The Time Has Finally Come

    The United States Constitution says that every four years we shall hold an election for our nation.  I know there are plenty of people that just wish this whole election thing was just over and done with.  Many people are so tired of seeing the ads on t.v., hearing the political pundits yell about the candidates and watching the candidates tell lies about their opponent (or even tell the truth about their opponent).

     My feeling on this whole process boils down to this:  I'm proud to be an American, where at least, I know I'm free.  Yeah, there are way too many commercials about the candidates.  Yeah, it does get annoying listening to each side rip apart the other side.  Yeah, they do spend way too much time and money running for a position that pays a lot less than what they spend to get the job.  But, at least we do still have the freedom to spout off against our leadership.  We still have the freedom to assemble to support our favorite candidate.  We still have the freedom wear the buttons and litter our cars with bumper stickers.  For all of that, I thank God every day for our freedoms.  This may not be a perfect country or system, but it's still the greatest country and the most free system in the world.

     I watch the news daily.  I take in as much political junk as I can from both sides of the aisle.  I read the posts on facebook from my political friends.  It has become a sport for me much like what football is to a Sunday afternoon couch potato.  Sometimes it's more than I can stomach.  For those who are very close to me you know how big that stomach truly is.  I feel I am as informed as a voter can really be.

     Much has been said about the disastrous mess that President Obama inherited from George W. Bush.  It's true.  We have gone through some of the worst economic times of most of our lives.  This supposedly has been the worst economic conditions since the Great Depression of the 1930's.  Housing has been in the dumper.  Unemployment has been sky high.  Gas prices are at their highest levels ever.  We have more than $16 Trillion in debt.  Not to mention the non-economic conditions we find ourselves in fighting  2 wars.  Iran is on the brink of creating what could be a nuclear Holocaust.  Syria is killing its own citizens.  The Muslim Brotherhood and the Arab Spring have consumed northern Africa.

     I want to spend a little bit of time discussing each of these points.  Regardless of what most people think, Big Banks and George W. Bush did not cause the housing market melt down.  What truly caused that is a very deep convoluted act that is too complex to get into by the name of Frank-Dodd caused the burst of the housing bubble because it forced Big Banks to give sub-prime loans to people who could never afford to pay the loans back.  Foreclosures exploded and a glut of housing flooded the market driving down prices.  As for Unemployment...When GWB was president it topped out at 5.5% and the media told us the world was coming to an end.  We were told that by spending 1 TRILLION Dollars of future generationS' money then the unemployment rate would never get above 8%.  Now we have gone through more than 40 months of the unemployment rate not getting below 8%.  And if you would use the true U6 number (which is again way to complicated to explain here) it would still be closer to 15%.  As for gas prices; on inauguration day 2009 gas prices averaged $1.89 per gallon.  Now they are nearly $4 per gallon.  As for the wars, we have pulled out of Iraq and Osama Bin Laden is dead, but that does not mean terrorism no longer exists.

     The Arab Spring inspired by and taken over by the Muslim Brotherhood was suppose to mean democracy had finally blossomed in the Arab world.  Assad in Syria continues to kill his own people and now we have a huge scandal still brewing with an Ambassador killed in Bengazi.  None of these situations have been addressed.  In fact cover up after cover up has come about.  We seem to be cow towing to the Arab world.  Our president was caught on a live mic telling a Russian leader he had to get through 1 last election and then he would have more flexibility.  What does he mean by that?  What isn't he willing to tell the American people he is going to do?  What assistance will he actually give to Iran to help them obliterate Israel?

     Yes, President Obama inherited quite a mess, but he has also made matters much worse.  I do believe he volunteered for this very position.  If he didn't want it or didn't think he could actually do anything about making it better, he should not have run for president in the first place.  if he gets re-elected who will he blame for the mess he inherited this time around?

     After all the bickering.  After all the annoying ads.  After all the debates and the candidates explaining what they can do for America,  The time has finally come.  The time to elect a man who has experience in solving problems, creating jobs and dealing with a opposite party Congress has come.  The time has come to elect the next President of the United States...Mitt Romney.

Voice of Truth

Oh what I would do to have the kind of strength to stand before a giant. Surrounded by a thousand warriors. Shaking in their armor.  Never thinking I'd have the strength to stay.  The voice of truth tells me a different story.  The voice of truth says do not be afraid.  This lyric may sound familiar to many of you.  This is precisely what happened on Wednesday August 1, 2012 all over America.  There was a mighty voice of freedom and if you looked real close you could see that they were surrounded by a thousand or more warriors standing up for the voice of truth.

     There has been much said about the tiff between the CEO of Chick-fil-a and the gay activist of the world.  Just because the leader of what happens to be a primarily Christian company came out and made a stance for traditional marriage.  A unity of 1 man and 1 woman in holy matrimony.  The mayors of Chicago, Boston and Washington D.C. have come out and said they would not want Chick-fi-a franchises in their towns due to the CEO's stance on traditional marriage.  Since when does any level of government get to dictate anything due to one's practicing of his freedom of speech?  And how can a simple mayor say that his proclamation is the opinion of the majority of the people in his city?

     I was thrilled to see the turn out on Chick-fil-a Appreciation Day.  There may have been a couple of reasons for people showing up and supporting this franchise.  Some may have come to just stand up for our freedom of speech.  Others however,  showed up because they also believe in Traditional Marriage.  What ever the reasoning, I'm thrilled to see people stand up for their rights as Americans and for what is right as Christians.

     I am wondering if, by chance, the same fervency will appear at the polls come November?  That again, will be a time to speak the voice of truth.  I hope that we can be surrounded by a thousand warriors.  They may be shaking in their armor, but if they have the strength to stay, stand up for what's right, and vote for the next leader of this great nation of ours, then the voice of truth made be heard again very loudly.  We as Christians need to pray for just that occurrence and aspire to inspire before we expire.

Venture Socialism is what the government practices when it confiscates our money to contribute to companies like Solyndra and buy companies like GM.

When businessmen like Mitt Romney make those investments it's with their own money.

The only way the federal government even has money is by taking it from people who earn it through taxation.

When businessmen risk money it's their own.  When the government does it in the Venture Socialism they are risking the money they took from others.  Not only do they steal from this generations but now they have taken trillions from the next generations.

Venture Capitalists participate in the free market.  Venture Socialists rob from others to re=distribute to others still and in the process pay back cronies who have supported them in the past.  Venture Capitalists invest in the future of the employees and the investors.  Venture Socialist invest in their own future by paying back the people who got them into power in the first place.

Venture socialism must be stopped.
Venture Capitalists create jobs.
Mitt Romney was a Venture Capitalist...he created jobs.
BHO is a Venture Socialist who redistributes wealth and pays back cronies not caring about employees.

Venture Capital vs. Venture Socialism

     There has been much said recently about what Mitt Romney did while he was working in the business world.  He ran a company called Bain Capital. Bain capital worked with and took over failing companies to see if they could turn them around.  It could be said that we have seen recent examples of that from the U.S. Government.  I would like to explain the difference between the two.
   
     A venture, simply put, is an opportunity that when invested in it and nurtured could turn into a profitable entity.  People invest in opportunities every day in a free market society. To me that's what makes the business world go around.

     Mitt Romney worked for and even ran the venture capital company called Bain Capital.  The sole purpose of this business was to seek out other businesses that had become weak or were close to failing.  They would check out these businesses to see if they felt they had potential with enough money invested into it and the proper nurturing like a new management team or at least fresh ideas being pumped into it so it could be turned around well enough to begin making a profit again.  Bain would invest in businesses of all sizes and either change personnel or work with the existing personnel  to get it turned around.  We are still talking about a human element so some times they failed and some times they would succeed.

     Fortunately for Bain and Romney, the success rate for their company was much greater than its failure rate.  They took over more companies that would eventually turn a profit and in turn employ more workers than those that failed and had to let workers go.  In this sense you could say that the decisions that Romney made at Bain Capital allowed him to create jobs.  In other words more people were working at these taken over businesses than what would have been had the business been allowed to fail on its own.

     Businessmen like Mitt Romney and others invested their own money or money that they had raised from other people in the business world to invest in or buy out other companies.  Once they made that investment obviously they wanted the business they invested in to succeed, make a profit and pay back the other investors with a dividend.  If that investment turned a profit, that set of investors would be willing to invest in yet another business and do the whole process over again.  The more businesses succeeded the more workers could be employed at each of these businesses.  Some businesses, however would fail along the way and the people working at those businesses would lose their job.  In a sense is was a gamble, a risk that investors were willing to take.  One of the first axioms learned in any business school is the greater the risk the greater the return.  Any time you have humans making decisions you still run a risk of making mistakes and failures do occur.

     One thing we have seen in the past few years is something that has rarely ever been tried in American history.  Where it has been tried in other countries it has failed.  That is a government take over or bail out of a private company.  Since the economy's slide in 2007, The united States government has "invested" in more companies probably more than any other time in its history.  The largest take over would have to be buying out General Motors.  But there have been many other attempts from the federal government to "invest" in other companies.  One that was prominent in the news was the investment in a solar company called Solyndra.  This is what I call Venture Socialism.

     In a free market society, individuals or at least companies owned by individuals make a financial investment into a product or service that they hope will make money so they can do several things:  Make more investment to make more money, provide a needed product or service to the market and employ workers.  Note the main goal of a company is not to employ people, it's to make money.  In the case of General Motors and Solyndra it was not individual people or even a business that was run by individuals that made an investment, it was the United States government that made the investment.  The problem here is that the U.S. government does not by itself have any money.  The only way the U.S. government has any money is if it takes it from individuals who actually go out and earn money.

     Just as before in the Venture Capital investment of Bain Capital and similar companies, there was a risk taken by investing into these companies, such as GM or Solydra.  Again the greater the risk, hopefully the greater the reward.  There are two problems with this Socialist Venture though.  One is that Solyndra had already collapsed before our government dumped a half a billion dollars down the Solyndra toilet.  Where did that money go?  It paid back contributors to the Democrat party.  The other problem with this scenario is that Obama and his minions confiscated the money they put at risk from hard working tax payers.  When a private sector businessman invest money and loses it's okay, because it's his money.  When the federal government does anything with money whether it's build a road or make a stupid investment in a company like Solyndra, it's using other people's money that they confiscated in taxes.  Any Socialist Venture is committing a crime because the money risked is some one else's money.  It needs to be stopped.

Gay Marriage or Unemployment: That is concern

     We went through the 2008 presidential campaign with one candidate espousing Hope & Change.  How is that Working for you?  That guy is back in the race again this year.  Even though it hasn't been officially decided, we also have another new guy in the presidential race for 2012.  No new slogan for this guy has been put out there yet.  In my opinion we really don't need another slogan if the results are going to be like the last guy who won with a slogan.

     I'm not 100% sold on the guy we have running against the guy with the hopey, changey slogan.  But I am sold on the fact that we can't afford 4 more years of this same guy in the White House.

  When Barack Husein Obama took the oath of office for the Presidency of the USA, he made history.  He was the first African-American sworn in as President of the United States.  That's a great accomplishment!  I'm glad our country has evolved.  As far as I'm concerned as soon as he was sworn in that part of history is done.  At that same time gas had an average retail price nation wide was $1.87. Unemployment was nearly 7%.  Since then we have seen gas explode to a nation wide average of nearly $4 per gallon and unemployment sky rocketed to nearly 10% even with a massive stimulus bill that was passed because it would keep unemployment under 8%.

     Here we are less than 6 months away from yet another presidential election.  Rather than concentrating on that high jobless rate, those high gas prices, and the fact that this president has created a situation that has placed more people on food stamps than any other time in American history; we are clamoring for this president's opinion on gay marriage.  What difference does it make whether BHO approves of gay marriage or not. That is other than the fact that he is the first President to make such a bold statement.  Were the gays going to vote for the other guy had BHO not came out and said he was for gay marriage?  I don't think so!  But his timing on that issue was just in time for a big Hollywood fund raiser.

     Unfortunately the so-called "alternative media"  fell for his diversionary tactic.  The  right wing conspirators fell right in line with his plan by paying attention to that social issue rather than hammering on the poor economy.  It's still the economy, stupid.

     I literally cannot afford 4 more years of this guy as president.  It is next to impossible for me to even do my job.  With the gas prices as high as they are for as long as they have been, I have a hard time filling my tank to go out to do my job.  With the gas prices being as high as they are, no one has any extra money to buy the things in a convenience store that I sell.
 
      Because the unemployment rate is so high, there are so many people who cannot afford to spend money on any extras.  Those extras are what fuels my pay check.  Because so many people have been out of work for so long the job market has shrunk substantially.  In past recessions the unemployment rate went down because after a while a substantial number of people actually went back to work.  Now, the only reason the unemployment rate goes down is because the job market has shrunk substantially.  Many jobs are just flat out not available any more.  There are nearly 88 million people out of work.  Let's look at it in simpler terms.  Say at 1 time there were 15 jobs in the whole market, and 3 people needed jobs.   As the economy worsens and places decide they will not be hiring as many people.  There are now 10 jobs in the whole economy and 3 still need jobs.  The unemployment rate actually goes down because there are fewer jobs in the market.  There are no more people working than before but the percentage of workers needed for the jobs available has gone down.  If the numbers weren't monkeyed with the real unemployment rate would actually be closer to 14% .  For what ever reason the media wants this guy to look good so they don't report bad news.  If gas prices had sustained themselves for this long and the unemployment rate was this high when W was in office the media would be screaming.

     Romney is not my ideal candidate for president.  He does have a business background.  He does have a success story behind him for saving the Olympics.  We need some sort of hope for our nation to continue to be the strongest nation on this earth.  That also means that a change has to occur come November or we will become a more Socialized nation.  I can easily see this guy over turning the rest of the Constitution and say it's too much of an emergency.  They would have to suspend any future elections and he would declare himself leader for life.  We cannot let this happen.  We need the ideals of our founding fathers to hold true.  We need to take back our country and adhere to the Judeo-Christian values our country was founded on.  We need to reduce taxes and regulations so there is not such a strangle hold on businesses.  We need to throw out the current healthcare law and forget about any idea of a government run healthcare system.  Let's get American back to work and not worry about what this or any other president has to say about gay marriage.

Happy Birthday, Mom!

Well I'm writing this for all who follow my blog, because at 80 years of age my mom does not have internet. All of us, have or at least did have a mom. so this is a tribute to my mom but please take it as a tribute to all the moms out there.

February 25, 1932 my mom was born in Lincoln, IL. All of my growing up years my brother and I teased her about how old she was. That she was really born in Postville, because Lincoln wasn't around yet. That she really helped Betsy Ross sow the first flag. The truth is she isn't, even at 80, she is not old...in fact she is timeless.

Like many women of her era and maybe even some today, my mom was a jack of all trades as she stayed at home to raise 3 kids. She was a cook, nurse, care taker, chauffeur, seamstress, maid, waitress, teacher and arbitrator. Sometimes she was judge and jury. She took care of us kids when we were sick and took care of our animals when we were too sick or maybe even too lazy to take care of them. I was raised on a small farm so not only did we have the traditional pets of cats and dogs, but we also had pigs and calves that had to be tended to as well.

People would ask if she worked and she would modestly say no she just stayed at home. But staying at home meant that she probably worked harder than most did outside of the home. Not only did she do all the above things, but there was always laundry to be done, meals to be cooked, cleaning up after meals and she also mowed the grass and worked in the garden as well. I guess you could also throw in accountant or at least bookkeeper since she was also the one who paid all the bills, too.

I wonder what the value of a mom like that would be? If you tallied up the pay for each of those careers mentioned above, I'm sure the pay would be well over $2 million dollars a year. What ever that amount would be still would not be enough. The value of a mom who would do all of that and more is absolutely priceless.

Even after doing all of these tasks, chores and acts of love, after being a stay at home mom, she still had the time to go with us on school field trips. Whenever there was a need at school for a chaperon, there she was first to volunteer. After all, she is just a stay at home mom.

I can remember many times as a kid when I had to stay home from school because I was sick. that could have been with an ear ache, sore throat, stomach flu or any other ailments that hit kids or at least this kid. My mom would always be there for me to nurse me back to health. She would make dry toast and tea or chicken noodle soup or keep a constant supply of tissues or Pepto Bismol available for whatever was ailing me. Many of you know that when I was a senior in high school, I was in a very severe accident that nearly made me lose my right leg. My dad stayed with me in the hospital the first 10 days I was there; never leaving my bedside. But it was my mom who would drive to the hospital every morning. That was a 45 minute trip on a clear day, but this was in the fall and winter so who knows how bad the roads were. Every evening she would have to leave the hospital early enough to be able to get home to do chores. That would be to feed and water the pigs and the calves plus the ones my mom called the wild animals, the cats and dogs. It pained her to a.)have to see me in the hospital, b.) have to leave me behind in the hospital and c.) go home to take care of all of those family chores. But she never complained.

She never complained about anything. It was as if she was a gift from God to us. It was as if the gift from God to her was the privilege it was to have the opportunity to do all of that. She spent all of her time taking care. Taking care of 3 kids as were growing up. Taking care of my ailing dad the last 2 years of his life. Now it's her turn to take care of herself. she spent all of my growing up years as Wonder Woman. As she has aged she has now become the Bionic Woman due to her new hips and knees and now with stainless steel rods in her back.

Well I said all of this as a tribute to her. I guess it's really about time that she had some recognition given to her for all the wonderful things she has been and done for us kids. Now it's time to say a BIG THANK YOU to her. I guess the best way, the only way that she would want me to really do that is by saying. I LOVE YOU. MOM. Happy 80th Birthday to you.

Teens, The Bible and The Rite of Passage

     The teenage years.  A time of fun, change and challenges.  It seems like a life time ago for me and now I will soon have a teenager of my own who will  be 16 years old.  Did you know that there were at least 29 prominent teenagers discussed in the Bible?  Many of them I never really thought of as being teenagers because of the feats of bravery they performed were that of an adult nature.  These feats seemed to automatically give them a rite of passage into adulthood.  The Jewish faith celebrates a rite of passage at or around the age of 13 known as a bat mitzvah for a girl and a bah mitzvah for a boy that declares officially that the child has become an adult.  If you are not of the Jewish faith, how do you know when you become a man?  Is it when you are able to drive?  When you have your first drink of alcohol, when you get married?  How do you know that you are a man if no one has ever declared you as one?

     I never had the luxury or the honor of going through any kind of an official ceremony that declared me to be a man.  I would suspect that would be the case for many of us.  That holds nothing bad against my dad or any of the parents of previous generations.  I think it was just assumed that you knew.  My father's generation didn't have the tools needed to truly raise kids.  They did the best they could with what they had to work with, but I really think they had to leave a lot to chance or pure luck.  I think they tried to teach the principles in life that were taught to them like hard work, loyalty and even generosity, but they didn't really pass on everything that it took so that in the end a boy truly knew when he became a man.  This to me is the biggest explanation for why society sees boys doing the things that they do so they can prove to others and more importantly to themselves that they are a man.  Boys end up getting into trouble or at a very minimum try things that they shouldn't just because they are trying to prove that they have become a man.  Boys drink, smoke, have sex, shoot guns, drive fast, etc. all to prove to others and themselves that they can, that they have become a man.

     There are at least 29 teens of prominence in the Bible.  Some of them did great and wonderful things in their teen age years that projected them into even more prominence in adulthood.  Some of these examples include Joseph, David, Mary, Samuel and even Moses.  Their stories are discussed especially in the book of Genesis in the Bible others even have entire books in the Bible describing their great feats.  Some of those teens were exemplified in the stories just because they were so young like Daniel, Shadrach, Meschach, and Abednego.  Their stories can be read about in the book of Daniel in the Bible.  And there were others that were mentioned and never really discussed again because of their life changing or even ending such as in the story of Cain and Abel.  Most of these stories talk about how these and the others not listed here that were equally great performed acts of heroism or bravery. I think it's important for kids today to examine the feats the teens of the Bible performed.  to give them the inspiration needed to go out and do the same sorts of things in today's society.  My goal is to write a book detailing these feats to let today's kids know what they could be doing with their lives to project themselves into a bright future.  A future destined to please God and to develop the characteristics that God looks for so they can be declared to be an adult. 

     T.D, Jakes is one of the more prominent African-American pastors, speaker and author in the U.S. today.  He tells a story of how a father's duty in raising a son is very similar to archery.  The bow and the quiver are the tools he uses to train up his son in the way he should go.  The boy is the arrow that the archer projects toward the target of life.  Once he hits the target he is a man. Robert Lewis is an author and pastor who wrote a book called Raising a Modern Day Knight.  This book was my reference and guide to developing steps towards a rite of passage for my sons into adulthood.  Lewis' book lays out steps for a father to take in teaching his son Biblical principles so that he grows up to be a true man of God.  The book culminates in going through an actual ceremony in three or four phases of life so the father can ultimately declare his son to be a true man of God, an official adult.  Another Pastor, Dr. Charles (Chuck) Stecker is the founder of A Chosen Generation and has his own version of a rite of passage.  This is a group passage for teens of a church to be welcomed into adulthood of the local church.  This passage allows them to be included into even the decision-making process of a church.  This assures them of a continued participation in church life.  Many kids are "forced" to go to church but when they get older are given a choice as to whether or not they do go.  Many of them do not choose to go in their teen years and that's when they get into trouble.  By having a church body welcome the teens into the church family of adults they tend to feel part of the church more.   

     I am in the planning stages of putting the next step in the rite of passage for Jake together because he will turn 16 in October.  There is nothing legalistic about any of this as to exactly when you  need to do this with your sons.  These are merely guidelines.  As he gets older I will put even more responsibility on him, but along with that comes more freedom.  It's up to me to lay the groundwork and set the boundaries.  I will be more forceful in the challenges I set before him to put him on a path to be a true man of God.  The final phases will be geared more towards setting goals and talking to him about real life issues to prepare him for the real life ahead of him.  When it is all over and I can truly declare him a man, Lewis describes in his book a ceremony of presenting the new man with the full armor of God.  I intend on presenting my sons with actual armor and explain to them what each piece means as to what the Bible says about putting on the full armor of God.  This will prepare him to ward off the arrows and attacks in life.  As a knight I will officially declare to him he is a man.

     If any one would like any more of the details involved with my specific process.,please feel free to ask and I would be thrilled to discuss it with you.  If you want o read more about this information Lewis and Stecker's books are available on line in in Christian book stores.  I just feel it is so important to let our kids know what is expected from them and to declare that they are men.  If they know who they are in God's eyes maybe they won't have to do the things others think they have to do to try to prove that they are a man.