The Shutdown Stupidity

Let's be very clear on the reasons for the shutdown.

While I expected a series of continuing resolutions to keep the government funded until we have a new Congress in 2019, there are a few issues that have come to a head because of trump's mismanagement of the presidency and abysmally poor negotiating skills.

1. Racism. trump's vile language of just a few days ago in negotiations with both Republican and Democratic members of Congress clearly reveal what we all know and some won't admit, that trump is a disgusting racist. He said it. He wants more immigrants like Norwegians instead of from "s***hole" or "s***house" countries like Haiti or "Africa." The LDS Church has recently condemned racism and "white supremacy" in the strongest of terms.

How Thick Is Family Blood?

Back sometime in the lost, golden age when Barack Obama was President of the United States, I was engaged in a political discussion on the internet with a member of my extended family. This person said that Obama was the most racially divisive president ever, but that because I was blood family we would always be connected. I wanted a divorce.

Recently, that is since white-nationalists marched with torches chanting their antisemitism in Charlottesville, and since the LDS Church responded with a statement clarifying its first that "white-nationalism," "white-supremacy," and promotion of "white-culture" were sinful and unsaintly, another member of my extended family left voice mails for me saying that I was full of hate and a disgrace to the family name. I want another divorce.

It is odd that the only person you can divorce in your family is your spouse. I suppose you can disinherit your children and kick them out at some point from your basement. But I love my wife and kids. My wife is still with me going on 38 years of love amid life's challenges and my kids have pretty much moved out for good. Or, at least we can hope.

The concept of family honor and "blood thicker than water" strike me as pretty creepy when they are used to attack my beliefs and my personhood. It's probably a small fraction of what some minorities feel when under attack by antisemitism or white supremacy.

Dirty Politics

Politics is a messy thing. Self-governance as a people united of, by, and for each other is a high ideal rarely obtained. The political choices are almost always the least bad of bad options. Progress is generally made only through compromise. And of our political aspirants we often want to ask, "Why are your doing this?" "What for?" "What's in it for me?" and "By what authority?"

Dear Hillary-Haters

First up, I don't like her that much myself, but I don't hate her.

And I'm not going to try to convince you of her competence and political abilities. I have my own issues with her. Still, I know she can do the job and work with the Congress and execute the laws.

I ask you this:

Grant V's Big Adventure

In Washington DC for a work-required conference, I had to travel to Main Interior to meet with someone on another work matter and call a Judge. So I hopped in our agency limo and headed downtown.

It wasn't really that big of an adventure as I started out at Main Interior some 30 years ago and somehow managed the commute back then. It's just that as I age, my life takes on more epic meaning and I have a Samsung S-6 to document the epicness:

Aparrently they are still working on our federal employee limo service

Whoa! THREE of my Political Heroes all at Once!

And I'm sure the girls are great too! What a way to spend a day in DC!

Senator Henry Clay (on the wall), Senator Jeff Flake (R, AZ), and Matt Anselmo (World Famous Mo-Dem Blogger)
Photo credit: Kaija Flake Thompson

Senator Clay, the Great Compromiser and hero of Lincoln's, seems to be there by pure chance. And my Dem-Mormon-Blogger Friend, Matt Anselmo, seems to have some familial connections in DC. Matt is the one who invited me to write for MormonDems.com and I've been a little lax lately, politics taking a bit of a back seat to family history and Mo-Dems joining some kind of conglomerate I have yet to spend the time on to figure out.

Senator Flake is a hero because while definitely and solidly conservative, he is smart and wise enough not to join the gang of 47 in their attempts to undermine our President of the United States and provoke a war with the Ayatollahs of Iran.

My 31st Anniversary with the Feds

Only today did I realize that my bureaucratically formulated service computation date falls on the same day as Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address! March 4! Lincoln's address was 150 years ago today! Glad to be working for the same government of, by, and for the people. (My actual first day was May 31, 1983).

We've got a long way to go, Mr. Lincoln. The peoples' power of self-government has been vastly eroded by corporate financial power that tends to write its own rules, regulations, and laws. There are many perverse philosophies abroad in the land to tear at the fabric of the Constitution. (Many funded by the corporate financial power). But you know all about that in your tight-rope walk at the most dangerous hour of our Constitutional survival. Your actions weren't perfect, but they accomplished great good in destroying the cancer of America and its Constitution - the right of property to own humans in bondage. Thank heavens that's gone!

Strangers in a Strange Land - Immigration, 1860

Here is one more view of Mormon immigrants in Carson Valley from our correspondent to the San Francisco Herald, July 25, 1860:

Considerable number of immigrants have already arrived in this country from Salt Lake; but I regret that they are not generally of a class that we can welcome, being mostly Mormons, or apostate Mormons. As far as I have been able to observe in a three years’ residence in Utah, I see but little difference between the regular Mormon and the apostate; they are all, or nearly all, of the very lowest class of English, Welsh and Danes.

White War

Oh yeah, baby! The confederacy rises again as predicted!

Talk from an elected Congressman of the republican party, just revealed the whole game!

Seven Score and Ten Years Ago

Objectivism vs. Communitarianism

"Angels Who Have Pruned on High!"
As part of our LDS Ward Fall Clean-up, our Bishop and others help take down a threatening tree limb before it falls.
I mostly worked on the leaf-raking crews as I have few heavy-equipment or chain-saw skills.

More philosophical than political today, although I'm far from being an intellectual philosopher. And for today we will just leave aside the devil's purpose regarding free agency (you can see my view here). And I relate personal experience only to say that I attempt to walk the communitarian walk.

Yesterday, I went out to help the neighborhood in our Fall clean-up project. Most of it was yard cleaning for widows and the elderly. Our Priesthood and Women's Relief Society under the direction of our bishopric prepared a list of people to visit with the needs they had. As we went around, we hit a few other homes that needed some work - those of new move-ins, less-active members of the church, even non-members. The best part of all is that some of the less-actives and a great new move-in family came out to help and then went along with us to other houses.

The Lincoln Analogy

Obamacare pales in comparison to the importance of freeing the Slaves. And shutting down the government is nothing at all like Civil War. But the principles are exactly the same.

President Obama came in inexperienced and made mistakes - so did Lincoln. But there was an overriding principle of promoting Constitutional government of, by, and for the People - all of us People - not any particular faction, party, or philosophy, except for this: The Constitution is not some stale, old parchment perpetually framed in the National Archives and in the context of the 1700s. No, the principles that "all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness" and that all our individual ideals and aspirations have value as we learn to work together within the framework for government that our Founders were inspired to construct should last the eternities.

Check those words again, all men are created equal. Well, for one thing, it now includes women, too - and children. The 'all' also has a bit more meaning than it did originally. It's not just white male property owners anymore. Go find those words in the Constitution! (spoiler - they're not there!) No, those words come from the brain and pen of Thomas Jefferson who wrote the Declaration of Independence (in committee with Ben Franklin, John Adams, Roger Sherman, and Robert Livingston). The concept has always been important to the American Spirit, but those words were not in the Constitution. There needed to be a phase-out of the concept of State Power as opposed to the rights, protections, and even responsibilities of individuals.

The Address

Something along these lines is what I would like to hear from the President tonight. But, hey! If John Boehner wants to give it, fine by me!

One hundred and fifty years ago, President Abraham Lincoln linked the concept of our nation’s founding with the structure of the Constitution asserting that this nation was conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great political war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are eternally grateful that this nation has passed far beyond a resort to violence and bloodshed disputing the rights and responsibilities of free men and women of all races and creeds. Yet we still are tempted by willful political whim, rather than the rule of constitutionally tested law and the results of broad-based elections.

Open Letter to Senator Mike Lee

Dear Senator Lee:

Let my start by stating that I am an American Citizen of legal residence in the State of Utah. That makes you one of my two U.S. Senators even though I did not vote for you. But I am your constituent and I write this to offer a little advice.

I understand that you had a little talking-to from your Minority Leader today. It's really too bad you didn't pay more attention to my blog, or your old Home Teacher - Brother Reid, or even your Dad. I knew your Dad. I realize that you must have known him much better. And I can't understand how you came away from such a good man and a conservative of solid credentials to promote the ideas about government and the U.S. Constitution that you do.

There is help that I offer in the form of a publication that one of Senator Hatch's Aides gave me up there on the 8th Floor of the Federal Building in SLC. I went to get some of those copies of the U.S. Constitution that Senators give away so I could pass them out to Boy Scouts working on their First Class Badge. I used to go down to Senator Bennett's office because I liked him best of all, but he seems to be gone. You can also get the book on-line at this place you can click at. Anyway, the booklet is called "Our American Government." Here's a picture in case you haven't seen it:

It's a really cool guide to the U.S. Constitution and our wonderful system of Government. It was printed by the Government Printing Office and produced by a Concurrent Resolution of the One Hundred Eighth Congress of the United States of America. H. Con. Res. 108-139 (so you can have a staffer look it up to check!) That was the Congress elected in 2002 right when President Bush was rallying us all for our patriotic fight in Iraq! Those guys (and a few gals) must have been real patriots! I mean, even the President said that those who weren't with us were against us so I know the Congress went along with him!

Anyway, there's some really good stuff in there about how our Government works with three branches, checks & balances, and all the stuff about how to make laws! That part might really be good since you're now one of those guys with that job!

Enforce the Law to Change the Law

President Grant - NOT the one I was named for
(That was Heber J.)

Now we compare President Obama to the troubled President, but great Civil War Hero, Ulysses S. Grant. Arguably, Grant was the man who saved the Union by the shedding of blood to free the Slaves, along with Lincoln who shed his own blood in that cause (the myth of the 'lost cause' be danged!). But that's not what we're going for here.

We are all becoming unglued because the government is collecting mega-data on our Verizon cell phone calls. I don't think they are actually reading our Facebook postings over our shoulders to watch our cat videos. But it's the cable news crisis du jour forgetting that we already knew about it all as part of the national security laws including the deceptively-named "Patriot Act." It even connects directly to the big NSA facility under construction right here in Utah where the data will be stored on big flash drives and analyzed by security techno-guys and gals graduating from their moms' basements and much video game training (OK, mostly guys).

Religious Freedom (Diversity?) in America

My wife asked for my help as she is working on a national committee drafting new handbooks for a certain youth organization of boys that shall go nameless. (But if it still exists in a few months and the handbooks get published, I'll let you know what parts are mine.)

This specific assignment was to draft up a couple of lines about religious heroes in America. With my passionately moderate bias to be inclusive and diverse, I found that to be a rather difficult challenge. I mean, we didn't even let Hindus into this country until 1965! Sometimes the realization of how far we fall short of our ideals that are more often taken for granted than actually accomplished is staggering.

Likening Freemen and Kingmen unto US

The doctrinal and missionary chapters of the Book of Alma in the Book of Mormon are just great! But I have to admit I just don't have the same love for the war chapters. I'm not a big war guy anyway. And I've seen a lot of interpretations "likening the war scriptures unto us" especially for the defense of the youth of Zion which isn't so bad. And occasionally, usually someone like Anonymous D, will point out that in the war chapters the good guys always stand for defensive, never aggressive war - and only when God approves. I get really annoyed, though, at the use of those scriptures to promote political ideologies, particularly from the far right (Skousen's Freeman Institute comes to mind).

So I thought I would do a little "likening" of my own. Please do not consider this as pure doctrine. It's just some of my own little thoughts that may offend some. But if the right wing can do it, so can I.

My text is Alma 51:2-8 with slight "likening." You can compare the original here.

2 Nevertheless, they did not long maintain an entire peace in the land, for there began to be a contention among the people concerning President Obama; for behold, there were a part of the people who desired that a few particular points of the Obamacare and Stimulus laws should be altered or repealed in their entirety.

Anti-Communism & Racism II (with Digressions to the Spanish Civil War)

I don't know why I can't get more of my FaceBook friends to comment here on the blog. They have these great discussions going there on my links to the blog that I would like to share. This discussion comes out of the previous post about Anti-Communism & Racism which might serve as some background. Two out of three of the main commenters have granted permission to use their names. I'll call the third "anonymous" for now.

To start off the fun, we have Anonymous:  

this article is a liberal generated, unbalanced, and spurious hypothesis that tries to brand as racists anyone who opposes barrak hussein obama and his socialist agenda. the article is consistently typical of openly hostile and viruently anti-conservative liberal tacticians, especially manifest since the year 2000. class warfare and exploitation of the masses with a persistent disinformation campaign against rule of law and order are well documented tactics of insurgent movements and communist ideologues, who expect that the "unwashed" masses are not educated, intelligent, or remembering enough to know the difference, or to recall that it was the republicans that emancipated slaves and the democrats/dixiecrats of the deep south that ran the klan and perpetuated the racists policies and sympathies (to include anti-communism) in that region. The very same that this artical now tries to lay that at the feet of modern/reaganite conservatives. Because one in infavor rule of law over unbridled illegal immigration does not make them a racist - although this article and the left want you to believe it. the t-party is not racist as a whole (there may be individual cases - as in all movements), but rather it stands for rule of law, accountability, and fiscal integrity - which the left, in order to marginalize their opponents, identifies as racist policies.

Live-Blogging Second Inaugural

I didn't really plan on this, but Senator Chuck Schumer (D, NY) was the first one out of the box quoting Lincoln and talking about the completion of the Capitol Dome during the Civil War and the placing of the Statue of Freedom on top ironically made by a recently freed Slave (Has Schumer been reading my blog?)

Senator Schumer Conducting Inaugural Ceremonies

Keep checking back. We'll see what I can get to. I do want to live-blog the Second Inaugural (ooh! Just typing that sends chills after Schumer's talk. I'm going back up top to change the title of this).

Family Totems III

A couple of weeks ago, I finally had a chance to show my first set of Family Totems and some other postings on my blog to my Dad and Mom and they were quite pleased. So here are some more:

"On the Road to Gettysburg" 1987. © Larry K. Vaughn

My dad had just started with watercolors in those days (after many years of acrylics and oils). He always was good with detail and powers of suggestion. You may have to zoom in to see but there are little blotches of orange in the green trees as this was a cicada-cycle summer in Maryland. The orange ties up with the roof and the farm implement in the barn. The yellow in the grass was emphasized as was the purple-blue of the barn for a good contrast.

This is a real place and is on the road to Gettysburg that our family (and Union Troops) took north many times. It's Highway 97, the Baltimore Pike. It hangs in our front room as a constant reminder of many good family adventures - and the preservation of our Constitutional Union through bloodshed and Lincoln's famous speech there.