W. Cleon Skousen (& Ken Ivory)

This has been gnawing on me for some time. I feel a need to address my thoughts on this controversial figure in 20th Century Mormonism who is posthumously enjoying a bit of revival with his books and philosophies promoted by TV Personality Glenn Beck. As a blogger, I have the opportunity to address this however I choose. And I choose not to give a detailed historical, political or religious argument. There is some of that out there in the cyber-marketplace of ideas. Feel free to "google" (or "bing" or "yahoo" or whatever) to see what is there - and there's nothing wrong with going to his own books and documents as I have done to a limited extent. Here, I merely want to give my own thoughts and feelings acknowledging as many of my prejudices and shortcomings as I can even as there may be many I haven't yet recognized.

I am a child of the Cold War. My first exposure to Skousen was in my grandparents' living room where I noticed on their library shelves of a few, mostly church books, a large, red volume by Skousen entitled The Naked Communist. I was intrigued. I first wondered how a book with two evil things in the title could be in my grandparents' house. "Naked" perhaps being more tempting than "Communist," I took the opportunity when no one was looking and sneaked a peak. Well, there wasn't a lot of naked stuff in there, at least not from a boy's perspective of fleshy things. However, I was a serious child given to reading and even with some interest in history. So there I was reading along a lot of excitable language about how bad Communists were and how they were infiltrating our government, society and our very thoughts. Of course I already knew some of that because, well, I was a child of the Cold War.

Basic Principles

As it's Sunday, I felt it appropriate to go a little (actually, a lot) religious today. I have a lot of thoughts going around my head for blogging, including one actually in draft form, but I come back to this idea of the most important message I could convey.  I have this opportunity rather frequently as I teach young Aaronic Priesthood men on Sundays (14-15-year-olds in Teachers Quorum).  I also used the theme when I was Bishop. And I used all the way back through my life including when I spoke in church on my LDS Mission to Brazil.  This isn't something I came up with on my own, but had an amazing spiritual instructor when I was a young man of eighteen.  It has formed the basis of my religious life.

My freshman Book of Mormon teacher at BYU was a guy named Jeff Holland.  I only had him for the first semester or first half of the Book of Mormon.  But when we got to Second Nephi, Chapter 2, he launched into a presentation of the basic principles of the Gospel.  Jumping from Second Nephi to Third Nephi which would have normally been in the second semester, he went through Chapter 27 starting at verse 13, where the Lord Jesus Christ himself explains his Gospel to the Nephites, and listed seven basic principles:

Utah and the Public Lands

OK, this post is obviously biased and influenced, but also fairly well informed because of my employment with the US Department of the Interior (But remember the disclaimer that I am not speaking in my official capacity on behalf of the Department!).

I was leaving the house last night to go to the church for Scouts and I heard a bit of Governor Herbert's State of the State address (that would have been fun to blog, but I had to go to Scouts.) Anyway, I heard him complaining about the Interior Department and the new plan to inventory "wild lands" which would seem to violate the settlement between Bush's Interior Secretary Norton and Utah Governor Leavitt from a few years back. Well, regardless of the merits of all that and whether the settlement may have been outside the authority of the Federal Lands Policy and Management Act ("FLPMA") and the inventory well within FLPMA, the Governor complained about the amount of federally-owned land in the State and threw out the line to great applause that the State is not a colony of the federal government! That is in line with the popular theme of Utah's overwhelmingly Republican Legislature some of whom are actually proposing to take federal lands, including national parks, by eminent domain.

SOTU Scorecard

I pretty much nailed my predictions.  I was right on with Iraq and Afghanistan.  The Theme is "The Future" and the goals are education and innovation for JOBS with education reform being the area where he thinks the Republicans will work with him.  I should have predicted Boehner tearing up because that was the most entertaining and I should have seen it coming earlier.

And, I eat crow only with regard to the failure to adopt the deficit reduction framework of the Debt Commission.  That may be a real failure as I saw it as the President's chance to "appear" responsible in addressing the issue while deflecting blame for the hard stuff on to the Commission.  What he did, though, was almost as good politically, and also rather pragmatic and even respectful of the Constitution..  He did not propose or address specifics but hit the theme and left the responsibility dangling for the Republican House to pick up.  That is where the Constitutional responsibility lies to initiate spending (or debt reduction) measures.  And he has a shield in the Senate (not just by party - but institutional and Constitutional).  So he can sit back to some extent and see what the House can accomplish to be tempered by the Senate and the Prez as necessary.  He probably recognizes, as distasteful as it may be, that not much will be agreed to in the short term.  The new Republican House has to deal with their internal conflicts and contradictions first.  He may just be able to step in and help mediate to "principled compromise" - not just between Dems and Repubs, but among the various factions of the Republican Party (Tea Party, Libertarians, Fiscal Conservatives, and Social Conservatives, not to mention the ingrained career politicians that even they have).

Regardless of what many say, I still think this President is all about the Constitution.  He clearly miscalculated the debate on Health Care to some extent and in what manner is the subject of much debate.  But what I see is that he had a goal, ran on it to be elected, and turned it over to the Congress to work out and legislate the details and compromises that he would ultimately sign and execute according to Art. II.

The Executive Branch has taken far too much out-front responsibility in these modern days both in drafting legislation and proposing budgets.  IMO the Constitution places those responsibilities in the Congress with budgets to originate in the House.  The Congress is We the People through our elected representatives.  Get involved.

Tea Party Response Response

Is CNN really the only network broadcasting Bachman?

Tea party "a force for good"  well, that's debatable.  Isn't she leaving something out of her chart, like the crash of 2008?  The stimulus spending wasn't "unlike anything we've seen before".  She's a little over the top and she's outright lying about the IRS police coming to get you.  But ya know what?  She's beating down Palin.  She knows a few things even if they're wrong.  And she's a little unrealistic (a little?) expecting the Prez to repeal health care.  And she is tripping over words - I admit, that's a little petty on my part but she's all eyes are on the teleprompter.  Her eyes are glazed, frozen, and off camera.  That is a little weird. "Iwo Jimmah?"  The slide show isn't helping.

Republican Response

Ryan does look better than Jindal or McDonnell did the past couple of years.  He's fairly temperate - 'til he got to the spending and "failed stimulus" without mentioning economic crisis - the worst since 1929 w/o going into a 2nd Great Depression.  He has good themes but how does he make it work?  No more specifics here."We still have time." which sort of cuts his immediacy argument.  Lincoln and limited government don't exactly go together (not to mention the Railroad gov/private enterprises and the homestead act - gov. actions to support economic development).

Competent and on theme but no specifics and not a lot of hope here.

Live-Blogging the State of the Union

[Now that I have a little more experience in managing my blogging, I am consolidating these posts on my live-blogging the State of the Union, Tuesday, January 25, 2011.]

I'm already 3 points up.  Justice Alito won't be there, Dems and Repubs are sitting together, and Daniel Hernandez will be sitting with the First Lady!

We're going to give live-blogging a try.  No one may care, but here goes!