Don’t Be on That Side

Advice for the New Year

Here’s a key to understanding what’s happening in the world: the side that is about controlling others is the wrong side. Be on the other side, the one about freedom and responsibility.

A secondary clue is, the side that is obscuring the truth, stifling speech, or outright lying is the wrong side. Be on the other side, the one about truth and transparency.

A third clue is, the side that is inciting fear and helplessness is the wrong side. Be on the side of courage and resourcefulness.

A really big clue is when you see incitement of fear, combined with lying and censorship, in order to assert control over others, that's the wrong side. Be on the good side.

What can you do to be on the good side?

Speak truth. Strengthen family. Pay attention and think clearly. Treat others fairly. Have courage. Trust God.

 

Stories I’m Looking at as We Begin the New Year

Bill Gates Shows Which Side He’s On

In an interview on Al Jazeera (clip shown in this Viva Frei video), Bill Gates is commenting on preparing for the next pandemic. He says, 

Governments are there to protect us. And so, you know, they have us practice for earthquakes. They have a fire department with lots of full-time people to stop fires. They have armies that are there to deal with wars. But the pandemic is a disaster that they didn’t prepare for. The actual resources required, they have a global surveillance team to make better diagnostic technologies, to do quick detection. It’s actually not going to be that expensive once the world gets organized and makes it a priority.

Governments are instituted to protect our lives, liberty, and property from those who would take those things from us. Pandemic response is quite different from a fire department. A fire department is a local-run entity to deal with fires and similar emergencies, which are relatively rare in each person’s life, but a threat to property, and possibly also life, when they happen.

A pandemic is a worldwide health problem. But it is dealt with by each individual. Nations less developed—and therefore with less access to the globalist solution, faired better than developed nations.

Gates talks about this vague “they.” “They” have “us” practice for earthquakes. “They” have a fire department. “They have armies that are to deal with wars.

What does that mean exactly? Who is practicing for earthquakes? Who is the vague “they” that requests a vague “us” to do that?

As for armies, they are to protect sovereign borders of a nation. There should be no wars to deal with unless those borders are threatened. There are many ways to threaten a nation now, because of the global market and the online world. But wars aren’t something armies “deal with”; wars are fought, presumably because the nation and its people are being attacked.

And who is the vague “they” that supposedly didn’t prepare for the pandemic? That seems disingenuous at best. There was a lot of preparation for what "they" did. They war gamed this particular pandemic just a month or so before it happened. By this time they had banned, limited, disparaged the medications it was quickly known could have easily and cheaply prevented hospitalization and death in all but the most ill from other factors, mainly age. 

And their war gaming used quarantine of the entire population—of well people—as the prescribed strategy, controlling vast swaths of people who were not at risk from the illness. Meanwhile, they put at risk people in greater risk. It was coordinated.

Then there was the experimental vaccine—pressed on people, using coercive tactics on top of fearmongering. Gates just happens to be a person who believes the human race should be radically reduced in numbers. And he suggests vaccination as a way to accomplish that end. Hmm.

 

Prayer Is Acceptable on the Field

Good news today is that football player Damar Hamlin was released from the hospital. The 24-year-old had been in critical condition following a heart attack during a game between the   and the Cincinatti Bengals a week ago. The game ended, with players from both teams kneeling together to pray for him.

Buffalo Bills and Cincinnati Bengals players pray on the field
following the cardiac arrest of Bills player Damar Hamlin
image found here

Sports commentator Dan Orlovsky later prayed for Hamlin on the air, during a broadcast.

Dan Orlovsky prays on air for Demar Hamlin
screenshot from here

This past weekend players from the Titans and Jaguars got together on the field and prayed for Hamlin.

Players from the Titans and Jaguars pray on the field
image found on Wallbuilders Facebook re-post

Hamlin himself is openly Christian and involved in charities. I do not know what caused a cardiac arrest in a fit young athlete. But the young man’s ongoing recovery, which seems miraculous, and the unashamed willingness to pray for him, also miraculous, are worth prayers of thanks.

This is just months after the Supreme Court ruled in favor of high school football coach Joe Kennedy, who had been fired for praying on the field after games, where he could be seen by people who hate seeing signs of religion. 

May this be a new acceptance of prayer and religion in public once again!

 

We Have a Speaker

We knew in the end it would be Kevin McCarthy, as Speaker of the House, following the November election, which turned over the speakership to Republicans. No one else wanted the job badly enough to take him on.

But there were 20 members of the House Freedom Caucus who were willing to use the opportunity to push for reforms that were badly needed to break free of the Pelosi-controlled way of doing business. It took 15 votes over several days. The Freedom Caucus—and the American people—won a number of concessions, assuming Speaker McCarthy follows through. Here’s a pretty good list, told to Roger L. Simon by Rep. Andrew Ogles, for The Epoch Times (with a bit of added commentary from me):

1.      As has been reported, it will only take a single congressperson, acting in what is known as a Jeffersonian Motion, to move to remove the speaker if he or she goes back on their word or policy agenda. [This means they have to vote on it, once one person has made the motion. Pelosi had required 50% to support the motion for it to get a vote.]

2.      A “Church”-style committee will be convened to look into the weaponization of the FBI and other government organizations (presumably the CIA, the subject of the original Church Committee) against the American people.

3.      Term limits will be put up for a vote. [The only way this could be binding would be if they vote to amend the Constitution, it passes also in the Senate, and then the required number of states ratify it. But this does put the representatives’ votes on record on this issue. It's a platform issue going forward.]

4.      Bills presented to Congress will be single subject, not omnibus with all the attendant earmarks, and there will be a 72-hour minimum period to read them. [Two hurrahs for this. It can’t be representative government if it’s decided in back rooms and our representatives are pressed to vote for legislation they cannot even look at ahead of time.]

5.      The Texas Border Plan will be put before Congress. From The Hill: “The four-pronged plan aims to ‘Complete Physical Border Infrastructure,’ ‘Fix Border Enforcement Policies,’ ‘Enforce our Laws in the Interior’ and ‘Target Cartels & Criminal Organizations.’” [We’re simply asking the federal government to do what it is expressly required to do. What a concept!]

6.      COVID mandates will be ended, as will all funding for them, including so-called emergency funding. [And no such powers should ever be within the grasp of these power mongers ever again.]

7.      Budget bills would stop the endless increases in the debt ceiling and hold the Senate accountable for the same. [Has it been since Pelosi first got in in 2006 that we last had a budget? I should check whether there was one in 2017 or 2018. (There’s this story showing charts up until 2018.) Again, the budget is the one thing Congress is required by law to do, and they’ve failed to do it year after year.]

I have very little trust and faith in the federal government. But if there is to be any hope for regaining our constitutional republic, we must see it kick into gear immediately with this Republican-led House. I’m glad they did what they did. I hope it leads to meaningful immediate changes. Better freedom means better lives for all Americans.

 

 

 

Commencement Words

Gradual adj.—almost imperceptible steps or degrees; developing little by little

Graduate vt.—to mark with degrees for measuring; to arrange in grades, or stages

Graduate vi.—to change, or advance, by degrees

Graduation n.—the ceremony connected with commencement

Commencement n.—the act or time of commencing; beginning; start

Above are not the obvious, or standard, definitions of these words, during this season when schools give out diplomas.

These are the background definitions that offer additional meaning. I think it’s helpful to notice that graduation is just a marker in a progression of almost imperceptible degrees. Like having a birthday—it marks becoming a year older, but it happens when you’re only one day older than the day before.

 

A high school or college graduate is only a single day wiser than the day before. But the event marks the beginning—the commencement—of life after that mark of progress.

So it’s a tradition during this season to talk about advice for those who are commencing with the rest of adulthood.

A year or so ago, PragerU offered a commencement address by Mike Rowe called “Don’t Follow Your Passion.” Worth taking 5 minutes for.

I’ve blogged here about commencements a couple of times, when my children Economic Sphere and Social Sphere graduated from BYU, and we heard some good words at their ceremonies.

Daughter Social Sphere and her husband were somewhere
in the crowd of 6000 graduates back in 2015

Today I’ll add just a few pieces of advice from someone who commenced from high school in the bicentennial year, and from college in the year Reagan was elected President, with the perspective of the Spherical Model.

·         Keep learning. Formal education was just to teach you how to learn; now you’re commencing to do the real learning. Becoming educated is something you never grow out of.

·         Any time you have an opportunity to learn to play a new musical instrument or speak a new language, do it.

·         Read. At least a book a month. More is better. Fiction and nonfiction. And talk about it afterward with someone else who has read it or might want to. This is in addition to reading news, articles, blogs, or other short pieces that the internet is full of. Books are lasting knowledge, and you want that learning to last inside your head.

·         You’re made up of a full person: physical, spiritual, emotional, intellectual. Keep all these parts of yourself healthy and balanced.

·         Work is what you’ll do to make money to live. If you can, find work that will be interesting to you, of service to the world, and make enough money to let you live comfortably.

·         Living is about relationships with friends and family. Never let the means to living (the work) stop you from doing the living—especially spending quality time with your spouse and children. And don’t put off relationships until the work life is everything you could want it to be.

Commencement day for the whole family:
Social Sphere and family in 2015

·         You’re on track to leave the lower income levels behind. Here’s the formula for the middle-class in America or higher: graduate from high school; don’t have sex before age 20; don’t have sex before marriage; stay married.

·         Make memories. Include travel, or recreational activities with your family and friends. And tell stories so those memories stay alive.

·         Take your citizenship responsibilities seriously. If you don’t choose who governs you and how, someone else chooses.

·         Take voting seriously. Study the ballot ahead of time. If you don’t know enough to make an informed decision, don’t guess. Everyone else has to suffer when you get the answers wrong.

·         Be cautious about where you’re getting your news. Most is biased. You’re probably better off getting news from someone who reveals their bias than from a biased reporter who claims to be unbiased. Use multiple sources. Keep an open mind. Question emotional reactions to news. Use good sense. And love the truth, no matter where it leads.

·         Be open-minded and cautiously skeptical, but don’t give in to cynicism. Cynics like the appearance of world-weary intellectualism, but it’s fake. Be better than that. Optimism and curiosity will take you further.

·         The further away from big city centers you live, the more people feel confident that they can do things on their own, and government should mostly get out of the way. If you have to live in an urban center, get out to real country frequently, so you don’t start thinking helplessness and reliance on government are normal.

·         The person who earns the money ought to decide how to spend it. Anyone who tells you differently approves of theft, so beware.

·         Rights come from God, not government. Government is only necessary to protect those rights, all of which are related to life, liberty, and ownership of property—which is the result of how a person freely spends their life. Rights are never something that’s nice to have but can be purchased; if it’s something that has to be purchased, it’s a product of service. Any product or service that you insist should be free requires someone to spend their life and liberty providing it for you; that makes you a slaver.

·         The Ten Commandments teach us to honor God, life, family, property, and truth. That’s still good advice three thousand years later.

·         Make sure God is a part of your life decisions. Fear means you’re putting all the burden on yourself; let go of that and trust God, so that fear doesn’t keep you from making the most of your life.

·         Listen to how you talk to yourself. If you hear yourself criticizing or putting yourself down, stop that talk. Don’t talk that way to other people either. Lift yourself, and lift others.

·         Hard times are going to come. Some of them you may bring on yourself, despite your good decisions up until now; change your thoughts and behaviors, and things will improve. Some hard times come anyway. If you know God loves you and you regularly get in tune with Him, He’ll guide you through. And somehow in the end those things will be for your good, and might make you better prepared to help others through their hard times.

·         Tithe. Pay 10% or more of your income to charity. It helps you feel grateful for what you have; it helps you organize your money better; and it helps you love God and others more and love money less.

·         Start saving now. Compounding interest is practically magical after a few decades. The longer the better.

If you had already arrived at some educated destination, you wouldn’t be needing this advice. But you’re not at a destination; you’re at a beginning. So, commence, and make it good. We, here, in civilization, are pulling for you.