I wasn’t there. I did not see it

I have written before about my 6th grade teacher, Mrs. Ide. She gave our class an assignment to write a report about a country. We had to include information about the culture, its politics and form of government, its major imports and exports, the people, its historical significance and what ever else we could research. I was sick on the day the contries were being chosen, so I got the country that was left which was Russia, the USSR. This was back in 1973 so there was no internet, no Google and America was involved is a not so secret ‘cold war’ with Russia. Among the many things I remember was that Pravda was the major news organization that was controlled by the USSR and the Politburo. The people of Russia was only told what the government wanted them to know, known as propaganda.

Fast forward to my college years, and a semester of psychology. Now I only took this class because it was needed toward my degree and thankfully, the teacher was able to actually make the class fun. Did you know that psychologists are hired on at advertising agencies to maximize the impact of commercials to help guide you into wanting the product that they are selling? Think of the cute, happy polar bears that share a Coka-Cola, or, at the time, a very popular actor/comedian smiling and talking about Pudding Pops. Movie theaters make very little money showing a movie. They make their profit on you paying $8 dollars for a tub of popcorn that cost them less than 25 cents or selling you a large Coka-Cola for $6 dollars that cost them 10 cents worth of syrup. So, psychology is being used to control what you buy. Do you really think that Jesus Christ wont love you if you don’t spend all that money for G.I. Joe with the Kung-Fu grip for your son at Christmas? And do you really need to buy the Chevy convertable Corvette to be a man?

So, we are being brainwashed every day much like the citizens of Russia or China. With so many reports now how even our FBI, CIA and the N.I.H. headed up by Dr. Faucci were paying social media platforms like Twitter, Youtube and Facebook to censor the media consumers and only allow certain information to be shared but shut down, shadow ban and out right block ideas that were not to the liking of certain members of government. Doesn’t it sound just as evil as the propaganda of the USSR?

I refer the George Orwells book “1984” many times because it is relevent. In the book, which was a warning not an instruction manual, the controlling government had politispeak, the ‘ministry of truth’ which was code for ‘lies we want you to believe’. Just look at the slogan of Big Brother; war is peace, freedom is slavery, ignorance is strength. Winston Smiths job was to rewrite old newsclippings to make Big Brother look good. He who controls the past, controls the future. If you can brainwash young minds while they are in school, then you have a useful idiot that you can control. Stop and think about that.

We all were shocked, saddened and appalled with the news of the school shooting in Uvalde Texas, or any school shooting but I will use this incident for this example. Now I was not there. I did not see it. I do not personally know anyone that was effected by the incident. Let me just say right now that I am not saying it did not happen, I am only stating the facts. I have to trust the news reports about the shooting. But let me ask you, if a news source is habitually caught lying and distorting the truth to further an agenda, how can it be trusted with anything? If a reported can only be trusted half the time, how can you differentiate between the lies, half truths and truthes? What is the difference between Provda and NBC, CBS, ABC, CNN or even Fox?

Have you heard the story of ‘the boy who cried wolf’? He lied once too often, and when he needed the townspeople to truly believe him, they didn’t and he did not live to regret his foley.

In the movie ‘The Matrix’ the character played by Keanu Reeves is offered a choice between a red pill and a blue pill. The red pill represents an awareness to reality no matter how unpleasant it is, or he could take the blue pill and remain blissful in his ignorance. To know the truth, we must be willing to admit the good and bad. We must demand accountability with our news sources if we are going to believe them. Ronald Reagan once coined the phtase “trust but verify”. That is what my dad did when he asked me if I did my chores, he trusted me, but verified that I had mowed the lawn or not. Pretty hard to fake that.

How long before we demand transperency, truth and accountability? Is it too late for America? For the sake of our children, I pray not.

My favorite aunt taught me, at an early age, the difference between a TIP and a gratuity. And I think this is a good time to educate a generation of the difference.
So, to my generation, we weren’t comforted when we were wrong. In little league, you only got a trophy if you were a winner. In school, if in math, you answered the question (2+2=) and if you answered anything other than 4, you got a big red ‘X’ meaning you were wrong. If you were routinely late to work, you would be fired. My generation would turn in school reports that we typed on a typewriter and had to research subjects by reading encyclopedias because there was no internet nor handheld computers that had a phone app on it.
To our countries shame, we have coddled our children into believing that they are owed an easy life and our government is backing that belief, so it is no supprise that the younger generations believe that just by doing their job, they deserve more than a paycheck.
Tip is actually short for T.I.P.S. which is an acronym for ‘To insure prompt service’ which is a type of gratuity given ‘before’ service is rendered. A TIP (or TIPS) would be appropriate to give at an hotel to the consierge or bellboy so if you want extra towels or ice or pillows, they would bring them to you in a timely manor. A gratuity is given after service is rendered as in a ‘sit down restaurant’ and the waiter has made your dining experience pleasurable by making sure your glass is full, you get a new fork if you drop it and you get whatever condiments needed to insure you enjoy your meal. Waiters and waitress’ are paid a lower minimum wage and are encouraged to work for you while dining at that establishment.
Would you tip someone at McDonalds? No! Those employees are paid a different minimum wage, now in some states $15 dollars an hour. (No wonder my quarter pounder has increased 40%). If you goto a food chain hot dog joint, stand in line, place your order and have it given to you, you don’t give a gratuity. Now, if it is a privetly owned hot dog cart, you might be inclined to give him/her a gratuity.
I don’t give a gratuity when I buy a 2×4 from Home Depot or a ream of paper from OfficeMax.
At my local, chain owned donut shop, if you take my money and hand me my bag of donuts, your gratuity is your paycheck. If I do my job, I don’t get a gratuity from my customers, I get a paycheck. And where I live, January 1st marked an increase in the minimum wage to $15 dollars an hour. But my salary has not been increased in several years, not even keeping with inflation rates. Food, gas, services and rent has increased and my money is stretched thin as it is. If you keep demanding a gratuity just for doing your job, maybe I will go somewhere else or just do without. I have seen a automated fastfood restaurant. There were a total of 2 people there and all they did was keep the food robots stocked with food. Those robots don’t demand a gratuity, they don’t show up to work late or need to leave early and don’t take maternity leave or sick time nor take vacations. Your job is quickly being replaced with automation because you refuse to work, demand more than what you are due and generally arent worth the $15 per hour. Wake up and see what the long term effects of your actions are. Life is hard. It is harder when you are stupid (John Wayne)

Choice is freedom & life is risk

Choice is freedom. Remember, when you were young and your parents finally let you chose what to wear? Before that, you had no choice so your mother did pick out the dorky outfits, but that was OK because your friends also had their mothers pick out the dorky outfits for them too. But finally, you were given the freedom to chose what to wear. Maybe, when your mom or dad went shopping for clothes, they might ask you what you wanted. You may not have been given a choice in underwear or socks, maybe not even shoes, but you may have been given a chance at some influence on your clothes. How about when your dad finally asked you what you wanted at McDonalds. Hamburger or cheeseburger happy meal. That was your parents giving you a chance at freedom to chose.

Our Constitution, the Constitution of the United States of America, clearly states that the citizens have the right to life, liberty and the persuit of happiness. You will note it does not grant the right to be happy, just the persuit of it. It does not grant you the right to succeed, but the right to try and succeed. As a citizen, you have the right to persue happiness as long as you do not interfere with everyone elses right to persue what makes them happy. The right to chose your path to happiness. Many years ago, even Warner Brothers Studios created an animated ‘schoolhouse rock’ style short that educated kids on this. I remember Wille Coyote chasing the roadrunner as the narrator read the right to persue happines but not the guarantee of happiness as the road runner, yet again out smarted the coyote and Wille fell off the roof of the Captal building. I believe that cartoon short has been locked away or destroyed, but it did exist.

In order to control a population, you limit or eliminate choice. Where I live, our governor has decreed that plastic grocery bags are ‘bad for the planet’ so he, and the democratic legislature, passed a bill eliminating statewide, plastic grocery bags. Your only choice now is to pay for paper or buy reusable grocery bags all in the name of becoming more environmentally friendly. Now notice what happened here. Instead of encouraging people to make the choice to use reusable bags to be more environmentally friendly, he, like all the other liberals, decided that he/they knew better than you and took your choice away. That is a sign of socialism, to take away your choices. In California, the governor there, with the aid of a democrat government decread/ made into law that you will not have the choice to purchase an internal combustion (gas or deisel) powered vehicle and force you to buy an electric vehicle. Damn the consequences, they know better than you what is good for you and your family, so, they take away your choice. It does not matter their reasoning for it, the fact remains that the fewer choices you are given, the less free that you are.

This is not what our forefathers envisioned. They could not have possibly known about electric powered cars and handheld computers with the ability to call anyone in the world, they just knew that you have the responsibility to chose what is right for you and your family.

This also means that you must take responsability for your choices. Life is full of risk. There is no Constitutional right to be safe. As we learned, the Constitution states our God Given right to life, liberty (freedom to chose what is best for ourselves) and the persuit of hapiness, but no where is it stated that you have the God given right to be safe and not suffer the consequences of your actions.

When I was in Jr. High School, I was a member of the ‘Sea Cadets’. One summer, my unit was sent to one week active duty. My post was on a 65 foot missle retriever stationed out of the Long Beach Naval Shipyard. I had packed my bags to be prepared for a one week deployment and my parents gave me a little bit of money for incidentals. I had to make that little bit of money last. Now I had my billet, a rack or cot on board the boat, my bag with clothes and the Navy provided 3 meals a day but I was on my own for candy, soda, snacks, magazines or whatnots. Now this was a time when a Hershey chocolate bar was about .20 cents, soda was about the same and a Playboy magazine (what, a young boy about 14 years old on a Navy base look at let, alone buy a Playboy? And you’re suprised?) so if I was given $3 to $4 dollars. That was alot of money for my parents to give me, considering the average yearly wage was about $12,000 to $13,000 a year. So if I blew all my money, I was out, no asking dad for more, he wasn’t there. I will spare you the specifics, but after trying to act like an adult, which I was not, and some penny ante poker I learned to sparce out my money. I had to live with the consequences of my actions.

Who thinks that life isn’t filled with consequences? Who believes life isn’ filled with risks? And only an idiot believes that the government is responsible for their safety. Benjamin Franklin said it best when he said “Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.”

The danger today, is that America as it was designed no longer exists. The freedoms that we had just 50 years ago no longer exist. Too many people belive the notion that government is supposed to make life fair. Too many people believe that the roll of government is to take from the rich “who don’t pay their fair share” and redistribute it to those that don’t have as much. People get what they deserve,and as long as people continue to vote for politicians who promise to give them a risk free life, to take from others and give them what they have not earned, who continuously lie about their opponents claiming that they want dirty air and dirty water and that the reason you are poor is because someone else is rich, then that society gets the dictatorship that they deserve.

It was Alexander Frasier Tylor that penned

“A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship.”

Stop and smell the cess pool that is Washington D.C. That isn’t cherry blossoms you smell. When our current president and the dominions of theft grant money from the pockets of the citizens to illegal aliens, who refuse to seal the borders of the United states but give to secure the borders of foreign countries, who send weapons to help the war in Ukrain but take them away from American citizens, and who promises to pay back student loans after people foolishly went into debt for an education that is worthless, then we are already living in the beginnings of an emerging dictatorship. This is the consequences that we deserve for allowing ourselves to belive that restricting choices and allowing government to dictate what is good for us for our safety.

A goverment powerful enough to give you what you didn’t earn is big enough to take away what God himself gave you. Welcome to the Amerika that you voted for. Happy New Year in a free-ish dictatorship of your creation.