Of the Great Cessation and Accountability

April 3, 2020 1 Comment

Photo by Remy Baudouin on Unsplash

The first Friday of the month is “Jobs Day” in the United States, when employment numbers for the previous month are released by the Labor Department.  A bit out of date for events moving quickly, the report—really for the first part of March when the data were collected—is that there was a net loss of 701,000 jobs.  More recent information from the Labor Department, gathered in the last two weeks of March, was that 9.9 million people filed unemployment insurance claims.

Those are firm, real, and disturbing numbers.  Perhaps you personally know someone tested positive for the virus or even made sick by it.  I feel more confident that you know someone who has lost his job, or whose business has closed, or one way or another is out of work.

Those people were not put out of work by the virus.  Up to this point the virus has reached but a small portion, some 240 thousand, of the 330 million Americans.  Those 9.9 million job losses were caused by government order and the fear spawned by government pronouncements and predictions of what may yet happen.

This unemployment is actual, not a forecast.  Each person of the 9.9 million has a very real story to tell, and it is not a happy one.  Many are tragic.  There are careers that have been disrupted, some only just started and some now ended.  There are businesses closed that will not reopen.  There are painful ongoing worries for people and families over what to do to cope.  None of us dismisses the sorrows involved with those who die, from whatever the cause.  I fear that the real, here and now unemployment wounds are too flippantly disregarded.

At some point, reasonable questions will need to be answered in a calm and deliberative way.  The actions taken and their consequences must be weighed, aside from professed intentions.  And the policies of policymakers will need to be evaluated in light of what they in practice wrought.  Among such questions might be these:

  • Did the realities of the Great Cessation—the sudden orders to stop activity and association, the practicalities of work lost, earnings gone, closed businesses, disrupted human interaction—caused by government decree, do more harm than good?
  • How many of those lost jobs are coming back?  How many of them are career-ending?  How many businesses are closed not to reopen?
  • Which actions ordered are unrelated to the health emergency but rather take opportunistic advantage of public fear and disruption?
  • What scars will remain on the body of our freedoms?

No doubt you also have important questions, calling for some explaining.

Involved officials might respond that the forecasts should not be unnoticed in the review.  Which forecasts?  Certainly good policymaking would rely upon future expectations.  Was a broad picture evaluated of what might likely occur?  How closely did policies applied align with appropriate and realistic forecasts (taken together)?  Which forecasts turned out nearest to what indeed happened?

Shall we go to the current forecasts?  Oxford Economics visualizes the loss of 27.9 million jobs in the U.S.  The most recent government estimates of U.S. virus deaths are between 100 thousand and 240 thousand.  For the full picture, we should include predictions of the fallout from prolonged social disruption and human isolation.  How much harm and how many deaths might those policies cause?  When we tally up the score to see whether it all is worth it, include all of that in the tally.

A deep recession caused by government order has never happened in our history.  Now it has and is part of our story.  Those who ordered it should, with due deference and full fairness, be called upon to justify it.

Filed under Great Cessation, jobs, quarantine, recession, rights, statism Tagged with , , , , ,

Of Generations and Economic Life

March 30, 2020 Leave a comment

Photo by Lindy Baker on Unsplash

Consider these items, taken from one of the social media platforms that specializes in brief, non-reflective commentary:

  • The older generation has to realize that life is never going back to the way it was, that it is changing. 
  • Life is more important than economics.

Perhaps you have seen similar comments.  They are currently in fashion.  As with most silly fashions, I am tempted to ignore them and count on change to fade the fashion into fashion’s forgetfulness.  They betray such depths of ignorance, however, that I find them too hard to pass by as nothing of interest to see.  In times of panic and hysteria, even social media mobs can foment danger.

Hence, I will try a more reflective social media platform to add a few comments of my own.  I readily confess that I may be part of that “older generation.”

Beginning then with the first item, the generational point, to call it superficial is to ascribe to it too much depth.  It is intellectually vacuous.  I would suggest that the last group of people whom you need to convince that life is change is older people.  Every day they face changes, some they like, some they do not, and few that offer a chance of “going back to the way it was.”  Each new morning brings something lost, a new pain, a departed friend, a concluded experience, or a disappointment.  There are also happy changes, a new acquaintance, something accomplished, a new delightful member of the family, a wonderful discovery, a pleasant work-saving invention, inspiration, valuable experience.  Older generations cope with it all as well as any other.

That is to say, that this is not exclusive to older people.  It is, in fact, the stuff of life for all, from youngest to oldest.  We all must face change.  It is just that older people have experienced more years of life, filled with change.  I stress that there are many changes in which we rejoice, ways to which we would hate to return.  I am happy I made it through my teen years and would never wish to go back.  I am quite certain that my father had no desire to return to the two wars he had to fight.  I am grateful each day for the evolving prosperity that our society has experienced for so many decades, that so much poverty and illness have been overcome.  My grandfather died of an incurable disease that today is easily cured—he missed the discovery of the cure by just a few years.  I never had to fear it.  I still pray for a change that might have saved my mother from the illness that slowly took her to the world of spirits.  Do let us talk about change, but let it not begin with the absurd notion that one generation welcomes it and another does not.

Now to reflect a bit on the second item, that supposes a difference between life and economics.  The writer is apparently unfamiliar with economics, formed entirely from life.  It is a life science, individually and in groups.  It is an effort to understand what living people do with their lives and why, and how to find ways for living people to get more from their lives.  For hundreds of years, the evolving discoveries we call “economics” have guided people and nations to raise billions of people from poverty and fuel human interaction allowing people across the world to cooperate in expanding prosperity.  It was the living reality of economics that first destroyed the old monarchies and in recent years wrecked such anti-economic despotisms as the old Soviet Union.  The lessons learned from economics have been the transforming engine that displays the day and night difference in human welfare and freedom—life and death—between South and North Korea.

Lessons from economics, properly understood and efficiently applied, are what will allow our economy, currently in sharp decline from government policies, to revive as quickly as possible from the Great Cessation.  People want to live their lives and express their humanity by being at work, developing their talents, providing for their families, going to school, traveling, discovering, inventing, engaging in cultural activities, uplifting others, building, planting, healing, and hundreds of millions of other things—add your list to these economic activities.  Economics teaches us how to do these things in ever increasing and satisfying ways, as more people are experiencing today than ever before.  This is life.  Economics is important, because life is important.

A concluding thought, one which I would enjoy discussing with someone of whatever generation.  There are some things that do not change, and there is danger of the highest order in pretending that they do.

Filed under abundant life, civilization, economics, Great Cessation, life, prosperity Tagged with , , , , ,

Of Social Disruption & the Great Cessation

March 25, 2020 Leave a comment

Photo by Tim Mossholder on Unsplash

This is not an alarmist post. It is anti-alarmist.  It is a request for a better way.

Last evening, at the quiet end to a quiet day, I ran the numbers. These are not my numbers, but numbers from oft-quoted sources:  The Johns Hopkins Center for Systems Science and Engineering, the U.S. Census Bureau, and The Wall Street Journal.

I live in a state with 8,500,000 people, not far from the average of 7,000,000 for all 50 states.  As of last night, in our state, just below 300 people were reported infected with the virus, and 9 had died from it.

I ran the numbers.  The percentage of people in my state currently hit by the virus is 0.003%, that is three one-thousandths of a percent.  Very large and very small numbers are hard to visualize.  In visual terms, if you had one hundred people to demonstrate the numbers, have one person step forward.  He would represent the 1%.  If that person weighed 100 pounds, 4.8 ounces of that person would represent the three one-thousandths of a percent.  That is my state, so far.  You can multiply that many times before you get to just 1 person out of the 100.

There is genuine hardship for people infected by disease, and as their neighbors we are concerned for them and wish to help.  Are social disruption—which social distancing has become—and the Great Cessation of business the best way to help?  That is a rational and reasonable question.

What about all the rest of the people in the state?  Unfortunately, our governor has chosen to be alarmist.  Invoking worries fed by extreme scenarios of how bad things could get in the future if this or that happens or does not happen, he has declared that all should be affected today, that 100% social disruption should be applied now.  When you run the numbers, that is truly an abundance of caution.

But it is not an abundance of life. You do not see an abundance in the grocery store, in the churches, in the places of work, on the streets.  You have seen the Great Cessation where you live.  You are recognizing the social consequences of cutting people off from one another, people who are by nature social animals and who need real, genuine social interaction.  You have also seen how our economy rests upon that social interaction, and you are seeing how the Great Cessation is affecting the people—you and me and the millions of people who are that economy.  Ask yourself if this is healthy, personally, and for your neighbors.  It does not feel right, it does not look right, it does not sound right.

We hear that essential businesses and jobs may continue.  Which businesses and jobs are to be labeled “essential” and who decides?  That is another reasonable, rational question.  The answers so far have not been reasonable or rational.  In practice an unflawed answer proves impossible, yet the force of law is being applied anyway.  You have to look away to argue that some jobs are essential and others are non-essential, ignoring the many job roots of each designated “essential” job.  It is a fool’s errand—no matter how well educated or official—to make up such a list.

Tell the man and woman put out of work that their jobs are “non-essential”, and include their children in the discussion.  Tell the small businessman who has been forced to close his doors and receive no revenues to pay his rent, keep his infrastructure, and meet his payroll, that his business is non-essential.  On Monday we went out to eat, the last day that the governor’s edict would allow in-restaurant dining.  I was troubled by the fear that I saw in the eyes of the employees, which their gratitude for our business could not hide.  That is the human perspective, which the officials show little signs of considering in their orders.

As President Trump said this week, in the midst of the national social disruption/Great Cessation experiment, the cure must not be made worse than the problem.  Let cool, rational, and reasonable consideration prevail.  I recommend a Wall Street Journal editorial, “From Shutdown to Coronavirus Phase Two.”  It is a rational and reasonable call for a better way forward.  What we have now is hurting everyone.  There must be a better way.

Filed under Great Cessation, jobs, markets, quarantine, statism Tagged with , , , , ,

Of Bears and Working

March 23, 2020 Leave a comment

Photo by Sandy Millar on Unsplash

I can support a cute idea like this.  One of our neighbor dads plans to take his children “on a bear hunt.”  Dad has planned ahead.  He asked neighbors who have them, to put a teddy bear in the window to be spotted by his children as they walk around the block.

Being empty nesters, our home is more often host to grandchildren; few of many bears remain in our house.  Once we had dozens—of teddy bears.  We now have more than a dozen grandchildren, and I am fine with the trade.

Speaking of trading, I suppose that we could put in the window a print out of today’s stock market, sliding deeper into bear market territory, responding to yet another attempt by the Federal Reserve to stimulate market confidence.  A more than casual observation might be that these government intervention moves can do more to spook investors than reassure them.  Usually declared while the markets are closed, the moves appear lately to be followed by a sharp market sell-off.  No criticism of their intentions, but when the 5 governors at the Federal Reserve (Fed for short) are pitted against the billions of people who make trillions of economic decisions each day, the Fed is frequently worsted.  No matter how good computers are, the economy is too complex for any of the models upon which any team of experts relies.

So, no picture of the bear market for the window.  We do not wish to scare the children or their dad.

Fortunately, we did find a teddy bear in the house, left by our youngest (who still has lots of his stuff here).  The bear now sits on our front porch, awaiting discovery.  On his lap he holds a sign, one that our daughter gave us some years ago to announce the pending arrival of her first child.  The sign reads, “Grandkids welcome.  Parents by appointment.”

No, the sign was not mandated by the CDC or the governor.  Humans need social interaction.  That fact is not apparent in the government orders to isolate people indefinitely.  Dad may not go to work, children may not go to school, so it is great to see fathers and sons and daughters taking pleasant walks.  At some point, someone is going to need to pay bills to buy things produced by somebody somewhere.  I wonder whether the complex models on which the governors rely are a match for the billions of human interactions in which their millions of citizens need to engage in order to live and be happy.

Filed under economic growth, family, Federal Reserve, jobs, markets, quarantine, statism Tagged with , , , , ,

Of Introvert Heaven and What to Do with Extroverts

March 16, 2020 Leave a comment

Photo by Anthony Tran on Unsplash

The Introverts must be taking over the world.  Utterance from official sources is that gatherings—if they must take place at all—should be narrowly restrained.  The new limit is to be 50, tops.  Governors in states from New York to California are ordering these social curbs or yet stricter limitations.

Private sector organizations are closing their doors entirely, some with a mentioned end date, others indefinitely.  Sporting events—professional, amateur, scholastic, even clubs—have been shuttered.  The local rec center has closed its doors.  Movie theaters are locking up, voluntarily or by official order.  New movies are rescheduling their start dates or being offered on-line.  Schools, government and private, are sealed (home schoolers remain unaffected, no reports on what home scholars think of that).  The list grows by the hour.

In short, it all sounds like Introvert Heaven.  Stay home, keep inside, work on the computer, read a book, watch a cable movie, play a video game, take a walk, go for a drive, do a puzzle.  As an introvert myself, I recognize that while I would soon tire of it, the thought of solitary confinement has never held terror for me.

I ask, but what of the Extroverts?  No allowance seems to be made for them.  Being the father of both, I know that the sense of being “cooped up” comes quickly to extroverts, who draw personal energy from human interaction, the bigger the group, the better.  Sustained restrictions on access to people are not easily tolerable.  Social media can be a temporary substitute, but a poor substitute, clearly suboptimal for an extrovert, who craves face-to-face association, the more the merrier.  Suppressed long enough, they will revolt—no hyperbole.

Sporting events, theater, parties and such like were invented by and for extroverts.  Since they may make up half or more of the population (the Internet hosts a mildly interesting debate on the exact proportion), the broad assault on extroverts surely will have societal consequences, ones for which the introverts who seem to be making the rules (or who fancy themselves exempt) manifest little recognition.  Promising that the restrictions are probably for no longer than eight weeks offers little comfort to extroverts.  Neither should introverts who must live with them find therein any comfort.

Filed under bureaucracy, civilization, culture, freedom, personality, quarantine, statism Tagged with , , , , , ,

Of Congress and Appropriations

January 21, 2019 Leave a comment

 

Photo by Jomar on Unsplash

 

Why is Congress not legislating?  Congress is the national legislature.  The Constitution vests Congress with exclusive legislative rights.  Then why will the Members of Congress not legislate?

Among the exclusive legislative jobs for Congress is to appropriate funds for the operations of government.  This is a regular, annual task.  This must be well understood:  for Congress to fail to fund the operations of the federal government is a dereliction of duty of the highest order.  Nothing prevents the Members from doing that duty, and no one else can do it.

The President cannot legislate, least of all appropriate.  That limitation is firmly placed as a check on executive power.  The President may not write a single word of legislation, he may not appropriate one penny.  If the agencies of government are not funded, it is because Congress has failed to fund them.  No one else can fund them, and no one else can fail to fund them.  Currently, Congress has not done its job for much of the federal government, and the Members of Congress have no excuse, no justification for the failure.

The President can make recommendations to Congress, he can ask for appropriations.  Congress can heed or disregard such recommendations and requests entirely at its discretion.  They have no effect except as Congress chooses.

Some might say, but what about the President’s veto?  Can he not refuse to sign an appropriation, and send the bill back to Congress?  Indeed he can.  He may send it back, but he cannot change it, he cannot add or remove a single word.  Congress can decide whether to change the legislation, do nothing, or vote to override the veto.  Those decisions are entirely in the hands of the legislators.

It is no excuse for legislators to say that they cannot find sufficient agreement whether to override a veto or even to pass a law.  Whose fault is that?  True representative legislatures (not the rubber stamps of communist dictatorships) have always had the difficult job of dealing with disagreement.  That is why we have legislatures with numerous members.  It is expected that there will be varying points of view.  The legislators’ responsibility is to resolve these differences sufficient to pass necessary laws.

Appropriations for government operations are necessary laws.  They are also among the most malleable of questions.  When the consideration is money for government projects, there is a compromise to be found.  We will not pass anything is not an acceptable option.  It is legislative failure.

Presidents may say that they will veto a bill that does not meet certain standards.  That is a President’s prerogative, but the Constitution is careful to make it a surmountable obstacle.  The Members of Congress, working through the legislative process, may either find a sufficient majority to pass a law that the President will not veto or a sufficient unity of view that will allow them to override the veto.  Doing nothing until the President changes his view is dereliction.

Presidents have had vetoes overridden.  Franklin Delano Roosevelt, a Democrat, vetoed 635 Acts of Congress passed by strong majorities of fellow Democrats.  Congress overrode several of those.  Ronald Reagan vetoed 78 Acts of Congress, several of which were overridden.

Most often, a significant number of Members will sympathize with the President’s view.  That calls for legislative efforts to find a formula reasonable enough that the President does not reasonably veto it.  That is what the national legislature traditionally does and is expected to do.  That is what this Congress has so far failed to do.  That failure is entirely the fault of the Members of Congress.

Filed under Congress, Constitution, duty, Franklin D. Roosevelt, government, Ronald Reagan Tagged with , , , ,

Of Rest and Relaxation

September 9, 2018 Leave a comment

Photo by Christian Wiediger on Unsplash

The Lord has a distinctive idea of “rest.”  We may see rest as a pause, a respite, a separation from work and activity.  Rest and relaxation are often closely associated.  In music, a rest is when the musician is not making sound—but as my musician wife likes to remind those whom she conducts, when you are not playing or singing, you are still performing.  The rest is part of the music, often a vital, important part.

That brings me closer to my point.  Rest is part of the music of God.  He is not casual about the importance of rest.  God rested.

It is a sign between me and the children of Israel for ever:  for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day he rested, and was refreshed. (Exodus 31:17)

God commands us to rest.

Six days thou shalt do thy work, and on the seventh day thou shalt rest:  that thine ox and thine ass may rest, and the son of thy handmaid, and the stranger, may be refreshed. (Exodus 23:12)

He also offers rest as a reward.

Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. (Matthew 11:28)

Rest may be an eternal principle.  As Enos said, approaching the end of his life,

And I soon go to the place of my rest, which is with my Redeemer; for I know that in him I shall rest. (Enos 1:27)

What does the Lord identify as rest?  It can seem very busy.  For example, referring to those who follow Him, the Lord said, “If they live here let them live unto me; and if they die let them die unto me; for they shall rest from all their labors here, and shall continue their works.” (Doctrine and Covenants 124:86, emphasis added)  Brigham Young taught that after people who have been laboring in Christ’s work die they “are just as busy in the spirit world as you and I are here.” (Journal of Discourses, Vol. 3, p.370)

The Sabbath day is so closely identified with rest that it is often called the day of rest.  In the Sabbath the Lord has hallowed the way that He views rest.  Consider how He asks us to keep the Sabbath day holy.  In April 2015, one of the Apostles of Jesus Christ, and today the Lord’s Prophet to the world, Russell M. Nelson, spoke of the Sabbath as a delight, and discussed how we can make it so.  Focusing on the principles involved, he offered broad categories of activity, including worshiping God, serving His children, teaching our own children, studying the scriptures and inspired instructions of the prophets, working to gather and share family history, visiting the lonely, caring for the sick and afflicted.  That sounds like a lot of doing.  I recall that when I was a missionary, my Sabbath days were more filled with activity than any other day, working for the Savior.  There was a lot of doing, and there still is, and it still delivers rest to the soul.

Notice the words that the Lord employed, through the prophet Isaiah, to describe rest:

And it shall come to pass in that day that the Lord shall give thee rest, from thy sorrow, and from thy fear, and from the hard bondage wherein thou was made to serve. (2 Nephi 24:3)

The Lord offers us real rest, deep, profound rest.  It is more than the shallow substitutes and (too frequently) even counterfeits that the world calls rest—substitutes that can leave us worn out, stressed, and still seeking for something deeper.  The rest that God offers is surcease from anxiety, from mental conflict, from routine and activities that provide little lasting meaning, from all that places us in bondage, replacing all of these with peace, with accomplishment that lasts and stays with us now and through the eternities.  It is a gathering of and tending to the riches of relationships built with God, with our families, with our friends that are all intended to last forever.  It is rising above the trials and turbulence of the world, and ending any turbulence within our own hearts.  This is the rest that Christ offers to us.

On the night before His crucifixion, Christ said to His Apostles,

These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace.  In the world ye shall have tribulation:  but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world. (John 16:33)

And then Christ took upon Him our sins and sorrows and troubles that we might know and have true rest, in this life and forever in the life to come.  This is all very real—and refreshing.

Filed under Brigham Young, eternal life, family, God, Jesus Christ, music, peace, rest, sabbath, spirit world Tagged with , , , , , , , , ,

Of Discovered Music and Enthroning the Savior

November 25, 2016 Leave a comment

nails

Many people are introduced to the melody, “Greensleeves,” via the well-known Christmas carol, “What Child Is This?”  There could hardly be a better introduction.

I have a theory that all truly great music—simple or complex—is not created but rather discovered by the composer.  Such music is, I envision, part of a body of music already known and celebrated in heaven.  I could be wrong, but some music is so sublime that it seems to me impossible that heaven could not already be aware of it.  It is my thought that “Greensleeves” belongs to such a class of discovered music.  Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, Pachelbel’s Canon in D, the folk tune “Shenandoah,” among many others, are part of that divine play list, along with beauties yet to be discovered.  So it seems to me.

The words to the carol of which I write are fit for the melody.  They are a soul deep meditation on why the birth of this Baby is so important.  The musings lead to an answer found in what this Child would later do.  The mortal mission of Christ the King is incomparably important to you and me.

I fear that many modern renditions miss—or perhaps even avoid—the point. Among the some two dozen recordings of the carol in my possession, I recently discovered to my surprise that all but maybe four leave out the second of three verses, the one that holds a central place in the poem penned by the author, William C. Dix.  Some repeat, again and again, the true declaration of the first verse that this Child is “Christ the King.”  Recognition of that reality is important, but how far does it get you?  Even Herod believed and feared that prophecy, a belief that goaded him to destroy all of the babes of Bethlehem that his soldiers could find.

Why did Christ the King find it necessary to lower Himself to be born among men?  That is the central question, understanding the answer to which converts our attitude toward Christ from more than reverence for a Divine Monarch into humble love born of joy and boundless gratitude.  The second verse explains what is at the heart of Christmas.  But listen to your recording and see whether these words are included:

Why lies He in such mean estate,
Where ox and ass are feeding?
Good Christians, fear, for sinners here
The silent Word is pleading.
Nails, spear shall pierce Him through,
The cross be borne for me, for you.
Hail, hail the Word made flesh,
The babe, the Son of Mary.

This little Child would be pierced by nails and spear when He was older but no less innocent.  Why would He submit to that?  Why would the King submit to that?  We worship Christ not just because He is the King, but because of what this King has done for us.

I conceive of a day, a moment, when those very men who pounded the nails into the Savior’s hands and feet come personally to realize, come face-to-face with, what they have done.  What depth of grief that this knowledge will cause to the minds of those men—of those moments in that day—I can imagine in only the smallest degree.  They will be the only men, among the billions who have trod the earth, who with hammers in their fists drove nails into the hands and feet of the Creator and their Savior.  What will that recognition mean to them?

Perhaps the Savior’s plea from the cross, “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do,” will be the beginning of some healing solace when they do know what they personally did.  I suspect that this is not the limit of the mercy that the Savior will extend to these, His brothers, who were so close to the Son of God in this horrible way.

Then I am drawn to consider, how will we feel when our day comes, and it surely will, when we stand face-to-face and see those wounds in His hands and feet?  How will we feel when we come to understand perfectly, as we will, that our own, personal sins made those wounds necessary, that because of what we knowingly have done there was no other way, that we helped to make those nails unavoidable?  More, how will we feel, looking in the Savior’s eyes, when we fully understand that depending on our repentance the suffering that we personally caused was entirely and eternally worth it, or in absence of our repentance all for naught?  At that moment our joy and our love or our grief and pain will be without measure.

Let us decide now, for we may, to let our loving hearts enthrone Him.

Filed under atonement, Christmas, Jesus Christ, joy, music, repentance, sacrifice, salvation, suffering Tagged with , , , , , , , ,

Of Caricatures and Reality

February 19, 2016 1 Comment

Dirt&Grass

Photo Credit:  Elizabeth Lies

It was a long commute home today.  I think that most people are all out of vacation days, and perhaps saving up what they have for the Easter holidays.  Almost everyone went to work, and a lot of them chose to go home at the same time and on the same roads as I.  In the slow motion on the expressway there was ample time to think and muse.

Among my musings, and considering the ongoing presidential campaign, I imagined a conversation with one of the leading Democrat candidates.  I will refer to the candidate as Burning Cynders, to preserve anonymity.  I will leave it to you to imagine whether this reminds you of anyone.

WAA:  I understand that you want to buy votes with my money.

Cynders:  I don’t buy votes.  That’s what my opponents do.

WAA:  You just promise them free stuff, like free college tuition and free healthcare, to be paid for out of my pocket.

Cynders:  Everyone has a right to an education.

WAA:  And apparently you claim the right to pick my pocket to pay for it.  Sounds like you have learned how to buy votes with other people’s money.

Cynders:  It’s called leadership.  Someone has to stand up for people who are not as fortunate as you are.

WAA:  You don’t make me feel fortunate at all.

Cynders:  You are fortunate to be able to help your fellow man.

WAA:  You mean, I am fortunate to have you help yourself to what I have earned so that you can give it to your cronies.

Cynders:  Giving to cronies is what my opponents do.  I want to give the money to young people so that they can get an education.

WAA:  You, personally, are going to give the money to each of the wannabe students?  You will be very busy.  It’s a big country.  You may find a lot of hands stretched out.

Cynders:  I certainly hope so.  And I will have plenty of people who will help me, who will administer the programs, people who believe in what I am trying to do.

WAA:  That’s wonderful.  So you will give the money to them, and they will make sure that some of it gets to the students to pay for their free education.  Sounds like the happy marriage of cronyism and vote buying.

Cynders:  No, these are real patriots, people who really understand what America is all about.

WAA:  America is about free handouts?  And taxing successful people to pay you and your cronies?  Are the professors and school administrators working for free to help provide this free college tuition?

Cynders:  Of course not.  We need the best to teach our children.  They deserve the best, and we need to invest in the best.

WAA:  But I thought that you said that education is a right.  How can these professors make merchandise of the students and their rights by insisting on being paid to honor those rights?

Cynders:  The professors have a right to be paid, and paid commensurate with their ability and skill and knowledge.

WAA:  And commensurate with their connection to you and your plan.  I apparently have no right, except to let you pick my pocket to pay them so generously.  Sounds like more of your cronies.  I could never vote for you on such a plan.

Cynders:  You don’t have to vote for me.  You just need to work and make a lot of money so that I can use it to . . .

WAA:  To buy the votes of the people to whom you want to give all the free stuff.

Some may think that this conversation is a caricature, but it is hard to make a caricature of someone who is himself a caricature.  This is closer to reality than what emanates from such presidential candidates.

As I said, this conversation formed in my head as I was in traffic on my way home, home from Washington, D.C.  All around me were BMWs, Mercedes, Infinitis, Lexus, Acuras, and more than the occasional Jaguar and Porsche.  These are the people, living in what have recently become some of the wealthiest counties in America.  These are the people who would be paid by Burning Cynders to administer his free programs.

Filed under cronyism, demagoguery, elections, politics, rights, socialism, taxes, Uncategorized Tagged with , , , , ,

Of the Songs of Angels and Our Part in their Story

December 23, 2015 Leave a comment

MilkyWayStones
There are many beautiful carols sung, performed on instruments, whistled, and even hummed to celebrate Christmas. They are among the more significant and important ways of remembering and worshiping the Savior as we commemorate His birth—the most important is to do His works, as He showed us.

A beautiful American carol—not heard nearly enough today—is “It Came upon the Midnight Clear,” words by Edmund Hamilton Sears, music by Richard Storrs Willis. Part of this carol’s power, much like “Joy to the World,” is that it unites the certain news of the Savior’s birth with the prophecies of Christ’s return. Just as surely as Christ’s birth happened in complete fulfillment of thousands of years of prophecy and prayer, so may we trust that the prophecies of the Savior’s return will be fulfilled in every particular.

The night before His birth, the Savior declared to the prophet Nephi, “on the morrow come I into the world, to show unto the world that I will fulfill all that which I have caused to be spoken by the mouth of my holy prophets.” (3 Nephi 1:13) That declaration applied to all of the prophecies, those of His birth, His ministry, His atoning sacrifice, His resurrection, and His return in the latter days.

That is the message of the carol by Sears and Willis:

It came upon the midnight clear,
That glorious song of old,
From angels bending near the earth
To touch their harps of gold:
“Peace on the earth, good will to men
From heav’n’s all-gracious King.”
The world in solemn stillness lay
To hear the angels sing.

The carol begins with reflections on the ancient story, proclaimed by unimpeachable messengers from heaven, of the birth of the Prince of Peace, tidings sent from His Father, the King. The carol does not stop there. It moves forward to remind us what that song of old means for us today. In short, the story did not end on that midnight clear; the story continues. We are in the story.

Still thru the cloven skies they come
With peaceful wings unfurled,
And still their heav’nly music floats
O’er all the weary world.
Above its sad and lowly plains
They bend on hov’ring wing,
And ever o’er its babel sounds
The blessed angels sing.

The angels’ work has not ended, their song continues, the messengers of heaven yet minister to us in modern times to our weary world. As today’s leaders say more and lead less, and the “babel” of voices increases, the need for the message of the angels grows. The angels still have much work to do. They are needed now ever as much as they were two thousand years ago. What is their message? That the days proclaimed by prophets throughout the ages are arriving. Ours, too, is a momentous age. We are part of the story spoken and begun anciently, still extending toward a conclusion yet ahead.

For lo! the days are hast’ning on,
By prophets seen of old,
When with the ever circling years
Shall come the time foretold,
When the new heav’n and earth shall own
The Prince of Peace their King,
And the whole world send back the song
Which now the angels sing.

As we worship each Christmas time, and throughout the year, let the message of this song, and the words of the prophets—ancient and modern—remind us that the time is hastening on as foretold. As we live and move through the weary world, we need not be weary. We can listen to the messages from heaven and rejoice. We can own the Prince of Peace our King and send back the song that the angels in our day are still singing.

Filed under angels, Christmas, Heavenly Father, Jesus Christ, joy, millennium, peace, prophecy, prophets, revelation, Second coming of Christ, Uncategorized, works, worship Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , ,

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