What the Spherical Model Is All About

If you’ve been reading just the past couple of months, you may think this blog is about politics, and mainly about election fraud. This time period is kind of an anomaly. The purpose of the blog, which I’ve been writing since 2011 (almost a decade) is to look at examples and ideas that come up in the news, or in life, to support the Spherical Model concepts.

So then you may wonder, What in the world is the Spherical Model? The Spherical Model is an alternative to the right/left line model for looking at political, economic, and social ideas. The goal is to reach the respective goals of freedom, prosperity, and civilization—while conversely getting far away from tyranny, poverty, and savagery.

The Spherical Model—trying to enlighten the world one blog post at a time.
Sunrise photo found on Wikipedia

There are principles involved in reaching those goals. There are long ways and short ways to cover the concepts: the website (long), the video (short). I usually start with the political sphere, because then we can dispel the ubiquitous but useless, even harmful, right/left model. So I’ll go ahead and do that first.

____________________

The Political World Is Round

Back in 2004, during our homeschooling decade, I was looking for a way to explain political ideas to my kids. And I began to ask questions, like: Is there a better way of looking at political ideas than right or left?

Because there is nothing innately conservative about the right or innately liberal about the left. In fact, the directional terms come from the seating arrangement of European parliaments, in which conservatives favored retaining the monarchy while liberals were in favor of people’s power.

So the typical line model we use to describe political ideas as right and left is just a seating arrangement. Yet we’ve come to think of this line as a spectrum.

Political conversations tend to describe the far ends as extreme, assuming there’s some virtue in being balanced in the middle. And we refer to our nation as center right—just a little more conservative than exactly center.

But what are the extremes? Do we assume communism or socialism at the extreme left, and fascism at the extreme right?

That can’t be right, because communism and fascism are both totalitarian statist tyrannies, just slightly different flavors. Nazi means “national socialist party” and the communist Soviet Union’s name was Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.

So if Nazism and communism aren’t diametric opposites, then what are the logical extremes?

How about total government control: tyranny; versus total lack of government control: anarchy?

That’s better. Then freedom is that perfect balance in the middle.

But wait; there’s a problem with this model too. It’s common in history for people suffering in anarchy to turn for relief to total government control—anything for security. But in this model, as a people move to the left, they have to pass through that balanced freedom section. You’d think that it would be very common for someone to stop and say, “Hey, this freedom is good. Let’s stop going leftward and stay here.” Yet that pretty much never happens. But going directly from chaos to state control is historically common.

Plus, notice that there’s not that much difference between the tyranny of the state and the tyranny of anarchy. Total government control means the state has all the power—the police, the military. The state can do what it wants, and the mere citizen is without any rights except what the state decides to grant.

Anarchy, on the other hand, means that power belongs to whoever is stronger and meaner than the next guy. If you threaten to beat people up (or kill them) if they don’t give you all their belongings, and you’re strong enough to mean it, then you have power. If someone else is stronger or better armed than you are, then you have to yield power to them.

In other words, anarchy, while less organized, is power in the hands of the strongest and best armed—just like a tyrannical government.

So maybe government tyranny and anarchic tyranny are pretty close to the same thing. To demonstrate this, I use a ribbon, labeled at the ends, and fold it in half, so it looks something like this:

Tyranny and freedom are really the opposite extremes.

Not bad. But it puts all those different kinds of tyrannies in the same location, and maybe there are differences.

A simple line doesn’t give us the dimensions we need.

So, how about if we use three dimensions—a sphere? If we draw a line at the equator, we can separate freedom (northern hemisphere) from tyranny (southern hemisphere). And then we can draw a longitudinal dividing line, with more local interests in the western hemisphere and larger interests—from state to nation, to international, in the eastern hemisphere.

I call this the Spherical Model.

Political Sphere

The Political Sphere of the Spherical Model

Down in the south, you can see that one side of tyranny is the chaos of anarchy, and the other side is the totalitarian control of government tyranny. It’s easy to get from one to the other—which is what much of world history has shown us. You can have communism, socialism, and Nazism as separate patches in their quartersphere, based on how much control they exert on their people (southern direction), or how far they plan to expand (toward the eastward extreme of world domination).

Up north in the freedom zone, location is mostly a matter of whose interest. Free people don’t yield power to a governing authority beyond the appropriate interest. Families make their own decisions about the care, upbringing, and education of their children. Communities on up to cities and counties decide on local law enforcement and protection needs. States (or provinces) deal with their particular infrastructure and laws. Only very limited powers are granted to a nation—as are enumerated in the US Constitution. And that sovereignty would never yield to an international power, but it would cooperate with other free sovereignties concerning international issues.

If we identify ideologies according to level of control exerted onto free people, and also their level of interest, we can identify location on the sphere. And that will tell us how close we are to thriving in the northern freedom zone.

 

Economic Sphere

The Economic Sphere of the Spherical Model

We can use the spherical model again for economic ideas: the north will be the prosperity of free enterprise, and the south will be the poverty of controlled economy. Those differences have direct relationships with political ideologies, so we can overlay the economic sphere right over the political sphere and see how things interrelate.

 

Social Sphere

The Social Sphere of the Spherical Model

And what about social ideologies? Again, we can use the same sphere; the north will be civilization, and the south will be savagery.

All three spheres could be superimposed on one another.

In all three overlaying spheres, the question becomes, not “Which is better, left of right?” But “What are the principles that lead to freedom, prosperity, and civilization?” There’s no too-far-north extreme; there’s only getting north enough and doing what it takes to stay there, generation after generation, without southward slipping.

Next time someone suggests you are (or an idea is) far-right extreme, check to see whether their position is more accurately some level of southern statist tyranny.

____________________________

There are places where I’ve written about the principles that get us to the northern hemisphere of the political, economic, and social spheres. They’re detailed in articles on the Spherical Model website. You can also read these:

·         “The Basic Principles” Jan. 2, 2017 

·         “What Is the Spherical Model” March 1, 2013 

·         “Economic Sphere Basics” March 4, 2013 

·         “Basics of the Civilization Sphere” March 6, 2013 

·         “Economic Principles for Volatile Times” Aug. 27, 2015 

 

Freedom

Today I’d like to add just a bit about identifying freedom. It seems to me that freedom, prosperity, and civilization are self-evidently good. But in our day that is becoming less true. And maybe it’s because of lack of understanding. So let’s define terms.

Here’s how I define freedom, using my 1980 Webster’s Dictionary, which avoids the last 40 years of redefining, combined with my words:

Freedom: absence of hindrance, restraint, confinement, repression. In the political sense, it is ownership of one’s own life and the production of wealth and property that results from one’s use of life and effort. A government should protect the freedoms of life, liberty, and property; it does not grant these things, but protects them from infringement. A government that takes life, liberty, or property unjustly—when the person has not unlawfully infringed on those rights of another person—that is a tyrannical government, which is the opposite of freedom.

Political freedom means living in a society in which our God-given rights are protected rather than infringed. These would include freedoms of belief and expression, such as freedom of religion and freedom of the press, as well as freedoms of property and security, such as freedom from illegal searches and seizures and the right to bear arms.

Is there a difference between freedom and liberty? Not much. They can be used as synonyms. But they have different antonyms: freedom vs. tyranny; liberty vs. slavery. Liberty has more to do with bodily autonomy, which is a component of freedom:

Liberty: synonym of freedom. It is ownership of one’s own life, to pursue as one chooses, and to enjoy the fruits of one’s efforts. No person or government or other entity owns a person or controls how the person pursues happiness.

There’s another term that is useful here: Agency. Sometimes we combine it with the word free, as in free agency. You’ve probably encountered it when sports professionals leave a team and become free agents, open to a contract with another team. That might be the limit of how you've used it. But it implies the ability to choose. So you can see that agency is related to liberty. A good working definition is

“the ability and privilege God gives us to choose and ‘to act for [ourselves] and not to be acted upon.’”[i]

While it’s related to freedom and liberty, it might also have its own antonym: coercion.

Paradise Lost illustration by Gustave Dore

There’s a story—the oldest story—behind the concept of agency, from before the world was made. It’s the story John Milton refers to in Paradise Lost. It’s in the Bible, in Jude; Revelation 12; Job 38; Isaiah 14; as well as some additional scriptures from my faith[ii]. I do my own retelling of that story in this post, so I won’t do retell it today.

But how does this relate to the Spherical Model? Coercion, the antithesis of agency, is a southern hemisphere concept. You can’t use coercion to get to the northern hemisphere. Coercion is used by people who either aren’t aware there is a northern hemisphere, and think the only options are between chaotic tyranny and statist tyranny [right/left]; or who crave to be the controllers and therefore prefer to stay in the southern hemisphere with tyranny, widespread poverty (except for the elite controllers), and savagery.

For the northern hemisphere, where you find prosperity and civilization, people have to choose to rule themselves. Never in history has a nonreligious or anti-religious people succeeded in self-rule. Individuals, a critical mass of them, have to choose to govern themselves. Government that is granted only limited powers—to protect the God-given rights of the self-governing people—is useful. But, as with fire, it requires careful control.

Freedom—i.e., agency, free of coercion—is required in order to choose goodness. Chosen goodness is required for prosperity to spread and grow. Chosen goodness is required for civilization to develop and spread.

Where there is coercion, there is savagery and misery. No religion or government or society that uses coercion can bring about the good found in the northern hemisphere. In fact, existence of coercion is a way to tell whether a way of thinking fits in the southern or northern hemisphere.

Note that “cancel culture,” the often nongovernmental shunning of people whose opinions differ from the enforcers, is coercion. This may not yet include murder, but it includes taking away reputation, livelihood, and ability to buy and sell and function in society. Sometimes it includes “doxing” (giving out personal information) combined with inciting mobs, which can become violent.

Coercion cannot change hearts and minds; it can only force people to hide their thoughts if they want to avoid the intolerance and brutality. Coercion is oppression; it is tyranny.

When you look at a political ideology, you can simplify the search for the good and true by looking at its closeness to freedom, liberty, ability to choose—or by how dangerously close it is to coercion, oppression, tyranny.

·         Do you get to believe what you choose to believe?

·         Do you get to choose your profession and way of life?

·         Do you get to speak your opinions freely?

·         Do you get to associate with people you choose to associate with?

·         Do you get to enjoy the fruits of your own labors?

It wouldn’t be very convincing to offer you a truthful opposite, such as:

·         Wouldn’t you rather believe what we the powerful tell you to believe?

·         Wouldn’t it be better for you if we the powerful decided what work you were allowed to do and for what pay?

·         Wouldn’t it be better if you were allowed to speak only the words that we the powerful told you were allowed?

·         Wouldn’t it be better if we the powerful decided whom you could associate with and under what circumstances?

·         Wouldn’t it be better for all of us if your earnings came directly to us the powerful, so we could dole them out to those we favor?

No, it has to be done more subtly than that:

·         Let’s stop others from believing things that we believe are just wrong—shut down churches, political groups, nonprofits, businesses, schools, or any individual or organization that does or says things we don’t like.

·         Let’s stop others from making a living in ways we don’t like—like using fossil fuels, or maybe just because the business owners believe things we don’t like.

·         Let’s cancel or coerce others to stop saying things that hurt us because they’re not what we believe—because their words are violence.

·         Let’s take money from the rich and give it to the poor, like us, who are more deserving.

You get the idea. To a person with some enlightenment, the “progressive” or “woke” or “socially just” way is pretty dark. It takes away individual choice. It oppresses individuals. It rules over people tyrannically. If that’s OK with you as long as they’re on your side, not only is that evil of you, but it’s also just a matter of time until the powers-that-be come after you for some perceived infraction.

It’s a continuation of that very old war—the war that pre-dates earth history. It’s a war between good and evil, between light and dark.

Freedom is upward, toward the light. Tyranny is downward, toward the dark.

Linus and Charlie Brown, screenshot from here

As Linus might say, “And that’s what The Spherical Model is all about, Charlie Brown.” In this smallest of all think tanks, I try to share ideas that I hope will help people make better decisions, that will lead toward personal as well as societal freedom, prosperity, and civilization.

---

[i] This definition comes from Robert D. Hales, “Agency: Essential to the Plan of Life,” speech at LDS General Conference, October 2010. [  https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2010/10/agency-essential-to-the-plan-of-life?lang=eng&query=Robert+D+Hales+agency#1-PD50021411_000_2020    ] He is quoting from the Book of Mormon, 2 Nephi 2:26. [   https://www.lds.org/scriptures/bofm/2-ne/2.26?lang=eng#25   ]

[ii] Doctrine and Covenants 29 https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/scriptures/dc-testament/dc/29?lang=eng  and 76 https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/scriptures/dc-testament/dc/76?lang=eng  ; Pearl of Great Price books of Moses https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/scriptures/pgp/moses/1?lang=eng  and Abraham. https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/scriptures/pgp/abr/1?lang=eng

Courage to Conserve Our Constitution

We’re in waiting mode. We might as well use this time for some pondering.

The next big date certain is January 6^th—well, actually, we’re also looking at January 5^th, which is the runoff election date for Georgia, where two senate races could determine the Senate majority. But on January 6^th, the Electoral College votes are opened, read, and counted. We’re used to thinking about that as a formality with an automatic outcome. But that has only been true for 75% of US presidential elections; the other 25% have been—otherwise. This one is going to be otherwise.

Seven states have sent two dueling slates of electors. How that is handled is, well, too complicated to predict. In a bit we’ll talk about the possibilities. But first I want to talk about a particular question—about what it is to be conservative.

Vice President Mike Pence
image found here

 

Conservatism Outside and Inside the Political Sphere

There’s an excellent article from Ted Noel at American Thinker, in which he’s going through some of the possibilities, and making a striking recommendation that we’ll talk about.  After he has laid out the situation, and just before offering a script for the Vice President to follow on January 6^th, he says this:

This leaves V.P. Pence with a dilemma. He is a gentleman who regards our governmental traditions with a degree of reverence, so he will be reluctant to take any bold action. But as an honorable man, faced with massive illegality, he must act to protect the law. 

When we talk about conservatism, outside of politics, it might be summarized as “a degree of reverence for traditions.” Conservatives are slow to make changes for the sake of change; they must know that the change will indeed be an improvement over the tried and true or even marginally successful but comfortable. Conservatives don’t throw babies out with bathwater. Again, speaking outside of politics, this may get conservatives the reputation of being stodgy, standing in the way of progress, or just being no fun. But also, they’re reliable, organized, logical, and deep thinking. A society may need new fresh ideas, but it also absolutely needs these reliable, careful deep thinkers.

When we talk about conservatism in the political sphere, and we’re in America, we are talking about conserving the Constitution. That is our basic law. It’s not, as Barbossa says of the code in Pirates of the Caribbean, “more what you’d call ‘guidelines’ than actual rules.” The Constitution isn’t a “living” document; it doesn’t change meaning based on who’s reading it or applying it on a given day. It doesn’t morph to meet societal whims. It isn’t intended to be “gray” or malleable. It is meant to stand firm as the law of the land.

That’s actually important. It might be going too far to say that voting was invented in America. But I think you can say that every country in the world that now chooses its leaders by vote rather than birthright does so because America set up a way for people to rule themselves. That means that even most of the tyrants of the world today hold fraudulent elections over which they control the outcome, so that they have a veneer of giving their people a choice.

 

What VP Pence Should Do

So what will VP Mike Pence do? Will his personal conservatism outweigh his political conservatism?

Earlier in his piece, Ted Noel phrases his January 6^th duties this way:

His task will be to fulfill his oath of office to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States and to ensure that the laws be faithfully executed. This is a high standard of performance, and V.P. Pence will have two choices.  He can roll over on "certified" electors, or he can uphold the law.

Noel is definitive on which Pence should do. I am also in favor of VP Pence protecting and defending the Constitution. I like Noel’s script for him. I’m not sure that is how things will play out. And, actually, no one is. Before we get into the complications, I’ll quote Noel one more time, on what is legally an election:

An election is a process of counting votes for candidates. Only valid, lawful votes may be counted. A valid lawful vote is:

•     Cast by an eligible, properly registered elector [voter] as prescribed by laws enacted by the state Legislature.

•     Cast in a timely manner, as prescribed by laws enacted by the state Legislature.

•     Cast in a proper form as prescribed by laws enacted by the state Legislature.

Any process that does not follow these rules is not an election.  Anything that proceeds from it cannot be regarded as having any lawful import.

Most commentators suggest that a process of collecting pieces of paper with marks on them is an election regardless of errors, omissions, and even deliberate malfeasance. This is a mistake. Imagine a golf tournament where every bad shot by one player gets a do-over, but the competing player has to follow USGA rules in detail. One player gets to drop freely out of hazards, but the other has to tackle every embedded ball as it lies. The result is a travesty.

The same thing applies to elections. If there are a handful of improper votes, we can suggest that there was in fact an election, perhaps tainted, but the election wasn't materially harmed. But when the people charged with managing the election decide to ignore the law, whatever process they supervise is not the process defined by the law. Therefore, it is not an election.

Noel says that the Vice President, as President of the Senate, has both the duty and supreme authority to determine whether to accept electors from a state. That is probably true. But it’s actually a difficult question. He leads us to articles he has referenced, written by Alexander Macris. Noel links to two. Macris himself links to an additional earlier one he wrote, plus a longish section of the US code in question. So, if you want to do enough reading to probably feel like an expert on the subject, here’s the list:

·         “It's for Mike Pence to Judge whether a Presidential Election Was Held at All” by Ted Noel, for American Thinker, Dec. 26, 2020. 

·         “If Chaos is a Ladder, America's Election Laws are an Elevator: Americans Don't Play by the Rules as Written and the Rules as Written Don't Make Any Sense” by Alexander Macris, Dec. 13, 2020. 

·         “Who Counts the Votes of the Presidential Electors?” by Alexander Macris, Dec. 7, 2020. 

·         “Can State Legislatures Appoint Presidential Electors? Yes they can, and don't let Lawrence Tribe persuade you otherwise” by Alexander Macris, Dec. 5, 2020. 

·         “State Legislatures Can’t Ignore the Popular Vote in Appointing Electors” by Lawrence Lessig and Jason Harrow for Lawfare, Nov. 6, 2020. 

·         3 USC 15: Counting Electoral Votes in Congress 

 

What the House and Senate Should Do

Another relatively likely scenario for January 6^th is that House and Senate members will object to particular electors, and then the bodies need to convene to discuss. The Ted Noel version says that won’t even be necessary with the VP plan. But, if the VP doesn’t toss out electors from states that shouldn’t have certified their electors, based on fraudulent elections, then the next step is for the protests of electors to happen.

Rep. Mo Brooks has announced his intention, and several dozen House members have announced their plans to join him. There must be at least one Senator to join in the protest. I suggested a letter to send them, in my December 22^nd post. 

LifeSite has a link where you have an easy way to contact your US Rep and both Senators with a message asking them to join in the protest of fraudulent electors. You can use LifeSite’s brief message or exchange it with one of your own.

 

Other News

Sidney Powell’s Report

Table of Contents page of Sidney Powell's Report
provided by Zenger News

Sidney Powell put out a 270-page document detailing election fraud, including evidence of overseas interference. The table of contents can give you an idea of what is contained. You can read the entire document here. 

The MSM narrative has been that there is no voter fraud, and there is rarely voter fraud, and there may have been some voter fraud but not enough to affect the outcome, and Sidney Powell has provided no evidence, and all the cases are being tossed out. And so forth. But the evidence is getting out there. What I began talking about in the days immediately after the election was, at that time, considered conspiracy theory; now it’s a collection of thousands of affidavits, videos, testimonies, and collected documents such as the Navarro Report, which is also included in this Sidney Powell report.

There is so much evidence of voter fraud that changed the outcomes in at least six states that anyone who says otherwise is a partisan liar or purposely ignorant. The real question now is what will be done about it. One thing is for certain: the American people cannot let this much fraud be shrugged off with a “We’ll just work harder to get out the vote next time.”

The opposition is now talking about the confusing procedures on January 6^th as an attempted coup by President Trump. Note that, whenever they accuse, it is because that is what they are doing. But there is some truth in the fact that a large segment of the American people will be upset either way. That’s why it’s important to show the fraud, so those who have been depending on MSM sources will come to realize that Biden was never elected, and to show support as people who actually voted for President Trump—which is a clear majority.

To that end, President Trump has invited supporters to come to the capitol on January 6^th for a peaceful protest. I think he needs to see that the people are behind him. Also, the legislators need to see that support, and there needs to be some visual display that even the MSM can’t hide or minimize.

I don’t know how big that gathering is going to be, but I have been seeing discussion on our Tea Party email list about people getting together to travel there for it. That’s about 1430 miles, 21 hours in a car. But there are people willing and excited to do that. (I’m not able to make the trip, but those who do, I hope you share a lot of photos of the historic day.)

 

Nashville Explosion

On Christmas day there was an RV that exploded in front of an AT&T facility in Nashville. There was an announcement ahead of time telling people to evacuate the area. So far it appears the only life lost was to the owner of the RV, a man named Anthony Quinn Warner. Motive is still unknown, although the man may have had issues with 5G. But the explosion did little damage to the building, and certainly not much to the 5G industry. It did temporarily take out communications in the surrounding area.

There are speculations. First was this one, on Facebook, saying it had to do with the audit of the Dominion voting machines. I’ve come across it from a couple of friends. One linked to a John Murphy, in Florida, a common enough name that I couldn’t identify him, so I’m not sure if it was initiated by him or simply passed along. Anyway, maybe. But there’s no corroborating info that any such machines were in the building and damaged. I’ll need to see more.

Last night Joshua Philipp went through the various possible motivations in his Crossroads Q&A.  He said at this point, early on, we don’t know enough, and we probably ought to be skeptical about any narratives coming out of the media. He offers pure analysis, just thinking through what is known, and suggests it is likely one of the following:

·         A crazy person who had something against AT&T, but wasn’t crazy enough to actually want to hurt anybody—which is kind of odd for an actual crazy person.

·         Somebody meant to destroy something at that facility, although it doesn’t look like it destroyed enough of the building to do that.

·         It was meant as a probe, to try to see what the protocols of reaction would be to an incident like that, shutting off communications, or destroying a communications facility—possibly ahead of a planned future incident.

So many things these days start out looking like conspiracy theories but turn out to be true that, who knows? It’s difficult to get to the truth. Nevertheless, we keep looking for truth, and trying to be wise and discerning in that search.

 

As for whatever is about to happen next week, I’m continuing to pray for our President to be guided, supported, and protected to do God’s will for our nation. And I’m praying for Vice President Pence, that he will have both wisdom and courage in the task before him. And I’m praying for members of Congress to have the fortitude to step forward and protect our nation against tyranny.

 

Additional Sources

Besides the above, you might want to watch/listen to the following additional sources:

·         X22Report.com  This website contains the originals, in audio and video versions. Some of these, particularly Ep. 2350, I’ve referenced before, in its YouTube form. It was the channel PinkAudioX, but this week it is GreenAudioX. Depending on format, or versions, the titles change. But there have been several the last couple of days, in each of which he goes over the Ted Noel piece in American Thinker, among other news:

o   “Jan 6th Comes into Focus, Patriots Prepare To Make Their Move” Ep. 2364, Dec. 28, 2020. 

o   “Patriots at the Ready” GREENAudioX Ep#2363B, Dec. 28, 2020.    He quotes the Ted Noel piece. He predicts that the Durham report with be actual indictments.

o   “Countermeasures in Place” GREENAudioX Ep#2363F, Dec. 28, 2020 (original Dec. 27).  He quotes Ted Noel piece, mentions Sidney Powell’s 270-page document.

o   “States Panic, Impossible to Clean” GREENAudioX Ep#2350F, Dec. 26, 2020. This is an older one, reposted as new.

·         “Ep. 41: Election Lawsuits; Lockdown Lawsuits; Coomer Defamation; Pardon Power & MORE!” Viva & Barnes, Dec. 27, 2020. 

·         “The FULL Snowden Interview” John Stossel, Dec. 21, 2020. 

 

Christmas Stories

The Christmas Card

My grandchildren, Little Political Spheres 1 and 2, and the camels
playing the wise men, for this year's Christmas card

Every year for about 35 years I have made our Christmas card, folded so I can print our letter on the back. I like getting people’s Christmas letters, but I also like to have something to hang on the bannister with the other cards. So, if other people feel that way, this was a solution to that.

I always do something depicting part of the Christmas story: the manger scene, the shepherds, the wise men, the angels. And I’ve used my grandchildren in photos, sized to fit the front of the card, since the birth of our first granddaughter eleven years ago. Fortunately, the kids are still cooperating. In fact, they are much easier to wrangle at 11 and 8 than they were when they were littler.

This year we learned that a coworker of son Political Sphere had a ranch with a lot of animals. They raise emus and alpacas for profit, but they also have donkeys, dogs, dozens of cats—and two camels.  So we arranged for a photo shoot. It’s a two-hour drive for me, and it was a rainy day, but we were running out of days, so we went on faith. The rain let up just enough late afternoon that we could quickly do the job. Much thanks to the good people who let us come there, and so willingly helped us out.

The large camel, Annie, was very well behaved and played her part well. The younger camel, Drago, was a bit more challenging. We had to keep trying different arrangements, including some photos without him. Then we thought to bring him behind. His reins are being managed by the daughter of the ranch family, ducking down behind our kids. And it turned out that the very last photo I took in that arrangement was the one we used. Other than a bit of color saturation and lighting focus, I didn’t have to do any photo editing.

So I’m sharing that for your Christmas enjoyment.

The Music

One other way I celebrate Christmas is with music. About a decade and a half ago I had the opportunity to lead a choir that combined the congregations in our stake (a geographical area) with a Catholic church located across the street from our main building. That annual combined choir tradition has been going on for something like 27 years now, ever since our building was built and the Catholics invited us to join them. Sometime after my era they got an extraordinary musician, Debbie Siebert, to lead our stake, and also a new music director at the Catholic church, who have both been doing it for over a decade now.

About five years ago, a new stake was created, which separated us from that stake, and we’ve missed singing with the combined choir. But this year, because of COVID-19, there had to be something other than the traditional large choir meeting together. Debbie arranged to do a virtual choir number. This took a huge amount of advance planning, and also a huge amount of work for a video editor. But it also made it so she could invite some of us alumni to participate.

Well ahead of Thanksgiving we were given the music, marked with director’s notes, plus audio tracks of our part with accompaniment and all parts with accompaniment (the two directors did all the voices for those tracks). So we learned the music on our own, recorded ourselves singing it—we had earphones to hear our track, so only our voice alone was recorded—and then we sent that in for editing.

The song is an arrangement of “The First Noel,” one we’ve done before, so not too difficult to learn. However, it has several sections done in unison. That sounds easy—and maybe it is for higher voices, but for lower voices it is often difficult.

I used to sing mezzo, even though I’ve always been a real alto, but I had a very good range, because of training. In high school I didn’t move from soprano to alto until my last semester, when I did the alto solo for a mass we were performing. Singing, at least for me, with allergies and probably just some physical limits to my instrument, is something of a physical workout, especially for the higher notes. But it used to be that I sang frequently enough, with choir or solo performances coming up enough that I kept myself in shape. But we haven’t met for choir since last spring.

I found myself needing to cram my vocal conditioning for the Christmas season into just a couple of weeks. Some days the vocal freedom would allow me to do the high notes (which are not all that high), and other days I got nothing. Or a screech. Too much tension. And all the years of training and practice just didn’t seem to get me there. Besides the allergies and need for daily training, it might just be age; there’s probably a good reason the Tabernacle Choir retires singers at age 60.

We tried scheduling our time to record a full week ahead of our deadline, but I couldn’t do it that day. I just got something that sounded like laryngitis, even though I wasn’t sick. Sleep, food, exercise—everything makes a difference, and I had done something wrong—or didn’t do something I needed to. One day that final week, I did have a voice—but that didn’t coincide with time Mr. Spherical Model could help record me. Then we were within two days of our deadline, so I went ahead and tried. I had to just go silent on the upper half octave. The lower notes sounded pretty good all along, but I just couldn’t get anything higher than an A. It would do, but it felt kind of awful. Like I had failed.

That was Friday. On Saturday morning I woke up clear, and went upstairs to have Mr. Spherical Model record me before I ate or did anything else that would make me lose it. And I did it. I’m glad I’m mixed in with a whole choir of singers, instead of having that performance be a solo, but I think it was a good contribution.

"2020 Virtual Christmas Choir, The First Noel, sung by combined choirs of two faiths"
I am bottom row, second from left in this screenshot

Little vocal miracles like that have been happening to me since junior high. So many times I had to sing while ill, unable to control my voice on my own, but with God’s help, I was able to do the performance. There have also been a few when I sang with adequate training and nothing in the way, but the stage fright caused by so many out-of-control moments have still required that I have to trust God to allow the beautiful sound to come. In fact, this has happened so often that singing is literally a way I come to feel in touch with God.

There’s this part in the movie Chariots of Fire when Eric Liddell, a preacher who is also a runner, says something like, “I believe God made me for a purpose, but He also made me fast. And when I run, I feel His pleasure.”

That is how I feel about singing. I am accomplished, although not a great performer. But sometimes the sound and ability show such beauty, I can feel His pleasure. Music, and singing especially, brings together body and spirit, which I think is what we have this body to learn to do. Music gives me a sample of God’s joy, which we should plan to experience everlastingly in Heaven.

I hope you enjoy this video, which was made with much love and care. Merry Christmas!

I'm unable to embed, so click on the link below the screenshot, or here, to watch.    

Resistance Is Necessary

“See, boys, everybody thinks they want freedom. But what they really want is order. And when they realize that, they’re going to welcome us back with open arms.”—from The Mandalorian, Season 2, Ep. 7

That’s what the Empire official says to the Mandalorian and his companion, who are disguised as delivery drivers among the guy’s troops. This is what he says just before getting blasted, which felt rather satisfying—because it’s what the enemy says. To us today.

Characters in The Mandalorian, Season 2, Ep. 7
The officer I quoted in on the left.
image found here

Here are a couple more quotes for the day:

“There’s no such thing as party anymore. There’s just insanity and patriots.”—Tommy Vext, vocalist of Bad Wolves, talking with Glenn Beck on radio/podcast, Dec. 18, 2020. 

 

“You have political partisanship….This isn’t them saying fraud didn’t take place; this is them saying they don’t care that fraud took place.”—Joshua Philipp, Crossroads, December 21, 2020. 

 

What We Should Do

Ezra Taft Benson, giving the address
"Our Divine Constitution," Oct. 1987
screenshot from here

This week I reread an old talk by Ezra Taft Benson, from October 1987, called “Our Divine Constitution,” which I thought might be good advice for our day. For those who need a reminder, Ezra Taft Benson was once the US Secretary of Agriculture, during the Eisenhower administration. And I quote him here fairly often  for his address “The Proper Role of Government,” and also his “The Case for the Free Market.” He also was the president and prophet of my church, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, during my early adulthood, 1985 to 1994.

There is an older prophecy he mentions in this 1987 talk that members of my Church are familiar with, and probably thinking about these days, quoting our Church founder, Joseph Smith:

Even this nation will be on the very verge of crumbling to pieces and tumbling to the ground, and when the Constitution is upon the brink of ruin, this people will be the staff upon which the nation shall lean, and they shall bear the Constitution away from the very verge of destruction.[i]

Later in the talk, President Benson mentions more broadly who “this people” who save the day will be:

I have faith that the Constitution will be saved as prophesied by Joseph Smith. It will be saved by the righteous citizens of this nation who love and cherish freedom. It will be saved by enlightened members of this Church—among others—men and women who understand and abide the principles of the Constitution.

Today, while we are on the precipice, this is encouraging. I see many Constitution-loving people around me. Last week, at the county GOP leadership meeting, where we chose a new chair, we met in a church (a big one where we could spread out), and prayed at the beginning and end of the meeting. On Saturday, at the first local Tea Party meeting we’ve held since the pandemic shut down last spring, the room was full of people searching for what action to take, to preserve our freedoms. It is heartening.

President Benson, back in 1987, mentioned four things we ought to be doing:

“First and foremost, we must be righteous.” He quotes John Adams:

“Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”[ii]

“Second, we must learn the principles of the Constitution in the tradition of the Founding Fathers.” He asks:

Have we read The Federalist papers? Are we reading the Constitution and pondering it? Are we aware of its principles? Are we abiding by these principles and teaching them to others? Could we defend the Constitution? Can we recognize when a law is constitutionally unsound? Do we know what the prophets have said about the Constitution and the threats to it?

And he quotes Thomas Jefferson:

“If a nation expects to be ignorant and free… it expects what never was and never will be”[iii]

“Third, we must become involved in civic affairs to see that we are properly represented.” Here he reminds us that we should seek representatives who are good, wise, and honest.

“Fourth, we must make our influence felt by our vote, our letters, our teaching, and our advice.” He says it is both our right and our duty to speak up and make our influence felt.

All of this gave me a boost. So often I, and people like me, feel small and inconsequential, with these big things happening around us—happening to us. How can our small efforts have any effect? But I do try to live a righteous life—keeping the Ten Commandments, to honor God, life, family, truth, and private property. And to be just and kind and live a life of integrity. And I have made a study of the Constitution an integral part of my life. (Read my recent series of posts on the Constitution, Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV.) I am involved in civic affairs. And I am doing what I can see to do to persuade others to truth, to help them value our Constitution as well. As small as all of these things are, President Benson’s words make me feel powerful enough—when added to all the others doing the same, and multiplied by God’s power.

When God rescues us, after all we can do, it often feels like the last possible moment. It requires faith. This may be the case right now. Our country is facing an attempted coup, through election fraud, by people who do not value the rule of law or the Constitution, but value only their own power over us.

I had thought once the fraud came out, the perpetrators would be held accountable, and the actual election outcome would be known. We’re seeing overwhelming evidence, but the courts are refusing to see it. Hearings in various states have revealed much of the fraud to the public, despite media censorship, but the state legislatures did not hold sessions to change out electors. They did, however, encourage dueling electors. That puts the burden on Congress, when they meet for the reading of the Elector College votes on January 6^th. They can object to the certified Electors in those states with challenges, which should not have been certified.

But will the legislators do their duty? I don’t know. It may take our voices to get them to do that.

Rep. Mo Brooks, Alabama, plans to protest Electors
Washington Examiner photo found here

Letter to Legislators

I’m going to suggest a letter meant to influence, and you can use it as a pattern if you like. This is concerning the January 6th certification of electors, to influence our legislators to stand up in protest against the Democratic electors in those states where we know the voter fraud was so rampant that it changed the outcome.

Here’s the body of my letter to Senator Ted Cruz, which I’ll adapt for Senator John Cornyn and Representative Dan Crenshaw. Feel free to use it as a template for your own:

The evidence is overwhelming that there was rampant voter fraud this election, particularly in the states of Pennsylvania, Georgia, Wisconsin, Michigan, Arizona, and Nevada, where we know the outcome was changed by this fraud.

I know that you’re aware of the evidence—despite the refusal of courts to do their duty and view the evidence, and despite the censorship of mainstream and social media. You were aware of the Texas case, which laid out many of the instances of fraud and procedural lawbreaking. And I expect you’ve also read the Navarro report, which details much of it.

This lawlessness is far beyond what the American people can accept. We cannot let this blatant disregard for law and for the will of the American people, be met with a shrug and an “Oh, Well. We’ll just work harder next time.” If there is no accountability for these illegal acts now, we will not have a next time for a free and fair election.

In addition, those who have conspired and acted to thwart the will of the American people will act unconstitutionally in the future. They do not regard our Constitution as law. They plan to implement tyranny over us. The censorship we’ve already experienced is just a taste. This is an attempted coup. Many of the wrongdoers are guilty of treason, not just some slap-on-the-wrist type of technical illegality.

Fortunately, our founders provided a process for handling an illegal election, and this will not be the first time it must be used. Since we are without recourse through the courts, and state legislatures have not met to replace their electors—but since the six states listed, plus New Mexico, have put forward alternative slates of electors, it is now your constitutional duty, on January 6^th, to prevent the presidency from being stolen: protest the Democrat electors—each elector individually, and/or each state slate, whichever will be most advantageous to our cause—for those seven states with dueling electors.

Know that the American people, in great numbers and I believe a vast majority, voted to retain our freedoms. This is much more than a contest between two presidential candidates; it is a contest between our Constitutional Republic and imposed tyranny by a corrupt minority.

The people chose our Constitutional Republic, but we need you to represent us in that choice. We will cheer you on that day and all subsequent days that we are able to keep our country.

 

This looks ever more like the last minute. But if not, there will be more. There is talk of appointing a Special Counsel, which would not be subject to courts granting standing or not at their whim. And at any point that wrongdoing is found, it can be acted on—if the people will it—up to and even after inauguration day. 

When Obama won in what we assumed was a reasonably fair election, we accepted him as our president. When Trump won in 2016 by enough votes that any attempts to steal the election failed, the enemies of our Constitution did not accept the result. They worked continuously to oust him. This election is an ultimate attempt; it is a coup. They may claim that it is Trump they hate, but what they really hate is the US Constitution; the American people who support the Constitution; and the freedom, prosperity, and civilization that result from following its principles.

This is a battle between good and evil. And we have to keep fighting that battle, in whatever way we can, up until God returns to decisively win that war.

 

Sources for Your Further Research

·         “Our Divine Constitution” by Ezra Taft Benson, October General Conference 1987, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. 

·         “Trump: ‘We’re Getting Closer and Closer’ to Successful Challenge to Election Results” by Zachary Stieber for The Epoch Times, Dec. 21, 2020. 

·         “Live Q&A: Trump Says Gaining Ground to Challenge 2020 Election Results” Crossroads with Joshua Philipp, Dec. 21, 2020. 

·         “'This Country's Fabric Is Being Torn Apart'—Exclusive Interview With L. Lin Wood” Crossroads with Joshua Philipp, Dec. 21, 2020. 

·         “Mo Brooks and 18 Republicans send letter to Congress demanding election fraud hearings before electoral vote count” by Andrew Mark Miller for The Washington Examiner, Dec. 17, 2020. 

·         “Rep.-elect Cawthorn Joins Group Planning to Contest Election on Jan. 6” by Zachary Stieber for The Epoch Times, Dec. 21, 2020. 

·         “SolarWinds Cyber Attack, Peter Navarro Election Irregularity Report, Congress' Election Objections” Robert F. Gruler for R&R Law Group, Dec. 18, 2020. 

·         “YouTube Removes Trump Lawyer’s Opening Statement from Senate Committee Hearing” by Jack Phillips for The Epoch Times, Dec. 20, 2020. 

·         “WATCH: Sen. Judiciary Cmte. Hears Testimony about IG report on FBI, DOJ and email probe” PBS News Hour, Dec.18, 2020. 

·         “Biden: The Manchurian President” by Michael P. Tremoglie for The Houston Courant, Dec. 17, 2020. 

·         “Tommy Vext Breaks Down BLM Ownership & Says Racism Is Manufactured” June 15, 2020. 

·         “Why I Will Not Accept Joe Biden as President” by Newt Gingrich for The Washington Times, Dec. 21, 2020. 

·         “IMF Proposes Punishing Dissidents by Lowering Their Credit Score if They Go to Bad Websites” by Shane Trejo for Big League Economics, Dec. 18, 2020. 

·         “DOCUMENT: Forget the War on Christmas, YOU Are the Next Target” Glenn Beck staff, Dec. 17, 2020. 

o   “Restoring Constitutional Secularism and Patriotic Pluralism in the White House” document from Secular Democrats of America, Nov. 2020.     

---

[i] Quoting Joseph Smith, July 19, 1840, as recorded by Martha Jane Knowlton Coray; ms. in Church Historian’s Office, Salt Lake City.

[ii] The Works of John Adams, ed. C. F. Adams, Boston: Little, Brown Co., 1851, 4:31.

[iii] Letter to Colonel Charles Yancey, 6 Jan. 1816.