Happy Birthday

Ronald Reagan was born February 6, 1911. There is no shortage of information about his life, his work or his political career that can be found all over the place. On this, his birthday, I wanted to share some quotes that really point to who he was and what he believed.

"A troubled and afflicted mankind looks to us, pleading for us to keep our rendezvous with destiny; that we will uphold the principles of self-reliance, self-discipline, morality, and, above all, responsible liberty for every individual that we will become that shining city on a hill."

This portion of the speech he gave when he announced his candidacy for President in 1979 emphasizes the importance of individual responsibility in such a beautiful way. He spoke of the "city on a hill" often, but in this instance, he makes it clear, that it isn't just going to build itself. It is going to take the hard work and dedication of a nation of individuals who rely on and indeed, uphold these principles.

He emphasized the need for personal accountability for many years, as he did when speaking as Governor of California in 1968:

We must reject the idea that every time a law's broken, society is guilty rather than the lawbreaker. It is time to restore the American precept that each individual is accountable for his actions.

Not only are people responsible for themselves, but he added the following in a different speech:

Government's first duty is to protect the people, not run their lives.

He held that people should be responsible, period.

He also had a great sense of humor, which occasionally was used to try to get him into trouble. Here are a few quotes that showed us that he actually enjoyed life and didn't take himself too seriously when he didn't have to.

Before I refuse to take your questions, I have an opening statement.

I never drink coffee at lunch. I find it keeps me awake for the afternoon.

Thomas Jefferson once said, 'We should never judge a president by his age, only by his works.' And ever since he told me that, I stopped worrying.

No matter what time it is, wake me, even if it's in the middle of a Cabinet meeting.

He firmly believed in the value of human life, as can be drawn from the following:

I know in my heart that man is good. That what is right will always eventually triumph. And there's purpose and worth to each and every life.

We have the duty to protect the life of an unborn child.

There are no constraints on the human mind, no walls around the human spirit, no barriers to our progress except those we ourselves erect.

We can't help everyone, but everyone can help someone.

If we love our country, we should also love our countrymen.

I could go on and on because he said so much worth repeating. He spoke often about his faith in God. He spoke often of his love for his family, especially that of Nancy. He gave us so many choice words on the value of conservative ideals. He spoke often of governments true role and the value that we should place on the ideals and words of the founders. He was a true nature lover and spoke about the joy he derived from the outdoors and the ways we should responsibly protect it.

One of my favorite quotes of his is short, but so valuable, especially in the politically correct world we live in today. He simply said, "Don't be afraid to see what you see". Eight simple words that say so much. He saw what he saw and he lived his life to embrace the good and reject the bad.

I miss you Mr. President. Happy Birthday.

The Employee Handbook

Unless you are one of the lifetime welfare recipients in the country, chances are you either have a job or have had a job at some point in your life. Most employers have a set of guidelines that dictate how employees have to behave and how they have to perform while at work. This can include anything from how to dress, to what language they can use, production quotas, grooming standards, behavior models and any number of other things that are designed to maximize the benefit of the company and in lots of cases, the safety of the employees. 

Often, these guidelines are in the form of an employee handbook. I have seen these come in all shapes and sizes. Some of them as small as a few pages stapled together, some of them professionally bound books of hundreds of pages. Typically, employees will have to sign a letter acknowledging that they have read, understand and agree to abide by the principles set forth within. Failure to do so can be met with discipline or even termination. Company also have agreements where employees can be prosecuted or even sued for breaking certain rules. 

Everyone from McDonalds to Fortune 500 companies feature some form of employee handbooks. When a company hires an employee, it is no small thing for them. It often involves quite an investment of time and money. They expect the employee to step in and do the job they were hired to do and often put a lot of money into the process of making sure they are equipped to do so. When an employees fails to live up to his end of the bargain it can cost him his job and it can cost the company a great deal, from money, to time lost, to production lost or could make customer service suffer leading to loss of business. It is no small thing. Companies have the potential to be so adversely affected by this that it can lead to business failure in extreme cases. There is a reason that companies put so much effort into the crafting of these handbooks.

To a business owner, the vitality, growth and survival of the company is of immense importance. A company's survival and ability to thrive can also affect the lives of hundreds or thousands of other people. There was an essay written years ago called I, Pencil, by Leonard Read which describes among other economic ideas, the fact that the creation of an object as simple as a pencil involves the work, brainpower and capital of thousands of people. The catastrophic breakdown of any of the parts of such a system could negatively impact the entire process and send ten of thousands of people in search of another job. That may seem extreme, but the reality is, most businesses are just one such failure away from extinction. 

What if there were such a business that could negatively affect the entire population in such a way? If the failure of this business could send the country into financial and social upheaval, shouldn't we all be concerned about its functionality? Of course we should. If its failure could send you to the poorhouse and put you in the city block long lines to obtain potatoes or toilet paper, you should be concerned. Concern is but a fraction of what you should be, you should take a vital interest. The same way that a small business owner takes a vital interest in the daily functions of his company. There is such a business, if you haven't guessed it by now, the federal government. It shouldn't be such a business, but here we are, it is what it is. 

It be nice, if we, the people, as "owners" of this business could at the least expect the employees to operate by a code of conduct, an employee handbook. We should be able to hold our employees accountable for their performance, conduct and anything else that influences the way they perform the job we have hired them to do. This should apply to everyone from entry level employees of the myriad of agencies all the way up to the President of the United Stated. They should be contractually obligated to perform in the manner laid out in such a handbook. If they fail to uphold their end of the contract, they should be dealt with in such a way as is most beneficial to the company. We, as owners, should be able to set these terms. It should be laid out in as simple, yet the most all-inclusive way possible.  

Mark Levin has a new book called the Liberty Amendments. In it he lays out how we, the people, through Article V of the Constitution can make amendments through a process on state levels. Congress will never make amendments that would curtail their power. The days of such men in office has passed, long passed. We cannot count on them to police themselves any longer. We need to be able to set the rules and enforce them. This "employee handbook" is my proposal to reign in the power hungry employees who have taken over the business and now dictate to the owners. 

The time has come for us to take our country back.

Trust

Trust me. We've all heard those words. We all have someone we trust, unconditionally. If they say they will do something, you can absolutely count on it. We've all had our trust taken for granted as well. Someone that we thought trustworthy let us down at a most inopportune time. It hurts. It is not so hard to build up trust, but it is extremely difficult to rebuild trust once broken. It's like bailing water out of a leaking boat using a bucket filled with holes. The only way to repair trust is to be trustworthy once again. Generally speaking, there is no way to rebuild it if it is broken a second time. The old adage, "fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me" comes to mind. 

What is trust? It has been defined as the assured reliance on the character, ability, strength, or truth of someone or something;Confident expectation of something.

The question has been asked, repeatedly, do you trust the government. It was first asked, at least in a scientific poll back in November, 1958, during Eisenhower's second term as President. At that point, it was about 73% positive trust. It is currently(and I think optimistically) at 26% positive trust. What happened? With little exception, one being the Reagan era, the other being the post 9-11 patriotic surge in general sentiment, the rate of trust has hovered right around 30%. This graph appears in a Pew Research study on the subject[1]

What happened is that we have been inundated with so-called leaders that have shown themselves time and again to be untrustworthy. Moral character has not been a prevalent trait in our leaders for a long time. We have had scandal after scandal, abuse of power piled on top of itself, self-serving, liberty stealing individuals have dominated the national stage, and as such, public trust has plummeted. Is this a surprise? It shouldn't be. The government is not working that "fool me once/twice" game on us anymore, they are working the "fool me as many times as you can and dare me to do anything about it" game, and they have it down to a science.

Our founding fathers knew that our government's ability to defend and protect our liberty was dependent upon men of character being trusted with the task. They said so often. They knew, as wise men before them knew, that power corrupts. They argued about it, they debated the solutions and they wrote mechanisms into our constitution to battle such corruption. The problem we face, however, is that the corrupt have corrupted the process and found ways to ignore and supersede the protections. 

Alexander Hamilton, in January of 1790, said: 

States, like individuals, who observe their engagements, are respected and trusted: while the reverse is the fate of those who pursue an opposite conduct.

Fifteen years earlier, Samuel Adams said:

Nothing is more essential to the establishment of manners in a State than that all persons employed in places of power and trust be men of unexceptionable characters. The public cannot be too curious concerning the character of public men.

Notice who he charged with keeping an eye on these scoundrels? You and I. We are responsible. While 26% of us seem to think they are trustworthy, despite mountains of evidence to the contrary, 74% of us believe otherwise. It would be interesting to know the motivations behind those feelings of distrust. I suspect some of us "just feel" it. We need to be vigilant and stay on top of what is going on in Washington to the best of our abilities. We need to know how they have broken our trust. We need to share those reasons with others. We need to be careful though, we need research our facts so that when we are confronted, we can be sure about what we are saying. The danger of doing otherwise, is that we, ourselves, can become untrustworthy. For the sake of liberty, we need to be trustworthy. 

There is a reason for the motto, "In God We Trust". He is the only one worthy...

An Open Apology

I feel that I must apologize for something.

My family of four was sitting in Chic-Fil-A eating dinner last night. We were enjoying our sandwiches, nuggets and salads like we do any other time we eat there. There was a group of four young people sitting nearby, laughing, eating and generally acting like 17 tear old people act. During the course of dinner, in the midst of their loud conversation, one of them started berating someone they knew. She talked about how much she hated her and capped it off with, "F--- her!" My wife and I both spun around and gave her the evil eye of disapproval. She turned, kind of half-way embarrassed and said "sorry", with a laugh in her voice and her eyes. My wife, who was probably equally embarrassed, said "that's OK", to which I loudly replied, "no, it's not OK".

I know that no less than 3 other families heard her loud and clear. She made no effort to apologize to any of them and really only ceremoniously did so to my wife. The teens continued their conversation much in the same way, but I never heard any other profanity.

I fought with myself for the rest of dinner to get up and say something to her. I'm not quite sure why I didn't. Maybe it was out of respect for the restaurant, not wanting to make a scene. Maybe it was the thought that these four teens might react in a way that would cause someone to get hurt, either me, them or any of the other people sitting nearby. Whatever it was that kept me from getting up, I regret. I should have gotten up.

So now, I want to apologize. I want to apologize to that young lady.

You were sorry? No, I'm sorry. I'm sorry that you grew up in a home where respect for other people was not taught. I'm sorry that your parents are part of a society that places no value in values. I'm sorry that you were never taught what it means to be polite or to respect your elders, like the elderly couple that was sitting at the table next to you. I'm sorry that you weren't shown by example how to respect children, like mine, 8 and 5, or the other four sitting nearby of similar ages. I'm sorry that our culture is such that you think its acceptable to speak that way in public.

I'm sorry that none of the friends you were with were even slightly embarrassed at your behavior. Their parents also are failing them in allowing them to grow up with the attitudes they possess. I'm sorry that your parents place whatever ideals it is that they place ahead of raising children. I'm sure they provide for your needs as you all had iPhones and nice clothes. I'm sorry that they haven't taught you the value of hard work. I'm sorry that they haven't instilled in you any values or moral code that would make you feel even slightly remorseful for the way you behave. I'm sorry that you were never disciplined.

I'm sorry that your schools are filled with the thoughts of  encouraging you to do whatever you want to do without regard for consequences. I'm sorry that they are so afraid to instill real values into your education that they are handcuffed by fear of what your parents or the courts might do to them if they actually have the nerve to teach you or discipline you when you act this way in class. I'm sorry that they feel that it is more important to suspend you for chewing a pop-tart into a banned shape instead of teaching you how our founders and subsequently millions of soldiers used weapons that were not pop-tarts to establish and defend this country from our enemies. I'm sorry.

I want to further apologize to you for having to live in a society where people like me feel like trying to do the right thing and show you the error of your ways may cause us to be arrested or sued. I'm sorry that our justice system is tilted in the favor of those who will sit still for anything over those who will stand for something. I'm sorry that our society places more value in things that degrade the family instead of building it up. I'm sorry that they can't see the results, but that my family has to witness the results while trying to enjoy dinner. I'm sorry that they will push even harder to get across the next hurdle to breaking down the family for good.

I'm sorry that you are so inspired by our leaders who will apologize all over the world for being a nation that had values that we stood by for so many years. I'm sorry that our leaders will praise celebrities who display values that go against the kind of values that create people who don't behave in the way that you do. I'm sorry that our nations highest courts, lawmakers and executives lead you by example in the way they display a lack of morals and no desire to strive for what is right. I'm sorry that society has practically abolished the concept of right and wrong or good and evil.

I'm sorry that you can't pick up a magazine or go to a movie or see a television show where sex and violence isn't the main theme. I'm sorry that Hollywood has chosen to do as much as it can to separate you from reality. I'm sorry that the games you have to play have to include a warning on the box for violence and adult themes. I'm sorry that the music you listen to is so full of vile ideas and words that would cause Paula Deen to lose her career but the people that sing the songs are hailed as heroes and role models. I'm sorry that your biggest influence growing up was probably Spongebob Squarepants.

Above all, I'm sorry that I didn't get up and say all of this to you in person. I'm sorry that I spared you the discomfort of hearing someone tell you what they think about your behavior. I'm sorry that I didn't make you squirm in your seat for fifteen minutes while I tried to do what all of these influences in your life failed to do. I'm sorry that so many other people will have to hear you say the same kinds of things, over and over until you are replaced by your own children.

I am truly sorry...