Tag: government

How to make change real.

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Obama-Hope-Change-Forward
We voted for change with a young, idealistic black man with our current president. Today, we look to an old, critical white man for the same change.
The most meaningful change to strive for is in our own life and our own community. The rest is…overblown. The work done up there in the halls of government is important, but not as important as the attention we give to our own lives and neighborhoods.
The best hope to have is in yourself and the friendships you forge.

Follow me and I will take you away from the everyday.

Please feel free to pass this along if you think others would enjoy it.

I had shaved it all off, all because of her.

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The cold came and went. The frigid single digits and then a week later it was 50. I was shaved, my face bare and smooth and comfortable. And then I saw another temperature drop on the horizon. The next week would be polar, wind chills making the temperature feel like negative degrees. So cold that the thermometer couldn’t keep a positive scale. Ridiculous!

So I started in, with the growing. I followed my mistress, my girl, because she was always right, in this realm. And it wasn’t an effort anyway, as if I need to reroute supplies to send to my face follicles, or recruit legions to begin growing my hair. Quite the opposite. I was going to simply stop shaving, but what many of the non-bearded don’t know, because they don’t have the experience, is that the end of the first week of an infant beard was like the terrible two’s of human infancy.

The young beard is exploring its home, and it is antsy. It provokes, and pokes you. It’s an itchy period of time. And after we’ve committed several days to this, tolerating all our little ones settling in and learning how to play nice together on the world of our jaw, there’s an annoyance when you soon find that the days are warm, without a cold wind to sting your face.

And so after growing it in over a week for the cold, I shaved it because of the warmth, to feel the wonderful warm on my face. And now the temperatures have plummeted… again.

I am annoyed with my woman. But I tolerate her whims. Because that’s what a man does. Our power comes from resilience. And our power comes from respecting her power: The earth shattering forces of the storms and the sea and the earth quaking, and the roller coaster of warmth and then cold and then warmth of her changing moods.

That’s the price of admission to ride. And I want to ride.

What did you learn from this election?

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This election season has taught me a lot. It has made me see the ideology that can take over reason. It has shown me the emotion that can drive us to our beliefs, or help drive us apart, and give ourselves meaning.

And my emotions sit inside me, the sadness that realities exist unknown by many. That people suffer, and costs mount, youths remain uneducated, and bets are being made by our bankers (albeit less recklessly than before). But then I see the researchers that continue their work, driven by human curiosity. The development of science and technology that is exploding to a future I can’t even imagine. The businessmen and engineers who rebuild, making things better, more efficient, faster, and cheaper. The resiliency in those who are just working to pay bills. And those overseas who are going through the dirty work of murder in order to be free of dictators. I see all of this. And I smile.

Although hope can be blind, it is also our greatest asset, because whatever happens, we will persevere through the changes that this country and the world is going through. And it’s not anyone’s fault that things happen this way, because this is the way that it should happen.

As much we try to control things, the only thing we have control over, the most valuable thing, is our own work, and our own happiness. If I don’t like where I’m at, that is on me. And if you don’t like where you are, that is on you. And no one can change that… no partner, no friends, no parents, no government program… no matter what they do… because we have a choice, we still have freedoms… especially in the United State of America.

Laws may fail us, but our morality will not

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When government representatives allow immoral but technically legal corporate practices, are we being just as immoral in re-electing those same representatives back into office? Does more regulation help our moral standards or just focus on legal standards? Does it matter? Why do we need legal standards when the moral thing to do is not give our business to those who are doing wrong with our money?

The government announced that starting this month, they will be buying $40 billion worth of near worthless bonds from the Wall St banks every month to try to save the economy. Using our money.

Think it will work?

Willing to bet your retirement on it?

Because if you have a 401k, you already are.

How bizarre, how bizarre

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Last night, Romney was criticizing a law that doesn’t really exist, and Obama was talking about doing something that he said he would do when he ran for office the last time.

Romney said that the Dodd-Frank Act “designates a number of banks as too big to fail, and they’re effectively guaranteed by the federal government.”

But most of the Act is unenforced, since regulators don’t know how the Wall Street banks make-up what they sell. Bernie Frank (Democrat) even said that since regulators have not defined what a qualified mortgage is, the policy “has no effect” on loans now, which “will not be covered by this.”

And Obama talked about preventing loopholes and tax breaks for businesses shipping jobs overseas, and what has been done about that in 4 years? Will Romney be able to change any of this?

How bizarre.

Why do we continue to vote for these parties?

Let’s make the change.

Remove the money gag

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How would you rate the following in importance?

-Tax breaks for gay and straight married couples
-Wall Street banks paying fines a fraction of the $30 trillion the government loaned them to keep their collapse from taking down our economy.
-Government money to cover contraception

What do we need to focus on? All of these involve controlling money. Is that the problem?

The money isn’t the problem. It’s how the government is engineering the country as if money is our only motivator.

Good leaders trust the human spirit, not carrots and sticks

Good leaders don’t use regulations and incentives. But our leaders are doing so today. They’re trying to regulate Wall St bankers to prevent their recklessness from hurting us again in the future. But regulations restrict us and push us to find a way around them. That is why three times since 1990, the banks have almost collapsed and why the government bailed them out each time. If you knew you were going to get your money back, would you be more or less careless when spending it?

And incentives? Incentives bribe us. Research shows that when you start giving rewards, people are pretty predictable. They stop doing for the sake of doing, and shift to doing for the reward. When you start going to work so that you can get money to buy stuff, the stuff becomes the reward and the job becomes less of a choice.

We’re not animals. But if you use carrots and sticks on us, we will tune our motivations to that type of environment

How can these two things be the foundation of leadership, of government, of a community?

They can’t.

Are there any leaders today that inspire you? Most leaders of today aren’t going to be the people in government. Those who seek power in a system that has been compromised have compromised themselves. Granted, they may change some things. They may nibble at the fringes. But that cancer still grows inside.

Despite what media and culture tells us, leaders aren’t special. They aren’t chosen by divine providence or fate. They don’t have abilities different than you and me. Do you empower others? Ask people what they think? Do you encourage people? Then you’re probably a leader, or you can become one now that you see what it takes.

Leaders make things happen, yes. But:

“A leader is best when people barely know he exists, when his work is done, his aim fulfilled, they will say: we did it ourselves”

This Taoist quote tells us it’s about us doing something. It’s always been about us. And I think we can do this. It’s going to require us to remove the gag of money that has both silenced and motivated us. It’s going to require looking past the “I want to get mine if they’re getting theirs”. It’s going to require stopping the consumer train, and looking at what we’re feeding the engine. It’s going to require putting our heads together and not letting party or social class or emotions divide us and distract us from doing the right thing.

Let’s kill the noise and start listening to reality

Elections are where we can flex our muscle. But we’ve got to do our homework before then. Listen to what’s being reported. Do you think it’s important? We’ve got to talk to people and not be afraid to ask them why they believe what they do. Your neighbor isn’t stupid or lazy, and neither are you. Politics isn’t personal. It’s what a community depends on for its survival! And if we think one party or one person can fix this country, we’ve missed the point. This country is here because people had the courage of their convictions to join together and risk everything for what they believed in.

I think we can step up and be leaders again.