Remembering 41

There were many memorials this past week, honoring George H. W. Bush following his passing at the age of 96. I don’t have much to add to all those. Just a few personal notes.

I hadn’t thought that much about it, but the elder Bush was a Houstonian, so people here have kind of a claim on him. The Houston Chronicle included multiple sections related to honoring him—I imagine more than any other newspaper in the country.

George H. W. Bush started his political career as the county Republican Party Chair. I wasn’t here then, but I’ve frequently met the current HCRP Chair, so it makes President Bush seem historically very accessible to us grassroots types.

some of the inserts in the Houston Chronicle, December 9, 2018

The train that carried him from the Houston funeral to the final resting place in College Station, a couple of hours to the northwest, where the Bush Library is located, passed through town. The schedule was published, and people came and stood along the tracks to get a glimpse along the way. I didn’t make it, but I had friends who did. Facebook was full of posts with people waiting, then catching photos and videos of the train going by.

4141, the George H. W. Bush memorial train
carrying him to his final resting place,
photo from Mark Ramsey's Facebook page

I didn’t ever meet George H. W. Bush, but I did get to hear him speak in public. It was a dozen or so years ago. I was helping a banker write his life and work story, and he invited us to an event with dinner and speeches, related to a literacy charity. The crowd was not one I am typically part of, and I remember feeling a little bit uncomfortable (maybe frumpy), but also honored to be generously included.

George H. W. Bush was a speaker. It was a casual speech. He spoke to several hundred people as though he were talking with a few friends on someone’s back patio. He was pleasant, good-humored, and effortlessly comfortable—making us in the audience feel that way too. I think that is genuinely how he was.

One thing he was known for was his Thousand Points of Light, encouraging people to work to improve the world wherever they are. He used the phrase in a couple of speeches, and then it became a foundation to honor significant community service. My father-in-law received a Thousand Points of Light award the year he retired as a special education administrator in an elementary school district—where three people were required to replace him. I remembered being surprised that the awards the former president had made happen actually came to real people working in their communities.

He had an exemplary marriage and family. Many people mentioned his going to heaven where his wife, Barbara, who passed away just months ago, was waiting for him along with their daughter Robyn. In this age of #metoo, one note I saw mentioned that Barbara was the only woman he had ever kissed. With their children running state and federal governments, it could have been about power. But when you look at their personalities, you realize it’s more about public service. His son, George W. Bush (Bush 43) gave a touching eulogy, clearly heartfelt, honoring a father whose love he felt and love in return.

Even those who didn’t always agree with the elder Bush’s policies agree that he was caring, considerate, gentle, and decent. We would be much better off if that were the legacy more of us were living to earn.

Living Core Values

A new issue of my alumni magazine arrived a week or so ago, and I’ve been reading the articles. One featured piece is a reprint of a speech given there by Mitt Romney in April 1999, at the business school convocation. Brigham Young University is also my alma mater: Romney graduated with a BA in English in 1971; I graduated with a BA in English in 1980. English, at least back then, was a major often used as a base for going on to law school. It trained a student in thinking and communicating.

Romney family
photo from here

After BYU, Romney went on to earn law and MBA degrees from Harvard. By the time he gave this speech, he had experienced quite a lot of success in the business world—even though it was before he rescued the Winter Olympics, and rescued Massachusetts from overwhelming debt as their governor, and before either run for president.

For those who didn’t know who Romney was while he was running (or came to know him late in the process), I thought this was worth sharing. He talks about success in life, and how you measure it. I offer a few excerpts:

How will it seem to you 20 and 30 and 40 years on? What bases will you have chosen to conquer? What games will you have played? Will your life have been a success?

To be honest, these questions were very troubling to me as I sat where you are sitting today. Virtually every speaker said something to the effect that life’s success was in my control. They quoted authors like Napoleon Hill, who wrote Think and Grow Rich. Success, they said, was up to me—how I prepared and worked, how I thought, how I created and followed a mission statement, or how I put it all together would ensure the success they knew I wanted.

Now, 30 years on, I have come to a very different conclusion. The worldly success stories I have seen result from a blend of factors: yes, the choices you make and control but also the mental equipment you were born with, more than a fair measure of serendipity, and, where He does choose to intervene, the will of our loving Father. I am not convinced that it’s all up to you. Nor do I believe that if you live righteously, your stock will rise in value, you’ll get a promotion, you’ll win an election, or you’ll get your research published.

He tells the story of a cousin who trained for the Olympics but got the flu during the Olympic trials and thus failed to qualify. And another story is of a friend who bounced around from business to business and ended up at eBay with holdings over $1 Billion, which may, looking back, appear to be a planned path. He goes on to say,

There’s an element of unpredictability, of uncertainty, of lottery, if you will, in the world that has been created for us. If you judge your life’s success by the world’s standards, you may be elated or you may be gravely disappointed.

So what standards does this inarguably successful man use for his life? Love, family, service, and devotion. 

A consultant once helped Bain principals identify their core values. He asked them each to think of five or six people they most admired and respected, whether living or historical. Romney listed these:

I chose the Master, Joseph Smith [founder of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in 1830, Romney’s religion, and mine], Abraham Lincoln, and my mother, father, and wife.

They then had to write down five or six attributes they thought of connected to each person. And the result was to show that, whatever they listed most frequently would identify their core values.

If they did not live in integrity with their core values, they would experience stress, ill health, and regret. But if they did live in harmony with these identified values, they would experience what they would eventually identify as success and fulfillment. The Bain leaders, it turned out, shared core values already, but had not all identified them. So they went from seeming to work at odds to working in a united direction—which incidentally led to company success.

But the good thing was that success in living according to these values did not depend on others—others’ opinions, others’ votes, others’ willingness to offer opportunities. Romney says it’s more about successful living, rather than financial or worldly determined success. Examples:

On my father’s 80^th birthday, I asked him what had brought him the most satisfaction in his life, what his greatest accomplishment was. He had been a three-term governor, United States Cabinet member, presidential candidate, CEO, multimillionaire, and prominent Church leader. His answer was immediate: “My relationship with your mother and with my children and grandchildren is my greatest accomplishment and satisfaction.”

Golda Meir, prime minister of Israel, voiced the same truth in an interview on the Today Show. She explained that being a mother was her life’s greatest accomplishment.

Both lived a life of fulfillment and success, not because of their worldly endeavors but in spite of them. They lived in harmony with values unaffected by the vagaries of markets or elections or praise.

He warns that living with integrity to your core values will be challenging. The world will seem at cross purposes.

Unless you purposefully hold fast to living first by your innermost values, … you will read too much into your worldly successes and, perhaps just as dangerously, read too much into your worldly setbacks.

Romney suggests that if you focus on the right things, you can actually control your success:

It is empowering, invigorating, and emancipating to live for the success you can control yourself, to live for your most deeply seated values and convictions.

This next anecdote about his father, told, remember, in 1999, is interesting to read at this point in history:

young Mitt Romney with his father, George Romney
photo from here

I remember my father’s reaction in 1964 when running for governor. [Romney didn’t actually run for President until 1968, briefly, but in 1964 he worked in the primaries against Goldwater, whose views on civil rights were a point of friction, among others.] President Johnson had swamped Goldwater, and my dad’s pollsters confidently predicted that he’d be pulled under [in his gubernatorial campaign] by the Democratic landslide. I was devastated. What would my friends at school think? My dad would be a loser. I looked at him. He looked calm—even relieved. Winning or losing wasn’t what was important, he told me. He had done what he felt was right by running in the first place and by speaking out on issues he cared about. The people’s votes didn’t affect that. [He was reelected as governor in a Democrat state, against the odds.]

If there is one thing verified by everyone who has known Mitt Romney over time, it is that he lives his values. He loves his wife and family. He serves whenever and wherever he sees the need—not just the easy way by donating money, but by giving his personal time and attention. And he seems to gain energy the more he serves. And tied with that is his devotion to God, which is evidenced in how he lives his religion.

The presidential run was not a personal failure. He did what he believed God was asking him to do; that was what he had control of. That was what he cared about. And what next? Enjoying his family. Serving where he sees the need. Offering help to our nation where it can be given.

It is my opinion that we have not had such a good man—brilliant, well prepared for the challenges we face, but also generous, giving, and devoted to God—run for US President since possibly George Washington.

Rush Limbaugh gave a similar opinion last week, and then pointed out that the media managed to take this sterling character and portray him as uncaring, out of touch with regular Americans, and lacking in the basic values most of us share. It took lies, repeated lies, and exclusion of truth to create that negative image. Discussion of this media malpractice can come another day, but let me repeat this verse:

Wo unto them that call evil good, and good evil, that put darkness for light, and light for darkness, that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!—Isaiah 5:20

And then let me point out that valuing love within family, generously offering service, and turning to God for direction are civilizing principles. We have very little control over what the world (or even other voters in our own nation) will do. But we can control what we personally do. As Joshua of old said, “As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord” (Joshua 24:15).

 

Look Who's Smiling

Last winter I came across a piece about predicting presidential campaign winners based on who smiled the most, or essentially who inspired optimism for a positive future. I wrote comparing the primary candidates in January. The comparison is becoming more obvious as we approach Election Day.

This cover showed up in the Des Moines Register yesterday, illustrating this very point.

 

It is becoming a theme here that I have been praying for clarity, for Americans to see clearly who the President is and who Mitt Romney is, so that their decision will be based on reality and not deceit. I think that is what we are seeing, more and more.

Peggy Noonan has a piece today describing what happened at (and since) the first debate as Americans finally see the real Obama:

People saw for the first time an Obama they may have heard about on radio or in a newspaper but had never seen.

They didn't see some odd version of the president. They saw the president.

And they didn't like what they saw, and that would linger.

What people now see is not some larger-than-life transformational figure representing all the positive hopes for change they can place on a blank slate. What people see now is a petty, narcissistic, self-absorbed, little man, who condescends to disdain America and Americans. At the same time this negatively real Obama was exposed, the real Romney also appeared—reasonable, cool, confident, capable, experienced, and caring.

Contrast is more evident in this election than in any I recall since Reagan/Carter—and maybe surpassing that as well. In the language of the Spherical Model, what we see now in Obama is uncivilized. And what we see in Romney is quintessential civilization.

Obama did an interview with Rolling Stone Magazine, slated to his newsstands today, in which he is reported to have had this exchange, described by Douglas Brinkley:

"As we left the Oval Office, executive editor Eric Bates told Obama that he had asked his 6-year-old if there was anything she wanted him to say to the president. ... [S]he said, 'Tell him: You can do it.' Obama grinned," Brinkley wrote, according to Politico. "'You know, kids have good instincts,' Obama offered. 'They look at the other guy and say, 'Well, that's a bullsh**er, I can tell."

There is so much wrong with this. A positive, complimentary moment had just been passed along from a very young child. Obama doesn’t graciously say, “Thank you; the encouragement means so much to me.” He turns it into a vitriolic, anti-Romney moment, putting profanity in the mouths of children. Let me just say that, as a person dedicated to civilization, imperfect in my efforts, I not only never used such a word as a 6-year-old; I have never used that term at any age.

Lena Dunham from "Your First Time" ad

Yesterday I became aware of a new Obama campaign ad, unbelievably profane, called “Your First Time.” It has a 20-something actress describing her first vote, for Obama, to losing one’s virginity.  Ugly. Not funny. And not even original, but a copy of a Putin ad in Russia from last winter.

While Obama is out on the stump in Iowa, but apparently living in his own alternate universe, he says,

We joke about Romnesia, but all of this speaks to something that is really important and that the issue of trust. There is no more serious issue on a presidential campaign than trust. Trust matters. And here's the thing. Iowa, you know me. You know that I say what I mean. And I mean what I say….

And you can take and videotape things I said 10 years ago, 12 years ago, and you would say, man, this is the same guy. Has the same values. Cares about the same people. Doesn't forget where he came from. Knows who he is fighting for.

Except, of course, people take his advice and put together montages of his contrasting statements, because they’re so easy to find. This one is 10 minutes. This one is 13 ½ minutes. This is an 8-minute list Glenn Beck put together.  This one is an entertaining montage of varying “top priorities.” 

This is while more condemning details come out daily about what actually happened in Benghazi. It looks like purposeful neglect before and during the attack, pointing directly to the President, with added cover-up. This man may be seen historically as the absolute worst decision ever made by American voters.

Meanwhile, stories about the real Romney keep leaking out. Deroy Murdock wrote a piece in yesterday’s National Review Online, listing some of the untold stories of Mitt Romney’s private acts of decency (including even some stories I hadn’t come across before). He ends with this explanation:

Why is the real Romney totally unlike the terrifying caricature that has haunted this campaign? Team Obama’s distortions and lies have conspired with Mitt Romney’s modesty to mask his good deeds. Instead, Romney fans should make these secrets famous.

There is a beautiful story told about the behind-the-scenes view during a beyond capacity (10,000, with probably 1,000 turned away) crowd at Red Rocks Amphitheatre in Colorado Wednesday, as told in The Ulsterman Report, passed along by a “longtime DC political operative.” You’ll want to read this entire piece, but here are a couple of essential moments, from the beginning, and then from the end:

You know, I’ve gone from just trying to defeat Obama to really trying to help Governor Romney be this country’s next president.  I’m really starting to believe there might be something very special about this man….

[after giving his speech to cheering crowds] The governor returns backstage and he is smiling and shaking hands, taking congratulations from everybody around him.  He’s saying how great it was.  Somebody yells out he’s going to win Colorado and the governor laughs and says he thinks so too.  And then something very interesting happens.  He moves away from the group of people just a bit.  Maybe ten or fifteen feet or so.  Just enough to have a little space to himself.  And enough people notice that the area gets a lot more quiet, and they are trying to watch the governor without looking like they are watching the governor.  They can all kind of tell something is happening right then.  It was described as something very peaceful and powerful that came over that backstage area for a moment.  And the governor, he lowers his head and his eyes shut tight and you could see him take a slow deep breath and then he lets it out and says quietly, but just loud enough for some to hear, “Lord, if this is your will, please help to make me worthy.  Please give me the strength Lord.”  And then his eyes open up, and he’s back to smiling and laughing and shaking hands and being the candidate once again.

I’m 100% convinced Mitt Romney was shaken to his soul right then and there.  I think at that moment it was sinking in he might really be the next American president, and it humbled him right to his core, in every nerve of his body.  And as he was saying that little prayer, you could hear the sound of thunder from all those thundersticks outside. Like this huge low rumble that just surrounded all of them at once.  A quiet little prayer, and the sound of thunder.

The sound of God.

Humility and love—for God, for America, and for individual people. This man is civilized. I think there will come a day when we express thanks to God for preparing him for us, for this time, when such a man is so very needed.

Looking Up

Mitt Romney at GOP Convention
photo from Ann Romney's Facebook page

Here at the Spherical Model, instead of a left/right model, we have a three-dimensional model, with the good at the top: civilization, freedom, free enterprise. The southern hemisphere contains the bad: savagery, tyranny, controlled economy. The side-to-side direction is basically neutral, but based on interest, from individual/family at the center west, and expanding outward through local, state, regional, national, on up to  global perspective. The general rule is that the controller of decisions should be left to the most local level possible; otherwise there is usurpation of power, which is a tyrannical position (southern hemisphere).

So when I look at who I should vote for, I look at how well the candidates’ ideas line up with the principles that we know lead to civilization, freedom, and free enterprise. This week at the GOP convention (which I watched from home) has been a good week. A lot of looking up—how to get up to the northern, civilized, freedom zone.

Others may be watching for strategy, or for excitement that will motivate the army of activists to go get out the vote, or for some rhetoric so soaring that it will be remembered and compared in future years. I very much enjoy a brilliant, well-said phrase; I collect the quotable. But I mostly leave that kind of examination to others. I want to know the philosophy and character, to know how well it lines up with what we know will place us in the northern hemisphere of the Spherical Model.

There was much to enjoy in Paul Ryan’ talk, as well as speeches by Marco Rubio, Condoleeza Rice, Mia Love, Chris Christie, and others—and I may take a later post just to enjoy those. But what we need to know is whether we have upper hemisphere hopes from our future president—who will lead the direction of the country. And Romney’s speech did what it needed to for me.

He used the word “optimism” four times, and referred, in various ways, to hope for a better future a few more times. That in itself is upward looking—if it’s tied to the right principles. And I believe it is.

Some of what we need to know about Romney, I have known for a long time; it was a matter of getting the picture out for others, during a time when cynicism is so rampant that a decent family man who wants to serve others seems too good to be true. But he has indeed lived his life that way. Some of the telling had to come from others, and that happened this week. Ann Romney began to introduce this good man to people who hadn’t noticed before, or been willing to believe who he was. And that was followed by a string of actual recipients of his quiet, unpaid, unrecognized service. This must have gotten the story out, because after his speech, the PBS commentators stumbled, trying to come up with descriptors for the speech that clearly didn’t align with their worldview, but they decided to agree Romney is just, really, a decent man.

Does he believe in God, so that he can understand God is the giver of our inalienable rights? Yes. Does he live the Ten Commandments as the basic level of civilization? Yes, and refined with the Sermon on the Mount, I Corinthians 13, and other scriptural directions on how to be the person God wants you to be.

Does he place family as the central civilizing force? Yes.

About Paul Ryan, he said, “I love the way he lights up around his kids and how he's not embarrassed to show the world how much he loves his mom.”

About his parents, and then his and Ann’s family, he said:

My mom and dad gave their kids the greatest gift of all – the gift of unconditional love. They cared deeply about who we would BE, and much less about what we would DO.

Unconditional love is a gift that Ann and I have tried to pass on to our sons and now to our grandchildren. All the laws and legislation in the world will never heal this world like the loving hearts and arms of mothers and fathers. If every child could drift to sleep feeling wrapped in the love of their family--and God's love—this world would be a far more gentle and better place.

The line I highlighted lets us know, maybe more than anything, that this is not someone who believes in taking power to enforce government on minions.  This line, about connecting with his church and community, also tells us he understands how thriving civilization happens:

And that's how it is in America. We look to our communities, our faiths, our families for our joy, our support, in good times and bad. It is both how we live our lives and why we live our lives. The strength and power and goodness of America has always been based on the strength and power and goodness of our communities, our families, our faiths.

A look at Romney’s business record is an example for the world of free enterprise at its best. He told a little of the Bain story—and having it come after the “evil vulture capitalist” claim was revealed as a lie made it clear his success was real success. And that allowed him to say this:

These are American success stories. And yet the centerpiece of the President's entire re-election campaign is attacking success. Is it any wonder that someone who attacks success has led the worst economic recovery since the Great Depression? In America, we celebrate success, we don't apologize for it.

We know he understands and believes in the free enterprise system when he follows his story with this:

It's the genius of the American free enterprise system – to harness the extraordinary creativity and talent and industry of the American people with a system that is dedicated to creating tomorrow's prosperity rather than trying to redistribute today's.

That is why every president since the Great Depression who came before the American people asking for a second term could look back at the last four years and say with satisfaction: "you are better off today than you were four years ago."

Except Jimmy Carter. And except this president.

He didn’t have to be personally negative about President Obama; that would have seemed gratuitous piling on when it is clear to everyone—everyone—that he has failed to provide financial success, American freedom, and social thriving. Obama has failed because he follows the rules that keep people in the southern hemisphere of tyranny. He is literally a tyrant, whether he has the personality of other worldwide tyrants or not. But it isn’t necessary to use that kind of term; all that is necessary is to point out that what we want—personal freedom, economic opportunity, and thriving civilization—can be reached on a path that claims government control is the answer.

This was one of my favorite lines, because what I want during this campaign is to see clearly the truth about the candidates. This shows the contrast:

President Obama promised to begin to slow the rise of the oceans and heal the planet. MY promise...is to help you and your family.

He doesn’t mean he will micromanage your family from Washington; he means he will set an example of a strong family—and how to Dad—but also will help by getting roadblocks out of the way so families can succeed through hard work and helping one another. Economically, things will get better. Freedom will improve with adherence to the Constitution:

That America, that united America, will uphold the constellation of rights that were endowed by our Creator, and codified in our Constitution.

That united America will care for the poor and the sick, will honor and respect the elderly, and will give a helping hand to those in need.

That America is the best within each of us. That America we want for our children.

This is an America we remember, if we’re old enough and from the right places (I am both). And now I feel free to hope we will return to thriving. Things are indeed looking up.