The Most Important Election of Our Lifetime

We tend to say every election is the most important of our lifetime. And truthfully it has probably felt that way every time. This time it is more true than ever—because our country is now a post-constitutional republic, and this may be our only opportunity to turn around on the path back toward our Constitution.

Decisions are state and local, since it’s not a presidential election year. And yet they may add up to a greater impact than anything we’ve seen before. That is, if—we vote for that return toward freedom, prosperity, and civilization.

image found here

I’ll be looking at Texas and local races today. Principles will apply elsewhere, but you’ll have to do your own research.

The short and simple answer this election is to vote Republican. And vote Republican all the way down the ballot. In Harris County, that’s a long ballot—possibly the longest in the nation. We vote on our judges, and it’s around a hundred races total. I’ll highlight just a few. There is no straight-ticket voting anymore, so it requires tedious individual voting. Note that the Republican candidate is listed first in every race.

 

Governor

The choices are Greg Abbott, our current governor, and Robert (Beto) O’Rourke. Beto had no redeeming qualities when he ran against Ted Cruz for Senate in 2018, but he pulled in a great deal of out-of-state anti-Cruz money, and was a media darling. He failed. He attempted a run for president, without the anti-Cruz enthusiasm and money, and showed himself to be at the bottom of the Democrat heap, only slightly above Kamala Harris. So again he failed. He’s attempting to pretend the multiple failures are a reason to vote for him. He changed from his previous, “Hell, yes, we’re going to take Americans’ guns” (an actual quote) to something more nuanced that he thinks might play better in Texas. He’s pro-abortion without restriction and thinks that’s a winning issue. It isn’t.

So he’s not much of a threat.

As for Governor Abbott, he disappointed many during the pandemic by allowing lockdowns. He lifted statewide mandates pretty quickly, but defending our freedoms against more local tyrants has been piecemeal. He just extended the declaration of emergency for the 31^st time (Houston Chronicle story here). Fact: the pandemic isn’t an emergency and hasn’t been for a very long time. Only 12 states still retain these emergency declarations. We’re hoping the legislature will address that this upcoming session; the people are calling for an automatic requirement for the Texas Legislature to approve emergency orders in order to extend them beyond 30 days.

That being said, he has been mostly conservative, and has been good at growing Texas and our economy here. While we would have preferred some DeSantis-style boldness, we’re better off than most. So, with less enthusiasm than before the pandemic, I am definitely voting for Governor Greg Abbott.

 

US Congress

I’ve been redistricted from CD 2, Dan Crenshaw’s district, to the new CD 38. Our candidate is Wesley Hunt. He’s ex-military and supported by Crenshaw. Those of you who followed this race in the primary know I did not support Hunt. I campaigned for a much better candidate. But Hunt got the big money and pulled off a win without a runoff—despite failing to show at every event I was made aware of. As a precinct chair I have since been invited to an event or two, but at times I was unable to attend. That means I still have not seen him in person since he began his campaign. That is completely opposite of how Dan Crenshaw ran.

Hunt says the right conservative things. My impression of him, in person, when he ran a previous campaign in 2018, was that he wasn’t as clear on the concepts, or as committed to conservative principles as his opponents. But he said the right things then too, and won the primary but not the general.

This time he’s in a district that is designed to trend Republican. As long as he doesn’t blow it, he’ll get elected. Unless I look up the name on the sample ballot, I can’t even remember his Democrat opponent’s name (it's Duncan F. Klussmann). I have seen no campaign signs for the opponent. There seems to be no enthusiasm for him. So Hunt is likely to sail through.

I’ll be voting for Hunt, in hopes that he will live true to the conservative things he says. He will be better to work with than someone who openly opposes conservatives.

 

Harris County Judge

This is possibly the most important race on the ballot for people in Harris County. Again, a brief explanation that HC Judge is an administrative position. It is, in fact, one of the largest administrative jurisdictions in the nation. I think Los Angeles and maybe one other are larger. In smaller, rural counties, some county judges still act as judges, but in the enormous Harris County, that has not been the case for many decades; just the name remains.

It’s a challenge to list the many reasons we need to get rid of our corrupt socialist incumbent. But here are a few:

·       Lina Hidalgo directed $11 million in COVID-19 relief money to a partisan crony. Three of her main staffers were indicted on fraud charges; charges against her may yet come, but not likely before the election.

o   Claims the funds have been returned are not accurate. Stories here and here.

·       Lina Hidalgo and cronies on Commissioners Court changed the structure for voting, after a corrupt Democrat County Clerk stepped down in May of 2020, and called for a new elections administrator to handle elections, rather than the County Clerk. She hired an incompetent crony as EA, who messed up the Primary so badly that even Hidalgo asked for her resignation—although they postponed her leaving until after the runoffs could be mishandled as well.

o   There are ongoing serious chain-of-custody issues related to elections. Story here. 

·       She decided the way to allocate Harvey relief and recovery funds was—not according to who suffered the most damaged, but which ethnicities she wanted to favor.

·       She pushes for higher taxes at every opportunity. The three countywide ballot propositions are an example: totaling $1.2 billion for projects that haven’t even been delineated yet. Just-in-case money, during a recession.

·       She has misallocated money intended for police on the street to social programs. The state has called her to get back in compliance with the law against defunding law enforcement.

·       Even the Democrat District Attorney is at odds with Hidalgo for failing to allow prosecution of violent felons; Hidalgo won’t fund additional prosecutors.

·       Hidalgo supports the practice of letting violent offenders out on personal recognizance bonds; i.e., no bail bonds. Since Hidalgo’s election in 2018, the increase of PR bonds to violent criminals rose from 12 to 1283, including 110 capital murder offenders. 181 have died at the hands of these criminals out on PR bonds. (I wrote about this here.) 

But what about all the things she’s done right? Hmm. I can’t seem to come up with anything to list.

Back in the Primary, the Republicans ran several capable people. But my choice then and now is Alexandra del Moral Mealer. She’s a serious woman. Unlike Hidalgo, who took on this job at age 2;7, as her first job out of graduate school, with no real world experience, Mealer has considerable leadership experience, both in the military (leading bomb squads), and in business. She’s smart, well prepared, and articulate. Doing political schmoozing isn’t really her thing; you can see it’s not natural for her. But she’s likable and real. A telling detail for me was last summer, on my way into the Republican Party of Texas convention, I ran into her in the crosswalk. She remembered my name, my association with the Cypress Texas Tea Party, where we had had her speak, and that I had supported her.

Me with Alexandra del Moral Mealer (right),
at Cypress Texas Tea Party in March 2022

She has garnered quite an army of willing block walkers. Her signs are everywhere around the county. I see almost none for Hidalgo.

Even the Houston Chronicle denied Hidalgo their endorsement and went with Mealer. The editorial board said, "Where it counts, particularly on the issue of crime, Mealer seems to be listening to many in our community who otherwise feel unheard: crime victims and their families." 

If you’re interested in seeing them side by side, there’s this video. 

 

County Commissioner

We’ve had just two of the five members of the Commissioners’ Court siding with the people, and against Hidalgo and those who control her agenda. Redistricting following the census has been used as an attempt to oust one or two of the remaining ones. My commissioner, “Cactus” Jack Cagle, is one of my favorite people in the political world. Cowboy, poet, philosopher—very fun to hear him speak on just about anything. I will definitely be voting for him. If you’re in Tom Ramsey’s district or one of the others, know that you’re doing the world a service by voting Republican in these races.

That's me with the tall guys, Cactus Jack Cagle and Mr. Spherical Model
at Cactus Jack's Campfire (picnic) in 2021

 

County Clerk

Stan Stanart was our County Clerk for eight years. Elections ran so much smoother then. All we had to worry about were the more traditional attempts at voter fraud—not systemic ones implemented by county officials. It would be such a pleasure to have him back. If we can get a Republican County Judge and keep our Republican County Commissioners, we could even do away with the failed attempt at using an Elections Administrator and return that duty to the County Clerk’s office.

We heard from Stan at last Saturday’s Tea Party meeting. Vide here.

 

County Treasurer

This race is even lower on the ballot than County Clerk. Kyle Scott would be such a joy in that position. He understands how the County Treasurer can keep spending under control—by not signing authorization to any spending outside the law. What a concept! He proved his contrarian abilities as a member of the Lone Star Community College board, some years ago (term-limited out). He cheers us up every time he speaks at our Tea Party. Here’s video of him from last Saturday as well.

 

Judges

As I mentioned, we have a l-l-o-o-n-n-g-g ballot, because of all the judges. This year, because of the ridiculous policy of letting violent felons out on personal recognizance bonds, it is especially important to safety in our community to oust those judges and put in judges who abide by the law. I signed on for nearly all of these judges; getting signatures saves them big bucks in filing fees. Many of them have served before but got ousted in the Beto wave or its 2020 echo. The Democrats are both inexperienced and ineffective. And in many cases they have proven dangerous to our communities. An excuse for the PR bonds is that it takes up to three years to bring a case to trial. Wouldn’t the better solution be to get through the docket faster? Managing caseload is something a good judge must do.

A favorite for me this year is Julian Ramirez, running for the 248^th Judicial District; it’s one of those criminal courts. Julian had been in the DA’s office for many years, but because of his support of the previous DA, he got ousted after Kim Ogg’s election. He has been my guy with inside info on judges for close to two decades. I believe I can trust him to do the job to make our streets safer.

 

Propositions

There are three bond propositions on the Harris County ballot. I’m voting against all three. It’s not noral to put forth bond proposals that are not even attached to planned projects, but that’s what our County Judge and her Commissioners Court are doing. During a recession. There’s no good reason.

If you’re in the City of Houston, there are another 7 or so bond proposals. I’d vote against those too. Taxing yourself at higher rates for no good reason just doesn’t make sense.

At the Harris County Republican Party Executive Committee (the precinct chairs) earlier this month, we vote to oppose all three Harris County propositions and all of the Houston propositions.

Vote All the Way Down the Ballot

Republicans tend to hesitate to vote down ballot where they don’t know all the candidates. This year especially, just trust that the Republican candidate will be better than the other guy. And vote every race all the way down the ballot. Plan on taking 20 minutes to vote—after you reach the machine. Good luck finding a place with a short line. The inexperienced Democrats running the election are particularly bad at allocating resources appropriately. In my polling location they have cut the number of machines in half from what we had in the Primary, and have cut our staff—as though we would have fewer voters in a general election than in a Primary. We’ll be adding to our staff with volunteers to make sure we can get the job done. But it appears from Early Voting, which started Monday, that we are having a high turnout. So plan your time accordingly. Paper jams took a lot of time in the Primary. The machines weren't expected to handle two-legal-size pager per voter. They now have installed a guide, which they said makes it almost impossible to jam. Nevertheless, in my training, we had a jam on our first try (not trying to jam, just trying to insert the paper). And then we had a second jam when they were demonstrating the curbside duo-go.

from page 153 of the official manual for this election

Voting in person on Election Day, preferably in your precinct polling location, is the gold standard. But if there’s any chance you can’t do it on Election Day, do Early Voting. (Locations for both here.) I didn't find a place to check for estimated wait times, but that would be handy info to have.

It took until just a couple of weeks ago, but the County’s website finally has its sample ballots up. They can’t seem to find me by name—in this place where I’ve been a registered voter for 24 years. So I use the VUID (voter unique ID) on my voter registration card, and then they recognize me.

Will your vote count? We watch for voter fraud here. There’s an army of people daily looking at the voter list of unqualified voters (dead people, people who have moved away) who have been identified but not removed from the voter rolls as they should have been. If any of those people vote, they’re immediately flagged. Also, there’s an army of trained poll watchers, in addition to the army of trained Presiding Judges, Alternate Judges, and Clerks. If you vote in person, you can believe it will be counted. And if we can get enough of us to vote to exceed their ability to cheat, that’s how we beat them.

So, vote! Vote Republican! Vote all the way down the ballot. This is indeed the most important election of our lifetime.

Public Speaking

I spent last Thursday’s writing time preparing a presentation of the Spherical Model for the local Tea Party meeting. It’s put together now as a video, such as it is, below. I did video, on my phone, of the other speakers at the meeting. But all I could do for myself was press start and go speak. And then we had issues with the projector, which had cycled off during the other speakers. I had to stand on a chair and reach it up near the ceiling—because I’m taller than any of the men who were handy. And then I totally didn’t think about whether I was standing in view of the camera, because I was talking to the audience. So there’s quite a lot of time I totally wander out of view. But no problem; we just use the slides (Mr. Spherical Model helped me edit), which makes them a lot clearer than a video of the screen in the room.

And then we couldn’t get the microphone to work. I don’t have a very loud voice, even though from my perspective I was talking really loud. But the room was small enough that going without a microphone went OK—except I was 15 or so feet from the camera, so not great sound.

Enough apologies. It’s yet another effort to explain these ideas. I hope this is helpful. The presentation is called, "There's No Such Thing as a Right-Wing Extremist."

Our Constitutional Republic Has Suddenly Become a Fascist Tyranny

The other day Glenn Beck had a panel discussion, mainly about midterm elections, and polling, and related things. But in that discussion he asked the question, “Do you believe we are still living in a constitutional republic?” The answer all four gave was "No." Steve Deace added, “The social compact is broken.” 

If we’re no longer a constitutional republic, then our government has been overthrown. How did that coup happen? And when? And a whole lot of other questions. I think the answer is similar to a Hemingway quote about how you go bankrupt: “Gradually, then suddenly.”

We’ve been fighting against tyranny for a long time. We had the best thing going in the history of the world. And yet, almost since the beginning there have been hidden (and not-so-hidden) forces, cabals, groups, ideologies, factions that have wanted to wrest control back from the people and place it in the hands of chosen-behind-the-scenes elites.

Despite our long resistance, we are now a country in which regular citizens can be arrested for disagreeing with the ruling powers. Recently we had two examples of political arrests related to pro-life issues.

In Pennsylvania

On September 23, 2022, the FBI conducted a SWAT raid at the Philadelphia home of Mark Houck, a pro-life activist. (Epoch Times story here.) A year ago, while he was doing his usual sidewalk pro-life work, along with family, a pro-abortion escort (a person who escorts the abortion seeker inside to keep her “safe” from pro-life people) came the 100 or so feet from the facility and zeroed in on Houck’s 12-year-old son, getting in his face and yelling profanity at him. Houck, as a normal father, stepped in to protect his son. In the single shove, the 70-year-old pro-abortionist fell down. Police investigated and found no need for criminal charges. There was a civil suit, but the complainant didn’t show, and the case was dismissed. 

FBI agents arrive at a home,
photo by Robyn Beck/AFP via GettyImages, found here

A year goes by. Then suddenly the feds have 15-20 armed SWAT agents make the arrest at the home, in front of the wife and children. The charging documents—to which Houck has pled not guilty—claim Houck hit the man twice—intending to imply aggravated assault, which the facts of the case do not bear out. They also claim he violated the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act, but if that had been so, the pro-abortionist would not have had to travel 100 feet down the street to accost Houck’s son. By the way, there was no one to escort—or block—during the altercation.

Americans should not feel safer.

In Tennessee

In Tennessee last week, Paul Vaughn was arrested at his home by FBI agents yelling and banging on the door with guns drawn. There were children in the yard, getting ready to get in the car for a ride to school, and other children in the house. Vaughn surrendered, thinking that was the quickest way to de-escalate the situation. His wife, who had been at the back of the house, took video of the officers taking her husband in their vehicle, with arms drawn on him, refusing to give a reason, show a warrant, or provide ID.

They drove Vaughn about an hour’s distance away to process him for the arrest. It took a fair amount of time for his lawyers to even ascertain what the charges were. They were concerning a pro-life sit-in that took place on March 5, 2021, a year and a half ago. Again, the were using the FACE Act law, claiming he had conspired to block the entrance to a facility.

The thing is, he wasn’t even there that day. His role was as mediator between the group and the local police. He informed the police of the planned protest and asked what the group needed to do to make sure it remained as peaceful and legal as possible. He passed the information on to the activists, telling them that they could be arrested on misdemeanor charges, which the eleven protesters decided was worth it, and is what happened. The entire thing remained peaceful. Many of the protestors were elderly and harmless. But the DOJ is now claiming Vaughn was a “conspirator”—as if a peaceful sit-in ages ago is an imminent threat of domestic terror.

They released him after processing, leaving him without a phone or wallet, and no transportation home.

The arrest of this father for a misdemeanor crime in which he did not participate should not make you feel safer.

FBI agents refuse to explain why they were 
arresting Paul Vaughn, from his wife's video

Here is the Epoch Times story, which includes the wife’s video. 

Glenn Beck gives additional details in this video. 

Coincidentally, there have been multiple attacks on pro-life pregnancy centers, churches, and other places—with no charges filed. And of course no SWAT team raids.

New Executive Order to Spy on Americans

I don’t mean for this to be simply about the pro-life issue. It just happens that these two happened one week after the other. Let’s add into the mix the many political prisoners being held, charged, and prosecuted for the dangerous threat to the country of walking through the capitol building when invited in by police. Then add in a number of people who have questioned the 2020 election, such as Mike Lindell, being followed on vacation and arrested and having his phone seized. I’m forgetting the names of others they have done this too. There’s quite a list.

Now let’s add this little detail: Biden this past week quietly gave an executive order granting himself more spy powers.

Here is the executive order. 

title page of the executive order,
image from the White House website

Here’s a worrisome part:

(C) The President may authorize updates to the list of objectives in light of new national security imperatives, such as new or heightened threats to the national security of the United States, for which the President determines that bulk collection may be used.  The Director shall publicly release any updates to the list of objectives authorized by the President, unless the President determines that doing so would pose a risk to the national security of the United States.

What does this mean? The President gets to decide on new reasons for collecting this mass data on citizens. We should feel comforted that the Director of National Intelligence must immediately apprise us of any such updates—unless the President tells him not to. So, everything is at the whim of the dictator/president.

Most of the executive order deals with foreign threats, things we hope our government is staying aware of to keep us safe. It’s just that mixed in there are things like not going along with the government line on elections, for example. Or doing something to government property, which, as we can see from the Jan. 6 ridiculousness, could be construed any way they may choose.

And this executive order comes from the man who was VP during the administration that spied on candidate Donald Trump, and carried the spying over to when he was a sitting president, and used the trumped-up, paid-for fake accusations to try to remove him from office. So that’s who we’re supposed to trust to “minimize any impact on privacy and civil liberties”?

Americans should not feel safer.

Joshua Philipp discusses this on Crossroads. 

At this point we are holding out hope that the November Midterm Elections will be clean enough, so that we have one final chance to recover our constitutional republic from the fascist tyranny it has become—so gradually, and then so suddenly.

How Much Is $31 Trillion?

The national debt just hit a new high of $31 Trillion. Just nine months ago it hit the $30 Trillion mark. Since the numbers are so big, we night need to review ways of getting perspective.

Back in 2014, when we hit the unheard of $18 Trillion mark, I did a post using a children’s book that describes big numbers. There’s this calculation:

If you stood children on one another’s shoulders, a trillion of them would reach to Saturn’s rings during the closer parts of its orbit. The book calculates the average elementary schooler as 4’ 8”, with shoulders approximately at 4’. The column of a trillion would be 758 million miles.

So, just one trillion stacked children would go from earth to beyond Saturn’s rings, assuming all these imaginary children could breathe and keep holding up the others on their shoulders.

page from the book How Much Is a Million? by David M. Schwartz, pictures by Steven Kellogg

For that 2014 exercise, I multiplied that distance by 18, for the $18 Trillion debt to be represented:

Multiply that by 18, and it’s 113,644,000,000 miles (13.6 Billion).

So, today let’s do the math again for our new $31 Trillion number:

758 million miles x 31 = 23,498,000,000 miles (23.5 Billion)

It so happens that 23.5 billion kilometers (not miles, but we can use it to get approximate perspective) is how far Voyager 1 has traveled in 45 years, which isn’t entirely out of the solar system, but approaching that. 

I did a graph back then—hand drew additional years onto an existing graph—to show the exponential increase in the debt up to 2014.

graph of national debt I used in this 2014 post

Let’s update that with the additional 8 years (I entered the data into a spreadsheet this time, so I didn’t have to hand draw). The blue line is at $1 Trillion; we hit that in 1982.

US national debt from 1929 to present; the blue line represents $1T; data from here

For a bit of perspective, it might help to look at debt-to-GDP ratio; that is, what percentage of the nation’s gross domestic product is owed in debt. It looks like this:

US debt-to-GDP ratio from 1929 to 3rd quarter 2022, data from here

It’s not the complete hockey stick graph of the debt, which keeps going up. But it does show that we’ve been at 100% of GDP or more since about 2012. Historically the only other time that high was during WWII, and we dropped back down afterward. High spending now is without an obvious cause.

What does this mean for the future of our country?

There’s an explanation of the historical cycle in an animated video, Principles for Dealing with the Changing World Order by Ray Dalio, March 2, 2022. In the upward part of the cycle, at the beginning of a new world order (a takeover of a new monetary system and dominant nation after the demise of the past one) you get this cycle:

·        There is peace, prosperity, and productivity.

·        This leads to a sense that things will always be this way, and that leads to leveraging against the future—borrowing, that is.

·        This creates a financial bubble and big wealth gap.

·        Eventually bubbles pop, and there’s a financial bust and economic downturn.

·        Instead of dealing with this by returning to more production than spending, there’s printing of money and granting of credit. 

·        Lack of trust in the system, and inability to get credit to pay for current living levels, leads to internal and external turmoil, typically in the form of revolutions and wars.

·        Wars are expensive, and in this down cycle, there’s no money to pay for them, and no one willing to risk giving credit.        

·        So then there’s debt and political restructuring, leading to the upcycle of a new dominant power; i.e., a new world order.

the cycle of dominant world powers rising and falling related to economic policies
screenshot from here

The video goes through a fair amount of history in 40 minutes to show this happening. Near the end there’s this summary: 

When those holding the reserve currency and debt of the declining empire lose faith and sell them, that marks the end of its big cycle. Of the roughly 750 currencies that existed since 1700, less than 20% now exist, and all of them have been devalued.

For the Dutch, this happened after their defeat in the Fourth Anglo-Dutch War, when they weren’t able to repay the massive debts they built up during it. This led to a run on the bank of Amsterdam and a desperate selloff, forcing massive money printing, which devalued the currency and the empire into irrelevance.

For the British, this happened after World War II, when despite their victory, they couldn’t repay the massive debts they borrowed to fund their war effort. This led to a series of money printing, devaluations, and selloffs in the British pound as the US and the dollar emerged dominant and created a new world order.

At the time of this recording, the United States hasn’t yet reached this point. While it has massive debt, spends more than it earns, and funds this deficit with more borrowing and printing huge amounts of new money, the big selloff in dollars and dollar debt hasn’t yet begun. And while there are great internal and external conflicts occurring for all the classic reasons, they’ve not yet crossed the line to become wars. Eventually out of these conflicts, whether they’re violent or not, come new winners who get together and restructure the losers’ debts and political systems and establish the new world order.

Then the old cycle and empire ends, and the new one begins, and they do it all over again.

history repeats in economic cycles
screenshot from here

So where are we? He doesn’t spell it out in the video, but it looks to me like we’re in the massive printing of money and credit stage that comes just before the other unpleasant things that lead to the demise of our dominance and the beginning of another “world order.” Dalio says there are indicators to both predict future longevity and things to work on to improve—as you would do if you’re starting to age and want to improve your health and longevity. The indicators, he says, are:

·        leadership capabilities.

·        education levels.

·        character/determination.

·        rule of law.

·        corruption.

·        resource allocation efficiency.

·        openness to global thinking.

Some of these seem easily measurable—and you can gauge by looking at the country around you. Others I’m not sure how he’s measuring, or what he means by something like “openness to global thinking.” The current “globalists” are the ones calling for a “new world order,” and by that they mean the demise of the United States, both politically and monetarily, and replacement by a global elite, which is made up of those calling for it—regardless of competition they may have from nations like China (and Russia still trying), who want to be the new dominant power. He might just mean being a good global citizen nation to make for good trade and avoid expensive wars and conflicts. Maybe he explains that in his book Principles for Dealing with the Changing World Order: Why Nations Succeed and Fall, or on his website EconomicPrinciples.org. Much else he has said, however, makes solid sense to me.

Is there a way to stop what looks inevitable? There is. But it takes a strong will. He adds this simplification of steps we need to take:

As for what we need to do, it comes down to just two things: earn more than we spend and treat each other well. All other things I mentioned—strong education, inventiveness, being competitive, and all the rest—are just ways of getting at these two things. It’s easy to measure if we’re doing them. So, like people who want to get fit, let’s get on the program and improve our vitals. Let’s do that individually and collectively.

One thing to understand about what money is: it’s a symbol. As I say in the Economic Sphere part of the Spherical Model website:

Money is a representative, or symbol, of wealth, to make it easier to exchange. Wealth is not created by government; in fact government is incapable of creating wealth and can only spend it.

Government doesn’t create wealth; it only taxes and spends—and wastes and devalues. Each dollar it “gives” to someone, for whatever reason, comes from somebody who performed work to earn that money. And each dollar it “prints” means less value per dollar—a silent tax affecting those with fewer dollars harder than those with plenty.

We are a hardworking people, generally. And creative and inventive. But we have been facing the things that other dominant societies have done before us—leading to their demise: the overspending, the undermining of value, the printing of money, the massive debt. Add to that the corruption and lawlessness.

But I think he’s right—starting with ourselves first, then expanding out to our society and government—we need to earn more than we spend and treat each other well. And then hope and trust that those astronomically huge debt numbers can be overcome, preferably without the demise of our nation.

Words of the Unwise

We’re in a new atmosphere, post Dobbs, which reversed Roe and Casey. That didn’t, of course, abolish abortion; it returned the question to the individual states, where it could be argued and decided locally. And that means there are more arguments than ever. They’re getting wilder. But there’s a possibility that fallacious arguments will be fallen for. In my small effort to thwart that possibility, I’m going to declare that some of these relatively new pro-abortion arguments are wrong.

 

The Ultrasound Conspiracy Theory

Recently there was video of Stacey Abrams claiming that—well, here are her own words:

There is no such thing as a heartbeat at six weeks. It is a manufactured sound designed to convince people that men have the right to take control of a woman’s body away from her.

Stacey Abrams, center, claiming ultrasound technicians invented the
sound of a baby's heartbeat in order to control women's bodies.
Screenshot from here.

The young people around her on this discussion panel were nodding in agreement, as though, “Yes, this makes sense,” which of course it doesn’t. In a discussion on the ACLJ broadcast, Jordan Sekulow summed up her assertion:

One, you have to believe the science— That there’s no heartbeat. Then you have to believe that the companies have manufactured a sound, and the sound is to convince people that then men can have a role in deciding, to take control of a woman’s body. So that we’ve manufactured the idea that this is a human life. Because, even to Stacey Abrams, she doesn’t really want to talk about killing an actual child with a heartbeat.

His brother Logan Sekulow added:

That somehow there’s a conspiracy theory within the creators of the ultrasound machines. Those people are inherently pro-life—which I don’t necessarily think is the case one way or the other; they’re just making the ultrasound machines—then detect a human heartbeat earlier and create a fake sound for you to hear to create this emotional response, which anyone who’s been through that moment knows, it is a very emotional moment to hear your child’s first heartbeat.

As the Sekulows are doing, let’s apply some logic here. Whatever the ultrasound machine is showing—visually, without sound—is a growing fetus. The addition of sound verifies the image. In every case, the visual and aural evidence confirms a pregnancy. What is a pregnancy? The offspring growing inside the womb of the female. Whatever species; let’s limit this to mammals, but ultrasound technology works pretty similarly on them all. What the ultrasound would show, in the case of pregnancy, is the growing fetus of the species of the pregnant female. If the pregnant female is human, the ultrasound shows the growing human fetus.

An ultrasound can be used to see other organs, other inside parts. Technicians know how to identify what they’re looking at. And as technology improves, it becomes easier and clearer for the technician to show anyone looking at a screen what the ultrasound is showing. When it shows a human fetus, you can identify head, spine, arms, feet—and heart, beating. It’s not some other organ. It’s not some non-living tissue. It’s certainly not some other species. It is a growing human baby, which, because of technology, we can see and hear within the womb.

If the technician cannot find a heartbeat at around 6-8 weeks, that isn’t definitive proof there’s no life there, but it’s concern that there isn’t. If pregnancy had been affirmed before the ultrasound, lack of heartbeat and movement could mean the baby has died. But if there is movement and heartbeat—a rhythmic beating in the location where you would expect the heart to be in a growing human—then it means the growth of that living baby is likely to continue. There is never a case of an ultrasound showing a human fetus's heartbeat that grows into something that isn't a human baby.

This technology, used for many purposes, is about getting a view inside. The idea that it was invented for the purpose of empowering men is ludicrous.

I’m interested in the suggestion that Abrams is making this argument as a way to deny that what is growing inside the pregnant woman is a human baby. Because to Abrams, still, killing an actual human baby with a heartbeat seems wrong, so she must proclaim the lie that it isn’t one.

 

The “God Is Pro-Choice” Fallacy

On the September 7 episode of Church and State, on EpochTV, Pastor Lucas Miles deals with the question, “Is God Pro-Choice?” As he says:

Since Roe has been overturned, I’ve seen a new line of thinking evolve that involves reasoning in support of abortion. And it’s a surprising one. Instead of science, logic, or even political pressure, the left is now using religion to attempt to win the abortion debate. And not just any religion. They’re turning to Christianity of all things, and the Bible itself, in an attempt to show that God is pro-choice.

He introduces the question first with an assertion by a supposed pro-choice Christian pastor, Rev. Traci Blackmon, a Universalist who has served as a Planned Parenthood board member. He paraphrases her viewpoint as laid out in an article in online indoctrination magazine Mic.com:

Because God is a god of free will, that He would therefore also be a god who is in favor of being pro-choice on the issue of abortion. Because God gave us free will and allows us to sin, and allows us to, you know, make mistakes, that He also would be pro-choice on this issue. She says that it’s smoke and mirrors that this is about the life of a child. She says, “Jesus didn’t say anything about abortion. But Jesus had a lot to say about love.”

Again, here’s the left basically telling us that they have a better understanding of love than do traditionally minded Christians, or biblically minded Christians. She says that this is the compassionate thing, that we have to have “a compassionate ear,” “a loving spirit,” and that as a pastor it’s her responsibility to accompany people in places that they choose to go. “If they’ve chosen abortion and want me to go with them, I go. If they choose to have a child, I stand with them in that.”

And so, we see, kind of, throughout this whole argument that the pro-choice perspective is the perspective of love; it’s the perspective of, you know, good theology. It’s the perspective of godliness and compassion.

Real Christians know better. But Miles finds this argument showing up elsewhere, such as a video on TikTok. While he deals rationally with this TikTok-er’s arguments, I will mention that she is smug, condescending, and sneering. There is nothing loving or compassionate about her. Here’s what she says:

TikTok-er claims God is pro-choice,
discussed by Lucas Miles
screenshot from here

TikTok: idissent  June 30, 2022: I am going to make this as clear and concise as possible. God is pro-choice. Pro-choice means supporting the right to choose. It does not mean that you support the choices that are made. It does mean that you support the right to choose. Ergo, God is pro-choice. If you can prove to me that God does not want us to have a choice, then I will concede the point. And, yes, you may use your Bibles. Show me where in the Bible God has taken away our choice.

Let me give you an example, because I want to be very clear on this. We do not have a choice between breathing air or breathing water. God did not want us to have a choice in that matter, and therefore He did not give us a choice. You have to breathe air. There is no breathing water, breathing air only. He was not pro-choice in that matter. If you can prove that God is not pro-choice when it comes to me and my body [italics mine], then I will concede the point. Again, you can use your Bibles.

Do not come back with, “He wants you to choose this”; “He wants you to choose that”; because it doesn’t matter what He wants you to choose. The fact is He wants you to choose. Prove to me He doesn’t, and I will concede the argument. And do not come back with, “OK, but if you make that choice, there are going to be consequences.” I know. Everybody is aware that, no matter what you do, your choices have consequences. We’re adults here. We get that. That will not back up your argument. My argument is God is pro-choice. Your argument has to be that He is not pro-choice. And as a Christian you know that you are supposed to be following the example of God. So, but if you cannot prove to me that God is not pro-choice, that means He is pro-choice, which means you have to be pro-choice too. That’s the rule.

This is relatively easy to fend off, and Lucas Miles dispatches her fallacies pretty swiftly. Here’s his main refutation:

It doesn’t mean that every choice should automatically be legal. In this video, just replace the word abortion with murder. Should we therefore assume that God is pro-choice on the issue of murder? Because He doesn’t, you know, ever stand in the way of someone’s free will, so therefore we should legalize murder? Because God wouldn’t stop murder, because He gives somebody free will and choice? So therefore we shouldn’t stop somebody from committing murder?

I’ll just follow up on that. It is a sleight-of-hand to use the term pro-choice, which has been co-opted by the pro-abortionists. If she had used the term pro-abortion, she couldn’t have said God is pro-abortion, yet that is what pro-choice means in the abortion context.

Once she equates the pro-abortion term pro-choice with the pre-co-opted meaning of the term, which is in favor of free will, she thinks she has us pinned. But she doesn’t. She’s making an additional leap from favoring free will to requiring the law to allow all acts of free will. We don’t. The murder example Lucas Miles uses is the most obvious: we do not allow murder. Just because it is possible for you to do something does not mean the law should allow it. Generally we have laws to protect people from doing harm to one another, and the law steps in well before murder, with laws against assault and theft. As the saying goes, "Your right to swing your arm leaves off where my right not to have my nose struck begins."*

How Many Lives?

That gets us to the question of how many lives are involved in an abortion. There’s the mother’s life. And indeed she is a mother from the moment she is pregnant—because there is another human being, with its own DNA, its own blood type, its own heart, and its own full potential, separate from her but within her. She has autonomy over her own body; she does not have autonomy over the life of the child, whom she invited into her womb by her actions (except in the very small percentage of pregnancies resulting from rape).

ultrasound of baby at 15 weeks gestation.
image found on this blog

So is it “smoke and mirrors” that this is about the life of a child? What is their evidence that the child within is not a human child? On our side, we have the ultrasound technology, blood tests, and eventually the visible movements that ripple across the mother’s belly, or that get felt with a kick in the rib cage from within. We’re supposed to believe that’s just a clump of cells up until the moment that clump of cells passes through the birth canal, and then suddenly turns into a living baby? 

All the evidence is on our side. All they have left is sophistry.

The reason these people are so against pro-life pregnancy resource centers is that they show evidence of the child. They offer an ultrasound, along with options such as adoption, or open adoption, or financial and medical aid to keep the child—choices. The other side offers only death of the child, hidden behind a pretense of compassion.

What is underneath the desire to kill babies is the desire to have sex without commitment: outside the protections—for both mother and child—of marriage. They want to pretend that killing a human being makes the consequences of sex without commitment disappear.

A few honest but ugly souls admit that it’s a baby, but they don’t care. But for most, they want to hide the fact of the baby’s humanness to make it easier for them to “choose” the killing of another human being for the sake of their own self-indulgence. They do child sacrifice in the long and ugly pagan tradition.

The other side tries to control the language. We can fight that by using absolute truth more accurately. It is a service to the otherwise confused when we can be fully clear and truthful—as God is.

_______________________

* first attributed to John B. Finch, who was the Chairman of the Prohibition National Committee during the 1880s.

Our Miraculous Constitution

This Saturday is the anniversary of our Constitution’s birthday, signed September 17, 1787. That’s 235 years ago. To celebrate, we’re going to look at whether our Constitution follows the principles that lead to freedom, prosperity, and civilization, which we outlined here in Monday’s post.

Howard Chandler Christy's "Scene at the Signing of the
Constitution of the United States"
image found on Wikipedia

The Constitution and the Political Sphere

·        The purpose of government is to protect and preserve the God-given rights to life, liberty, and property of each person individually and as a people within that government entity.

We might best see the direct wording from our Declaration of Independence, where the founders declared:

We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness—That to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed.

So that is the philosophical underpinning of our nationhood. Note that life, liberty, and property are rather poetically worded as “and the pursuit of happiness.” What we do with our life and liberty includes but is not limited to how we go about getting ourselves out of our poverty, how we acquire food, clothing, and shelter so that we can enjoy our lives.

Page 1 of the Constitution of the United States
image found on Wikipedia

Government isn’t about providing happiness; it is about protecting property, which is the product of our earning and acquiring more than the essentials for a day of life. Other than that protective role, government should get out of the way.

In the actual Constitution, in the Preamble, those protective purposes are laid out with just a bit more detail:

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

 The protective role includes laws and justice, officials such as police and judges who carry out the laws, a military to protect national borders, and whatever details are required to benefit all the people—things like monetary systems, weights and measures, and a few things to be enumerated. Which brings us to the next principle.

·        The government can do only those duties delegated to it by the people in written and binding law.

The Constitution includes enumerated powers—that is, the limited, listed powers granted in law. Beyond this list, all rights and privileges remain with the states and with the people—which got spelled out in the 9^th and 10^th Amendments, just in case later generations forgot what was understood at the time. Here are the enumerated powers, which Congress can legislate, the Executive can administer and carry out, and the Judiciary can adjudicate on:

1.     The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;

2.     To borrow Money on the credit of the United States;

3.     To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes;

4.     To establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization, and uniform Laws on the subject of Bankruptcies throughout the United States;

5.     To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures;

6.     To provide for the Punishment of counterfeiting the Securities and current Coin of the United States;

7.     To establish Post Offices and post Roads;

8.     To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;

9.     To constitute Tribunals inferior to the supreme Court;

10.  To define and punish Piracies and Felonies committed on the high Seas, and Offences against the Law of Nations;

11.  To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water;

12.  To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years;

13.  To provide and maintain a Navy;

14.  To make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces;

15.  To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions;

16.  To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;

17.  To exercise exclusive Legislation in all Cases whatsoever, over such District (not exceeding ten Miles square) as may, by Cession of particular States, and the Acceptance of Congress, become the Seat of the Government of the United States, and to exercise like Authority over all Places purchased by the Consent of the Legislature of the State in which the Same shall be, for the Erection of Forts, Magazines, Arsenals, dock-Yards, and other needful Buildings;—And

18.  To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof.

These are all in Article I, Section 8, of the Constitution, listing the powers of Congress. The next section, Section 9, lists limitations that Congress cannot do, just in case tradition or someone getting a “bright idea” down the line thought such things could be construed as part of one of those enumerated powers.

Article I, Section 8, of the Constitution of the United States

Then there are a few more added as amendments to the Constitution:

19.  Exercise governing authority over the District (Washington, DC, an area not exceeding 10 square miles) as the seat of the government of the United States.

20.  Exercise governing authority over places purchased (by consent of the legislature of the state in which located) for erection of forts, magazines, arsenals, dockyards, and other needful buildings.

21.  Make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers, and all other powers vested by this Constitution in the government of the US or in any department or officer thereof.

22.  Outlaw slavery and involuntary servitude (except as a punishment for crime), and enforcement of this prohibition.

23.  Sixteenth Amendment: Lay and collect taxes on income.

24.  Fifteenth, Twenty-fourth, and Twenty-sixth Amendments: Enforce equal voting rights laws across all the states.

·        The government can do only those duties delegated to it by the people in written and binding law.

Because government derives its “just Powers from the Consent of the Governed,” it is only reasonable that government cannot do something the people do not have the power to delegate to government. This would include that government cannot confiscate property owned by one person and bestow ownership of that property on another person. That is called theft when one person does it to another, so it is theft—and unconstitutional—if government does it. Any redistribution of wealth comes under this category. Even welfare for benevolent, “charitable” purposes is unconstitutional. Being generous with someone else’s money is theft, not charity. What we need is for government to get out of the way of churches and charitable organizations who freely choose to give to those in need.

The rest of these should go quicker, since we’ve covered so much already.

 

·        Governing should be done at the lowest level possible.

The Constitution—written and signed eleven years after the country’s birth in 1776—was designed to “form a more perfect Union.” It was a union prior to that, but a rather weak and disorderly one. The Constitution strengthens the union, while it spells out the laws that limit this central power, so that only those duties necessarily performed by the states altogether are given to that dangerous central government.

 

·        The government cannot cede power to any entity larger than the nation; international issues must be handled by diplomacy, preferably, or military defense when necessary.

The states forming the Union, and the people making up those states, do not grant the federal government the right to cede power to any other authority. The very idea of a One World government is unconstitutional—and treasonous in the very thought. We may have alliances with other nations—when that is in the interest of protecting our borders and our people and property. But any such alliances should be limited to those specified ends and must carefully protect our sovereignty as a guard against tyranny.

 

The Constitution and the Economic Sphere

·        The person who earned, accumulated, and owns wealth is the person who gets to decide how it is spent.

We covered this above, pointing out that welfare and charity cannot be justly done by government. Government’s don’t have feelings of charity, but only raw power. Coercing a person to give their wealth to another isn’t charity.

Penn Jillette (the magician, and a libertarian thinker) put it bluntly this way:

It’s amazing to me how many people think that voting to have the government give poor people money is compassion. Helping poor and suffering people yourself is compassion. Voting for our government to use guns to give money to help poor and suffering people is immoral self-righteous bullying laziness. People need to be fed, medicated, educated, clothed, and sheltered. If we’re compassionate, we’ll help them, but you get no moral credit for forcing other people to do what you think is right. There is great joy in helping people, but no joy in doing it at gunpoint.

·        Taxes are acceptable only when limited to funding the duties of government enumerated in written principle-abiding law. 

Ah, enumerated in law—if only our government would abide by the Constitution!

·        Government’s economic responsibility is limited to protecting property. (This can include the coining of money to be used as a form of exchange.)

Again, that’s what the enumerated powers limit government to.

 

·        Government must lawfully prevent monopoly or other economic tyranny, but otherwise must allow people the open exchange of legal goods and services.

Sometimes conservatives—and libertarians in particular—think private businesses can do just about anything they want. But a monopoly is not part of the free market; it prevents a free market. Therefore laws that prevent monopolies are appropriate.

 

·        Using the people’s money to achieve political aims goes against the proper role of government. 

   The proper role of government is to protect life, liberty, and property. The ways to do that are the enumerated powers. Here’s a partial list of things clearly not granted to the federal government:

ü  Power to govern education.

ü  Power to offer charitable services (welfare).

ü  Power to force purchase of a service or product (such as health insurance).

ü  Power to require payment into a retirement supplement (Social Security).

ü  Power to interfere with commerce that doesn’t cross state lines.

ü  Power to redefine marriage in a way that is contrary to long-standing law and tradition, and to enforce acceptance of the new definition, even when it violates personal religious beliefs.

ü  Power to subsidize any industry (such as alternative “green” energy).

ü  Power to target industries in accordance with a social agenda (gun manufacturing, automobile manufacturing, nuclear energy, oil and gas, fast food or sugary drinks).

ü  Power to use taxpayer funds to support abortion.

ü  Power to subsidize or control (or forgive) student loans.

ü  Power to take over any industry (as when the Obama administration temporarily took over GM and banks).

ü  Power to favor or disfavor individuals or groups for hiring, educational opportunities, or other purposes based on their race or religion, or some invented ESG score.

 

The Ten Commandments,
at theTexas Capitol

The Constitution and the Social Sphere

·        Civilization requires a people who honor God, life, family, truth, and property ownership. (These are a summary of the Ten Commandments.)

The Constitution and the Ten Commandments are connected—both revealed by God, both as the law for the people. As an earlier prophet of my Church has said,

The Constitution of the United States of America is just as much from my Heavenly Father as the Ten Commandments.—George Albert Smith, General Conference, April 1948, p. 182.

There are only two options for the source of our rights: God or government. If it’s God, then those rights cannot be justly taken away by mere mortals, including those who make up government. If it’s government, then those rights are simply the whims of the governing power, and a capricious government can take them away as easily as allow them.

People who want to maintain their God-given rights must recognize God is the grantor of those rights. They must believe in God—a benevolent God. There’s plenty to say about this—and I’ve done that here—but for today let’s just reiterate John Adams, who said:

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

 

·        While not all religious societies are civilized, all civilized societies are made up of a critical mass of religious people.

See above. And let’s add to that, this is an obvious reason the federal government was prevented from interfering in the free exercise of religion, the first right mentioned in the Bill of Rights, in the First Amendment.

 

·        The family is the basic unit of civilized society. Whatever threatens the family threatens civilization. Therefore, preserving and protecting the family is paramount in laws and social expectations in a civilized society.

I’ve written about this a lot, starting here. These are the first couple of paragraphs:

Civilized societies value family as the most important and basic unit of governance. Alternatively, a hallmark of totalitarian regimes, which are savage, is the replacement of the family with the state. Totalitarianism resents loyalty to any societal unit other than itself. And it is this absolute weakness that will always prevent a totalitarian state from offering true Civilization as you’d find it in a free strong-family society.

This is particularly important to know for people living in a sub-civilized society. As long as families are allowed to live among themselves (children are under the care of their own parents), it is possible to have a civilized society that is just one family in size. Then, if that family can find additional similarly civilized families to associate with, their society grows. If it could grow to the size of a village or township, all the better. The goal of the founding fathers was to have that civilization spread through the United States (and if that experiment worked, have other sovereign states adopt the plan). But a family doesn’t have to wait until the world changes; the family can live the laws of civilization and enjoy many of the benefits, at least within the walls of the home.

Families aren’t mentioned in the Constitution. The concept was so obvious—that family is the basic unit of civilization—that I believe it was considered self-evident. The Bill of Rights was to spell out some rights whose infringements the founders had experienced before. Some worried about including any, because later generations might consider them to be limiting the people to those rights. The Ninth Amendment specifically dispels that possibility:

The enumeration in the Constitution of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

Family rights—the right of parents to see to the care and upbringing of their children—are among those not mentioned but retained by the people.

There's Mr. Spherical Model with our boys,
pursuing some happiness, some years ago, while we were
involved in the care and upbringing of our children.

What is government’s role? To protect life, liberty, and property. And it is required to allow states, families, and individuals to go about pursuing their happiness.

The Constitution works every time it is tried. If only we would fully try it!