitutional amendments and Defense of marriage acts. Looking at the map you can see the overwhelming support for traditional marriage in the U.S. despite the proponents of same-sex marriage who consistently represent themselves as in the main stream of the U.S. this is just not true. Although it is true, that if those who support traditional marriage do nothing the supporters of same-sex marriage will ultimately prevail and will not be content with just destroying traditional marriage but extend the attack to religion.

By and large the broadcast pointed up the fact the only way the Gay Rights movement can overturn, what Mr. Eskridge called the "anti-marriage amendments," was to change the people's opinions, doing this, of course by doubletalk and propaganda.

Would I deny equality to all men?

2009-04-07T20:17:00.003-07:00

One of the comments made on a recent post accused me of denying "equality to all men" apparently for the reason that I do not support same-sex marriage. This raises the issue of what is meant in our legal system by equality and do I believe that supporting the traditional view of marriage would deny equality to all men?

Referring one of the most fundamental of all documents, the Declaration of Independence, we read the following: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed."

We learn first from this statement that men are created equal and then endowed (gifted) by their Creator." Unlike those who reject religion out of hand and seek to establish a secular humanistic America, I happen to believe the principle set down here in the Declaration of Independence, that men were "created" and that their unalienable rights come from that Creator. These are not rights that are conferred by a secular government or by godless judges, but fundamental rights, tightly related to each person's relationship to that Creator.

This truth is not something that must be proved, because, again in the words of the Declaration of Independence, these truths are self-evident. This means we don't have to keep going back to the legislatures and and the courts to prove these truths to anyone in the world. Where do we go if we wish to know more about these rights? We go back to that Creator. He defines and gives these rights to mankind. We cannot selfishly claim the gift and then reject the gift giver.

I also believe that governments are instituted by that Creator and are subject to Him, or better said, accountable to Him for they way they conduct their affairs. I also believe, as stated in the Declaration of Independence that our actions should be based on the concept of the equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle us and to a decent respect to the opinions of mankind. This means that my ideas are entitled to a decent respect, just as are yours. But that the equal station (state of equality) we all possess comes not from our own individual beliefs, but from the laws of nature and of nature's God.

How then are men equal? They certainly are not equal in any physical sense, some have more of the world's goods and services than other. They are certainly not equal in health, physical beauty or strength. They are not equal in any secular humanistic way at all. They are all equal before God, their Creator, and they are all judged by that God by the same set of rules, the laws of nature and of nature's God.

If you reject nature's laws and nature's God, you will also reject equality, not a counterfeit equality where everyone is reduced to the same base level, but an equality where all are fairly treated and where the laws of nature and of nature's God are respected and observed. Because we, as a society, have standards does not destroy equality before God. What does destroy that equality, is a lack of traditional standards based on a true relationship to God.

That is some of what I believe about equality.

Iowa Supreme Court -- Politics not law

2009-04-05T11:48:00.002-07:00

The recent Iowa Supreme Court opinion in the case of Varnum v. Brien filed April 3, 2009 is a classic study in politics and how judges can write an opinion justifying any position they wish to take by ignoring facts, the law and good sense. The Court dismissed traditional marriage by saying:

First, the County argues the same-sex marriage ban promotes the “integrity of traditional marriage” by “maintaining the historical and traditional marriage norm ([as] one between a man and a woman).” This argument is straightforward and has superficial appeal. A specific tradition sought to be maintained cannot be an important governmental objective for equal protection purposes, however, when the tradition is nothing more than the historical classification currently expressed in the statute being challenged. When a certain tradition is used as both the governmental objective and the classification to further that objective, the equal protection analysis is transformed into the circular question of whether the classification accomplishes the governmental objective, which objective is to maintain the classification. In other words, the equal protection clause is converted into a “ ‘barren form of words’ ” when “ ‘discrimination . . . is made an end in itself.’ ” Tussman & tenBroek, 37 Cal. L. Rev. at 357 (quoting Truax v. Raich, 239 U.S. 33, 41, 36 S. Ct. 7, 10, 60 L. Ed. 131, 135 (1915)).

In other words, by doubletalk.

The Court decision, overruling Iowa's statute defining marriage as a union between a man and woman, is rife with emotional and political content, but very little actual law. Ignoring the very nature of the same-sex relationship, the Court says, in one example, "Society benefits, for example, from providing same-sex couples a stable framework within which to raise their children and the power to make health care and end-of-life decisions for loved ones, just as it does when that framework is provided for opposite-sex couples."

I have written previous posts that address both of these issue extensively. One comment, there is nothing in either a same-sex relationship or a opposite-sex relationship that insures that a child will be raised in a stable framework. Using this kind of argument has nothing whatsoever to do with equal protection and everything to do with propaganda.

The entire argument of the Court is based on a fallacy, analyzing the constitutionality of the statute based on sexual orientation discrimination. The fallacy is simple; How do you prove sexual orientation? What is the test that a member of the supposed "class" must pass in order to legally become a member? Apparently, unlike any other suspect class, all the person has to do is say that they are a member of the class. Unfortunately, this is not the test for religious discrimination. There are hundreds, perhaps thousands of cases, involving, for example, the military draft, where someone had to prove they were of a certain religious persuasion. But here the Iowa Court would allow anyone, without any qualification whatsoever, to "belong" to the suspect class based on an undefined "sexual orientation."

Although the Court discusses, at length, whether or not sexual orientation is immutable in a legal sense, it does so without ever defining sexual orientation at all. The Court, after examining all of the arguments, makes its decision based on justifying its position and dismissing all counter-arguments as irrelevant.

More later

Marriage to between a man and woman violates Iowa's constitution

2009-04-03T19:14:00.003-07:00

Iowa's Supreme Court rules [link to the actual case] that marriage to between a man and woman violated Iowa's constitution. In a news article on AzCentral, the Court said, "We are firmly convinced the exclusion of gay and lesbian people from the institution of civil marriage does not substantially further any important governmental objective. The Legislature has excluded a historically disfavored class of persons from a supremely important civil institution without a constitutionally sufficient justification."

By using the term "historically disfavored class of persons" the Court demonstrated the extent to which Gay Rights' Doublespeak has entered the national psyche. The commentary referred to the passage of the Marriage Amendment in California as a "right-wing ballot initiatives." This ruling joins the other rulings in finding way to overturn legislative action through judge made law and hold that gay couples are a "class" without ever defining the class.

As an example of the bias of the Court, I would refer to the Court's reference to the fact that "lesbian and gay people continue to be frequent victims of hate crimes. See Criminal Justice Information Servs. Div., FBI, Hate Crime Statistics 2007, http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/hc2007/victims.htm (according to FBI-collected data, the only hate crimes occurring more frequently than sexual-orientation-motivated hate crimes are crimes based on race or religious bias).

Please look at the report from the Federal Bureau of Investigation. In 2007, the FBI reports 9,006 "Hate Crimes." of that total number, in the entire U.S. they report a total of 1,460 offenses. Iowa reported 5 incidents of bias motivation due to sexual orientation in 2007 in the entire state. This is the number of incidents, not the number of offenses.

To give some perspective on this number, there were 904 forcible rapes in Iowa during 2007 and 6,551 aggravated assaults.

What does the Court mean by "frequent?" Is it a frequent crime that out of a population of 2,988,046 there are FIVE incidents attributed to "bias motivation due to sexual orientation?"

We have come so far and have gotten so far from reality that we can justify overthrowing a basic structure of our society because there were five incidents of bias against an undefined class. The Court buys into this entirely disconnected and unsupported language of the Gay Rights movement and makes it into law!

Unemployment?

2009-03-30T07:17:00.005-07:00

It is likely that few of the thousands of people who travel Interstate 40 across northern Arizona even think about stopping in some of the small towns between Flagstaff and the eastern Arizona border with New Mexico. The small towns have interesting names like, Leupp Corner, Two Guns, and Lupton. Some of the towns still have the ruins of the tourist stops built when Route 66 was a major highway. One of those small towns is called Joseph City.

Joseph City lies in the middle of some of the most desolate and unappealing landscape in the entire country. It has no attractions whatsoever. If the Salt River Project had not built the Cholla Power Plant just outside of town, the population would have been no more than a few families. As it is, the population is only reported as "sparse."

In 1877, my great-grandfather Henry Tanner and his new bride Eliza, got out of a wagon after traveling for over a month, and began their life together out there in the wind and dust of the Colorado Plateau. At that time the settlement, if you could call it that, was called Allen's Camp.

It probably never occurred to Henry that he was broke and unemployed. He didn't have Social Security, Unemployment Insurance or any other government welfare program to keep him and his soon growing family alive. They and their families had only recently been driven forcibly out of the United States and then subjected to Army occupation. Their property had been confiscated and they were systematically persecuted.

Henry lived in what became Joseph City until he died at age 82. In his entire life, he probably never even thought of the concept of unemployment. You might argue that they lived on a "farm" and that is a lot different from today when few can live on a farm. You try and grow a "farm" out there where the wind blows 350 days a year and you are living at 5000 above sea level. There was no running water, they had to haul water from the Little Colorado River in barrels and let the sediment settle out, just to get a drink.

In typical Mormon fashion, they built dams on the Little Colorado River to irrigate the soil but the sandy soil and periodic floods washed away dam after dam. They raised cattle, sorghum for molasses, milk cows and a lot of children.

They lived in a cooperative society. They helped their neighbors. Although they had their differences, even after three generations, there is a bond between their descendants. If your ancestors came from Joseph City, you share a common bond of suffering and hardship that the years cannot erase.

It is remarkable to me to hear today's stories of the unemployed. They act like it is someone's fault that they do not have a "job." What do all of these people do all day? They certainly don't go volunteer at the public library, they don't show up to serve at the relief agencies, they don't volunteer in their communities, they aren't planting gardens, cleaning their houses or helping in care centers. We certainly haven't seen a resurgence of community service in places like Michigan and Arizona where there is high unemployment.

Maybe we need to rethink the concept of unemployment.

Books are not dead, neither are they dying

2009-03-27T12:53:00.002-07:00

Recent news articles have focused on the imminent demise of U.S. newspapers. Local newspapers, especially in two newspaper towns, continue to decline. Advertising revenue and circulation are both declining. See for example this article in The Washington Post. The overall concern is that reading is on the decline. A report on the Publishing Business Conference and Expo clearly indicates that the trend in newspapers does not extend to the book market.

The article posted on the LDS Media Talk blog showed the following:

Literary reading is growing, not shrinking.
Publishers are moving from publishing for general markets to focusing on
more targeted markets.
E-books are growing, but at the same time, printed books are not fading.
(2006-7:
e-books doubled and tree books rose 3.2%)
Publishers are moving from print-only publications to print and digital
publication. New devices for digital reading (Kindle, e-Reader, iPhone, Android)
are growing and improving dramatically.

Take a visit to your local library. On a recent visit to the Maricopa County Library in Gilbert, Arizona, we found the library full of people. There were literally stacks of recent popular books for checkout. The library was not only stocking books but also recently released audio books and movie DVDs.

If overall reading and demand for reading material is not declining, perhaps the newspapers should look to content, relevance and convenience as an issue. Maybe putting out pounds of newsprint every week is no longer socially acceptable. If you are like my family, we stopped taking the newspaper, not because we didn't want the news, but because we didn't want the huge piles of newspapers we felt duty bound to recycle.

In addition, if I do read a news article and I want to comment on the article, how do I do that with a print version of the newspaper? Write a letter to the Editor? Sure.

The newspaper industry is facing technological and social changes. The will adapt or they will disappear.

Comments on the idea "New Puritanism"

2009-03-26T06:17:00.004-07:00

In a recent article, commentator Orson Scott Card, either out of ignorance or lack of historical perspective, attributed the rise of those people in America professing "no religion" to a "New Puritanism." He cites a study by Trinity College investigators who found an increase in the percentage of Americans claiming no religion from 8.2% in 1990 to a most recent figure of 15%. At the same time, the study claims that the number of Americans claiming to be Christians declined, over the same period, from 86.2% down to 76%.

In making his comparison between the current non-religionists and the Puritans, Card focuses on his perception of the zeal of the Puritans in imposing their religious views on others, claiming that the non-religionist act in the same manner. Unfortunately, this shallow analogy is not supported by any competent historical analysis. Puritans were deeply religious and in America has a highly organized church structure that persists in many ways today. The Puritans were Calvinists at heart, and people of deep personal piety. Their Puritan ideas can be summarized in five words; depravity, covenant, election, grace and love. (See Fischer, David Hackett. Albion's Seed: Four British Folkways in America. New York: Oxford University Press, 1989. Page 23).

Without going into a long discussion of Calvinist theology and religious tenants, it is a disservice to the religiously motivated immigrants to America to compare them to those who profess no religion today.

Now, what of the those professing no religion today? Are they content to sit idly by and ignore those who profess a religion? In this regard I must agree with Card, they do exhibit the same zeal in their non-religion. It is not a coincidence that the area of the country reported as being the most non-religious, is also the area where those persecuting religion also live. Vermont is named as most non-religious state in the U.S. It is also a focus for the anti-marriage and anti-religious so-called Gay Rights movement. Card's description of them is appropriate:

They bristle at the slightest sign of Christians laying hold on the machinery of the state -- while having no compunction about using the power of the state to establish their own dogmas in the schools and in the courts.

Believing in no god, they have no law to check them; whatever they think to do, they will try to do, and their fury when they are resisted knows no restraint.

Although the tactics of the non-religionists is similar to that of any oligarchy, it is unfair to compare them to the pious Puritans and their strong beliefs. The immorality of the non-religionist should not be compared to the morality of the Puritans.

Gay Rights Doublespeak

2009-03-24T06:46:00.002-07:00

The 1949 novel, Nineteen Eighty-Four, by George Orwell acted as a symbol for a dystopian society. A dystopian society is one in which the conditions of life are miserable, characterized by human misery, poverty, oppression, violence, disease, and/or pollution. Wikipedia. This overly depressing view of the future of society is considered a bench mark of what is wrong with a propaganda controlled society. Orwell popularized the use of composite nouns using the terms "speak" and "think," as in newspeak, oldspeak and doublethink.

Although not used in the novel, the term "doublespeak" has followed Orwell's example. Doublespeak is language constructed to disguise or distort its actual meaning, often resulting in a communication bypass. Doublespeak may take the form of bald euphemisms (e.g., "downsizing" for layoffs) or deliberate ambiguity. Wikipedia.

As pointed out yet again in the debate over a Gay Marriage bill in Vermont, those supporting the so-called Gay Rights are using doublespeak to promote their cause and thereby impose a propaganda controlled society.

Here are some examples from the news articles and from the comments made by the supporters:

"gays have different brain structure than straights" Nice to know that the person making this conclusion has discovered something that is not proven by any accepted scientific evidence. The real meaning of this statement is to try to distort the underlying issues and take the behaviour patterns out of the realm of voluntary.

"gay marriage" Despite the overwhelming majority of the states' laws defining marriage, this use of the term is specifically designed to provoke an emotional response.

"granting people the same rights regardless of sexual orientation is not \"immorality\". bigotry is immoral" This quote uses multiple doublespeak. Terms such as "sexual orientation" are euphemisms coined by those supporting so-called gay rights. Bigotry in this context is used to refer to anyone opposing their view of gay rights. In their definition of bigotry, gay rights advocates are not "bigots" when they attack people for their religious beliefs.

"civil right" I have written several blogs on this topic. In one news article a Vermont State Legislator is quoted as saying, "I spent many long hours on a snowy night at the hearing and I listened to everything that came before us. It was somewhere in there that I realize this was a civil right, and I supported it," she said." Marriage is not a "civil right." Apparently, you can become converted to "gay marriage" like a religion.

Propaganda is propaganda and doublespeak is doublespeak, especially when it is used in this context.

Seven things America does not owe

2009-03-21T14:17:00.004-07:00

With all the talk about rights and entitlements and all the things America owes to the world, here is a list of seven things America does not owe:

1. Everyone in America is not entitled to feel good about themselves. We alone are responsible for our feelings. If we do wrong, we should feel bad.

2. Everyone in America is not entitled to a job. We can have opportunity, but how we use that opportunity is our responsibility.

3. Everyone in America is not entitled to live in the same house, drive the same car or eat the same food. Only prisoners have the same house and eat the same food.

4. Everyone in America is not entitled to good health. If we live a destructive life style, our bad health is our own problem.

5. Everyone in America is not entitled to the same level of education. Opportunity to learn is not the same as a guaranteed education to a minimum state test level. A student who refuses to learn and obey school rules should not be forced to stay in school.

6. Everyone in America is not entitled to spend all day talking on cell phones, online or watching TV. Goods and services are items for sale in the market place and we do not have some fundamental right to own a TV, cell phone or computer.

7. Everyone in America is not entitled to live the life of the rich and famous. We all have different callings and opportunities, how we live our lives should be our own concern not the concern of our government.

A trillion here, a trillion there

2009-03-20T12:07:00.004-07:00

Only recently mass storage devices have grown to the extent that the average person can buy a 1 Terabyte hard drive (or even larger). A Terabyte is 1000 Gigabytes. Familiarity with this concept of a trillion has apparently jaded our society so quickly that the U.S. Government's recent announcement that the Federal Reserve will buy $1.15 trillion in Treasuries. One time Senator Everett Dirksen was quoted as saying, "A billion here, a billion there, pretty soon it adds up to real money." Well, it added up to real money.

It might be a good idea to try to real grasp of this number, even given the present familiarity with trillions.

A trillion seconds is 31,688 years. A stack of 1 trillion $1000 bills (not $1 bills) would be over 67 miles high. The government could give a million people a million dollars each. Here is a graphic representation of the amount of money in a $1 trillion.

The national debt is estimated to be over $11 trillion or about $36,000 per person for every man, woman and child in America today. However, there is a whole lot of disagreement about the amount of the debt, even from the government itself. If you have a new baby, that baby immediately has a $36,000 debt. Maybe, we could negotiate with the government and if we paid our share, $36,000, we wouldn't ever have to pay anymore taxes?

James Hamilton of Econbrowser puts a trillion dollars into perspective this way:

A trillion dollars is about the total amount collected in [individual] income taxes by the U.S. federal government in fiscal year 2006-- $1.04 trillion, if you're curious to use the exact number. That gives me a simple rule of thumb for personalizing these numbers. If I want to know what an additional trillion dollars in government borrowing or spending will mean for me, I just imagine what it would be like to pay twice as much in federal income taxes for one year. So, for example, with the President's proposed budget calling for deficits of $1.75 trillion for 2009 and an additional $1.17 trillion for 2010, after 3 years of paying twice as much as I paid in 2006, I'd have about paid off my share of the bill for the first two years of the proposal.

What is the effect of adding these huge sums of money to our money supply? No one knows. Isn't that a bit scary.

Marriage Amendment introduced in Minnesota

2009-03-18T16:06:00.002-07:00

Pro-marriage proponents, concerned with legislation being introduced in the Minnesota state legislature, introduced a state constitutional amendment defining marriage as between a man and a woman. Not surprisingly, the media immediately began condemning the proposed amendment as "anti-gay rights" and the proponents as "same-sex marriage opponents." In the StarTribune article the reporters said:

Activists, legislators and religious leaders representing Christian, Muslim
and Jewish congregations said at a news conference organized by the Minnesota
Family Council that such an amendment -- which would need ratifying by voters --
is the only way to block changes in the status of marriage sought by legislators
or same-sex couples launching court challenges."This is not a political issue, or an issue of choice or rights. It is an issue of life," said Andre Dukes, pastor of Shiloh Temple church in Minneapolis. A constitutional amendment, said Rep. Dan Severson, R-Sauk Rapids, one of the sponsors, would "allow the people of Minnesota to vote on this very important issue ... and let them decide."

The article goes on to quote State Senator John Marty, DFL-Roseville saying, "This is not a political issue, or an issue of choice or rights. It is an issue of life," said Andre Dukes, pastor of Shiloh Temple church in Minneapolis. A constitutional amendment, said Rep. Dan Severson, R-Sauk Rapids, one of the sponsors, would "allow the people of Minnesota to vote on this very important issue ... and let them decide."

Marriage amendments are moral issues. They go to the very essence and quality of our national fiber. I certainly support those who have brought this amendment issue to Minnesota.

As usual the comments on the news article make you wonder if people can still read and write, much less type on the computer at the same time.

What would you expect from California?

2009-03-15T16:10:00.003-07:00

There used to be an old saying, "Look what the cat dragged in..." now the saying would be "Look what showed up on Facebook..." A recent Facebook post caught my attention, it said: "Would you like to earn an online law degree from the comfort of your own home?"

Fascinated by the opportunity to fame and fortune over the Internet, I clicked on the link. Here is what it said:

Would you like to earn an online law degree from the comfort of your own home? It’s not easy, but it is possible. Earning an online law degree poses several unique challenges. No online law school is accredited by the American Bar Association (ABA); however, forty-nine states require that law school graduates earn a degree accredited by the ABA in order to take the bar exam needed to practice law.
California is the one state that allows graduates from distance learning law schools to sit for their bar, assuming the examinees meet certain requirements. If you live in California, or if you’re willing to relocate, you may be able to become a practicing lawyer with an online law degree. After you work as a lawyer for a few years, it may be possible to practice law in some other states.

Do we now have an explanation for part of the problem with the law coming out of California recently? Maybe.

The online article goes on to state:

Once you’ve used your online law degree to practice law in California for a few years, you may be able to work as a lawyer in additional states. Many states will permit California lawyers to take their bar exams after five to seven years of practicing law. Alternatively, you could enroll in a Master of Law program accredited by the American Bar Association. Such programs take only one or two years and will help you qualify to take the bar exam in other states. You may also practice law in federal courts located in any state.

As a practicing lawyer in the state of Arizona for over 34 years, I would seriously doubt that anyone could obtain an adequate law school education without classroom attendance. Learning to be a lawyer isn't just about reading some case law and deciding to represent clients, we no longer live in the 19th Century, Abraham Lincoln may have been self taught, but he didn't have the IRS or the Rules of Civil Procedure to contend with. With a ratio of 49 to 1 it doesn't seem like this is a movement that will sweep the country, but the fact that California, the lone dissenter, is liberal enough to allow people to officially practice law without going to an accredited school says volumes about their attitude towards the law in general.

Would you go to a doctor who got his or her degree over the Internet? Probably not knowingly. I have met a lot of people who have represented themselves in legal battles, some with as much expertise as practicing lawyers, does that mean I would like that person to represent me in a lawsuit? Not likely or even possibly.

Can Gay Rights activists claim "basic human rights"

2009-03-12T10:50:00.004-07:00

A stated goal of the Gay Activists Alliance founded in New York City in December of 1969, was to "secure basic human rights, dignity and freedom for all gay people." Wikipedia. This statement referring to the concept of "basic human rights" has been repeated thousands of times in the context of the activists' rhetoric.

In examining this topic it is important to differentiate between those "basic human rights" which are defined as those "basic rights and freedoms to which all humans are entitled" (Wikipedia) and what the Gay Activists mean by the phrase, the recognition of same-sex marriage.

Article 1 of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), states: "All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood." Wikipedia.

However, Article 16 of the UDHR states:

Article 16
Men and women of full age, without any limitation due to
race, nationality or religion, have the right to marry and to found a family.
They are entitled to equal rights as to marriage, during marriage and at its
dissolution.
Marriage shall be entered into only with the free and full consent of the intending spouses.
The family is the natural and fundamental group unit of society and is entitled to protection by society and the State.

The Declaration continues to be widely cited by governments, academics, advocates and constitutional courts and individual human beings who appeal to its principles for the protection of their recognised human rights. But the UDHR itself states that

Article 29, Paragraph 2 of the UDHR explains the limitations of the Declaration:

In the exercise of his rights and freedoms, everyone shall be subject only
to such limitations as are determined by law solely for the purpose of securing
due recognition and respect for the rights and freedoms of others and of meeting
the just requirements of morality, public order and the general welfare in a
democratic society.

It is important at this juncture to emphasize that these statements come from the United Nations documents, not from anything directly adopted by the government of the United States of America. It should be noted that the UDHR would not seem to provide any support for the adoption of the phrase "basic human rights" by the Gay Activists.

The U.S. Federal Courts have infrequently used the term "basic human rights" and then only routinely in the context of political asylum cases. Importantly, there are apparently no Federal cases at all linking the issue of "basic human rights" with Gay Rights in any way. Not surprisingly, the term "basic human rights" has only been linked to Gay Rights in one single case, Anderson v. King County, 138 P. 3d 963, 158 Wash. 2d 1, (2006). The Anderson case was brought by Gay Rightists seeking to invalidate the Defense of Marriage Act in Washington State. The phrase was used by the Plaintiff/Appellees in that case in their arguments. The Washington Supreme Court reversed the lower court and upheld the constitutionality of the Washington statute.

Although the term "basic human rights" has great emotional appeal, it is evident that the use of the term by the Gay Activists is pure propaganda. It is further apparent that an appeal to "basic human rights" at least as defined by the United Nations, would not recognize Gay Rights' issues.

Hospital visitation rights -- Gay Rights propaganda

2009-03-11T18:02:00.003-07:00

In response to my last post on the propaganda nature of the Gay Rights' Movement's use of the term "hospital visitation rights" I received an interesting comment. Since the comment demonstrates the pervasive nature of the propaganda mechanism, I thought it necessary to address the language and concepts expressed in the comment.

The comment starts by making the following statement: [I have copied the comment directly without correcting either the misspellings or the grammar.]

"Imagine this for a moment: Your husband or wife is lying in a hospital ICU or CCU dying and that hospital's policy was that only "blood" relatives were allowed into the room. Your children are allowed, your spouses parents and siblings are allowed, even their cousins can go right in, but you are not because you do not share the same gene pool."

Response: As in most propaganda, this comment starts out with classic fallacious reasoning. Fallacies often exploit emotional triggers in the listener or interlocutor, for example relating arguments to patriotism or family, or intellectual weaknesses targeting subjects which the listener knows little about. They may also take advantage of social relationships between people, for example citing support of important individuals to encourage listeners to agree with a conclusion. Wikipedia, Fallacies. The above statement imagines a situation that is not only unreasonable, but extremely unlikely; that a spouse of a dying patient would not be allowed into a hospital ICU. I have personally visited friends who were dying in the hospital both in and out of an ICU and only rarely have I ever been asked who I was or why I was visiting. The person making the comment seems to have little or no experience with hospitals or hospital policies and is making the argument specifically for its propaganda utility.

The statement made by the commentator is usually referred to as a "converse fallacy of accident" arguing from a special case to a general rule. There is likely no actual hospital policy anywhere in the United States that would allow visitation by "blood" relatives alone and exclude all others including spouses. The commentator would like his or her readers to believe that this special case is the general rule throughout the U.S.

Comment: "Would you not feel that your “basic human right” to be with and comfort your dying loved one was being violated?"

Response: Referring to the "way I would feel" is basically an irrelevant conclusion, or red herring. Hospital policies are more likely dependent on considerations of safety, possible contagion and the care and privacy of the patient than the feelings of those excluded by any "policy." When a close family member went through a major surgery, I was excluded from the area due to concerns about possible infection. My feelings were not considered and rightly so, my feelings were of far less importance than the care of the patient.

What if I were in New York and my dying loved one was in Phoenix and I didn't have the financial means to travel to Phoenix. Would my "basic human right" to be with and comfort my dying loved one be violated? Would the State or Federal Government have to pay my way to Phoenix because of that "basic human right?"

You will also note here that the commentator has subtly changed the argument from a spouse to a "dying loved one," an entirely different category and emotionally equating "spouse" with the made up term "dying loved one." The conclusion then becomes one of argumentum ad misericordiam, that is, to arouse pity for getting one's conclusion accepted. I doubt that the commentator has read the book on fallacies, but the comment would certainly be a good example. What degree of "love" do I have to have to qualify for entry into an ICU?

I will address the "basic human right" issue in a future post.

Comment: "That exact scenario happens every day across the nation to same-sex couples. Hospital visitation of your loved ones is a “basic human right” regardless of weather there is a legal precedent for it or not."

Response: Although this statement is also fallacious, it is also totally untrue and without one shred of actual evidence. My review of the law and the posts on the Internet shows two facts: there are virtually no U.S. cases either Federal or State, involving a so-called "hospital visitation right" and almost all of the posts mentioning this exact title deal with Gay Rights activists using the term as propaganda. By the way, the same argument could be made for a cohabiting heterosexual couple but, of course, the Gay Rights Activists are not concerned about that aspect of the problem, if there is one.

Conclusion: The term "basic human right" is also a propaganda term, just as is "hospital visitation right." If a person wants to have another person involved in his or her hospital care, that can be accomplished by signing an advanced care directive, also known as a Health Care Power of Attorney. The comment raises several levels of fallacy and as I indicated above, I will address the issue of the so-called "basic human right" in another post. It is reprehensible to use these bare propaganda statements as facts to support a political and social agenda.

That slippery word "rights"

2009-03-10T07:30:00.003-07:00

In the discussion engendered by the controversy over Proposition 8 in California, the participants have repeatedly used the term "rights" over and over. A recent comment to my previous post, stated, "Looking at the broader perspective, you're right of course. In California, gay individuals really do have a lot of rights. Unfortunately, that's only in California. Take a short drive to Utah, and even if you are a faithful, covenant keeping member, if someone thinks you look, act, or might in any way be gay, they can fire you from your job and evict you from your home. Even something as basic as hospital visitation rights doesn't exist in the state of Utah."

[Aside: Short drive from California to Utah?}

First of all, we have to ask if the characterization of rights in Utah is accurate. I strongly disagree with the statement based on the definition of rights discussed in my previous posts. To begin an analysis I will take the last issue first, is there a legal "hospital visitation right" and if so what is meant by the term "right" in this context? Is this so-called "hospital visitation right" basic in any way? (Whatever basic means).

Put another way, do I have a "right" to visit someone in a privately run, privately operated hospital? If not why and if so why? Does my right to visit anyone I choose, overrule the patient's privacy and health care concerns?

It appears that the term "hospital visitation rights" is a short hand buzz-word way of referring to an issue created by the Gay community. Those supporting this so-called "right" insist that it is a "human rights issue." The usage of the term "rights" in this context is a prime example of propaganda, which is defined as a concerted set of messages aimed at influencing the opinions or behaviors of large number of people. Here is a description of the use of propaganda:

Propaganda often presents facts selectively (thus lying by omission) to encourage a particular synthesis, or gives loaded messages in order to produce an emotional rather than rational response to the information presented. The desired result is a change of the attitude toward the subject in the target audience to further a political agenda. Wikipedia.

Visiting someone in a hospital is not an "inherent human right" neither is it a civil right under any definition of civil rights. The use of the term "rights" in this context has absolutely no legal support whatsoever. It appears from a review of the discussion on the Internet and research in Westlaw for court cases, that their is no particular legal precedent for such a claim. Although the Gay community would like to make this a Gay-rights issue, hospital visitation issues in general are looked at legally under the wider umbrella of cohabitation. An unmarried heterosexual couple is subject to the same restrictions based on policy.

The term "hospital visitation rights" itself has no legal existence outside of the contrived Gay Rights agenda. In fact the concept of "hospital visitation" is referred to in the very few Federal cases even mentioning the term, as a "benefit" not a right. See Milberger v. KBHL, LLC, 486 F.Supp 2d 1156, D. Hawaii (2007) for example.

Claiming some sort of "hospital visitation right" is a case of pure propaganda with no basis in law whatsoever and I sorry the person who made the comment bought into this scheme.

Now, what if there is a real issue about hospital visitation apart from the Gay Rights' agenda. How can that be solved? Probably the easiest way to solve this problem is with some sort of Health Care Power of Attorney and a Living Will. This approach avoids the issue of the relationship of the parties altogether by designating someone to act for you in the case of an emergency where you cannot communicate your wishes. If the contrived issue of "hospital visitation rights" can be so easily resolved, isn't it even more obvious that the use of the phrase by the Gay community is for propaganda only?

More later on the issue of rights in the context of hospital visitation.

What rights are we talking about for Gays?

2009-03-08T08:54:00.004-07:00

The recent news accounts of the oral argument in the California case challenging Proposition 8, prominently featured Gay Rights activists chanting "We want our rights" over and over. What rights are they claiming? What about my rights and the rights of my ancestors?

Do they have the right to vote?
Of course, no Gay person has been denied the right to vote merely because they were Gay.
My ancestors were disenfranchised by the United States Government and forcibly expelled from the country.

Do they have the right to peaceable assembly?
Of course, they do. They demonstrated that in California this week.
My ancestors were mobbed and forcibly expelled from Ohio, Missouri, Illinois and ultimately the United States entirely. My own great grandfather was mobbed and beaten and left for dead because of his beliefs.

They claim they want the "right to marry."
My own grandfather was arrested, tried and sent to Federal prison for his beliefs concerning marriage. All of my ancestors had their religious property expropriated and taken by the United States Government, who sent an army to enforce the taking.

Do Gays have the right to free speech?
Once again to California, last week, who stopped them from speaking?
However, they would deny me the right to speak and to vote and to peaceable assembly.

Do they have the right to bear arms?
Yes, certainly, just as many of my ancestors fought in every war on the side of the United States from the Revolutionary War to the War in Vietnam. I presently have relatives who are serving or have served in Iraq.

Do they have they have freedom of religion and the right to worship as they please.
Yes, but they would deny me the same right.

Excuse me if I don't quite see what rights they are claiming to have been denied. They can work, they can go to school, they can assemble, they can vote, they can eat at any restaurant and stay at any hotel they choose, they can travel freely throughout the United States, they can pay taxes just like the rest of us.

Maybe they want the right to pay divorce lawyers, the right to pay alimony, the right to child custody battles, and the right to unfair treatment by the tax laws that prevent older people from marrying.

Would they like my ancestors' rights, the ones they didn't have when they were mobbed, shot, killed and died crossing the country, fleeing from mob violence and oppression?

Exactly what rights are we talking about?

Can Gay rightists claim civil rights' protection?

2009-03-05T21:23:00.003-07:00

In a recent comment to one of the past posts, Euripides stated and asked: "Blacks and women have a substantive claim to discrimination based on economic and social inequities and have gained civil rights protections as protected classes. So is it correct that gays have no claim to civil rights, having no substantive claims to discrimination. Or is it that gays, as a group don't have the necessary self-definition to create a "class"?"

The answer is both because the issues are interrelated. However, the question is slightly mis-stated. In order to claim protection under the U.S. civil rights statutes, an individual must be a member of a protected class. The issue is whether any particular individual qualifies as a member of the class. If a person is racially an African-American, membership in the protected class of race is a given. But, in another example, if the protected class is a religion, the claimant may have to prove that they are actually member of a qualifying religious group or organization. There are large numbers of cases in which the Federal courts address the membership in the protected class issue.

The major problem with the claim to membership in a protected class for someone who claims to be gay, is that there is no legal definition of the class. The California Court cases are no help in this regard. The California Courts have made no attempt at defining who is or who is not entitled to protection. As it stands right now, anyone, with any basis whatsoever, can claim to be gay and therefore a member of the protected class. The law cannot allow someone to define themself into a protected class, especially when there is no consistent legal definition of the class at all.

Discrimination only exists as to protected classes. For example, age can be a factor in a discrimination claim, but a 15 year old cannot claim discrimination on the basis that only 16 year olds can drive. If there is some rational reason or explanation for the apparent discrimination, then, by law, it cannot be unreasonable and therefore cannot be the basis for a lawsuit. Again, there are hundreds, likely thousands of cases testing this issue of who can claim discrimination.

If you cannot define the class, you cannot claim discrimination based on the undefined class.

Gays a protected class?

2009-03-03T12:12:00.003-07:00

In order to make a claim for a violation of a civil right, it is necessary to establish that a person belongs to the protected class. There are literally thousands of Federal Court cases involving the issue of the definition of a protected class and whether or not a specific person is a member of that class. For example, during the deliberations that preceded the enactment of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Congress considered and rejected proposed amendments that would have included older workers among the classes protected from employment discrimination. Thereafter, the Fair Labor Standards Amendments of 1966, Pub. L. 89-601, Section 606, 80 Stat. 845, and in 1967, 29 U.S.C. Section 623 (a) (2) added provisions extending protection to individuals' employment opportunities from discrimination because of age. Therefore, in the narrow area of employment discrimination, age became a "protected class." See Smith v. City of Jackson, Miss., 544 U.S. 228, 125 S. Ct. 1536 (U.S. 2005).

Additionally, to state an equal protection claim in the context of a discrimination suit based on claimed civil rights, a plaintiff must prove that he or she was discriminated against by establishing that other similarly-situated individuals outside of his protected class were treated more favorably. See Amnesty Intern., USA v. Battle, --- F.3d ---, 2009 (Case has yet to be formally reported). Fundamentally, the person making a claim must prove that they are a member of the protected class.

Presently, there are possibly hundreds, if not thousands, of individuals claiming that they are members of a protected class and attempting either through legislation or through the courts, to establish that they are entitled to civil rights standing and protection. 42 U.S.C.A. Section 2000 et seq. establishes that as a prerequisite to any of these actions, the individual must prove membership in a protected class.

Clearly, under the existing law in the U.S., no one can automatically argue that they are entitled to some type of civil right without a basic consideration of the person's qualifications and membership in the supposed protected class. See Laderach v. U-Haul of Northwestern Ohio, 207 F.3d 825, C.A. 6 (Ohio) 2000. The plaintiff always bears the initial burden of establishing a prima facie case of disparate treatment based on race, religion, national origin, sex or age by introducing evidence that gives rise to an inference of unlawful discrimination. See Sischo-Nownejad v. Merced Community College Dist., 934 F.2d 1104 (9th Cir. 1991).

As Euripedes, pointed out in a recent blog, about Gays the Hijacking of Civil Rights, "If gays can claim protection, based solely on association as a member of the gay class, then anyone can make the same claim and there are no standards of protection for any other protected class. " How does one go about proving they are a member of a class that has no accurate definition and no criteria for membership? Again, referring to Euripedes, "The slippery slope exists when other people group themselves together and begin to claim protected class status for the most frivolous of claims. " For example, if a person is the subject to same-sex attraction, but never acts out any of their feelings, is that person entitled to class protection as a "Gay?" What about the commonly argued situation where two people of the same sex live together but are not sexually involved at all. Are they also a member of this protected class of "Gays?"

It is apparent that the argument in California over Proposition 8 has jumped over this fundamental issue and made an invalid assumption that a protected class exists without ever defining that class. Class definition is not difficult in the instance of race, or sex (i.e. women vs. men) but has been and will continue to be problematical for national origin and religion. Are we ready to include a class that does not have a definition? Won't that open the door to almost any possible group or preference labeling themselves and claiming protected class status?

Constant repetition of the mantra of "gay rights" does not automatically create a protected class, unless there is some rational way of defining the class other than by someone claiming membership. To do otherwise, destroys the whole concept of civil rights in America today.

I want some of that government math

2009-03-01T09:31:00.004-07:00

In its desperate attempts to shore up Citigroup, Inc., the U.S. government has agreed to a third rescue attempt. The Treasury Department said it would convert $25 billion (with a "b") of preferred shares to common stock. The conversion would increase the U.S. interest in the company to 36 percent. [As the Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke avows that the U.S. will not nationalize the banking industry].

Now, this may seem like a reasonable position until you examine exactly what is happening with Citigroup. First of all, the U.S. government has already poured $45 billion into Citigroup. The company had a loss of $27.7 billion in 2008. To quote Bloomberg, "Assuming the maximum amount of preferred shares eligible for conversion, existing stockholders would be left with a 26 percent stake. The stock fell 96 cents to $1.50 in composite trading on the New York Stock Exchange at 4 p.m. as a record 2 billion shares changed hands. It plummeted 90 percent during the past 12 months and is down 78 percent so far this year."

What are the U.S. citizen's getting for their money? Under the terms of the deal, Citigroup will exchange common stock for as much as $27.5 billion of its preferred securities at a conversion price of $3.25 a share. However, Citigroup's stock has declined to around $1.50 a share, so there would be an immediate loss to the government equal to the difference between the conversion rate and the actual market value. Why can't I get a deal like this? I will certainly agree to sell my house, my cars or anything other dispensable item, to the government for over two times its current market value. I could then turn around and purchase a new house (or maybe even the same house) at its currently deflated value. What is Citigroup doing with all this free money, it is paying for a $20- million-a-year sponsorship of the New York Mets’ new baseball stadium in the New York City borough of Queens. Corporate- governance advocates also say the bank is paying for millions of dollars of perks, including offices, secretaries and cars and drivers, for retired executives.

Again to quote Bloomberg, "The bank said last week director Roberto Hernandez Ramirez will keep getting reimbursed for his use of private aircraft and other perks after he steps down from the board in April because of his continuing role as non-executive chairman of Banamex. The benefits, which also include an office, secretary and personal security, cost $2.61 million in 2007, according to a March regulatory filing"

A big pile of money

2009-02-27T19:17:00.002-07:00

When I was in high school, I took a German language class. I was a less than stellar student, but I do remember our teacher, a German immigrant with a strong accent. I remember only a few things from the class, one is to conjugate German personal pronouns, the other was a story our teacher told to us about conditions in Germany before World War II. He said that one day his mother came home and told him to run as fast as he could to the bank, withdraw all of their money and run to the nearest store and buy a pair of shoes.

Our teacher, who was very young at the time, did just as his mother asked him to do, he ran to the bank, an withdrew all of their money, he needed a wheelbarrow to carry all the cash, but he then ran to the nearest shoe store and was just able to purchase a pair of shoes with the cash. When I was in high school I thought the story to be highly improbable, but later studies showed me that this actually happened about 1923. Here are some pictures of the way the money was used. By late 1923 it took 200 billion marks to buy a loaf of bread.

Few, if any, of the current U.S. Government administration have read any of this history or the commonly accepted fact that if the monetary authority chooses to monetize a country's national debt, its banks' bad loans, or the savings of depositors at failed banks, then that country will experience hyperinflation. Germany in 1924 has many parallels to the current conditions in the United States and other countries. For up to date information on the Money Stock Measures in the U.S. from the Federal Reserve Statistical Release, you can see that M2 has steadily increased for the past two years.

M2 consists of M1 plus (1) savings deposits (including money market deposit accounts); (2) small-denomination time deposits (time deposits in amounts of less than $100,000), less individual retirement account (IRA) and Keogh balances at depository institutions; and (3) balances in retail money market mutual funds, less IRA and Keogh balances at money market mutual funds. Seasonally adjusted M2 is constructed by summing savings deposits, small-denomination time deposits, and retail money funds, each seasonally adjusted separately, and adding this result to seasonally adjusted M1. M1 consists of (1) currency outside the U.S. Treasury, Federal Reserve Banks, and the vaults of depository institutions; (2) traveler's checks of nonbank issuers; (3) demand deposits at commercial banks (excluding those amounts held by depository institutions, the U.S. government, and foreign banks and official institutions) less cash items in the process of collection and Federal Reserve float; and (4) other checkable deposits (OCDs), consisting of negotiable order of withdrawal (NOW) and automatic transfer service (ATS) accounts at depository institutions, credit union share draft accounts, and demand deposits at thrift institutions. Seasonally adjusted M1 is constructed by summing currency, traveler's checks, demand deposits, and OCDs, each seasonally adjusted separately.

The meaning of the increase in the money supply is controversial. But as George Santayana, stated in his Reason in Common Sense, The Life of Reason, Vol.1, wrote "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." Hopefully, we are not repeating the mistakes made by Germany in the 1920s, but it sure does look suspicious.

Marriage -- an ancient covenant

2009-02-22T15:55:00.004-07:00

Marriage is an ancient institution. References to marriage and marriage contracts go back into Egyptian and Babylonian times and are found extensively in Roman writings. Chinese wedding traditions date back more than 2,400 years. See Chinese Wedding Traditions.

In the Pentateuch and the Old Testament is referred to as a "covenant." See Prov. 2:17, Jer. 31:32, Ezek. 16:8, 59, 60, 61, 62; Mal. 2:14. See also Instone-Brewer, David. Divorce and Remarriage in the Bible: The Social and Literary Context. Grand Rapids, Mich: W.B. Eerdmans, 2002. Quoting from Instone-Brewer, at page 4:

The legal basis of marriage was called a "covenant" because, like all other types of covenant, it was an agreement between two parties that contained stipulations and sanctions. A marriage covenant, like any other covenant, included details of payment, the agreement to stipulations by two parties, as set of penalties for the party who did not keep these stipulation, and a legally binding witnessed ceremony or document that recorded all these matters.

See also Hugenberger, Gordon Paul. Marriage As a Covenant: A Study of Biblical Law and Ethics Governing Marriage, Developed from the Perspective of Malachi. Supplements to Vetus Testamentum, v. 52. Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1994.

In England, references to marriage agreements are found as early as the laws of Ethelbert approximately 660 A.D. See Reilly, S. A. Our Legal Heritage The First Thousand Years: 600-1600 King Aethelbert - Queen Elizabeth. Champaign, IL: Project Gutenberg, 1990s.

In the United States today, there are those who believe that we can simply disregard thousands of years of social, legal and religious history and remake marriage into an insignificant form of social contract of convenience merely by having courts order the changes into existence. The reality of human existence mandates otherwise, especially when some members of that same society believe that marriage is more than a social contract, but is a divine institution established by God.

As a social, religious or legal contract, marriage itself cannot be considered a "right" either inalienable or civil. You have no more right to buy property or own a car than you have to enter into a marriage contract. As a contract, religious institutions and civil institutions both can define the relationship. A constitutional provision defining marriage is no more a deprivation of a person's rights than any other law concerning contract. You cannot obtain an inalienable or civil right by voluntarily entering into a contract, neither do you obtain some kind of civil or inalienable right to enter into a marriage contract. Just as I have the freedom not to enter into a contract, I also have the freedom not to marry. Therefore, as previously said, there can be no "right" to marry.

It is not all about you

2009-02-11T07:33:00.004-07:00

An overriding theme in our society today is avoiding responsibility and passing the buck. No one wants to admit they are at fault. If I lose a business deal or make a bad investment, someone else is at fault and I need to sue someone for damages. If my child doesn't achieve in school, it is the teacher's fault, or the school system. If I drive too fast on the freeway and get a ticket, it is the fault of the police officer who stopped me. If I eat too much and get grossly over weight, it is the fault of the fast food companies.

Advertisements make this attitude easy to acquire; you deserve a break today; you need...; you, you, you. Very little, if anything about responsibility, honesty, integrity, balance, sharing, loving your neighbor as yourself.

As a practicing trial attorney, I cannot tell you how many lawsuits I have seen where the client states, "Its not the money, its the principle of the the thing..." Get real, its the money. As soon as the cost of the lawsuit reaches really outstanding proportions, the same client will start to blame the attorney for filing the lawsuit in the first place, saying,"You told me I would win, you told me it wouldn't cost more than ..." Sure, I told my client that he would win!! I can tell you, without reservation, I have never told a client they would win in my entire life. The attorney does not control the court, the jury or the other side's attorneys. It is the client's attitude that someone else is always at fault that creates this conflict. In home defects cases, it is not too unusual for the attorneys' fees to exceed the cost of repairs and sometimes the value of the house.

It is not about me. It is about you and all of us. The only real joy and happiness in life come from breaking away from thoughts of "me" and thinking about the needs and wants of others. Joy and happiness come from serving rather than being served, from helping, rather than being helped. How about do unto others as you would have them do unto you? How about taking responsibility for your own decisions and making the best of them? How about stop blaming your parents, your genes, your third grade teacher and everyone else and just get over it. Take your losses and get on with life. Bloom where you are planted and don't become a weed.

Abysmal Ignorace is no excuse Part Two

2009-02-09T11:44:00.003-07:00

In the Declaration of Independence refers to "certain unalienable rights." Unfortunately, almost everyone remembers the "rights" part of the quote but forgets the rest. The whole quote is, "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness."

Read it. Think about it. How politically correct does it sound today? All men are created equal. I would guess that part is not so popular with the evolutionists today. They are endowed by their Creator. An endowment is a gift, it is not earned and it is not necessarily deserved. This gift comes from their Creator. Looks like the evolutionists are not going to be fans of the Declaration of Independence are they? The rights given men by their Creator are unalienable. Any idea what that means? Apparently no one thinks a lot about the fact that the rights given by the Creator are unalienable, which simply put, means they are not transferable and cannot be sold or given away. In those days, alienation had to do with the sale of land.

The men who drafted the Declaration of Independence meant to say that certain rights came to us as intelligent human beings, not as citizens of any government. They were specific to enumerate certain of those rights, including a right to life (looks like abortion is out), a right to liberty (more about liberty later) and the right to the pursuit of happiness. These rights came from Nature's God and were inseparably part of the Laws of Nature. What is most surprising is what can happen if these rights are denied the people. Here is what it says:

That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

Guess what? Governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed. Looks like the folks in California gave their consent with Proposition 8, by a majority, to a Constitutional Amendment. What else? Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes, like those advocating same-sex marriage for example. Are we in danger of being reduced to the absolute Despotism of the Courts and losing our unalienable rights? Likely, if the judges or anyone else insist that their private interpretation of the law is superior to the consent of the governed.

However, the rights enumerated (and those not enumerated) by the Declaration of Independence were not directly incorporated into the Constitution or any other law. Legal rights, also known as civil rights, are not unalienable. Civil rights are by their nature changeable and subject to the whims and chances of administrations and lobbyists. The number of "rights" recognized by U.S. law, at all levels is staggering. For example, I have a right to remain silent if arrested. At the same time, I have a right to complain to the police about my neighbor's dog barking. All of these legal "rights" some trivial, some fundamental and important, are subject to change at any time. However, none of the civil or legal rights were given me by my Creator. They came from judges, magistrates, mayors, legislators, bureaucrats, homeowners associations, clubs, franchises, unions, and anyone else willing to extend a right to me.

Not very many people think about their rights unless they feel that they have lost some right or another. The very nature of our society is leading us into a swamp and morass of so many rights that we may be righted to death, literally. If we go so far, and we may already have done so, so as to support immorality, evil designs, and all manner of wickedness in the name of rights, that same Creator that gave us our rights, will not allow us to continue. Whether we believe in our Creator or not, we have to recognize that our civilization, like many of those that have gone before, will crumble and fail, if we disregard a decent respect to the opinions of mankind and to further assent to laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

I would suggest that abysmal ignorance is no excuse. I would suggest that you read the list of grievances in the Declaration of Independence and see how many of them are applicable to our own government, including our judges, today.

Abysmal ignorance is no excuse Part One

2009-02-06T07:11:00.009-07:00

Recent posts by two blogs commenting on the media coverage (See Self Evident Truths and US Political Scene) and subsequent comments concerning California's Proposition 8 controversy have prompted four (there may be more) observations:

1. Notwithstanding the prior rulings of the California Supreme Court, presently, the supporters of same-sex marriage are legally not being denied civil rights.

The attacks on The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and other religious organizations and churches center around the idea that through their support of Proposition 8, those who advocate same-sex marriage have been denied their civil rights. A civil right is an enforceable right or privilege, which if interfered with by another gives rise to an action for injury. Examples of civil rights are freedom of speech, press, assembly, the right to vote, freedom from involuntary servitude, and the right to equality in public places. Civil rights are, by definition, not inherent, they are a creation of law. Neither are they simply desires, wants, wishes or feelings.

The current Constitutional law in California states, "Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California." Therefore, there is no "civil right" to an alternative definition of marriage because a same-sex marriage is not an enforceable right or privilege according to the current law. If a law is repealed or superseded by another law, any rights granted under the previous law or laws do not exist. As an example of this principle that the "right" has no separate existence from the law, in 1870 the Utah Territorial legislature passed an act giving women the right to vote becoming the first state or territory to give women the right to vote. However, the Federal Edmunds-Tucker Act took away the right to vote in 1887. Finally, with support of the LDS Church, the right to vote was granted again in 1895. Notwithstanding any and all arguments about the fundamental nature of the right to vote, that "right" only existed as long as the law supporting it existed.

Civil marriage is a relationship defined by law. In some states, a man and a woman can live together, holding themselves out as spouses, for a specific statutory time period and obtain the legal benefits of a marriage without complying with the formal registration requirements. Such a marriage is often called a "common law" marriage. The existence of such a relationship points out the fact that marriage is not a civil right, but a creation of law. Here, I am not talking about religious beliefs. A person may have some fundamental beliefs about marriage originating in a religious belief about the relationship, but our legal system has long held that religious practices that impair the public interest do not fall under the first amendment. If marriage was or is the result of the existence of some identifiable civil right, then Reynolds v. United States would have to be overruled and to my knowledge, Reynolds is still good law in the United States.

The real question as to whether or not same-sex marriage involves some kind of "civil right" is whether or not a person who chooses a same-sex relationship thereby acquires some right or privilege not present before that person's voluntary choice? In other words, can anyone voluntarily acquire a "civil right?" If civil marriage is a creation of law and not a civil right, then only those complying with the law can have a marriage and a person's voluntary choice not to comply with the law does not give rise to any rights at all.

Put another way, can a person choose to be subject to discrimination and still complain of the discrimination? Even another way to put the question is if a person chooses not to marry at all, can that person claim discrimination merely because married couples are treated differently than a single person? What if a person was once married and then his or her spouse dies or there is a divorce? Does a widow/widower or divorcee have a right to claim discrimination merely because there is a category of married vs. unmarried? Why is there a married vs. unmarried category? Why not treat everyone as an individual rather than have a category of marriage at all? But that is the subject of another analysis. Is a person who chooses to work and therefore pays taxes, discriminated against as compared to a person who chooses not to work and therefor pays no taxes? Every time a law is passed, the law makes a discrimination between those who are subject to the law and those who are not. Those who are not subject to the law cannot argue that they have some "right" to receive the benefits (and assume the liabilities) of the law merely by virtue of the fact that they do not fall under its provisions including its definitions.

There is no legal difference between a single individual and one living in a same-sex marriage except in those jurisdictions that either recognize same-sex marriage or have defined some sort of domestic partnership arrangement. Why aren't single individuals marching in the streets to get the same consideration as married couples or domestic partners? Could it be that all of the laws are not particularly favorable to married couples and that there are some advantages to being single?Medicare is available only to those over 65 years of age. Is the rest of the population thereby denied a civil right? That is, a right to have affordable medical care? (I am sure that there would be arguments to that effect). But if I do not wish to have Medicare coverage at age 65 I do not have to enroll. If I choose not obtain Medicare coverage, can I then complain that I am being denied a civil right?

Summarizing, marriage is a creation of law. It is not an inherent state or characteristic. I can choose to be married or not. I cannot choose to be a specific race. Likewise, I cannot choose my national origin. Some would argue that I can choose my religion, but that is another discussion. Religion is specifically recognized by our Constitution as a basic right. Civil rights are also creations of law, as such, the "right" begins with the creation of the law and ends when the law is changed. Marriage is not the kind of legally created relationship that is the subject of a claim of civil right to marry. To hold otherwise would change the existing law in the U.S. going back to, at least, 1878.

2. Charitable organizations (such as Churches) who donate to campaigns are not "state actors" and cannot deny people their civil rights by making such donations.

I have been taking cases to court for years arguing that homeowners associations are "state actors" for the purpose of civil rights violations, trying to make them subject to due process and equal protection. Despite my arguments, no court in the U.S. has yet to rule HOAs are state actors and subject to due process and equal protection under the U.S. Constitution. If I choose to purchase a home subject to an HOA am I then being denied a civil right? No, because the law does not extend civil rights protection to home ownership in a subdivision subject to a homeowners association. It is therefore useless to argue that I am being denied my civil rights by a homeowners association.

Likewise, it is equally as useless to argue that someone is denied a civil right because of a church's donation to a political campaign. Apparently, none of the people asserting the claim that they are being denied "civil rights" because of religious involvement in the California election have the slightest idea of how civil rights law operate. Civil rights come about as a result of laws and can only be obtained from the government and only government entities (i.e. state actors) or other entities specifically identified by statutes (i.e. employers). Only those identified by the law can be subject to civil rights violation claims. Those who attack the LDS Church on this issue are in the ignorant position of asserting that the Church is somehow acting on behalf of the government. As an further example, an extension of the detractors' position would allow someone to sue the Sierra Club for violating a civil right for contributions in support of a proposed environmental law.

3. Individuals who donate to any cause are certainly protected from retaliation under the donors' rights to free speech, and the free exercise of their religious beliefs.

There is no legal theory at all that makes donors to a political cause liable to anyone as a result of the donation. Any harassment of the donors is the equivalent of terrorism, that is, the threat of harm to achieve a political end.

4. The consequences of upholding an extreme social position by establishing laws in favor of same-sex marriage are unimaginable and may end up destroying many social institutions, including, but not limited to our public school system.

If California and other states adopt same-sex marriage and if the current adgenda of the supporters of same-sex marriage and unions continue their campaign throughout the country, many, if not most, of the religious population will chose not to send their children to publically controlled schools, rather than have their children subjected to the same-sex propaganda. It is very likely, in some if not most areas, public schools will cease to exist. This is only one example of the consequences of allowing same-sex marriage to become a "civil right."

Comments on internet usage

2009-02-02T19:41:00.004-07:00

The Pew Internet & American Life Project recently released a report on Online Activities & Pursuits. The finding indicates that social networking is rapidly becoming a more adult activity. The researchers found that the share of adult Internet users who have a profile on an online social network site has more than quadrupled in the past four years -- from 8% in 2005 to 35% now. Now being December 2008. Overall, the number of adults in the U.S. who are online is approaching saturation.

However, the number of users is still greatly skewed to the young, with 75% of adults 18-24 using these networks, compared to just 7% of adults 65 and older. Most, but not all adult social network users are privacy conscious; 60% of adult social network users restrict access to their profiles so that only their friends can see it, and 58% of adult social network users restrict access to certain content within their profile.

The use of social network Websites, roughly follows the overall demographics of Internet use. The most interesting statistic indicates that from 94 to 95% of people with advanced college degrees and who make more than $75,000 a year are Internet users. The lowest level of usage is in those over 65 years of age.

E-mail usage at 91% tops the list of Internet activities, while reading blogs, like this one, is way down on the list at 32%. 72% of Internet users go online every day. But only 10% of blog readers read blogs every day.

I was not surprised to learn that the U.S. population is almost entire addicted to computer games. Over half of American adults, 53%, play video games, and four out of five young adults play games. Among adults, computers are the most popular gaming device, but among young adults gaming consoles are the preferred device for game play. And virtual worlds only draw a small crowd. However, among older adults 65+ who play video games, nearly a third play games everyday, a significantly larger percentage than all younger players, of whom about 20% play everyday.

In the 1960s the young were told that they should drop out of the mainstream and do their own thing. It looks like the present generation is dropping out but staying plugged in to games and the Internet.

Teaching to a test

2009-01-28T15:03:00.004-07:00

For some years now, Arizona schools have had full blown involvement with Arizona's Instrument to Measure Standards (AIMS). Having been a professor in Arizona's junior colleges for over five years, I saw a lot of students. Let's just say that I was never overly impressed with their skill or knowledge level. Now with Standardized testing, like the AIMS Test, students who are already lacking in general knowledge helpful for survival, will degrade even further. Ranking schools according to the AIMS scores will guarantee that both students and teachers will concentrate on just the information required for the test and there will a further degradation of general knowledge.

Let me give an example. I taught Spanish 101, that is, introductory Spanish. One of the first questions I would ask the students every semester, was the following:

"What is the state that is directly south of and adjacent to Arizona?"

Now, without looking at a map, think of the answer. Give up? Well, let me ask the second question, "What is the name of the country immediately to the south of Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California?"

Think you know the answer?

Let me give you hint, click here for the Wikipedia article.

The name of the country, for those of you who still don't get the questions, is the United Mexican States or the Unites States of Mexico. Mexico has thirty-one states. The state directly south of Arizona is Sonora.

In all of my classes, almost universally, no one could answer these two questions. Mind you, this was a college level Spanish class in Mesa, Arizona just179 miles from Mexico. When I ask the question to people randomly, I seldom get even a guess.

I use this example to point out that despite standardized testing or more likely as a result, the average American student knows practically nothing about the world around him or her when they leave 12 years of grade school and high school.

Looking at the AIMS test scores, it is apparent that most of the schools in Arizona fall into the range of test scores between 400 and 500. Although it is more difficult to read the scores than it is to take the test, if you look at the 2008 AIMS Scale Score Table, you can possibly determine that half of the Arizona students scored below meeting the standard set. Although the school may meet the standard, the score is a median so half of the students were below the standard. So not only are the students now learning only what is on a standardized test, likely half of the students aren't even learning enough to meet the test standard that is a score of about 450 to 550 or higher.

In their desire to force students to learn some basic facts to pass the test, they are ignoring teaching the students many survival skills at all. Another example, how many 12th graders can balance a check book without assistance and read a credit card bill?

Presently, a whole support industry has arisen around the tests. There are tutors, companies with practice tests and in fact, the Arizona Department of Education even has a set of sample tests. A system of education that was already impoverished is now almost totally bankrupt. Teachers who want to educate their students are forced to spend most of their time teaching to the test because their effectiveness is measured, to a great extent by the test scores of their students. What is worse, many students will begin to or already associate education with the AIMS test.

Questions to which there are no answers

2009-01-27T10:16:00.004-07:00

In the weighty matters of the world there are always imponderables, questions that do not have answers. I have my own list of those questions that never seem to get adequate answers. Here are a few of them:

Why do evolutionary scientists feel threatened by the teaching of creationism?

Why do North American anthropologists immediately reject any theory of human contact with the American continents other than across the Bering Strait?

Why are paleontologist always looking for a missing link?

Why do some people get more upset about the 4236 U.S. casualties in Iraq rather than the
40,000 people each year who are killed in car accidents, over 20,000 who are killed by the flu, and over who 15,000 are murdered each year?

Why do some people believe that there are large unknown mammals in the United States outside of Alaska?

Why do some people still believe in the hollow earth?

Why do car manufacturers keep making cars that let over 40,000 people a year die in accidents?

Why do people keep opening E-mails advertising male enhancement pills?

Why do people believe that the price of gasoline is demand driven?

Why do people believe that annuities are either a form of insurance or an investment?

Why do some people feel compelled to write blogs?

I am sure there are many more questions out there but only these come to mind today.

Braess's Paradox and the Nash Equilibrium

2009-01-25T19:11:00.002-07:00

One interesting fact about driving in Phoenix is that depending on traffic conditions, including daily traffic patterns, there is no particular advantage to driving on one of our lovely freeways. I finally read enough to learn some of the underlying reasons why this occurs. One of the major factors is a principle called Braess's paradox. The formulation of this paradox is credited to the mathematician Dietrich Braess. Essentially, "[f]or each point of a road network, let there be given the number of cars starting from it, and the destination of the cars. Under these conditions one wishes to estimate the distribution of traffic flow. Whether one street is preferable to another depends not only on the quality of the road, but also on the density of the flow. If every driver takes the path that looks most favorable to him, the resultant running times need not be minimal. Furthermore, it is indicated by an example that an extension of the road network may cause a redistribution of the traffic that results in longer individual running times."

The reason why this occurs is due to the fact that the drivers have no incentive to change their routes, that is the system is in Nash equilibrium and that the equilibrium is not necessarily optimal. "If the system is not in a Nash equilibrium, selfish drivers must be able to improve their travels time by changing the routes they take. In the case of Braess's paradox, drivers will continue to switch until the Nash equilibrium despite the fact that overall performance is reduced."

What I had observed in driving across Phoenix is that in many cases taking a variety of surface streets can equal or reduce the driving time involving freeways. Very simply, the freeways don't always go where you are going and driving to and from the freeway may add more time to a specific trip than simply taking a more direct surface street. Another contravening factor is the vast distances involved in travel in the Salt River Valley. Even traveling at the legal speed limit on freeways it can take more than an hour to reach the edge of the city.

Yet another limitation on the full application of the paradox is the availability of side streets that are seldom used by commuters. If you find a line of cars you can turn down the first available side street and avoid the congestion, if you know the streets.

The real reason this paradox is interesting is that it tends to show that adding freeways and widening streets may increase congestion and travel time, rather than reduce it. Each driver in turn takes this slightly quicker route, at a small saving for himself, but causing substantial extra delay to a number of other drivers. By the time everyone has decided whether to take the short cut, the total congestion gained by the system far outweighs the savings in distance.

We are presently being told by our new President, that he is going to improve roads and pour huge sums of money into infrastructure. The solution in Phoenix, so far, has been to add more freeways, i.e. increase the complexity of the network. Maybe it is time to think of the alternative? Reduce the number of cars instead of just adding another route to the network.

Don't cry for National Public Radio

2009-01-22T22:01:00.002-07:00

I fall right in the middle of the demographics for listeners of National Public Radio (NPR), except in political, social and religious views. I first started listening regularly shortly after it went on the air in 1970 and have listened regularly since then. When I started listening, it was common for me to mention the broadcasts and receive totally blank looks. No one listened to NPR. Now it exactly the opposite, to quote their Web site: "The audience for NPR programming has doubled in the last ten years to 26 million weekly listeners. Since Fall 2000, the audience to NPR programming has added nearly 8 million listeners, an increase of 40 percent. In the early 1980s, about 2 million people listened to NPR."

Part of the reason for the increase, I am sure, is the simple fact that there is nothing else to listen to on commercial radio, unless you want to be yelled at or sworn at or both by the radical right or the radical left. Unfortunately, as the audience for public radio has expanded, NPR has become more and more politically correct and sensational. I used to love hearing commentators like Red Barber and John Ciardi. I cried when both of them died because it was like losing a friend. In fact, I can still feel sad just thinking about them. Unfortunately, as they died off, no one replaced them.

Today, other than a few highlights, like Story Corps, most of the commentary is either so politicized to be offensive or so bland as to be offensive. The programming is so predictable that I know exactly what they will be talking about regardless of what is happening in the world. Some of the commentators are so biased that I have to turn off the radio. Recently I am getting tired of hearing about challenges in the Gay Community and how the Palestinians are suffering under the attack by Israel.

Historically, NPR has been so liberal that more conservative Congresses have almost cut off their funding. Now, with a Democratic Congress, that is unlikely to happen. But although it will be hard for me to break my long time habit of listening, I am cutting down more and more. I can only be offended by Howard Burkus so many times before I will quit entirely especially now that I can listen to Car Talk, Science Friday and Story Corps on Pod Casts and don't have to put up with the rest of the drivel.

All statistics lie, even this one

2009-01-20T13:48:00.003-07:00

It is not difficult to find a news article that either refers to or alludes to some sort of study or statistic. In 1954 Darrell Huff wrote a book called "How to Lie with Statistics." Recently, the atheists have gotten into citing statistics and seem to be proponents of Mr. Huff's book. In a recent article posted by the Americanatheists in which they ask President Obama to turn down a role as honorary president of the Boy Scouts of America, the author, who identifies himself as Roy Speckhardt, states; "Many presidents of the United States have taken on the title of honorary president of the Boy Scouts of America. However, this tradition was established when discrimination against nontheists was, unfortunately, socially acceptable. Given that nontheists now make up a sizeable minority of the American population-having more numbers than Mormons, Buddhists, Hindus, and Jews combined-the BSA is clearly out of touch with the spirit of pluralism, tolerance, and inclusiveness that compose today’s American values." [Spelling as in the original]

Mr. Speckhardt purports to speak for a whole long list of organizations:

American Atheists

American Ethical Union

American Humanist Association

Atheist Alliance International

Atheist Nexus

Camp Quest

Center for Atheism

Center for Inquiry

Center for Naturalism

Council for Secular Humanism

Freedom From Religion Foundation

FreeThoughtAction

HUUmanists

Institute for Humanist Studies

International Federation for Secular & Humanistic Judaism

Military Association of Atheists and Freethinkers

Secular Coalition for America

Secular Student Alliance

Society for Humanistic Judaism

Do nontheists outnumber Mormons, Buddhists, Hindus and Jews in the United States? If they don't then the American Atheists are lying and what is more, they are attempting to lie to the President of the United States. Now, I can't possibly believe that President Obama would even give these people the time of day, but it is symptomatic of this group of organizations to misrepresent their own importance. Even if it is true that the atheists outnumber the four groups, it is likely is that the authors chose those four organizations from a list, including the controversial Mormons or members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, specifically because the total membership of the four groups was less than their own estimate of the number of atheists. It is interesting that the Pew Research Council found 84% of the U.S. population considered themselves Christians.

Here are some statistics on the sizes of the four groups, obviously, you can take your pick of who you believe, but I will give you links to the original sources rather than making a blanket unsupported statement. Listed in the order they are claimed in the Atheist article:

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 5,779,316 members as reported by the 2008 Edition of the Yearbook of American and Canadian Churches.

Buddhists 2,000,000 appx. The Buddhist Faith Fellowship of Connecticut claims in news articles that in the year 2008, the Pew Forum's U.S Religious Landscape Survey was published with great fanfare. The results showed surprising shifts in American religious life over the past decade. One important development is that Buddhism climbed to be the 3rd most practiced religion in America below that of Christianity and Judaism. The results showed that .7%, surveyed as Buddhists, which would mean that there about 2,000,000 Buddhists in the USA. Islam ranked at .6% and Hinduism settled in at .4%. Demographically, it was found that the majority of Buddhists were Gen-Xers and between the ages of 30 - 49. Also, American Buddhism's growth is predominantly based on the conversion of native-born Americans showing that Asians numbered only 30% of this population. Geographically, western USA had more Buddhists than in the east coast. Finally, 20% surveyed believed in a personal God in contrast with the overall population that registered at majority of 60%.

Well, it seems that the Buddhists at least, claim to outnumber the Atheists all by themselves.

Hindus are estimated to be 1,478,670 or .5% of the total population. However, Hinduism Today give a much higher figure of 2,290,000.

The Jewish population is estimated to be 4,000,000.

Each of these discussions gives the rationale and the range of figures.

The total is about 13,257,000 for all four groups. Now what about atheists? First, of all, atheists don't belong to an organization as such, so they can't be counted like Mormons, but there are plenty of estimates of their numbers. See this article on How Many Atheists in America?

A University of Minnesota Study on American Attitudes Towards Atheists & Atheism

expresses the opinion that there are a relatively low number of atheists. The number is probably entirely indeterminable because some of the studies cited lump everyone who says they do not belong to an organized religious group as an atheist. Other studies put the number at slightly more than a million. One study quotes figures indicating the 1.6% of the population say they are atheists.

If the study quoting 1.6% is correct then the claim that there are more atheists than Mormons, Buddhists, Hindus and Jews is wrong. It is always unlikely that any special interest group, especially one that claims to be persecuted, will accurately estimate its own size and composition.

Newspapers are dead, long live newspapers...

2009-01-17T20:57:00.005-07:00

Newspapers, telephone books and almost all print advertising is on its way out and about ready to bite the dust. When was the last time you looked at a telephone book? Even if you saw a print ad, didn't you go look up the item on the Internet? A Pew Research Center for the People and the Press did a study. The results were as follows:

Although traditional newspaper readership is down, falling at the rate of about 2.5% a year, rather than signaling the end of news, it is more an indication of the change in the channel of communication. You may not be able to wrap the garbage in it or put it down to paint the room, but the paper edition is only transforming itself into a different product. The Annual Report on American Journalism states that News is shifting from being a product — today’s newspaper, Web site or newscast — to becoming a service — how can you help me, even empower me? To quote their article on Major Trends; "And newer media seem to have an even narrower peripheral vision than older media. Cable news, talk radio (and also blogs) tend to seize on top stories (often polarizing ones) and amplify them. The Internet offers the promise of aggregating ever more sources, but its value still depends on what those originating sources are providing. Even as the media world has fragmented into more outlets and options, reporting resources have shrunk."

The Annual Report also reports "A shrinking of news staffs and space committed to news continued though 2007 and spread from the big metros to many mid-sized papers. Some of the lost “feet on the street” end up as jobs added to online and niche, but the ambition of newspapers to cover their regions or even basic government functions in nearby exurban towns is on a sharp decline."

It may be that all that time I spent as a Boy Scout collecting old newspapers to raise money for our troop may soon become a historical oddity.

A disadvantaged child

2009-01-17T16:14:00.004-07:00

Let's get past the political correctness right off the bat, a "disadvantaged" child is one that is poor. We don't have any poor in America anymore, we have disadvantaged minorities. But I would like to tell you about one of those disadvantaged (read poor) children. This child was so poor that he never had the obvious advantages of watching Sesame Street on TV, wearing Oskosh by gosh toddler clothes or being able to use his home computer for homework. In fact, this child was so poor, he only attended formal schooling for a short time. He never had the advantage of an extended learning or advanced placement program. He never got drilled for standardized testing. His parents never bought him Nikes or Rebocks. Worst of all, he never owned a set of Legos.

He didn't have the advantage of an enlightened curriculum designed so that no child was left behind. He never had the benefit of effective classroom teaching in terms of pedagogy. His ability to understand a particular lesson was never enhanced through effective audiovisual techniques. He apparently never was taught how to put a specific lesson into a larger context including its clinical relevance or review of prior material. It is unlikely that anyone fostered him in an effective learning environment including showing respect for him as a student. His intellectual growth was not encouraged.

No one taught this poor child any social skills. He never experienced a cooperative learning team in a brainstorming session. I doubt he was Student of the Week and certainly did not have access to a Skill of the Week bulletin board. He probably never learned active listening or praising, taking turns or using quiet voices. He certainly was never tutored in staying on task. His life was not cumbered with an expert preceptor interactive curriculum and how to prioritize among problems. You can tell, he was severely and perhaps terminally disadvantaged. It is unlikely that he ever viewed a PowerPoint presentation.

We can only wonder at how this child was able to function at all, and it is no surprise that he became a day laborer working at the most menial of tasks.

Remarkably, he was able to overcome these vast educational and economic deficits. He was finally, after many years of self study and hard work able to get a respectable job. It could even be said that he was well liked by some of his peers. He was well liked enough to get elected as President of the United States and become one of the greatest writers and speakers in the English Language -- of course, Abraham Lincoln. How much of what he missed was really a disadvantage?

Give me liberty not rights above liberty

2009-01-13T19:21:00.002-07:00

Is social acceptance so dear, or individual freedom so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of losing our families and our children? I would ask this question, paraphrased from Patrick Henry, today about the proliferation of individual "rights" at the expense of losing our basic identity, our Western civilization and our humanity. In the pursuit of individual rights, we have all but abandoned the fundamentals of moral agency that made us a free nation. As Patrick Henry said, "We are apt to shut our eyes against a painful truth, and listen to the song of that siren till she transforms us into beasts."

Although that pursuit of rights above liberty, rights above freedom and rights above logic or reason, has lead us to the brink of disaster, there is some small measure of hope that right thinking citizens of many races and persuasions will awaken to the danger that raising rights above all other considerations will ultimately befall us all. The true danger comes in the form of court opinions that overthrow the will of the majority of our people to satisfy hurt feelings of the few. When social acceptance and political correctness become our highest national aspiration, the short path to moral and societal destruction cannot be far behind.

There is no middle ground in this battle, those favoring same sex marriage do not just demand social equality, they wish to determine the values of our entire culture and belief structure. Again quoting Patrick Henry, "In vain, after these things, may we indulge the fond hope of peace and reconciliation. There is no longer any room for hope. 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! I repeat it, sir, we must fight! An appeal to arms and to the God of hosts is all that is left us!"

We will not and cannot abandon this noble cause to the base and degrading lowest denominator of our society. Society as a whole, must know and recognize that there are those who believe in eternal principles and that there is no compromise with evil. Social acceptance is not truth. Individual rights do not and cannot be allowed to destroy our sacred liberty.

"They tell us, sir, that we are weak; unable to cope with so formidable an adversary. But when shall we be stronger? Will it be the next week, or the next year? Will it be when we are totally disarmed...? Shall we gather strength by irresolution and inaction? Shall we acquire the means of effectual resistance by lying supinely on our backs and hugging the delusive phantom of hope, until our enemies shall have bound us hand and foot? Sir, we are not weak if we make a proper use of those means which the God of nature hath placed in our power. The millions of people, armed in the holy cause of liberty, and in such a country as that which we possess, are invincible by any force which our enemy can send against us."

You have the right

2009-01-11T20:58:00.002-07:00

"Rights" are one of the most overworked topics in today's discourse both in the media and in the courts. In examining the United State's Constitution it is interesting to see where the word "right" or "rights" is used. Here is a compilation of the places and context of the words:

Section 8: To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;

That's it. One instance and that reference is to patents and copyrights. You may wish to see an online high resolution scan of the original document.

Then where then does this idea of constitutional rights come from? The first ten amendments to the U.S. Constitution are called the Bill of Rights. Alexander Hamilton wrote in the Federalist No. 84, that Bills of rights are in their origin, stipulations between kings and their subjects, abridgments of prerogative in favor of privilege, reservations of rights not surrendered to the prince. Such was "Magna Carta" obtained by the Barons, swords in hand, from King John. It is and was implicit in the concept of "rights" that those given rights would have concomitant responsibilities and duties.

The very first of those Amendments states: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." In each of these categories, those given rights were implicitly given responsibilities.

I would suggest you read all twenty-seven amendments. If you look very carefully through the amendments you may find that certain "rights" commonly referred to by the media, are not mentioned at all such as the so-called right to privacy. This type of "right" comes from either the popular perception or from subsequent court decisions or legislation. The history of the evolution of these additional rights could each be the subject of a lengthy study. The Framers of the Constitution and its Amendments took into consideration that other rights could be considered. In this regard, it is important to consider the wording of the Ninth Amendment. "The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people."

By focusing on rights to the exclusion of responsibilities, our modern society has moved far from the equity and respect for individuals envisioned by the Framers of our Constitution. Although certain major issues involving the dignity of our nation's citizens, like slavery and women's suffrage were omitted from consideration originally, those glaring errors were rectified, although the process, in the case of slavery, resulted in the American Civil War. The rights addressed in the Constitutional Amendments, almost entirely, with participation in the processes of voting and government administration and finance. The Amendments are not directed at individual or personal issues. The only time an amendment dealt with a social issue was Amendment 18 which was repealed by Amendment 21 having to do with Prohibition.

The present movements to increase various "rights", including those directed at same sex marriage, have moved out of the realm of dignity and the consideration of the participation of individuals in the governmental process, into the realm of social engineering. It is not so much that the new rights are intended to rectify long standing wrongs, they are more designed to remake society in the image of those contending for additional privileges. We are now more focused on labels than the duties and obligations as citizens. Especially those advocating same sex marriage are not intending by their search for additional rights to increase their own responsibilities, in fact, they wish to abdicate any responsibility at all, for their actions, for the impact their choices have on our society and the impact on our children. Their claims are not in furtherance of social welfare, but of their own personal gratification and social acceptance.

What they are seeking is not equal rights, but privilege and avoidance of consequences. They wish absolution of their responsibility for the destruction of the nuclear family and more than equality, they wish to impose their lack of morality and family values on the rest of society. They are not seeking rights. They are seeking privilege. By forcing this issue into the realm of Constitutional law, those opposing same sex marriage and other such experiments in social engineering, are left with the sole option of opposing those efforts on a Constitutional level. Although the Constitution and its Amendments have not historically addressed such issues, the passage of state laws allowing same sex marriage and judicial decisions sanctioning same sex marriage and overturning state constitutional amendments, has forced this social, religious and moral issue into becoming a Constitutional issue.

Improvements that aren't

2009-01-11T16:37:00.002-07:00

One of the hallmarks of our post-industrial/information based society is the need for "new and improved." The vast majority of manufacturers seem to believe that any product worth buying has to be "improved" periodically or it won't sell. A Google search on "new and improved" returned 7,530,000 entries with references to everything from software to cars and even libraries. I am reminded of the Apostle Paul's experience in Acts 17:21 where the philosophers spent their time in nothing else, but but either to tell, or to hear some new thing.

In my early youth, I began shaving with an electric razor. I soon changed over to razor with blades. Through the years I have found that every so often the companies stop making the type of razor blades that fit in my particular razor and so I have to buy a new one. Of course, each new development is guaranteed to be the closest shave of your life and some beautiful girl will just be irresistibly drawn to you because of your close shave. The latest iteration of this phenomena is the Gillette Fusion with five, yes you read that right, five blades. There is even a model with battery power. The blades cost a small fortune to replace. There is just one problem. The blade head is now too big to shave my face. In addition, my experience was that the blade wear out and become dull inordinately fast. After suffering several bothersome nicks, I finally decided to go back to the previous model. Guess what? They don't sell the blades any more.

In desperation, I grabbed a very inexpensive disposable razor, a whole bag of these razors sell for less that the replacement blades for the Fusion. What a treat! The cheap razor worked much better than the expensive one and lasted more than twice as long. This got me thinking. How many things, big and small, are not improvements at all, but merely a way to force us to pay for something new. Why do we always assume that the new item is better? What else out there is new but not improved?

We have one really good example of new and improved not being either new or improved with a light rail system in Phoenix. First of all, we had an electric trolley system in Phoenix around the beginning of the 1900s, so the idea is far from new. Secondly, the new system is not an improvement because first, it doesn't go anywhere people need to go and second it only covers a small portion of central Phoenix. For example, one of the busiest airports in the world is Sky Harbor Airport in Phoenix, you might think it would be a good idea, if you were going to build a light rail system costing millions and millions, to have it go to the airport. Wrong. In order to get to the airport from the light rail you would have to take a shuttle bus.

In the East Valley, there is a large community college, one of the largest in the United States. Mesa Community College has over 26,000 students, most of which attend its main campus. Now, maybe you would think that the light rail would go by MCC? You would be wrong. The end of the rail system is about two miles away from the Campus. Just far enough, that no one would think of walking. You might also think, well, I could drive to the terminal and take the light rail downtown to Phoenix, saving on parking and travel. Well, the light rail takes longer than the freeways in car and there is no where to park at the East Terminal. So you can't park and ride.
This goes on and on.

We have a huge financial crisis in our country right now, maybe it is time someone started thinking about building transportation and making our own products that actually work. It might be easier to compete with China and the rest of the world if Americans built things that worked and were a real improvement. By the way, the Fusion Razor was made in Poland. The cheap razors, I am now using, are also Gillette and made in Mexico. They come in a package of 52 razors, which appears to me to be more than a two years supply.

Homeowner associations -- the new American servitude

2009-01-10T17:28:00.004-07:00

Early in our American history, many immigrants financed their escape to the New World by becoming indentured servants. The only real difference, in some cases, between being an indentured servant and a slave, was that the servitude was generally for a period of years. By entering into such a contract, a person gave up valuable rights and privileges. If the contract turned out to be advantageous, all was fine and good, but if the service turned out to be intolerable, too bad.

Presently, both indentured servants and slavery are ostensibly outlawed in the United States. However, many of the incidents of both institutions have been revived in the modern homeowners association. Purchasing a home governed by an association obligates the owner to bow to the will of the association concerning virtually anything having to do with the home. Although there is some language supposedly limiting the power of the association over the lives and possessions of the owners, in many cases a simple majority of your neighbors can impose new and unimagined restrictions on the use of your property.

In most states, obligations to homeowners associations take priority over practically any protections of property granted by the state. For example, the homestead exemption, that allows you to protect a portion of the value of your property from judgment creditors does not apply to homeowner associations. In a recent ruling in a case in Arizona, the Court awarded judgment in favor of a homeowners association against one owner who had moved from the subdivision years before the lawsuit. In the same case the Judge ordered judgment against an owner whose property had been taken by foreclosure. Even selling the property or having a foreclosure did not allow the owners to escape liability to the association. In fact, in the same case, the same Judge issued a judgment against one owner who had died. At least in for both an indentured servant and a slave, their obligations ended with death. All of the above facts had been made clear to the Judge before he issued the judgment. At the last minute, the Judge did change the Judgment by crossing out the name of the dead owner with a pen mark.

Homeowners association wield vast influence and authority in our society. They are the almost invisible government that intrudes into our very personal lives in a way unimagined by any of the other regulatory agencies of our society. Acting through its Board of Directors, homeowner associations have used their power to persecute anyone they disagree with for any reason including race, religion and national origin. In one case, a homeowner was fined repeatedly after the association president learned that her grandmother was an Black American. This is unfortunately, not an isolated instance.

Homeowners who object to the dictatorial powers of some associations are told that they can just move if they don't like it. One association officer testified in a trial, that the reason the Board had imposed so many restrictions and fines on the owners was because they did not want that kind of person in their neighborhood. In today's slumping home market, it is not always even an option for an owner to simply sell their home. In some places, like Arizona, it is very difficult to find a home that is not located in a homeowners association. In many cases, once you have purchased a home subject to an association, you are stuck with the consequences, either good or bad, for years, just like an indentured servant.

Owners who argue with their association that they are being charged for services they do not need or use, are often subject to liens and foreclosure. Failure to pay the homeowners association assessments can result in the association foreclosing on your home. Failure to abide by the rules and regulations of the association can often result in the same results. In one Arizona case, the owner, an elderly lady, was forcibly removed from her home by the police after the association foreclosed because of her failure to cut her plants. Subsequent to that case, the Arizona legislature modified the ability of associations to foreclose for breach of the rules, but they can still collect all of their fines, attorneys' fees and costs, at the time the property is ultimately sold.

In a recent movie, Over the Hedge, at the end of the movie, the homeowners association president is being hauled away by the police and is screaming, "You can't arrest me, I'm the president of the homeowners association." This wouldn't be funny if it weren't true in some cases. In Arizona, at least, the Courts, in some cases, are openly antagonistic to homeowners association cases. I have been before judges who have openly expressed the opinion that disputes involving associations were a waste of their time and the court's resources. This attitudes allows associations and their attorneys to reign almost unimpeded in the courts. Attempts to limit association's powers in the legislatures are opposed by huge professional teams of paid lobbyists. Because they are not considered "state actors" (i.e. agents of the state), homeowners associations are not subjected by the courts to the Constitutional limitations of due process or equal protection. Likewise, almost no courts have recognized that they may be sued for civil rights violations.

Perhaps it would be wise to have a disclosure posted on the boundary of every homeowners association stating that you are advised to proceed at your own risk because you are leaving the jurisdiction of the United States of America.

Those who support associations argue that they are necessary to protect the owners' property values and interests. No one has ever demonstrated to me, through any measure or statistic that property located in a homeowners association is more valuable solely because of the existence of an association. In Arizona, real estate sales people advertise when a home is not in an association, as if that fact enhanced its value. Finding comparable property to show the value or lack thereof, of association membership, is getting harder and harder, because virtually all newly built properties in the state are located in homeowners associations.

From a legal standpoint, since homeowners associations are created and maintained by deed restrictions, if I purchase the property, I am deemed, by the law, to have agreed to the provisions even if I had no actual knowledge of their content. In Arizona, and likely in other jurisdictions, it is not legally required for a purchaser to even have been given or shown a copy of the association's legal documents, including the declarations of covenants, conditions and restrictions (CC&Rs or declaration), before the close of the sale. Arizona law only requires that the purchaser received notice after the sale has closed. But since the declaration or CC&Rs are a matter of public record, any purchaser is deemed to have notice of their existence and content.

This is obviously a subject in which a lot can be said and written and I will likely return to related issues in future posts.

Bankruptcy Blah Blah Blah

2009-01-09T19:10:00.002-07:00

It seems that every time I think I have run out of things to comment upon, I find some new outrageous issue. This time it is the discussion of proposed revisions to the bankruptcy laws to favor home owners in default.

Here's the proposal. Give more leeway to homeowners allowing a Federal Court Bankruptcy Judge to essentially re-write the homeowner's mortgage to reduce the interest rate or to establish the home's fair value in the event of a foreclosure. Now that doesn't sound too bad does it?

Think again, if I buy a house and pay cash (or spend years and pay off the mortgage), I will have to pay every penny of the value. But if one of my neighbors ran out and purchased a home with no money down and a low initial rate on an Adjustable Rate Mortgage (ARM), then they can file bankruptcy, now that they find themselves unable to make the payments, and have the Court reduce the amount they have to repay by lowering the interest rate.

In a recent article entitled "Please, Judge, Save My House" published in the AARP Bulletin for January/February 2009, one homeowner was quoted as saying, "Bankruptcy turned out to be a bunch of blah, blah, blah. It's really not a help for working people like me." Excuse me. As a practicing attorney I never viewed bankruptcy as a "help" for anyone. I always thought that it was kin to death. You only went into bankruptcy as a last resort, not if, like the woman quoted, you owed $10,000 in credit card debt and really, just wanted a way to refinance your home loan.

How does changing the bankruptcy laws to allow for a renegotiation of home loans benefit all those people who are diligent in paying their payments. I pay 6.5% and my neighbor, who also pays 6.5% takes out bankruptcy and then gets his rate lowered to whatever. But if I go to my bank and say, look, I am diligent in paying my mortgage, how about lowering my rate to the rate you just gave my neighbor? I am sure they would laugh at me. In other words, I am penalized because I pay my debts!!!

Not that the people who cannot pay their mortgages are dead beats, but there are some who purchased their homes with no intention or no ability to actually make the payments. In those cases, changes in the bankruptcy law to allow for substantial reductions would be nothing more than a windfall, a free ticket to more deadbeatism.

What if I don't have a mortgage at all? My home decreases in value just like my neighbor and if I have to sell my home with the market down, I will lose a large chuck of what I thought I had in equity. On the other hand, if I wasn't so unAmerican to own my home, if the home is owned by the bank, I don't have to take the hit, I can file bankruptcy and have the amount I paid for the home adjusted downward to keep me from losing money. If you can't see what's wrong with this scenario, you probably have a large mortgage.

What about a program to subsidize those who own their homes? Why not allow a credit or something that will help to reduce the bite of the loss in equity due to the downturn in the market?

Lessons from disaster

2009-01-07T16:40:00.003-07:00

I just finished watching another, in a very long stream of a subgenre of disaster movies depicting conditions threatening the survival of mankind. I have been raised on a steady stream of these movies since "The Day the Earth Stood Still" back in 1951 and "The Day the Earth Caught Fire" in 1962. Out of the many "ten best" lists, it seems that there are always one or two of the films that deal with the destruction of mankind in some form or another. I even suffered through various iterations of "Planet of the Apes." Some of the movies were pretty good, like Independence Day, but others were awful like When Worlds Collide. The awful ones outnumber the good ones by quite a large factor. Recently, they have been making these movies in pairs, likely so you can see how bad both of the movies really are, like Deep Impact and Armageddon as well as Volcano and Dante's Peak. I can still remember the depressed ending of On the Beach although I did like the race cars. I have to mention here, that I do not go to see R rated movies at all, period. So I am spared some of the worst of the worst. (See MIB)

Through all of this devastation and destruction, I have learned a few lessons I would like to pass on before I do.

1. If you want to survive, do not live in New York City. Inevitably, the ice (See The Day After Tomorrow), or the monsters (See the newer Godzilla 1998 version) and a lot of other terrible things end up in or start out in New York. Most recently I Am Legend which was sort-of like a remake of I Robot without the robots, other charaters besides Will Smith or the plot. Phoenix is almost immune to disaster it seems. Interestingly, in Independence Day, when all the major cities of the world that are destroyed, the aliens skip some of the larger cities in South America and Africa. Apparently, monsters and aliens are not interested in you if you live in Buenos Aires. If you have to live in New York, try to live as close to the New York Public Library as you can. If you have to move out of New York, do not chose London or Tokyo.

2. Do not walk around at night shining lights into dark warehouses or other structures. This suggestion may cause some inconvenience to those who shine lights into dark warehouses for a living, but usually the inconvenience is short, because the person ends up dead or eaten or worse.

3. In most cases, stay close to the President of the United States. The President always seems to have a good bit part in the disaster movies and although the President has been known to bite the dust, the Vice President usually comes through (or vice versa). See Independence Day again unless you have already seen it ten times.

4. If you have to go somewhere, go to a church. You might still get zapped by the aliens but the guys that survive will probably be around there somewhere. See War of the Worlds (two versions, both pretty bad). But so will the bad guys, aliens, monsters etc.

5. If you have to wear protective clothing, be careful around sharp objects. This suggestion is self explanatory and just makes good sense. However, the people who write these movies never seem to give the main characters enough sense to come in out of the rain and they always seem to be tearing the suit. See Andromeda Strain or better yet, don't see Andromeda Strain.

6. If a lone scientist moves into town with a wacky theory about the destruction of the world, leave town immediately. It is amazing how many of these movies focus on one person who seems to have figured out why the world is ending and no one else seems to catch on. If the wacko isn't the scientist, then there a beautiful young woman scientist to take the rap for the theories. See any number of hacky made for TV movies on the Sci Fi channel.

7. If a strange meteor lands near your farm, leave the area immediately. This scenario was even spoofed in Men In Black. This rule is especially true if you are at all curious and feel compelled to investigate the strange phenomena.

8. Don't pay good money to see a disaster film. Wait until you can get it free through a local public library or borrow it from one of your friends or family members who has not read my blog. If you feel compelled to see a disaster movie, just remember you can't fast forward on TV or in a theater.

Wait a minute, I almost forgot the ultimate, absolute, worst movie of all time. So bad it has a cult following, you guessed it: Plan 9 from Outer Space. And wait minute again, don't forget The Monster that Challenged the World (which assumes the world is located in the Salton Sea in southern California next to a canal). Now that I've got started, you have to remember The Invasion of the Saucer Men which redefines the term special effects in a very negative way and last, but not least, the original, the only, The Crawling Eye.

And what did I learn from these gems? I watch way too many movies.

Attorney representation in Arizona and the issue of sexual orientation

2009-01-01T06:47:00.003-07:00

With the coming of the new year, I will mark my 34th year of practicing law in Arizona. Considering the recent controversy over the possible adoption of a reference to sexual orientation as part of the Oath of Office for admission to the State Bar of Arizona, I can truthfully say that in all of my years of practice I cannot remember ever having the sexual orientation of a client be a factor or even a concern as to whether I represented that individual or not. In fact, I have never made a decision to represent a client or to not represent a client based on a client's inclusion in a particular category. My decision to represent a client is based first and foremost on the needs of the client and as to whether or not my particular practice, skill and or expertise can serve those needs. Quite frankly, in most commercial situations, representation is also based on the ability and willingness of clients to pay for legal services. Law is still a business and attorneys have to make a living.

Even though payment is a factor in choosing to represent or not, it is still only one factor. I have represented hundreds of clients who could not pay for my services. But my choice to represent these clients is mine and I would resent any, including the State Bar of Arizona, who attempted to dictate who I represented. This would be particularly true if I disagreed with the merits of the legal argument being advanced. I would simply refuse to represent anyone who did not have a meritorious claim, regardless of their ethnic, social, religious or sexual orientation. During my years of practice I have represented thousands of clients, many of whom were not of my ethnic background, country of origin, religious belief, sexual orientation or whatever. Just because they were not people I would associate with on a personal level never determined how or why I took a particular case.

In expanding on that idea, I can give a partial list of the types of people I have represented: illegal aliens, Blacks, Whites, Asians, Latin Americans, Gays, Straights, Catholics, Protestants, Jews, Native Americans, street people, millionaires, major corporations, individuals, associations, partnerships, in short, every conceivable combination of clients imaginable and many you probably would not like to imagine. Not one time in my career has a decision to represent a client been made on the basis of the category of the person.

This is the main reason why I would resent and resist the inclusion of additional categories of individuals or groups in an Oath of Admission. Is the list to be inclusive or exclusive? If the type of person coming to me is not listed by the Oath, does that mean I can discriminate based on that category? When does the listing of categories end? But from a more practical side, how do I determine that someone belongs to the suspect category in the first place? If a Black African American, Asian American or a Native American comes to me for representation, I might be able to determine his or her race. But if someone comes to me with a certain sexual orientation, how am I supposed to know this fact? Because the State Bar of Arizona puts a provision in the Oath of Office, does this now mean that I must ask my potential clients concerning their sexual orientation so that I can be sure that should the subject come up later in some context, that I will not discriminate against them? What if someone decides to change their sexual orientation after they have already become a client? Does that mean I have to conduct periodic interviews with my clients to determine if they are still Straight or whatever, just in case?

When Gays are seeking legal advice should they walk into the attorney's office and announce that they are Gay and ask if the attorney if that matters to the attorney or his staff? I do not recall ever having discussed the civil rights classification of any of my clients with anyone, would I now have to do so in order to assure myself that my staff was not somehow discriminating? Let's suppose that I have represented a client for a couple of years and we get into a dispute over billing charges, am I now going to be faced with an accusation that my billing practices are discriminatory when the client suddenly announces to me that he or she is Gay and that is the reason for my overcharges? In the vernacular of the day, give me a break.

This entire issue changes if the person seeking legal representation is asserting a claim based on discrimination in a particular category. For example, if an undocumented alien comes to me for help with immigration matters, what if I decline to represent the client by saying I don't represent illegal aliens? What if I don't happen to take discrimination cases at all? Would I be forced to take a case representing a Gay rights advocate in a discrimination matter when I have neither the background nor the expertise to do so? Why have a list of categories at all? What is the purpose to be served? Ethical Rule 1.1 of the Supreme Court of the State of Arizona (ER) says, "A lawyer shall provide competent representation to a client. Competent representation requires the legal knowledge, skill, thoroughness and preparation reasonably necessary for the representation." First and foremost attorneys must have the legal skill to represent their clients. The Comments to ER 1.1 indicate that a client should not represent anyone unless the attorney has the skill to do so or can acquire the skill through necessary study. But if an attorney cannot give the client adequate representation, they should decline to represent the client.

Fundamentally, as an attorney, I can refuse to represent anyone. In fact, I can resign from the practice of law and refuse to be a lawyer. I can also die anytime. (There has been some discussion about the personal liability of an attorney after his or her death, but I could never believe that the discussion was really serious). But once I undertake representation of a client, I can be penalized, sometimes severely, for failing to adequately represent that client. How does taking an Oath upon admission to the practice change that situation? I can also terminate representation at any time, for any reason. I may suffer the consequences if my termination is for the wrong reason, but, for example, if I suffer a heart attack and I am dying in the hospital, I can certainly send my clients to other attorneys for representation.

In all the discussion, so far, about the adoption of a particular category of interest into the Oath of Admission, there has been little public discussion of the need to add sexual orientation at all. Where are the examples of discrimination? From the amount of litigation going on in California over Proposition 108, it doesn't seem to me that the Gay community has any difficulty in obtaining legal advice and representation. So why is this now an issue, especially right after a very contentious election in which the issue was a major part of the campaign?

It appears to me that the issue before the Arizona State Bar Association, is a back-door attempt to begin to establish legal precedent. Not for the purpose of enhancing the practice of law, but for entirely other legal and legislative motives. It is a blatant move to influence the legal process into giving not just equal rights but a preferential standing to Gays under the law. Please refer to Self Evident Truths for a well written discussion of the difference between inalienable rights and Constitutional rights. Since this move by the Arizona State Bar Association comes at this time, during an ongoing national debate, it can only be seen as an attempt to politicize the State Bar. For this reason alone the suggested changes are objectionable. I am therefore specifically and categorically opposed to the addition of the language as presently proposed and as reported in the media.

Arizona State Bar Association revision of the oath for attorneys

2008-12-30T18:20:00.007-07:00

Caught up in the propaganda wave generated by the opponents of Proposition 102 in Arizona, the Marriage Amendment, there have been a number of inflammatory and inaccurate news stories concerning action to be taken by the Arizona State Bar Association.

Although the news accounts concerning the Arizona State Bar Association's action to include a reference to sexual orientation in the oaths administered to all new entrants licensed to practice law in Arizona only recently made the national news, the reference to a concern with prejudice concerning sexual orientation was long ago included in the Arizona Rules of Professional Responsibility. The provision included with Ethical Rule 8.4 was passed by the Arizona Supreme Court effective back on December 1, 2002. The ER 8.4 in full states:

It is professional misconduct for a lawyer to:

(a) violate or attempt to violate the Rules of Professional Conduct, knowingly assist or induce another to do so, or do so through the acts of another;

(b) commit a criminal act that reflects adversely on the lawyer's honesty, trustworthiness or fitness as a lawyer in other respects;

(c) engage in conduct involving dishonesty, fraud, deceit or misrepresentation;

(d) engage in conduct that is prejudicial to the administration of justice;

(e) state or imply an ability to influence improperly a government agency or official or to achieve results by means that violate the Rules of Professional Conduct or other law; or

(f) knowingly assist a judge or judicial officer in conduct that is a violation of applicable Code of Judicial Conduct or other law.

(g) file a notice of change of judge under Rule 10.2, Arizona Rules of Criminal Procedure, for an improper purpose, such as obtaining a trial delay or other circumstances enumerated in Rule 10.2(b).

The only reference to sexual orientation is found in the related comment. The comment in question states, in part:

A lawyer who in the course of representing a client, knowingly manifests by words or conduct, bias or prejudice based upon race, sex, religion, national origin, disability, age, sexual orientation or socioeconomic status, violates paragraph (d) when such actions are prejudicial to the administration of justice. This does not preclude legitimate advocacy when race, sex, religion, national original, disability, age, sexual orientation or socioeconomic status, or other similar factors, are issues in the proceeding. A trial judge's finding that peremptory challenges were exercised on a discriminatory basis does not alone establish a violation of this rule.

According to the Web site of the Arizona State Bar Association, there are no specific ethical opinions issued by the State Bar with reference to that particular provision. This means that since 2002, no one has requested a formal opinion from the State Bar concerning this particular provision. There was some limited discussion in the media back in 2002. See Arizona Supreme Court Requires Lawyers to be GLBT Friendly dated July 4, 2002.

The current controversy arose as a result of a request by the Supreme Court of Arizona to the State Bar to review and recommend revisions to the Oath of Office for State Bar members reported in the August 22, 2008 minutes of the meeting of the State Bar Board of Governors. Those minutes state:

OATH OF ADMISSION

Ed Novak introduced a proposed revision to the Oath of Office for State Bar members that he wrote and that the members of Scope & Ops have worked on. Amelia Craig Cramer circulated a redlined version showing changes from the existing Oath to the proposed revision. President Novak stated that at the Court’s last meeting it was suggested that the Oath be reviewed and possibly updated. The first draft was in the Board materials and members of the Board were urged to review and consider it,as well as the slightly-revised redlined version. Further discussion of the proposal will continue at the September meeting of the Board. When the proposal is more defined, member’s comments and suggestions will be sought.

In the September 26, 2008 Minutes of the Board of Governors it stated:

OATH OF OFFICE FOR STATE BAR MEMBERS

President Novak stated a recommendation was received to review and update the Oath. Amelia Craig Cramer circulated a redlined version showing changes from the existing Oath to the proposed revision. The Board is asked to review the Oath and direct any comment to President Novak or Amelia Craig Cramer. Further discussion was tabled to the next meeting. The proposed changes will be voted on at the November Board meeting, and members will be able to comment prior to the Board submitting the proposed changes to the Supreme Court.

The subject was not discussed in the October meeting. Minutes for the November meeting are yet to be published on line.

Apparently, the State Bar gave its recommendations and in response, the Arizona legal community began its response to the recommended wording of the change. See December 12, 2008 letter to Edward F. Novak, Arizona State Bar President. This issue began to get greater coverage as a result of blog stories after the letter was made public. The story began to be generally repeated in the pro-gay blogs. It appears that the story has yet to hit the general media.

The status of the proposal is presently unknown. There are apparently no official statements from the State Bar. We will have to wait for further developments. However, I am aware of several attorneys who are planning to write opposing the change to the Oath of Admission.

Facebook -- an excuse for trivial communication

2008-12-30T06:00:00.002-07:00

Social networking is a buzz term of the Web 2.0 world composed of older teens, twenty and thirty-somethings and a few older people thrown together in a sound bite world lacking any true discourse or substance. It is significant that the metaphor used is "writing on the wall." One of the prominent forums for this new form of personal graffiti is Facebook. Some of the participants can claim thousands of "friends" who are mostly people they would never greet or even recognize if met in person. How much real content can you get from a comment written on a wall? I get more social interaction than this from waving at people in traffic on the freeway.

I cannot claim to be a long time participant in this particular social phenomenon, but I am certain that increased familiarity will not disclose any deeper significance to the superficiality. I have yet to determine how my world is enriched by knowing that someone is tired or fixed dinner or that some one gave a gift of a coconut tree or a cow. It is certain that there is no clear writing or understandable communication going on in this venue.

Aside from the brief novelty of recognizing old friends and relatives, the content seems to have less substance than chewing gum. Taking a quiz on "How Hick Are You?" is like reading the throw away weekly magazines in the Sunday newspapers, without having to make the effort to bring the paper in from the front porch. Finding out that someone you hardly know is a fan of some prominent person, is like watching the gossip columns. At one level, attending wedding receptions and funerals, in person, serve a function of binding people together in a common social network. But what is utility of have hundreds of people, who you do not know and who you never see, attend a virtual wedding reception? What kind of social bond comes from clicking on a "I want to join" link?

I guess it is too much to expect that a generation who's deepest thoughts consists of "Cool" and "Hey, Dude" could compose anything that approached real discussion or discourse. Historians have found a rich source for analysis in personal letters. What kind of historical significance will this ephemeral note taking have in the future? How do we get some kind of perspective on the thoughts of a generation, when those thoughts are confined to comments like "Hope,you're OK" and "What cuties!" Not to mention the fact that someone found a seven letter word in Scramble?

The holidization of Christmas

2008-12-23T05:25:00.002-07:00

This morning I was listening to National Public Radio, as usual, not that I particularly agree with NPR, but the Phoenix market doesn't have any other news station that isn't ranting or swearing on the radio. I heard one commentator refer to "Holiday Music." It struck me that, as a nation, we are moving so far into political correctness and fear of offense, that we can no longer refer to Christmas.

I realized that I had received a pile of cards from businesses at work and almost without exception they were styled as "Holiday Greetings," there was not one Christmas card in the bunch. There is a long standing and not so subtle movement away from traditional Christian values and observance of the birth of Christ towards a generic, non-specific reference to "this special holiday season," carefully avoiding any reference to the birth of the Savior or his mission on earth.

This isn't just an issue with Santa Claus or reindeer, this is a concerted effort by the media and others to eliminate any religious references at all. Listen to the music offered on one of the so-called holiday stations, you get silver bells, winter wonderland and one after another of generic non-Christmas songs. Christmas carols have almost disappeared or become so "modernized" as to be indistinguishable from the current blah blah noise of popular music.

The biggest national concern this "Holiday Season" is not whether we can return to an observance of Christ and his teachings, but whether the merchants are going to have a good sale year or not.

I call upon all those who are Christians to focus more on the Lord Jesus Christ and his ministry here on earth. Remember his life and teachings as well as his birth in a humble stable and let's wish everyone a Merry Christmas and not just a happy holiday.

Reflections on gas prices and the universe in general

2008-12-22T18:11:00.004-07:00

On December 22, 2008, crude oil closed at $39.62 a barrel. Almost uniformly the falling price was blamed on the decreasing demand for oil due to the "worsening global economic climate." See MSNNBC. When oil was over $130 a barrel, the price rise was blamed on increasing demand for oil. You can see the statistics from the Energy Information Administration. (The U.S. Government keeps track of almost everything). The high point in the price of oil occurred from 2005 to 2008. In three years the price of oil went from where it is now, to over $130. In actuality, the price of oil has not dropped, it has simply returned to its historic cost range of only about three years ago.

Now, if the price of oil was somehow linked to demand, as all of the news reports would have us believe, then there should have been a spike in the demand at about the same time the price went up. However, travel was down in January of 2005 over January of 2004. From 2005 to 2006 miles traveled in the U.S. went up only 3.8%. However, cumulative travel decreased .7% from 2006 to 2007. By 2008, cumulative travel had again decreased, this time by 1.7%.

There is no spike in miles traveled in the U.S. There was no increase in demand, in fact, demand was flat. The rapid increase in oil prices had absolutely nothing to do with increased demand in the U.S.

It is incredible that the American public has been so easily fooled by the government and the media. What then caused the tremendous increase in oil prices?

Greed and speculation. If you want to see where the money went read, Exxon's Profits: Measuring a Record Windfall. If Exxon Mobil were a country, its 2007 profit would exceed the gross domestic product of nearly two thirds of the 183 nations in the World Bank's economic rankings.

Oil prices aren't truly down, they have only returned to levels not seen since the huge speculative oil bubble.

Another controversy over the Marriage Amendment

2008-12-20T05:13:00.002-07:00

Just when you think that you have heard all the arguments, the Arizona State Bar Association is proposing to add a reference to sexual orientation as part of the oath taken by attorneys upon admittance to the Bar Association. Membership in the Bar Association is mandatory on all attorneys in the State of Arizona in order to appear and represent clients in court. A recent article explains the issues:

Bar might add sexual orientation to state oath

I will have a lot of comments on this topic. Stay tuned.

My Christmas Card to Everyone

2008-12-17T16:49:00.001-07:00

We wish you the most joyous Christmas and a happy New Year.

This is my Christmas card to everyone this year:

Joy to Everyone This Christmas

Please feel free to share this wonderful message with everyone.

Who is the victim in sub-prime mortgage failures?

2008-12-16T12:38:00.002-07:00

The media repeatedly portrays homeowners unable to make their mortgage payments as victims of the unscrupulous sub-prime mortgage lenders. Wait a minute. Who is the victim here? It is certainly a tragedy that a family, living in a house for years, through job loss or medical crisis, can no longer make mortgage payments and loses their home. It is entirely a different story when someone purchases an expensive home or condo for no money down (or worse, cash back) and then fails to make even one mortgage payment. How is this person who fails to make payments on a home that they cannot possibly afford, considered a victim?

Originally, media reports, (See this story on National Public Radio, for example) characterized the borrowers as people who refinanced or purchased adjustable rate mortgages, without realizing the risk that interest rates would go up. Many of these people had lived in their homes for years. However, it now turns out that the victim examples have taken a change, (See Business Week, FHA-Backed Loans: The New Subprime). The media admits that borrowers now include those, like an unemployed student, living on an educational grant from the Cayman Islands, who purchased a $318,000 home with a $2,600 a month payment. The grant was for one year and she had no prospects of paying the mortgage. In another example, the purchasers, a husband and wife, together made $52,000 and purchased a $316,375 home with payments equalling 58% of their gross income. They got thousands of dollars in a cash back arrangement. Are we to consider these people to be victims? I hardly think so. As the Business Week story claims, if true, these loans are still being made by lenders whose default rate is as high as 9.2% of their outstanding loans. Because of the so-called cash incentives, buyers are defaulting before even on payment is made.

We used to say that it took two to tango, well, it takes buyers who are dishonest enough to take out a mortgage that they have no possible intention of paying, to make the crisis as bad as it is today. I recently did a survey of local real estate conditions. What I found was interesting but not surprising. In many new home neighborhoods, mostly in prestigious locations, I found a very high percentage of short sale and foreclosure homes, sometimes as many as five or six on the same street and block. However, in more stable neighborhoods, where families had purchased the homes over the past few years, I could find very few, if any, distressed properties. It is apparent that much of problem stems from people attempting to take advantage of the system and move into homes that they cannot realistically afford. Just because we have a mortgage system that allows them to do this, does not excuse individual responsibility.

Let's not consider all of those losing their homes in this subprime crisis to be victims, some of the buyers had no reasonable expectation of maintaining their purchases and took advantage of a system that doesn't work to get some free housing. We need to get back to basic honesty and integrity before the housing crisis will abate.

Christmas should be a Holy Day not a holiday

2008-12-14T16:54:00.004-07:00

This last September I was once again surprised to see all the Christmas decorations for sale show up at my local Costco. I guess I am wondering why they bother to take them down at all. In reading the economic reports, retailers expect to make from 1/3 to 1/2 of their annual income during the time between Thanksgiving and Christmas. In a small measure of retaliation, we decided not to spend hardly anything on our Christmas this year. Instead, we decided to focus our attention on the spirit and meaning of Christmas.

As a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, more commonly called Mormons, I believe that Christmas celebrates the birth of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Our loving Father in Heaven sent His Son, Jesus Christ into the world. Yes, Mormons are Christians. He was born as a babe in Bethlehem of Judea, lived, died and on the third day, was resurrected so that everyone, good and bad, alike will also receive the gift of resurrection. He also atoned for the sins of all mankind on condition of individual repentance. This same Jesus Christ, healed the sick, raised the dead and showed us all the way to return to live with our families eternally.

I know that God lives and is a kind an loving Father in Heaven. I know that his Son Jesus Christ, the babe of Bethlehem lived and died that we may live.

If you follow His example as closely as possible, you will not only find joy in your life, but you will someday return to live with Him and your Father in Heaven. Specifically, you are to:

Have faith in Him ( Mark 11:22–24).
Repent of your sins ( Acts 2:38).
Receive baptism ( John 3:3–6), the gift of the Holy Ghost?, and the other ordinances? of the gospel? of Jesus Christ.
Keep His commandments? ( John 14:15).

Let's all keep the true Spirit of Christmas, that through our faith in Jesus Christ, we may all keep his commandments and fully live the plan of happiness in this life and the next. It is my hope that all of us, can appreciate the real meaning of Christmas.

Consumer Price Index and some interesting observations

2008-12-12T19:15:00.003-07:00

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics monitors almost every aspect of American life. One of the more commonly cited is the Consumer Price Index. Almost everyone hears about it going up and very infrequently, going down. But the changes in the CPI never seem to match my impression of reality. For example, this last month gasoline prices dropped over a $1.00 a gallon, about a 33% decrease, however, the CPI on went down about 1%. I began to wonder why.

The base years for the CPI is 1982 to 1984. These years are arbitrarily set at 100. For all of the years before 1984, the CPI is less than 100. It was an average of 9.9 in 1913. If I read this right, from 1913 to 1984, prices went up 1000%. Click on this to see the chart. You math guys out there can correct me if I am wrong. In October of 2008, the CPI stood at 216.573. The highest its been is 219.964 in July of 2008. Other than observing that none of the possible savings accounts I know about will pay interest any where near the increase of 4.1% in 2007, I began to wonder what these figures really said.

There is a chart of all of the components of the CPI and the relative weight given to each component. Click on this to see the chart. I note that gasoline, a relatively large component of my personal expenditures is only 5.215 % of the CPI.

These are the larger percentage categories:

Food and Beverages 14.914%
Housing 42.427 %
Apparel 3.731 %
Transportation 17.688 %
Medical care 6.231 %
Recreation 5.647 %
Education and Communication 6.086 %
Other goods and services (primarily personal care and tobacco) 3.277 %

In examining my own budget these figures are no where near what I personally spend in those categories as a percentage of my gross income. In my case, the number one expenditure is taxes, which are not even mentioned. Another significantly missing item is donations to charities. Now, I understand that the CPI is supposed to measure the overall price of goods and services but in every individual case, it is unlikely that anyone actually spends money in the percentages listed. For example I don't smoke so my expenditures for tobacco are 0 % of my income.

The effect of personal spending habits is that your own personal CPI might be a lot higher or a lot lower than the national averages, depending on your spending habits. For example, if you don't own a car and don't drive, an increase in gasoline only indirectly affects your budget. Since food away from home is 6.173 % of the CPI, you can change the way the CPI affects you personally by merely eating out either more or less often. You can take out 1.811 % of the CPI by not smoking or drinking alcoholic beverages. The CPI is supposed to be designed to exclude investment items, so you can really change the way it affects your personal budget by investing in a home or whatever. Also, the CPI is not designed to reflect changes in purchasing habits due to changes in price. So if you buy hamburger instead of steak, you just get hamburger, you don't change the CPI.

Although the BLS denies that the CPI changes due to politics, it is interesting the rates of inflation are often recalculated after elections, just as the unemployment figures rose for the months before the recent national election when they were recalculated after the election. Politics may not affect the numbers but politics certainly influence the percentage components and the method and timing of the calculations.

Comments on General Motors and Chrysler

2008-12-10T06:49:00.004-07:00

In a radical departure from my previous posts, considering the dramatic economic events, I decided I just had to comment on some of the other things going on in the world.

Presently, the Congress of the United States is considering a bail-out of two of the major car manufacturers, General Motors and Chrysler. I was born on the General Motors side of town, which means me and my family buy General Motors products and disparage Ford and its products. If you aren't aware of this phenomenon, you probably don't read the white lettering on the back of the windows of pickup trucks. However, I am not a purist. We have owned American Motors cars, and a whole variety of foreign makes, including Mazdas, Toyotas and Hondas. Just like everyone else in America, we think Toyotas and Hondas are better made than any American model.

Even though the arguments in Washington center around billions of dollars in aid, I see the problem as being very simple. General Motors cannot make a car without bothersome defects that it refuses to fix in year after year. I purchased my first Chevrolet Suburban about thirty years ago. It was well known at the time, among the truck crowd, that the transmission would go out about 70,000 miles. Mine went out at 72,000 miles. I sold that Suburban when it had 115,000 miles when I thought that buying a newer model might help with all the small things going wrong, like rattles, loose door handles, generally small things that drive you crazy.

My next Suburban not only needed a transmission at about 70,000 miles, it added a whole list of additional buggy items. The worst was a hole in the frame around the passenger side wing window. We stuffed it with felt and didn't ever open the window. It was not something that could be fixed without redesigning the window. I found out by comparison with other owners, that all Suburbans of the same design had the same problem. Year after year, General Motors ignored the problem and kept making the same machine. When the model changed, we bought a Silverado truck.

Now about my truck. The front window has been fixed because it doesn't have the wing window anymore, but now the rear window, on the extended cab model, will not shut entirely causing exactly the same problem with wind noise and air blowing into the cab. I understand that this is a similar general problem. Also, as expected, my transmission failed at about 70,000 miles.

My Honda and my Toyota on the other hand run perfectly. I drove my Honda for over 135,000 miles and never had a major problem that couldn't be fixed. I now have a Toyota Prius and it runs perfectly and everything works. So I know it is possible to make a vehicle that doesn't have inherent obvious defects. It is highly unlikely that I will ever buy a GM or Chrysler product again.

Now, here is the lesson to be learned. You can't keep making cars with defects when other manufacturers are making defect free models and keep selling cars. No bail out will solve this problem. If America wants to compete, it has to compete.

Comments on No Mob Veto from the Deseret News

2008-12-06T21:31:00.003-07:00

The Deseret News, the morning daily newspaper in Salt Lake City, Utah ran a longer story about the ad run in the Wall Street Journal by the organization calling itself, No Mob Veto. The article gives an interesting perspective into the opposition to the organization. Apparently, among the same-sex marriage proponents, it is improper for anyone to voice opposition to their cause. As the article quotes:

"The Human Rights Campaign, however, decried the ad, calling it "corporate hypocrisy." "Calls for tolerance of certain religious viewpoints rings hollow in a world where religion often stands by tolerating violence perpetrated on God's lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender children," said Rev. Erin Swenson, a Presbyterian minister who sits on the HRC's Religion Council."

I guess, from my viewpoint, I am unaware of any U.S. religious organizations that often stand by and tolerate violence. I am also afraid that I do not view the connection between voting for the Marriage Amendment and people who perpetrate violence against the Gay community. It seems to me that ignoring the majority vote of a state's voters and then actively and violently persecuting one religious organization would certainly contribute to feelings of antipathy towards the Gay community, in the very least. From the quote, it is also apparently justified to violently persecute The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints for the reason that some Gay individuals have been the victims of violence. It is also, from Mr. Swenson's statement, improper for religious organizations to try and defend themselves against the violence. I would strongly disagree with Mr. Swenson's comments.

No Mob Veto -- A new defense organization

2008-12-05T20:11:00.002-07:00

I have received E-mails about a new religious defense organization called "No Mob Veto."

The Web site is http://www.nomobveto.org/

The organizers come from a variety of religious backgrounds and state that "despite our fundamental disagreements with one another, we announce today that we will stand shoulder to shoulder to defend any house of worship--Jewish, Christian, Hindu, whatever-- from violence, regardless of the cause that violence seeks to serve.

This is something you should definitely be aware of.

These are they who protested the Christmas lights

2008-11-30T17:19:00.003-07:00

When it is time to vote again or anytime we have our voices heard, let us remember that these are they who protested the Christmas lights.

The Mesa, Arizona Temple of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, through volunteers, working hundreds of hours, utilizing thousands of lights, each year presents a fabulous presentation of light and sound to celebrate the birth of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Each night various singing groups, including local school and church choirs, many non-LDS, participate in this annual traditional event. Tens of thousands of people, some by the bus load, come to the Mesa Temple to spend a few minutes lost in the wonder of the miracle of the lights signifying the miracle and light brought to our world by the Savior Jesus Christ.

You can get small idea of the grandeur of the lights and concert schedule from:

http://www.christmastemplelights.com/

However, the families, especially those with small children who love to see the manger scene, will have their visit marred this year by the protest of same-sex marriage activists. These anti-marriage protesters have marched in California and Utah and now Arizona, protesting the participation of the members of the LDS Church in the passage of Proposition 8 in California and Proposition 102 in Arizona. However, they are not just protesting the individual members' rights to freedom of religion, freedom of speech and their right to vote, they are protesting against all that is good, decent and traditional about marriage, families and the Christmas season. It is absolutely abhorrent that these people use the celebration of the birth of Christ as a platform for their own personal agenda of intolerance and hate.

As I said at the beginning, and as I will say again, and again, these are the people who protested the celebration of the birth of our Savior Jesus Christ, these are the people who oppose the very sacred nature of our religious observance. They are not looking for "civil rights," they are opposing all that is good, decent and sacred about marriage, the family and our religious beliefs as Christians.

Please help other right thinking Christians to hear this message.

You can find the news article about the protest at:

http://www.azcentral.com/community/mesa/articles/2008/11/28/20081128gaymarriage1128.html

Analysis of the philosophical and legal background of the gay-rights movement

2008-11-28T08:36:00.005-07:00

In previous posts I have noted that the discussion of same-sex marriage is largely a matter of mindless name calling. It is extremely difficult to find reasoned analysis based on classical philosophical principles. One such discussion was cited in my last post. The author has continued his analysis with reference to established rules of logic. The discussion points up the logical fallacies of the movement.

See http://quantumleap42.blogspot.com/2008/11/incomplete-definitions-and-logical.html

Unfortunately, the rank emotionalism of the same-sex marriage movement is not constrained by logical fallacies.

Another major aspect of the movement is the use of "buzz words," that is, phrases with currency in our society. One of the most overused, is claiming that the issues involve "civil rights." This term has vague, almost folklore meanings, as well as a reference to specific state and Federal laws. Since the common usage of the term extends to almost every conceivable situation where someone feels that there is a personal injustice, that use of the term is useless. The question is, whether, given the thousands of court rulings, the term has a legal meaning?

Since the concept of a civil right, pre-dates our present legal system, we need to see if there is an accepted definition of the term. One good definition is found at

http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/history/virtual/glossary.htm

Civil Rights: Are rights held by individuals and groups derived from the social contract - the common consent of society at large to the rules under which its members live. The term relates in particular to the ideas outlined by Rousseau in The Social Contract. Under this conception, civil rights derive from society rather than God or nature [see Human Rights, and Natural Rights] and can be changed. On the one hand this gives the state the power to deprive people of liberties they once had (e.g. the ability to drugs, or to drink alcohol), but also enables "progressive" political groups to argue for new "rights", for instance the "right to vote" or the "right to healthcare". Rights such as these cannot be derived from nature as they depend on particular (and not commonly achieved) degrees of social organization and wealth.

Not all comments on Proposition 8 are superficial

2008-11-27T08:18:00.002-07:00

One of the problems we saw with the news storm about Proposition 8 and the other Marriage Amendments was that the commentary was nearly always superficial and essentially name calling. Very infrequently someone makes a significant statement about the issues involved. If you have any interest in understanding these issues it is important to understand the background philosophical reasons for either supporting or opposing the concept of a marriage amendment.

One of the most significant commentaries can be found at

http://quantumleap42.blogspot.com/

Please take some time to read all of these recent posts. Perhaps we can begin to raise the level of discussion and address some of the real issues of our times.

California Supreme Court may issue controversial rulings

2008-11-26T15:19:00.003-07:00

Recent news coverage has indicated that a decision by the California Supreme Court in favor of overturning Proposition 8 may not be a foregone conclusion. At least one of the Judges has reversed her apparent position on the cases now pending challenging the passage of the Marriage Amendment.

To read an extensive commentary, including links to all of the pertinent news articles, go to:

http://selfevidenttruths-euripides.blogspot.com/2008/11/legal-experts-puzzled.html

LDS Church publishes resources on Proposition 8

2008-11-26T15:18:00.000-07:00

Church Public Affairs has published several statements and resources that will help Church members better understand the news media coverage and public reaction to California's Proposition 8.

Old line anti-Mormon activists taking advantage of Proposition 8

2008-11-23T09:47:00.002-07:00

There has been some more information on the old line anti-Mormons taking advantage of the sentiment attached to the vote on Proposition 8 in California. Under the guise of supporting gay-rights, the anti-Mormon contingent is actually trying to further their own negative agenda.

See the link at http://selfevidenttruths-euripides.blogspot.com/

The anti-Mormon activists apparent justify their lack of candor in identifying their true affiliation by the fact that they are opposing The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Gay-Rights Web site a front for Anti-Mormons

2008-11-22T18:50:00.002-07:00

There are some excellent articles which strongly indicate that some of the recent supposedly gay-rights activity is actually a front for blatantly anti-Mormon activists. For an analysis of one such Web site see:

http://selfevidenttruths-euripides.blogspot.com/ Self Evident Truths

There is a companion article from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints at:

http://newsroom.lds.org/ldsnewsroom/eng/commentary/care-for-the-flock

The LDS Church cites support

2008-11-22T12:54:00.003-07:00

In a recent press release The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints summarized a number of messages of support and outrage at the recent attacks by pro-gay groups. The articles cited are worth reading, even if the reader does not agree with the LDS church position. Here is the link to the press release:

http://newsroom.lds.org/ldsnewsroom/eng/news-releases-stories/measured-voices-provide-reason-support-amidst-proposition-8-reaction

Please read this very insightful commentary

2008-11-21T16:17:00.003-07:00

This is an excellent analysis of the anti-Proposition 8 and anti-LDS Church position. I should be read and disseminated.

http://www.uspoliticalscene.com/?p=108

Thanks.

You may not have noticed, these aren't the sixties

2008-11-15T20:35:00.002-07:00

I lived through the 60s and the 70s. I remember going to work in 1967, in South Phoenix and driving through drifts of tear gas and seeing stores boarded up from vandalism. During the time of the Civil Rights movements, the protests were aimed at the government and its leaders in an attempt to end racial seggregation. It is generally agreed that the Civil Rights movement began in 1954 with the Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education, holding that segregation in public schools was unconstitutional. The early years were marked by violence, including murder and kidnapping. The rioting continued off and on and erupted again in 1992 in Los Angeles. In all of that turmoil, it was always clear that the issue was the ability of Blacks to participate in the political processes of the United States. There are still parts of the United States that have a long way to go before there is true racial equality.

The current protests and vandalism aimed at The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints can in no way be characterized as civil rights demonstrations. First of all, we did not fight a Civil War so that people could enter into same-sex marriages. No one is being denied citizenship or the right to vote or being limited in any way in participating fully in the electorial process. The current protests are not directed at the government, but at a religious organization. Even before the California Supreme Court overruled the ban on same-sex marriage, domestic partners in California had virtually every right granted to married couples. Not one of those laws granting rights to domestic partners, is repealed by the passage of Proposition 8. In the case of the earlier racially motivated civil rights protests, the United States government could actually do something about the inequality and it did. There was major legislation in the Civil Rights Acts of 1968 and 1991. The protests against the passage of Proposition 8, however, involve no substantive rights at all.

Unlike the institution of marriage, slavery was never a fundamental and universal basis for society. Slavery was opposed on both moral and religious grounds long before the American Civil War. Church Ministers were some of the most active opponents to slavery. In fact, members of the LDS Church were driven from their homes in 1838 in Missouri under an extermination order for allegedly opposing slavery.

The current protests are motivated by a desire for vengeance. The LDS Church cannot change the law voted on by over 50% of the voters of California. The protesters are essentially trying to deny a majority their own Constitutional rights to peacefully participate in the election process. In effect, punishing the Church and its members for voting in an election and supporting a cause they believe in. There are no parallels with the Civil Rights movement. The protesters' use of the Civil Rights banner in their vindictive punishment of the LDS Church and its members is a mockery of the real Civil Rights movement. Ironically, a large majority of the Black population of California voted for Proposition 8. These same-sex marriage protesters desecrate the very movement they claim to support.

LDS Church responds to acts of terrorism

2008-11-14T18:35:00.002-07:00

In a statement, the First Presidency of the The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints said that since the Nov. 4 election, places of worship have been targeted with protests and vandalism.

"People of faith have been intimidated for simply exercising their democratic rights. These are not actions that are worthy of the democratic ideals of our nation," the statement said. "The end of a free and fair election should not be the beginning of a hostile response in America."

The LDS Church said it was keenly aware of the "differences of opinion on this difficult and sensitive manner," but the First Presidency expressed disappointment in what it has seen since Prop. 8 passed.

"We call upon those who have honest disagreements on this issue to urge restraint upon the extreme actions of a few that are further polarizing our communities and urge them to act in a spirit of mutual respect and civility towards each other," the statement said.

This message was issued in response to envelopes of a white powdery substance being sent to LDS Church headquarters and to LDS Temples.

See http://deseretnews.com/article/1,5143,705263061,00.html

If you express your position in a free and open election, apparently those who disagree with you are entitled to use terrorism to suppress your opinion?

The full statement can be found at:

http://www.newsroom.lds.org/ldsnewsroom/eng

In another article, an LDS Web site was attacked.

Scott Proctor of Meridian magazine said the site was hacked into early Nov. 5, and its home page was replaced with "horrible, explicit lesbians films placed all over the cover." Engineers took the site down immediately after the break-in was discovered, he said.

The company's Internet technology director said the electronic breach occurred in "a very elegant way. They had to have someone who really knew what they were doing to accomplish it the way they did it."

I don't remember any reports of picketing, vandalism, hacking or mailing of substances by LDS Church members. LDS temples in California, Salt Lake City and New York have been the subject of mass demonstrations over the faith's heavy involvement in the campaign to pass Proposition 8. More demonstrations are planned this weekend over marriage and gay rights — including a pair of demonstrations in Salt Lake City.

See http://deseretnews.com/article/1,5143,705263061,00.html

I am sure that there will be more to follow.

Fallout from Proposition 8 is national news

2008-11-13T20:16:00.002-07:00

Apparently passing the Marriage Amendments was only the beginning. As a trial attorney, this is what I expected to happen. A report in the Salt Lake Tribune entitled "Complaint: LDS Church underreported Prop 8 role" claims that:

"Californians Against Hate, an independent nonprofit organization committed to shining the spotlight on hefty donors to the Yes on Proposition 8 campaign, upped the ante against the LDS Church today. The group filed a complaint with California's Fair Political Practices Commission (FPPC), claiming The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints failed to report non-monetary contributions that helped pass the measure - one that defines marriage as between a man and a woman, issuing a huge blow to the movement for same-sex marriages."

"But LDS Church spokesman Scott Trotter issued a strong response this afternoon, saying the church "fully complied with the reporting requirements of the California Political Reform Act," relied on advice from experienced California counsel and made no violations when it came to reporting expenditures. In fact, he added in a written statement, the LDS Church "filed four reports with California authorities; these reports are a matter of public record. A further report will be filed on or before its due date, January 30, 2009. . . The so-called 'sworn complaint' filed by Fred Karger with California and Utah authorities has many errors and misstatements. Any investigation would confirm the Church's full compliance with applicable law."

See http://www.sltrib.com/faith/ci_10975443

It looks like full time work for a lot of attorneys for a long time. Meanwhile the protesters in the streets have spread as far as New York. An estimated 10,000 people protested outside the Temple of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints near Lincoln Center.

See http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,451446,00.html

"Mormon church spokesman Michael Otterson said that while he respected citizens' right to protest, he was "puzzled" and "disturbed" by the gathering given that the majority of California's voters approved the amendment."

"This was a very broad-based coalition that defended traditional marriage in a free and democratic election," Otterson said Wednesday before the rally's start, referring to Protestants, Catholics, evangelicals and Jews as well as Mormons. "It's a little disturbing to see these protesters singling out the Mormon church," he said. "What exactly are these people protesting?"

Ironically, New York courts have rejected lawsuits attempting to legalize same-sex marriages.

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Same-sex_marriage_in_New_York

Same-sex marriage proponents initially sought the legalization of same-sex marriage through New York's courts. Five separate suits were filed seeking same-sex marriage. At the trial level, four failed and one succeeded (though it was stayed and later reversed). At the intermediate appellate level, four failed and one was not decided. The cases were all rolled into one and heard by the New York Court of Appeals, the state's highest court, on May 31, 2006. On July 6, 2006 the Court of Appeals in Hernandez v. Robles decided that New York law does not permit same-sex marriage and that there is no constitutional right to same-sex marriage.

Catholic Bishops support LDS Church

2008-11-11T15:05:00.002-07:00

Attacks against The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints by opponents of Proposition 8 in California were decried by two Bishops of the Roman Catholic Church. Statements released by the LDS Church Newsroom are as follows:

http://www.newsroom.lds.org/ldsnewsroom/eng/news-releases-stories/catholic-bishops-decry-religious-bigotry-against-mormons

The statements emphasis the diversity of the proponents of each of the three Amendments passed in the General Election.

Punish the state?

2008-11-10T19:12:00.004-07:00

The recent political campaigns concerning Marriage Amendments didn't involve Utah voters, but the State of Utah will pay anyway. Gay activists are blaming the Church for the passage of the three Constitutional Amendments, especially in California. See the article in the The Arizona Republic for November 10, 2008.

http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/news/articles/2008/11/08/20081108MormonsGayMarriage1108.html

Think about it. If you don' t agree with my position, I will get everyone to boycott your whole state! Freedom of Speech and Freedom of Religion go out the window. Not content with protests aimed at the Temples of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, gay rights activist John Aravosis, an influential blogger in Washington, D.C. said, "They just took marriage away from 20,000 couples and made their children bastards," he said. "You don't do that and get away with it." He went on to say, "The main focus is going to be going after the Utah brand," he said. "At this point, honestly, we're going to destroy the Utah brand. It is a hate state."

The irony of this position is highlighted by a companion article in the Arizona Republic, published on November 8, 2008 from the Washington Post. The article claims that "seven in 10 African-Americans who went to the polls voted yes on Proposition 8, the ballot measure overruling a state Supreme Court judgment that legalized same-sex marriage..."

See http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/news/articles/2008/11/08/20081108BlacksGayMarriage1108.html

So now are the gay activists going to boycott Southern States that have large Black populations?

A new Utah War?

2008-11-09T07:46:00.003-07:00

In 1857, the President of the United States, James Buchanan, was persuaded by anti-Mormon sentiment and agitators to send the U.S. Army to "put down the rebellion in Utah." At the time, this was arguably the one of the largest, if not the largest military campaign undertaken by the United States in that period of our history. The War is also known as "Buchanan's Blunder" due to the fact that there was no rebellion. Nevertheless, the confrontation lasted from May, 1857 to July, 1858. Ironically, the General sent by Buchanan to put down the rebellion, Albert Sidney Johnston, became a General in Confederate Army and fought against the Union.

From current news articles, the United States apparently hasn't moved very far from that level of irrational anti-Mormon sentiment of the 1800s. With the recent passage, by three states, California, Arizona and Florida, of Marriage Amendments, mobs of Gay activists have attacked Mormon Temple sites in California and Utah and the government has stood by and allowed the attacks.

Here are several news stories of the confrontation.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2008-11-09-protests_N.htm?csp=34

http://www.deseretnews.com/article/1,5143,705261463,00.html

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-protests9-2008nov09,0,7790800.story

Significantly, the L.A. Times news article ignores the specific attacks on the Church at the Los Angeles Temple.

http://www.ireport.com/docs/DOC-141635

What is significant about these attacks is the fact that members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints comprise less than 2% of the population of California and 52% of the population voted in favor of the amendment. Further, the attacks include specific threats to kill members of the Church.

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=80220

The Church has responded with clear statements:

http://newsroom.lds.org/ldsnewsroom/eng/news-releases-stories/church-issues-statement-on-proposition-8-protest

If this type of mob activity was directed at Jews, Blacks or Muslims, or other similar minority, the outrage and outcry would have swept the country. But, because the target is The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, apparently we are still in the 1800s.

Not teenage vandals against Proposition 102

2008-10-26T16:33:00.003-07:00

During a discussion of the removal of a large number of signs in support of Proposition 102, a neighbor commented that he had seen an older male in a white SUV removing the signs from people's yards. The neighbor indicated that he jumped in his car and tried to get a license plate number, but the SUV driver realized he was being followed, and sped off. If you think that the removal of one type of sign from a whole street in a neighborhood is just teenage vandalism, then think again.

The news is buzzing with the story of major California corporations announcing huge donations to defeat Proposition 8. Sorry to say that Apple and Google are both prominently mentioned as opposing the Amendment. Just as with the idea that the sign removal is somehow a local prank, the idea that there are not huge vested interests promoting same-sex marriage is very, very naive. The situation reminds me of the conditions prevalent at the time of the destruction of the Nephites, where the people deliberately chose wrong doing. It is a sad commentary on our society, if we cannot muster a majority willing to support and preserve marriage.

If Arizona legalizes same-sex marriage, I, for one, will seriously consider moving out of the state.

Another video in support of Proposition 102

2008-10-26T08:06:00.002-07:00

This is really a video produced in support of Proposition 8 in California, but it certainly applies in Arizona.

http://link.brightcove.com/services/player/bcpid1815825713?bctid=1819819843

You may wish to send a link to this video out to your friends, neighbors and anyone else you can think of.

Preserving the Divine Institution of Marriage

2008-10-25T17:21:00.002-07:00

Please take the time to view the new Website "Preserving the Divine Institution of Marriage." Please make all of your friends and family aware of the Website and put links to the site where ever possible. It is absolutely important that this message have as wide a distribution as possible.

http://www.preservingmarriage.org/ Preserving the Divine Institution of Marriage