Archive for the ‘Values’ Category

In Rose, Michigan, a 6th grade student is groomed for two years then raped by a 40-year-old pedofile teacher at the public school. The teacher is then tried and convicted by a court of law and sentenced to 15-30 years. The School Board, the local Lutheran Church and the faculty stand in support of the pedofile.

In Ontario, Canada, a mother with an autistic son moves into a new neighborhood and receives an anonymous letter in her mailbox suggesting she euthanize her son and donate “whatever non-retarded body parts he has” to science because the sounds the child makes when playing outside are “not normal” and disturbing. The letter further states that no one is ever going to employ or love him. The surrounding community is silent.

Al Jazeera, a purported “news” channel owned and operated by the nation of Qatar, began cable broadcast today into 49 million homes in the United States. Not only is this the network that promoted and broadcast tapes by Osama bin Laden, but Qatar is currently the outcast Arab nation that is supporting the Muslim Brotherhood’s agenda and atrocities in Egypt, much to the public dismay of its Arab neighbors who deem the Brotherhood a terrorist organization. What the Arab world deems terrorist, the United States welcome into its homes and families.

If Adolf Hitler knew one thing it was how reluctant people are to take a stand against what they know in their hearts to be wrong. Behavior can defy reason and decency and yet we humans, all too readily and in the end tragically, remain mute for fear of reprisal.

There is historical instruction on this issue. And its not WWII but rather the biblical Book of Esther. Esther, a Jew, is married to the King of Persia who is unaware of her heritage. When the King’s Ambassador and confidant Haman attempts to eliminate all the Jews, Esther’s uncle Mordechai tells her to go to the King and plead for intervention to reverse the decree. Esther, fearing for her own life should she reveal her Judaism to the King, at first declines Mordechai’s request. In reply, Mordechai tells her that if she seeks her own personal safety at the expense of her People, the Jews will die but inevitably so shall Esther. His admonition: Your silence will cost you the very thing you seek it to protect.

Whether the issue is a pedofile teacher, a cruel and cowardly neighbor lacking all compassion, or the media outlet of our sworn enemy being invited into our children’s minds, silence in opposition will cost you the protections and peace you hope it will bring.

What has happened to us? When did we lose not only our sense of humor but also our freedom of speech? A rodeo clown in Missouri dons a mask of the President and seeks to “get chased down” by a bull and its cause for a  federal investigation not to mention a lifetime ban on the clown?

In my lifetime, I cannot recall a President who was not spoofed, mocked, made fun of or characterized in a mask by some person or another. Yet I cannot recall it becoming an event of such monumental proportions nor resulting in the firing of an individual from his professional line of work.

Yet, here we are having reached either the absurd but inevitable end result of political correctness or, worse, the “fundamental transformation” of the role of President into the role of a “god” who cannot be “blasphemed.”

I am fairly certain that just as with Oprah’s recent mis-characterization of what she experienced in Switzerland, calling a communications malfunction  a personal and racial affront, so too has the P.C. mentality turned political satire (however base) into a personal attack on the first black President simply because he is black.

I think not.

The spoof was much more likely a political statement by someone who disagrees with the President’s policies and found a way to express that in the humorous context of what is his life’s work.

As Thomas Jefferson said, we are duty bound as citizens of the United States to “question with boldness even the existence of God.” Surely, given that directive, it should come as no surprise, nor insult, for someone to question or even mock with boldness, the President of the United States.

Think this one over carefully. What’s happening here isn’t about P.C., race, or politics. It’s about the silencing of free speech. The rodeo clown’s. Then, soon to follow, yours and mine.

It’s been done before and eloquently memorialized before.

“First they came for the communists,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a communist.

Then they came for the socialists,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a socialist.

Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a Jew.

Then they came for the Catholics,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a Catholic.

Then they came for me,
and there was no one left to speak for me.”

History repeats itself.  Speak up before there is no one to speak for you.

 

 

It didn’t work in Detroit when the progressive “Model City” plan was implemented. It didn’t work when U.S. banks stopped requiring credit thresholds before issuing new mortgages. It didn’t work when Congress rammed through the Affordable Care Act (a/k/a Obamacare) and it will not work as The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) now tries to cure diversity “shortfalls” in our neighborhoods by imposing mandatory diversity regulations.

Social engineering and redistribution simply do not work.

The “Model City” plan in Detroit bankrupted the city and brought the 4^th largest city in the United States in 1970 to its knees by 2013. By turning on the spigots of home loans absent verified credit, banks brought the housing market to its knees and precipitated the stock market crash of 2008. Obamacare, promised not to be a tax then upheld by the Supreme Court as a tax now seems to be underfunded, impossible to implement and creating more problems across the economy that it could ever have solved. It may bring the economy of the nation to its knees. HUD will, if it has its way, be a significant nail in the coffin of Liberty by regulating who gets to live where based upon subjective and arbitrary rules and regulations rather than effort and achievement.

Social engineering and redistribution of wealth and services are the cornerstones of this Administration. They are the tools of transformation by which Progressives in both political parties seek to ever-enlarge a centralized government while simultaneously diminishing the individual.

If you think you can do nothing you are wrong. Find like-minded people and join together to voice, in whatever ways are peaceful and law abiding, your refusal to go quietly into the night.

Robert F. Kennedy said: “Each time a person stands up for an idea, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, (s)he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, those ripples build a current that can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.”

Whether I have an aversion to herd mentality or simply have a thought process that weighs facts differently than most I cannot say. What I can say is that just as I recently wrote how I never saw the wisdom in the adulation of Oprah, so too have I never understood it in relation to Hillary Clinton. Now, as she ratchets up the Hilary for 2016 onslaught, I can hear the hoofs of the herd begin their run toward the White House. Should it turn out to be a stampede, I’d caution those participants to realize that as with all excesses there will be unintended collateral damage.

In this case, however, should she actually become President I fear the damage will be the demise of our already mutilated Republic.

Can we be so hungry, or blind, in our rush to elect the first woman President that we will ignore a lifetime and very public display of deception, immorality, and sheer lust for power? Do we think that any woman of the desired gender will fill the bill simply because of that gender? Did any black, regardless of experience, fill the bill and meet our expectations of the first black President?  Did he cure the racial divide or stoke its fires? As I look around at the current state of things the answers to these questions are obvious and disturbing.

How can we actually be contemplating, no make that eager, to return to the White House a couple known and shown to have an insatiable appetite for power and a total disregard for both ethics and morality? If nothing else, Bill’s obfuscation while President and under oath (“It depends on what the definition of ‘is’ is”) and Hillary’s Benghazi cover-up and inhumanity while Secretary of State and under oath (“What difference at this point does it make?”) should be all the red flags any thinking person needs to run not with the herd towards the White House but as far away from it in the opposite direction as possible.

But I said “thinking” person…didn’t I?

No one enjoys feeling like a broken record. It’s especially frustrating when the urge to inform is overwhelming and the reception is, at best, lukewarm. I am certain Paul Revere felt like a broken record as he blazed through New England announcing “The British are coming!” However, what differs from Colonial times is that those of us who are currently awake and concerned enough to perceive imminent danger are ringing a bell whose sound is falling upon deaf ears.

I have been writing you for over two years about the inevitable harm to our way of life, particularly our personal freedoms and free enterprise system, that will result from our government’s deceitfulness, corruption, negligence and sheer incompetence. It’s not about Republicans or Democrats. It’s about the lust for power regardless of party affiliation. We are way beyond politics now. We are into survival.

What humankind in general, and Americans in particular, shrinks from accepting is personal responsibility for creating the brink at which we now teeter. We have arrived at a government out of control, forcing upon us rules and regulations that defy our founding documents as well as our present will, because we have been too self-indulgent and momentarily satisfied to stand for what is right rather than acquiesce to what is expedient.

I have written about history’s pattern of enslavement and how we choose to remain blind to its teachings. I have written about power versus force and where true power is found. I have written about personal responsibility and the hell that follows its willful abdication. I am not alone. There are other voices, other “riders ringing the bell,” who also grow weary and disillusioned by your silence and inaction.

You and I are each but one voice. But one voice has changed history time and time again for better and for worse. One voice has joined with many voices time and time again to change history for better or for worse. So whether it is your lone voice speaking loud and clear with a firm determination to be heard, or your voice joined with other like-minded individuals to unite in a chorus of humanity’s best, it matters not.

What matters is that those of us who grow weary of ringing the bell, but who will not cease to do so, hear and are refreshed by the sound of an approaching army of voices who say, yet again, to the corrupt and oppressive powers that be, “Give me liberty or give me death.”

I never understood the fascination with Oprah Winfrey. Not ever. I was always perplexed by why she became the go-to source for so many women (and a fair amount of men) on what to read, what to wear, whom to emulate, and the list goes on. She became a cultural icon… but for a culture that was dying from lack of standards, principles and values. Now, with the release of the movie “The Butler” and her marketing efforts to promote it, she has revealed herself to be devoid of decency and at ease with re-writing history to serve a political agenda.

By equating the horrific torture and murder of Emmett Till with Trayvon’s Martin’s death, I can only conclude she will say absolutely anything, regardless of its veracity, in order to get ratings and attention for herself and her commercial ventures.

We are living in tenuous times when up is down and deceit is deliberately sold us as truth. There is bad news and good news. Which do you prefer first?

Well, in the absence of your vote, allow me to choose.

The bad news is that any individual who does not think for themselves and verify, to whatever extent possible, the facts of what we are being told is abdicating their individuality and humanity in lieu of becoming one of the many in a national herd of sheep.

The good news is that there is still time, albeit ever decreasing, to take back the reins of personal power and responsibility in order to demand that those who have failed to uphold and protect the Nation as is their job, be removed and replaced by others who value integrity and liberty.

We must hurry. The Middle East is crumbling. Tensions with Russia are escalating. Our government oscillates between incompetence and full-blown deceit.

If we are to break the patterns of history which have repeatedly ended in enslavement of the many by the few under such preconditions, then those of us whose eyes are open and hearts are committed to a higher calling must now stand and be heard.

Are you following the herd or in search of the truth? If it be truth, what are you doing about it?

We The People  do nothing regardless of how deceitful, corrupt or perverse our government, through its elected officials, has become.

We The People  do nothing as all the deceit fuels our separation from one another.

We The People  do nothing as Truth is called lie and vice versa.

We The People  do nothing while our instincts warn us that the abyss is near.

We The People  do nothing but act like slaves even while our individual faiths teach us that we are created free and in the image of divinity.

We The People do nothing but allow our children and their children to be burdened with irreparable harm.

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.

Exactly Which People are we?

Maybe it’s the combined, long-term effects of the water, traffic, noise, pace and general rudeness that has finally taken its toll on the residents of one of the largest cities in the world. With 47% of its inhabitants supportive of Anthony Weiner staying in the Mayoral race (a percentage determined by polling after his most recent mea culpa) I can only conclude that the cause is some form of collective brain damage. After all, French sociologist Emile Durkheim introduced the term “collective consciousness” so why not collective brain damage?

Only an intellectually challenged (or morally bankrupt) individual would seek to empower someone as depraved and deceitful as Anthony Weiner by giving him carte blanche over the 16^th largest economy in the world…not to mention unfettered power over the women who live and work there.

Years ago, while practicing law, I had a female client who had been physically and emotionally abused by her husband for years. He refused to reasonably settle the case, taking the same bullying approach to my efforts as he was used to doing in the marriage. So, I tried the case.  After extensive testimony by my client, and lengthy cross-examination of the husband, the judge wrote an opinion that began with the words, “Husband is an abuser, a liar and a manipulative individual who lacks any semblance of conscience.”

Allow me to run with that.

Anthony Weiner is a serial liar, sex addict, sexual predator, and ego-maniac who lacks a conscience. Should New Yorkers actually elect him Mayor, it will say more about their own depravity and abandonment of common decency than it could ever say about him.  In that case, they and their city will be irretrievably lost.

 

In the run-up to the New York City Mayoral Democrat primary, former disgraced Congressman Anthony Weiner is now leading his opponent, City Council Speaker Christine Quinn. The implications of Mr. Weiner’s success at resurrecting himself from sex-addict to Mayoral candidate lead me to a disturbing conclusion regarding New York Democrats…and I fear the majority of Americans as well.

We have given up caring about ethics, morality and the truth.

Anthony Weiner is symptomatic of the diseases of apathy and abdication of personal responsibility that we, as a culture, suffer from. Some might even say diseases from which we are close to death.

I am a cynical optimist. I question everything, have a tendency to see the flaw in most situations, yet retain an underlying and unwavering faith in the power of the individual to overcome or transform the darkest moments of existence. I have always been this way and yet, recently, I am having difficulty holding on to faith in my countrymen as a whole.

We’ve allowed ourselves to be lied to about Obamacare, the Arab Spring, Benghazi, the NSA, drone strikes, immigration reform, and a seemingly endless list of other issues and we DO NOT CARE. We certainly do not care enough to demand a change in the policies and politicians who continue to perpetuate these falsehoods and encroachments upon our individual liberties and rights. Hilary Clinton for President in 2016? Really? Can you say “Banghazi, Huma Abedin, Anthony Weiner and Hilary Clinton” with a straight face?

Which is why I say Anthony Weiner is a symptom. He lied to the American people when he led a witch hunt and boycott against Goldline and talk-radio personality Glenn Beck; he lied when he denied sexting; he knowingly manufactured a false story about his Twitter account having been hacked, and he mocked his marriage vows and disgraced himself and his wife when he sexted and lied to cover it up. Yet, in no time, New Yorkers are seriously, even eagerly, willing to consider him as a viable Mayoral candidate despite all his deceit and apparent lack of conscience.

We are at the edge of a cultural abyss. It will not take much to push us over. It will, however, take much to pull us back. The question remains whether or not there are enough of us who care enough to risk what must be risked, say what must be said, and do what must be done.

If the answer is not “Yes” then I fear for our continued existence as a free people as well as the fate of all humanity.

Perhaps two of the most frequently posed questions about the reluctance, even failure, of German Jews to stand and fight against Hitler’s onslaught is “Why didn’t they do anything? Why didn’t they fight back?” Over the past 70+ years many theories have been postulated in response to that inquiry. Yesterday, in Great Britain, I believe we witnessed the answer.

As an evil Muslim terrorist brutally, viciously, and without conscience hacked to death and then nearly beheaded an innocent young man in broad daylight, onlookers stood by and watched. Not one man in the crowd lifted a finger or raised a voice to either stop the slaughter or even try and take down the assailant. The onlookers might just as well have been thought to be watching a passing parade.

Slavery is a slippery slope. While physical enslavement can come upon someone by a single act (such as capture or seizure of the means of defense a/k/a/ “gun control”), psychological enslavement is a more subtle and prolonged process. Most often, it is achieved by manipulation of the truth and implementation of fear through threats or physical pain. Slowly, over time and given the right conditions, even the strongest of individuals is susceptible to relinquishing autonomy of thought. Once that occurs, submission follows.

Terrorists and political elites have been using manipulation and fear to enslave us for some time now. One might argue its been occurring intermittently for as long as recorded human history. However, with the advent of modern technological advances, and simultaneous removal of all things spiritual from our lives, it has reached a dangerous tipping point. Humanity is on the verge of psychological enslavement. It will not be necessary to physically enslave us once this becomes complete.

In Great Britain, people watched because the unthinkable and inhumane is hard to process. People watched because terror is becoming a way of life. People watched because in the face of evil it isn’t uncommon to become immobilized. People didn’t do anything because they feared for their own safety. These are the same reasons given in attempts to analyze the non-action of so many Jews in Nazi Germany.

But there’s a glitch. One woman in Great Britain DID act and speak.

A mother of two, who was a passenger on a bus moving past the horrific scene, disembarked after seeing all the blood. She thought an accident had occurred. When she realized what was happening, she approached the terrorist and asked him if he had done this and what was it that he wanted. When later interviewed and asked why she took the risk, she said it was because of her faith. There were children standing by and she thought better she be harmed than one of them.

The presence of God knows no fear.

This is the 11^th hour.  This is the hour to exercise your autonomy. This is the hour to find your voice. This is the hour to demand accountability from the few who are misusing power to enslave the many. We have been cooperative and complacent for far too long. To not push back now is to irretrievably abdicate our birthrights of Freedom and Free Will.