Gun Non-Violence

As one who loves our Constitution, I have strong feelings in favor of the 2^nd Amendment. I don’t write about that issue very often, because there are many others who are more clearly laying out the issue than I can. But the onslaught since last month, along with the president’s unprecedented 23 executive order yesterday, merit some comment.

Here are the two main points:

·       The main purpose of the 2^nd Amendment is to guarantee the God-given right for individuals to protect themselves against attack—from any (Spherical Model) southern hemisphere attacker, either from the chaos side, as criminals are, or from the state tyranny side, either foreign or domestic.

·       The only purpose of an executive order is to direct federal employees in the manner in which they will enforce duly legislated laws; the executive branch does not have power to make laws for individual or all Americans.

One of the best things I’ve read in the past month is a 13-part essay by my Facebook friend Shawn Rogers. He does have a blog, with a small part there: www.sbrogerstx.blogspot.com. But to get the full essay, you’ll need to “friend” him and start reading in the last half of December 2012. One article he recommends a piece by Larry Correia, from December 20, 2012, called “An Opinion on Gun Control.” It’s a very long but worthwhile piece (18 pages, about 10,000 words). This part comes after you’ve scrolled down a ways (links are from original):

It doesn’t really make sense to ban guns, because in reality what that means is that you are actually banning effective self-defense. Despite the constant hammering by a news media with an agenda, guns are used in America far more to stop crime than to cause crime.

I’ve seen several different sets of numbers about how many times guns are used in self-defense every year. The problem with keeping track of this stat is that the vast majority of the time when a gun is produced in a legal self-defense situation no shots are fired. The mere presence of the gun is enough to cause the criminal to stop….

So how often are guns actually used in self-defense in America? http://www.guncite.com/gun_control_gcdguse.html

On the high side the estimate runs around 2.5 million defensive gun uses a year, which dwarfs our approximately 16,000 homicides in any recent year, only 10k of which are with guns. http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/homicide.htm Of those with guns, only a couple hundred are with rifles. So basically, the guns that the anti-gunners are the most spun up about only account for a tiny fraction of all our murders.

But let’s not go with the high estimate. Let’s go with some smaller ones instead. Let’s use the far more conservative 800,000 number which is arrived at in multiple studies. That still dwarfs the number of illegal shootings. Heck, let’s even run with the number once put out by the people who want to ban guns, the Brady Center, which was still around 108,000, which still is an awesome ratio of good vs. bad.

So even if you use the worst number provided by people who are just as biased as me but in the opposite direction, gun use is a huge net positive. Or to put it another way, the Brady Center hates guns so much that they are totally cool with the population of a decent sized city getting raped and murdered every year as collateral damage in order to get what they want.

Unlike the DOJ (I’m referring to the Fast and Furious debacle), I am in favor of keeping guns—of any kind that will shoot even a single bullet—out of the hands of violent criminals. That is already the law. So it’s puzzling why it would take four full years before this president finally mentions to his employees that they should enforce that law.

I am also in favor of keeping guns out of the hands of the criminally insane, even if they haven’t yet committed a violent crime. But doctors are not employees or agents of the federal government, and any directive to them is an overreach. And, as with all power overreaching, the unintended consequences bring about almost exactly the opposite of the stated intended result. If people thank that simply going for treatment for a mental illness, either for themselves or for a family member, could result in forfeiting their 2^nd Amendment rights, that discourages people from seeking treatment, resulting in more untreated mentally ill.

While I appreciate having a criminal data base, so that background checks can be quick and thorough, I am against any federal database identifying law-abiding citizens who own guns. There is no Constitutional reason for such a database, but it does hold the potential of laying the groundwork for the federal government to move ahead with an incremental encroachment on our civil liberties.

I appreciate the Texas response to the president’s overreach, pointing out the hypocrisy. I also appreciated the Wyoming response, to arrest any federal agent who attempts to enforce federal gun laws in that state. A growing number of states have responded that they will nullify any attempt by the federal government to infringe on the 2^nd Amendment rights of citizens within their states. In addition, various US Congressmen, such as Rand Paul, are putting forth legislation to nullify those 23 executive orders, defund them, and press the Senate to file a court challenge to them.

Standing up against tyranny is exactly what the 2^nd Amendment is about, so that’s what I like to see.

That being said, one of the interesting things I came across this week was Glenn Beck’s suggestion on Monday that there is a better way of standing up against tyranny than shooting any federal agent that shows up to take your guns. Resist, but don’t attack. (The full video clip is below.) I’m reminded that Ghandi spent a number of years in prison, when the government was in the wrong to put him there. It may be that, before Americans have a moral right to violently respond, a number must first be willing to say no, stand firm, and suffer even wrongful incarceration, to prove the wrongfulness of the tyranny—which is something best thought of in the calmness of theory before any of us must face it in reality.

 

 

Hitting Bottom

A few years ago I had a rather ridiculous accident that has provided me much metaphorical use. The short version is that I have finally been forced to give up any lifelong dream of becoming a firefighter.

It was a homeschooling lobby day at the state capitol—one of the best field trips ever. My daughter had a friend who lived near Austin, where we were having dinner before the three-hour drive home. The house happened to have a fireman’s pole, just for fun. Sort of like the Jonas Brothers on their TV show at the time. I was curious to see it, but I had pictured looking at it from the bottom. Instead, I ended up following the young people up the stairs to see it from above.

I had no interest in using the thing, even when the kids all tried it and landed quite safely below. But my daughter incorrectly assumed I needed the "fun and exciting" experience. I was not firm enough. I explained reasons I felt it was not safe for me to do it—and they kept addressing my concerns, one by one. So, while I don’t know if you could call it peer pressure, since I was an adult and should have known better, I gave in and tried sliding down.

As my husband said later, “You failed to do the math relating to upper body strength versus lower body weight.” True, but probably could have gone without being said to a suffering wife. I went down hard, about as fast as if I had just fallen. I knew immediately I’d hurt my ankle. But at first (and for a couple of weeks) we thought it was probably just a bad sprain. It was swollen and purple right away. I felt more than just a little stupid for having done such a thing when I should have known better. In my defense, I’m the first person, including adults, to have been injured on this fireman’s pole, and they had had parties with dozens of people, young and old, trying it out. I’m just special that way.

The thing is, I knew immediately that I’d made a really bad decision. I even said to my daughter, “I know what repentance is all about; I really really wish I had never done this stupid thing.” And here’s another thing I know about myself: I learn fairly quickly from experience. I even learn from other people’s experience, and from reading or other forms of literature. I am not someone who needs to learn the hard way.

Nevertheless, I had a walking cast for two weeks, when the first x-ray showed nothing. When it didn’t heal, I got a better x-ray with an orthopedist and learned it was broken, in the talus joint, where it was hard to see. I didn’t have to have surgery, fortunately, but I did have a cast that required elevation (and thus a need for a wheelchair) for eight weeks, followed by another five weeks with a walking boot, and several months of physical therapy. And now, almost four years later, I’m aware that there’s some minor permanent damage.

Sometimes the consequences for our actions need to be serious, even if we’re sure they are too harsh.

There are many ways this can be a metaphor for our world. But, for now, I’m thinking economics. For many of us individually, we can see that profligate spending and unmanageable debt will lead, at some point, to financial failure, possibly sudden and seriously painful. If you spend money that is unsupported by wealth, you will fall and land hard. And when you hit bottom, it might take a long time to heal. You will lose wealth-building time, an opportunity cost, in addition.

But once you realize you’ve hit bottom, when you feel the sudden sharp pain, you get very interested in taking the necessary care to bring about healing. Not everyone, apparently, has that natural reaction, however. Things are made worse when someone hits bottom and thinks, “That wasn’t so bad,” and doesn’t change behavior. Who would do that? Someone who’s drunk or otherwise mentally impaired, maybe. Someone who can’t or won’t perceive reality. In economic terms, someone perhaps drunk with the power of spending other people’s money. Someone who has never been held accountable for the reckless behavior.

The question of our time is, how do we get the monstrously insensitive “government” to stop spending money unsupported by wealth? To stop leaping off an economic cliff that has already resulted in a 5-year economic malaise including at least two credit rating downgrades?

I have seen a few people in my life who have hit bottom—well beyond what I would consider hitting bottom. But, for them, the gravitational crash isn’t hard enough to convince them to change their behavior. They somehow think, “I can endure this; it’s not that bad.” I’ve seen that happen to a loved one who went through several attempts at alcohol rehab, lost the right to drive (re-wired the car to avoid the breathalyzer), lost family, friends, jobs, health, and finally died of liver failure. Nothing ever felt like a hard enough landing to permanently change behavior. I’ve seen a friend’s child go through several years of youth rehabilitation camp, prison, loss of family, mental institution, more rehab, and using people who care about him to keep him off the street—and the result is still, “It’s not that bad; I can handle it without actually changing.”

Economically speaking, what I’m afraid of is that, what I see as already hitting bottom is considered “not that bad” by enough people that the country as a whole moves inexorably toward more pain—until things get so uncomfortable that finally people wake up and say, “Oh, now I get it; we can’t keep spending like this when we don’t have it.” The sooner the better. Repentance—turning 180 degrees to the right direction—is hard and requires possibly a fair amount of painful rehabilitation, but is very much preferable to more serious falls or death (bankruptcy or worse?), which is the ultimate bottom to hit.

 

Influence for Good or Bad

Several years ago I read a book that keeps coming back to me. It’s Influencer: The Power to Change Anything, by Kerry Patterson, Joseph Grenny, David Maxfield, Ron McMillan, and Al Switzler. I’ve read others by them: Crucial Conversations, and Change Anything, which I reread just a couple of months ago. With the best of intentions, they look as ways to bring about change in self and in organizations and societies. The authors together are a consulting group called VitalSmarts, and they reference a research lab on change (with more information at ChangeAnything.com).

There are a couple of case examples that have stuck with me. One was how a village in Nigeria went about annihilating the Guinea worm parasite. People who had lived with this painful pestilence had to learn to change many things: filter their water, keep infected people away from the water supply, and confront their neighbors to do the same—until the worm could be eradicated completely. Another case was dealing with the fight against AIDS in South Africa. Part of the problem was that violence, including sexual violence, against women was socially acceptable. The problem solvers developed a TV program that appealed to male and female viewers, and featured an abused wife. She was a likable character. The husband was also generally likable, very much like the viewers. But then they viewed the abuse and talked about it. As the character came to recognize the wrongness of his behavior, the viewers recognized it as well. The story is more complex than I can retell here, but social pressure influenced society to reduce the domestic violence.

The authors simultaneously use six areas of influence (more than I can ever keep in mind all at the same time). Graphically, it’s summarized in this 2x3 chart.

 

Influencer, p. 78

 

I’ve wondered how we can use these ideas for the repair of civilization. I’m convinced such repair can be done, if the right people go about it the right way. The authors have convinced me it’s possible, but I don’t personally have the answers—yet.

But this week I thought of their process in a totally difference context. Breitbart came up with C-SPAN video from 1995 of Eric Holder revealing a long-term plan to influence society. Holder says it this way:

What we need to do is change the way in which people think about guns, especially young people, and make it something that's not cool, that it's not acceptable, it's not hip to carry a gun anymore, in the way in which we changed our attitudes about cigarettes.

Using advertising, media, including Hollywood, and local and federal government, his intention was a public campaign “to really brainwash people into thinking about guns in a vastly different way.” So, this past month, looking at the illogical attacks on law-abiding gun owners, as if they (we) and not insane outlaws are the perpetrators of violence, is more than a little disturbing. Could Holder et al. actually change society to come to believe the second amendment is evil? If they actually use the six areas of influence, yes they could.

On the other hand, if we use influence techniques for good, they will fail.

The second amendment is not the only issue being influenced by people in the wrong who nevertheless understand how to move public opinion. So what we need are people in the right to come to understand how to move public opinion northward toward civilization.

Old Words New Again

I keep a fairly sizable quote file related to the concepts of the Spherical Model. Some of the collection comes from current articles I’ve just read; others are old or even historic. I noticed a few this week, coming from some older sources, that seem suddenly very current. I haven’t had a quote day in a while, so I thought it was time to share these. Good thoughts never grow old.

 

"The budget should be balanced, the Treasury should be refilled, public debt should be reduced, the arrogance of officialdom should be tempered and controlled, and the assistance to foreign lands should be curtailed, lest Rome become bankrupt. People must again learn to work instead of living on public assistance."—Cicero, 55 BC 

To preserve our independence, we must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt. We must take our choice between economy and liberty, or profusion and servitude. If we run into such debts, we must be taxed in our meat and drink, in our necessities and in our comforts, in our labors and in our amusements.

If we can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under pretense of caring for them, they will be happy. The same prudence which in private life would forbid our paying our money for unexplained projects, forbids it in the disposition of public money. We are endeavoring to reduce the government to the practice of rigid economy to avoid burdening the people and arming the magistrate with a patronage of money which might be used to corrupt the principles of our government.—Thomas Jefferson 

In the end, more than freedom, they wanted security. They wanted a comfortable life, and they lost it all—security, comfort, and freedom. When the Athenians finally wanted not to give to society but for society to give to them, when the freedom they wished for most was freedom from responsibility, then Athens ceased to be free and was never free again.—Edward Gibbon, historian 

America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.—Abraham Lincoln 

The government will take from the “haves” and give to the “have nots.” Both have lost their freedom. Those who “have,” lost their freedom to give voluntarily of their own free will and in the way they desire. Those who “have not,” lost their freedom because they did not earn what they received. They got “something for nothing,” and they will neither appreciate the gift nor the giver of the gift.—Howard W. Hunter, “The  Law of the Harvest,” BYU devotional address March 8, 1966 

"Perhaps this gets to the root of the matter, to the most fundamental distinction of all between East and West. The totalitarian world produces backwardness because it does such violence to the spirit, thwarting the human impulse to create, to enjoy, to worship. The totalitarian world finds even symbols of love and of worship an affront.”—Ronald Reagan in “Tear Down This Wall” speech 

If the natural tendencies of man are so bad that it is not safe to permit people to be free, how is it that the tendencies of these organizers are always good? Do not the legislators and their appointed agents also belong to the human race? Or do they believe that they themselves are made of a finer clay than the rest of mankind?—Frédéric Bastiat 

"In a real way, each generation of Americans has its chance to re-ratify the Constitution. We can do this by abiding by its principles and by leaving our own legacy to posterity; likewise, by both preserving our rights and filling our responsibilities. ...Re-ratification will require statesmanship among both people and leaders. Statesmanship does not treat symptoms, but cures the underlying diseases. Our founding fathers did statesman-like work in 1776 and 1787. In our time, sadly, we seem preoccupied with treating symptoms, with quick fixes, and with getting by a little longer." (Neal A. Maxwell, "God Mend Thine Every Flaw," July 1993) 

During his 1956 presidential campaign, a woman called out to Adlai Stevenson: “Senator, you have the vote of every thinking person!” Stevenson called back: “That’s not enough, madam, we need a majority!”—Adlai Stevenson quoted in “The Decline and Fall of the American Empire” in Rabbi Pruzansky’s blog 11-7-2012 

“The further a society drifts from truth, the more it will hate those that speak it.”

—George Orwell

That Pesky 3% Plus One

I don’t consider this a political blog. I consider it a philosophical blog, literally about the interrelationships of political,economic, and social spheres. My emphasis, internally, is always on the social sphere—or better labeled the civilization sphere, the opposition between civilization and savagery. Only a people seeking to live the principles required for thriving civilization can expect freedom from tyranny and overall economic prosperity.

But I recognize that public policies affect our freedom, prosperity, and thriving. And refusing to engage in the political world is to leave those public policy decisions in the hands of people who simply don’t have a clear understanding of the way northward on the spheres. So, people like me, who think and care, have an obligation to be at least somewhat engaged in the political sphere. While I am discouraged by the outcome of the last several years of engagement in politics, I am not free of the obligation to try to influence public policy for good. At this point I am still exploring what my efforts should look like—as is true for many like-minded friends at this point.

Let me share some of what I’ve been discovering.

This is from a piece by political consultant Michael I. Rothfeld:

Simply put, politics is not about the common good, appealing to men's better angels, nor serving our Lord. These may be your motivations. Occasionally, they will be a politician's motivation. Politics is the adjudication of power. It is the process by which people everywhere determine who rules whom.

In America, through a brilliant system of rewards and punishments, checks and balances, and diffusion of authority, we have acquired a habit and history of politics mostly without violence and excessive corruption.

The good news for you and me is that the system works.

The bad news is it is hard, and sometimes dirty work, for us to succeed in enacting policy.

There is absolutely no reason for you to spend your time, talent, and money in politics except for this: if you do not, laws will be written and regulations enforced by folks with little or no interest in your well-being.

Further in this piece he has a graphic showing who decides elections. About 70% of adults are eligible to vote (citizens, not felons). Only 40% (about 60% of the eligible) are registered to vote. Of registered voters, a good turnout on election day is 50% of registered voters, so only about 20% of the population. Of that 20%, 7% will always vote Democrat; 7% will always vote GOP. That leaves 6% who are undecided. The vote turns on ½ of that 6% plus one person.

Tyranny of the uninformed—that is what this seems to be. I thought I was doing my part as a citizen, getting informed, studying issues, meeting and studying candidates, sharing what I learned with others who share my concerns, and learning from them what they had learned. And then we went out, with much enthusiasm, and voted. Many of us contacted more other voters than ever before. We connected in person and online in more ways, and much more often, than we had ever done before. Politics took a much larger chunk of our interest than we would like to devote to anything we don’t absolutely love. And what I felt right after the election was a slap in the face, mainly from people on our side saying, “We never had a ground game. We didn’t do the work. We had an enthusiasm gap.” None of that is actually true.

What did happen was that we learned something about “community organizing.” It isn’t really about grassroots informing and gathering like-minded people; it is about manipulating the uninformed. To them it is a game of finding ways, both legal and illegal, of casting more uninformed votes for their own agenda.

I absolutely do not believe that the way to save the nation is to copy that modus operandi and just manipulate more uninformed votes our way. That will not solve the problem that not enough people in our country love the Constitution and the freedom and way of life it represents.

The eventual solution, if there is to be a solution, must include more people choosing freedom because they understand the principles and love the beauty of freedom, prosperity, and civilization and eschew tyranny, economic theft, and savagery. If we don’t have a critical mass of such people, we will be ruled by the people who either purposefully or haphazardly lead us southward into all the interrelated misery that is inevitable.

Sharing the word of God may have a bigger effect on our long-term prosperity as a people than anything we do in the political realm. But that is a long-term separate effort.

In the meantime, is there anything political we can and should do? There’s this:

·         Find other like-minded people (or continue with those you’ve already found) to strengthen your voice.

·         Work to influence the elected officials who actually have the ability to affect policy.

Politicians don’t want to alienate that 3% plus one person. So they try to avoid doing anything too hard or controversial. But, if you pressure the politician, steadily, over the long-term, with some understanding of their position but steadfast on your own, you and your citizen lobbying group can influence for change. He quoted the late Everett Dickson, saying, “When I feel the heat, I see the light.”

During the last state legislative session (in Texas that’s January to June every odd-numbered year), I helped arrange to visit, along with a few other volunteers from our local tea party, all the state officials’ local offices. We took with us a list of legislation we were watching. We followed each legislator’s positions on those issues, asked for commitments when we could. I plan to do these visits again this session. It’s not a huge time commitment, and was a positive experience, with some good outcomes. So, as political efforts go, this is probably a good way.

There must be other ways as well. And I’ll continue looking for them. Because, as frustrating as the situation is, I am not willing to submit to tyranny of the uninformed.

Les Misérables and Hope

One of the other movies we went to during the holidays was the new film version of Les Misérables. I love when art is moving and beautiful, even when the visual image itself is not beautiful. Victor Hugo’s story is one of the most enlightening in literature.

The music, according to my copy, was written in 1987 (I think the musical is actually older than that). I don’t remember becoming aware of it that early. I read the book in the 1990s, a paperback version that was only about 700 pages, because hundreds of pages of French revolutionary history were left out. That made it a relatively easy read (compared to what it could have been). But it wasn’t a light read. It was thought provoking, and full of dilemmas. When I heard that it was going to become a musical, I thought, “How can they turn that heavy work, with a fitting name like Les Misérables, into singing and dancing?” Even though Phantom of the Opera was around, and it wasn’t exactly cheery Debbie Reynolds and Donald O’Connor stuff either, I just couldn’t picture it.

But it turned out to be beautiful as a stage musical/opera. Mr. Spherical Model got to see it on stage in London, but I had settled for concert versions on television and a local high school production—along with listening to a Broadway recording and singing all the alto pieces at the piano. (I do a fair rendition of Fantine’s “I Dreamed a Dream,” but I can’t get the youth in my voice for Eponine’s songs. I sing them all anyway.)

I was concerned about a movie version, that it might not reach expectations, but I was pleased at the cast. A difference between the stage and a movie is the intimacy of the view. Subtle acting is more necessary than on the stage. But there is a difference of opinion about the need for vocal ability. My personal belief is that it would be better to do such a movie by finding great singers who can act. Vocal training is harder to accomplish without years of disciplined practice. Nevertheless, I loved this version. Anne Hathaway became Fantine—better than I had been able to envision her. The situation and the motivations became clear to me, and I felt her personal misery. Her song and then her death scene were the first times I cried. (OK, except for the bishop’s gift of a second chance to Jean Valjean; that got me too.) Anne Hathaway has a voice that handled the intimacy of the close-ups well, and sometimes rang with real beauty.

I’ve heard better Jean Valjeans, but Hugh Jackman made me see the character better than I had before. His voice was not stunning but adequate. Russell Crowe’s voice was only occasionally adequate, but I did like him in the role of Javert.

Mr. Spherical Model pointed out that the vocal range on stage is greater. Without the surround sound of the movie theater, you hear the differences in dynamics better, so the vocal range actually tells the story better. He’s probably right. And the stage singers who were in the movie were probably the best voices: Marius, Enjolras, and Eponine. I also need to praise Helena Bonham Carter and Sacha Baron Cohen as Madame and Mr. Thernardier, the comic relief. Carter actually seemed a little restrained, compared to her over-the-top portrayal of Beatrix Lestrange in Harry Potter. I’ve always liked her and enjoyed her in this. I have never liked Cohen or anything he has been in, most of which has been tasteless and offensive and not what I find funny. But here he was brilliant. So many moments where he added a detail beyond the script that fit the character. He was despicable, but he was good at it.

The young Cosette looked like the model for the original play poster, and did the “Castle on the Cloud” song almost to perfection. Amanda Seyfried may have looked the part well enough for the older Cosette, but vocally she was a disappointment. I have to say, though, that I haven’t heard a recording of Cosette that sounded the way I wanted. It needs a very high, lyric soprano, with control so it isn’t too heavy or too much of a birdlike trill. A young Kathleen Battle sound, I suggest. But, then, if it had been perfect, what would there be to talk about?

Even so, why talk about this movie here at the Spherical Model blog? Partly because it interests me, and partly because it connected some dots I’ve been thinking about.

This movie portrayed real misery. It starts 25 years after the French Revolution. Except for the War of 1812, there wasn’t such misery in the United States generally following our revolution. The two were different in a number of ways (I wrote about the comparison here), but the main way was that the United States is founded on protecting unalienable rights granted by God, that government cannot be allowed to encroach upon. France took God out of the equation and listed its Rights of Man, protected by government—and therefore subject to change by government. So the pitiful little revolution of the young band of students in Les Mis is just one of many along the way where people saw things they thought were wrong and tried to insist on change only to have a tyrannical force quell them.

My concern, particularly since the November election, is that those who are choosing the “French” way, the tyranny of the majority, if you will, do not understand when things have become unacceptable. I’m concerned that, until the misery is what we see in so many portrayals, both historic and commonly in fictional young adult novels (The Hunger Games series and the Matched series are two post-apocalyptic portrayals I’ve read recently), then people will keep believing we’re fine.

I can see clearly that society only thrives in the northern hemisphere of the Spherical Model. But the choice has been to sink well below the equator, with an assumption that floating up near the equator is good enough, and that there will be no inexorable force southward into tyranny. But that belief is folly, because whenever people accept minor tyrannies, they get major tyrannies and the misery that comes with them.

In the movie, the theme wasn’t, however, that all was hopeless; it was that, despite the miserable lives of the common people, choosing to love and to be generous and decent transcended the misery: “To love another person is to see the face of God.” Despite the “death of God” in the French Revolution, the people in this story talk of God openly and devoutly. He is there with them in their misery. And that is why there is hope that, beyond the story, a better life will come.

I’m always grateful when a work of art helps us connect love of God with hope, because that is the way back up out of the misery of tyranny, up to freedom, prosperity, and thriving civilization.

By Small and Simple Things

Martin Freeman as Bilbo Baggins, image found here

During the holidays we got to see a couple of movies I’d been looking forward to. One was The Hobbit, a story I’ve loved, and loved sharing with my kids, for many years. It was a little disconcerting that this single novel, shorter than any of the Lord of the Rings Trilogy, and much lighter weight, would need three three-hour movies to cover it. Nevertheless, I like being in that world, and seeing it. As my son Political Sphere says, “It’s a great travel ad for New Zealand.” Maybe so, but there were some moments in it that got me thinking about the important things.

It started with the beginning:

In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort.

I relate quite a lot to these beloved hobbits. I like comfort. I like food (six times a day, if I’m up enough hours). I am known to say that adventure is a euphemism for hardship, and while I like the occasional outing or travel, any adventure requires a lot of preparation and recovery time. I like my own bed, my own kitchen, and my books and music. I prefer not being too cold or too hot or blown about by too much wind. (Full disclosure: I am sized more like a tall elf than a Halfling.)

Why would Gandalf choose such a person as Bilbo Baggins to join in on the important quest? He gives a little explanation to the Elf Queen Galadriel:

Saruman believes it is only great power that can hold evil in check, but that is not what I have found. I’ve found it is the small everyday deeds of ordinary folk that keep the darkness at bay—small acts of kindness and love.

I take heart in that, being Hobbit-like myself. I have thought about what I do with this blog. It is a little thing, a small effort to explain the formula for what brings thriving civilization, prosperity, and freedom. I can see how, if millions of people thought good thoughts concerning how we should bring about these fortunate ends, that could lead in a good direction (northward on the Spherical Model). Better yet if such thoughts lead people to live in ways that will “keep darkness at bay.” But I am not reaching millions.

I wonder at times if my mission is to say things in a way to lead others toward civilization, or simply to live such a life and be part of the critical mass. Maybe both. As long as I think the writing helps—even if it helps mainly me to get thoughts straight—I’ll keep writing. As for living it—I am predictable, like many hobbits. I will keep trying to do my share of small acts of kindness and love, mostly in my own home, with my own family, and in my relatively small circle of community. If that is not enough, then I will need the intervention of a Gandalf to sign me up for whatever is needed, whatever is possible that I can’t yet envision.

The title of today’s post comes from a scripture verse related to keeping records, to writing things down, when the purpose isn’t yet known:

By small and simple things are great things brought to pass; and small means in many instances doth confound the wise.—Alma 37:6, Book of Mormon

On Saturday I saw a Facebook status by writer Andrew Klavan: “2013: the year conservatives begin to win the culture war.” I like the optimism of that. I also recognize the disappointment after this past year, when I thought so many things were well said, so many things put into perspective so anyone could see the truth, and yet the country’s direction went southward. So I hope he is right with this optimistic prediction. May this be the year we find ways to convince any who are capable of seeing truth that there is a known way to freedom, prosperity, and thriving civilization.