"Hope and Change" or "Opium and Chains"?

Who, besides me, is tired of the race-bating and class warfare that is being dumped on us daily from our president, Barack Hussein Obama (mmm, mmm, mmm) and his leftsist cronies and union patsies?  A couple weeks ago, the president spoke off-prompter and actually explained in plain English how he really feels about small business owners and entrepreneurs. He, in essence, said he was amazed that some people think that they built their businesses because they might have been smarter or worked harder than other people. He pointed out that there are a lot of smart people out there and a lot of hardworking people out there. When his words were quoted back to him by his opponents on the right—and rightly interpreted as disdainful of conservatives who happen to take pride in their initiative and hard work and would like to be able to keep more of their earnings than he and the democrats would like to let them—the president and his supporters cried “foul” and claimed that he was taken out of context. I always enjoy the left trying to invent new dance steps to avoid the truth about their beliefs. They claimed that he was referring to roads and bridges that the government built. I would argue that if he was actually trying to make that point that he was again wrong. Businesses, business owners and the rest of us who pay taxes are obviously the builders of the those things too. Where does the government money come from? We have given the federal government sole responsibility for printing our money, but we drive the economy and give that money its intrinsic value via the free market. 

This belief that people don’t get to the top without lots of help from others probably has a lot to do with his own life experience.  He has admitted to being a druggie and slacker in his youth, even into his college years. He has had a lot of help along his way, never having had to do much beside community organizing. We don’t know how he was able to get into an Ivy League school, for example. His college records, including applications, have been sealed, so we do not know how “smart” he is—I have my doubts due to his mispronunciation of the word “corpsman”.  He had help, by a convicted felon, in obtaining a sweetheart deal for the purchase of his home in Chicago. The news media covered for him every step of the way. So sure, he did not get where he is by himself, by how smart he is or by how hard he worked.

Obama’s claims that we owe the government something for our successes is not completely off the mark.  I would correct that sentiment somewhat by saying that we owe the greatest share of whatever success we have in this country to the extraordinary constitution we have inherited from our country’s founders and the freedoms it declares, as coming from God, to pursue happiness.  I would argue that we have often chiseled away at the Constitution over the past 200, but the recognition, to this point, that we have the freedom to pursue happiness is still viable.  Nowhere in the Constitution does it declare that happiness will be provided by the government, however, no matter what the democrats may want to read into it.

If you are a success in this country, our society—and I am not suggesting that government and society are the same thing, because they can be at odds with one another—expects that you give something back.  Because of our Judeo-Christian foundations, we, as a society, feel a moral obligation to look out for those who are unable to care for themselves. It was not part of the Constitution that government should level playing fields and redistribute wealth.  That is, and always will be, a socialist or Marxist notion.  Be that as it may, we have succumbed to such progressive ideas to the extent that we instituted income taxes and then gradually made them more and more progressive to the point that only a bare majority of the population has any skin in the game. When it gets to the point that the minority is expected to carry the weight of the majority, through even greater progressive taxation, we will likely never see a conservative elected to office again, and this wonderful experiment at government, by the people and for the people, will come to an end.

Because I believe such things, many will conclude that I am a racist or a Scrooge.  The fact is that I would vote in a minute for a minority who believes in conservative principles. I read Thomas Sowell’s and Walter Williams’s articles every week and lament the fact that neither of these brilliant conservative black economists are seeking political office. These two are members of a real minority.  I also tithe and donate almost 15% of my GROSS income to charity. The great philanthropic leftists, Joe Biden and Al Gore, as I understand it, are a long way from even being in my class, as to percentage of their income that they are willing to part with for the truly needy. However, they will buy every vote they possibly can with tax money.

So, what do we really owe to the government if we have a successful business? President Obama would suggest that you couldn’t have a successful business without the government’s aid. He would site roads and bridges as necessary government contributions to your success. Interestingly, we would not need all the roads to the extent that we have today if brilliant people like Henry Ford had not gotten private investment capital and tried again and again to build a car that would need such infrastructure.  Oil companies are constantly being demonized for huge profits—actually less than the percentage that Apple makes per dollar investment—but they are not among the entities that take the biggest cuts from every dollar spent at the gas pump. That would be the federal, state and local governments, in that order. And, if the government can take credit for helping businesses flourish, should it not follow that they are equally responsible for business failures? It has been estimated that 50% of businesses fail in the first year and that 90% will fail within 5 years. I would suggest that the government should get out of the way then. Government, it seems to me, owes more to business than business owes to government.

Four years ago we were told that “Hope and Change” would be the result of an Obama presidency. The truth is that we have been given “Opium and Chains”.  The longer we buy this class warfare and race-bating drivel, that the rich need to pay their “fare share!” and that “You didn’t build that!, we will find ourselves more and more in the mire of indebtedness and vote to live off the fruits of others’ genius and labors. 

Who Deserves the Death Penalty? I think We Know!

Well, here we go again. Another idiot monster—this time in a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado—has killed a bunch of innocent people—men, women and children—who were only trying to enjoy themselves with friends and loved ones.  Many of the people who were gunned down showed admirable courage, shielding others with their bodies, sacrificing their lives to save others. I am in awe of such people and hope that their lives will be celebrated.  These heroes deserve to be remembered.  Ironically, I suspect that the murderer who savagely killed these innocents wanted to be remembered for something. He will be. We can try to understand his horrendous acts and motivations, but I propose that it cannot be understood by good and moral people. The truth is that only one person deserved to die in that theater that night. 

And here we go again pointing fingers. Regrettably, it did not take long for the gun control people out there to start clamoring for tighter restrictions on firearms. It has been argued that guns don't kill people, people kill be people. Evil people murder people, by what ever method they choose to do it. It should be remembered that roughly a year ago, a Norwegian looney murdered over 70 people on an island retreat in Norway. Norway, by the way, has some of the strictest gun control laws in the world. In fact, many more murders—more than four-times as many—happen in states and cities in the US where strict gun laws are in force than in areas where gun laws are less stringent.  Where conceal-carry laws exist, violent crimes involving guns are much fewer.

I cannot help but wonder how many people could have been saved if everyone in the theater had been “packing heat”.  I guarantee you that if I had been there, or my brothers, or my gun-toting children had been in the audience we could have stopped the idiot with several bullets to his face. Of course, if the little coward had suspected that some of the theater audience was armed, as might be the case in a town where conceal-carry is the law, he would undoubtedly taken performance art elsewhere.  Only cowards do such things, brutally murdering the defenseless.  I cannot think of a time when a mass murder took place at a police station. Please do not mention the crazies in the Muslim world who blow up car bombs and themselves at police stations. Those COWARDS are in another category and I believe it is illegal for them to possess explosives in their respective countries. What if all the passengers on the doomed flights on 9--11 had had box-cutters? I'm confident that the three planes where the passengers did not fight back would never have gotten to to the terrorist's targets. If anything, we as Americans need to go further in protecting ourselves from the evil that is out there.

And here I go again. I also want to say it should be clear that the death penalty is more than appropriate for this human waste. He condemned 12 innocents to death and should get the same. It is lamentable that he can only be put to death once. Many will say that the death penalty is not a deterrent to capital crime, but though it can be argued that it definitely deters the murderer from ever committing murder again, in my mind deterrence is not the only compelling reason for it. The murderer, who takes an innocent life without compunction or for the thrill of it or some sort of self-aggrandizement, is not worthy of life among other human beings, in or out of a prison. We in society should not have to care for, and feed and clothe them, or keep them safe from other prison populations. Many in society refuse to acknowledge the humanity of the unborn among us and willing standby as millions of abortions—the death penalty of the unwanted—are performed every year, but blanch at the thought of ending the life of someone who has ceased to be human in their treatment of their fellow man. The Aurora mass-murderer gave up his membership in the human club when he decided to act on an inhuman impulse. He probably wanted to be somebody. I hope that he will soon leave his body.

Scam me once? Shame on me. Scam me twice? You Must Be Barack Calling.

I found an email this morning that I thought was pretty funny. It was a scam, of course. I get similar ones often. Usually, they are dying or they represent somebody who is dying and have no family or friends to leave their great wealth to. Most of the time I just delete these emails, but occasionally I will respond to them. Sometimes, I encourage the writers by telling them they are too kind to consider me and that I am not worthy of such consideration, or that I am a wealthy man in my own right and am in no need of money, that they should give the money to some charity.  In most of those cases they seem to think that my answer is genuine and will continue to write me with different angles until I tell them they are just plain idiots who need to work for a living instead of scamming innocent people out of their hard-earned money.

The following is the email attachment I received:

Steven Walker(Esq)
Village Arcade Station Road
London E4 7DA, United Kingdom.
E-mail (barristerstwaesq@gmail.com)

Greetings To You,


This is a personal email directed to you and I request that it be treated as such. I am Steven Walker, a personal attorney/sole executor to the late Engineer Robert M, herein after referred to as” my client" I represent the interest of my client killed with his immediate family in a fatal motor  accident in East London on November 5, 2002.and I will like to negotiate the terms of investment of resources available to him.

My late client worked as consulting engineer & sub-comptroller with Genesis Oil and Gas Consultants Ltd here in the United Kingdom and had left behind a deposit of Six Million Eight Hundred Thousand British Pounds Sterling only (£6.8million) with a finance company. The funds originated from contract transactions he executed in his registered area of business. Just after his death, I was contacted by the finance house to provide his next of kin, reasons been that his deposit agreement contains a residuary clause giving his personal attorney express authority to nominate the beneficiary to his funds. Unknown to the bank, Robert had left no possible trace of any of his close relative with me, making all efforts in my part to locate his family relative to be unfruitful since his death. In addition, from Robert’s own story, he was only adopted and his foster parents whom he lost in 1976, according to him had no possible trace of his real family.

The funds had remained unclaimed since his death, but I had made effort writing several letters to the embassy with intent to locate any of his extended relatives whom shall be claimants/beneficiaries of his abandoned personal estate, and all such efforts have been to no avail. More so, I have received official letters in the last few weeks suggesting a likely proceeding for confiscation of his abandoned personal assets in line with existing laws by the bank However, it will interest you to know that I discovered that some directors of this finance company are making plans already to have this fund to themselves only to use the excuse that since I am unable to find a next of kin to my late client then the  funds should be confiscated, meanwhile their intentions is to have the funds retrieved for themselves.

I reasoned very professionally and resolved to use a legal means to retrieve the abandoned funds, and that is to present the next of kin of my deceased client to the bank. This is legally possible and would be done in accordance with the laws. On this note, I decided to search for a credible person and finding that you bear a similar last name, I was urged to contact you, that I  may, with your consent, present you to the "trustee" bank as my late client's surviving family member so as to enable you put up a claim to the bank in that capacity as a next of kin of my client. I find this to be possible for the fuller reasons that you are of the same nationality and you bear a similar last  name with my late client making it a lot easier for you to put up a claim in that capacity. I have all vital documents that would confer you the legal right to lay claim to the funds, and it would back up your claim. I am willing to make these documents available to you so that the proceeds of this bank account valued at £6.8million can be paid to you before it is confiscated or declared unserviceable to the bank where this huge amount is lodged.

I do sincerely sympathize the death of my client but I think that it is unprofitable for his funds to be submitted to the government of this country or some financial institution. I seek your assistance since I have been unable to locate the relatives for the past three years now and since no one would come for the claim. I seek your consent to  present you as the next of kin of the deceased since you have the same last name giving you the advantage which also makes the claim most  credible . In that stand, the proceeds of this account can be paid to you. Then, we talk about percentage. I know there are others with the same surname as my client, but after a little search, my instinct tells me to contact you. I shall assemble all the necessary documents that would be used to back up your claim.

I guarantee that this will be executed under a legitimate arrangement that will protect you from any breach of law. I will not fail to bring to your notice that this proposal is hitch-free and that you should not entertain any fears as the required arrangements have been made for the completion of this transfer. As I said, I require only a solemn confidentiality on this. Please get in touch via my alternative email (barrister.walker@aol.com) for better confidentiality and if it’s okay to you send me your telephone and fax numbers to enable us discuss further on this transaction, please do not take undue advantage of the trust I have bestowed in you, Thanks for your understanding.

Kind Regards.
Steven Walker

My Response:

Steve,

This Robert "M" wouldn't be the famous "M" of James Bond, 007, fame would he? If so, I can see why we would want to keep our correspondence secret. This is the best one I've seen yet. Your grammar is way better than most of the scam artists I've had dubious honor of hearing from. However, there are people much more gullible in the US than I am, as can be seen by the fact that Barack Hussein Obama (mmm, mmm, mmm) was elected president and seems to still have enough following that he could be elected again. I suggest you fish in another pond.

Sincerely,

RM

Obviously, these scam artists prey on innocence combined with greed, or the desire to get something for nothing.  Adults tend to know that there is no such thing as a free lunch. Children, on the other hand, and sadly some gullible adults, can be made to believe some pretty fantastic things.  Take for example “Obamacare will make health care more affordable and more accessible to all Americans.  Tell that to the many people in countries with socialized healthcare who are waiting months or even years for medical procedures that are available pretty much on demand in the United States—at least for now. Thousands of people live in socialist countries, who can afford to, come here for medical care. 

Also consider the scam that we can have free college education for all.   Who pays the tenured, over-paid, leftist professors at our colleges and universities?  Universities already get billions of dollars of tax-payer money to keep their doors open. You might be thinking, “well, what’s a little more then?” I might be thinking, “Why can’t we fire all of the crappy teachers, and professors we have and get rid of silly programs, like ‘Women’s’ and ‘African-American Studies’, which get billions of dollars and produce nothing,  unlike mathematics, engineering, medicine and science? 

Then there is the scam about the one percent who does not pay their “fair” share of taxes.  These misuse words all of the time and make them their own. Only in the mind of a socialist is something uneven the equivalent of far. To believe this, you would have to believe that 0% is equal to 35%, which seems to be the case for a lot of people.  I suppose, that if you majored in women’s studies, African-American studies or progressive journalism, you might not have gotten enough basic math to see that 0 is not the same as ANY NUMBER! “Zero” is what a sizable minority (about 47 %--that is greater than “0”) of Americans are obliged to pay in income taxes. Granted, they may pay payroll taxes—cut in half recently by the government because it was believed to help the economy—but it is not enough to keep Social Security afloat by itself now, since the government dips into it to pay for everything else that it does. Your employer pays half of the payroll tax, or at least it did, until the government cut the employee contribution in half. And there are plenty of people who do not contribute at all, but are on the government dole. Wefar for those who do not earn a paycheck

We are broke people! Yet President Barack Hussein Obama (mmm, mmm,mmm) would like you to believe that raising taxes on the “wealthy”—those making over $250,000 per year will be more fair and will help pay down the deficit. Even if Keynesian Economic Philosophy worked and the economy was not dynamic, raising taxes on the job creators would not even be a drop in the bucket in cutting the deficit. The reality is that Keynes was a blithering idiot.  The economy IS dynamic and it responds to lower taxes, private investment and private job creation!  I am sorry you are a Marxist, statist Mr. President, but capitalism and the free market work very well without government manipulation.  Every time the government goes beyond it’s constitutional limits in trying to “even the playing field”.  It took us 12 years and a world war to get us out of the Great Depression, which have been a normal cyclical recession if Hoover and Roosevelt had not tried to manage the economy. If we do it again—this recession should not have lasted over a year—by continuing to let government, with the insistence of corrupt unions in the public sector, tinker and remodel an unbroken free market system, we will see history repeat itself.

Clearly, we are being played, as surely as “Steven Walker (Esq)” and others like him are trying to play the gullible people out there who are plugged into the internet.  They and the Obamaites believe we are sheep to be sheared. They promise something for nothing and expect the producers to provide for those who refuse to provide for themselves.  Clearly, humanity has a moral responsibility to care for those who cannot care for themselves, government should not be the dictator on who is to get and how much. Personal responsibility is key to personal growth and maturity. I can understand a child being swayed by silly arguments and utopian ideas, but adults should know better.  Many in our government are purposefully creating a dependent, buying their votes with promises of a utopia where government will provide for all needs.  But this is a pyramid scheme that cannot sustain itself. They will eventually kill the cash cow. SIXTEEN TRILLION IN DEBT, PEOPLE!!! SPENDING IS THE PROBLEM, NOT MAKING THE BEST PRODUCERS AMOUNG US PAY THEIR EVEN MORE UNFAIR SHARE!

HEAR NO EVIL, SEE NO EVIL, SPEAK NO EVIL: OBAMANATION

Why are our so many of teachers and news reporters so ignorant or so uninterested in searching for the truth? I have known for a long time that these two groups are ideologically driven, but lately, it is really starting to bug me. Not only are they ignoring the realities concerning the deficiencies of our current socialist—I’m being kind here—president, some of the ones I know personally are beginning to resemble the three monkeys who cover their eyes, ears and mouths, when it comes to being educated. And they are passing their ignorance or misguided ideology on to the unsuspecting masses.

My frustration began 4 years ago when both groups tried to avoid vetting Barack Hussein Obama and learning about his past and his, then current, associations with flaming Marxists and out and out criminals: Both of his parents were Marxists; his grandparents on his mother’s side were both Marxists—they attended the little Red Church (not the color of the building, I don’t think; his early mentors were Marxists; his pastor for over twenty years was an America-hating race-bating Marxist, who spewed out hate-filled rhetoric on a continuous basis, but unheard by the future president, who apparently slept through most of the sermons; his neighborhood chums’, whom he hardly knew, but in whose home he started off his campaign, were unrepentant Marxist terrorist bombers… I’m getting tired. I blogged about this extensively during the 2008 campaign, so you can educate yourself on history by looking up my blogs of that year on this site and reading them. The fact is that the facts were there, but the ideologues on the left either didn’t want to know about it or they didn’t want the rest of America to know about it. Many a time, I have brought these little tidbits of information up in discussions with friends and acquaintances only to find that they were completely unaware of anything of the kind.

I’m sure that, if you, the reader of this blog, are an ideologue, you have probably stopped reading by now. Or, if you just think the president is a great guy and that he is really trying, and that all this stuff may be true, but it is old news and that we need to just get along, I hope that you are still reading and that I might persuade you to rethink your position. If you have even half of an open mind, you may still be reading, so let me shift gears to the present.

Let me just say, our president, Barack Hussein Obama (umm, umm, umm!), is the biggest liar since William Jefferson Clinton (I’m not just picking on our current president’s middle name to be annoying), and the news media is complicit in keeping the general public, including our brilliant members of the teachers’ unions (who think Mr. Obama and the Democrat party have hung the moon) in total ignorance. For example, the latest jobs report showed “job-growth” at 85,000 new jobs for the month. If history tells us anything, it will be re-adjusted down—this has happened almost every month, never being adjusted up—when most people aren’t paying attention, but the big headline will be “85,000 New Jobs” and will be what ignorant, uncurious, Obama sycophants will remember. Even this number is not very good in historical terms, but Mr. Obama greeted this number by saying that we were heading in the right direction. What was not reported by most of the media was that, during the same time period, 80,000 people left the work place and applied for disability insurance—the number of disability claims during this administration is unprecedented—leaving a net total of 5,000 or so jobs created for last month. A pretty bad number, one would have to admit, if one were reasonable. But, that is not all! One must also consider the fact that the monthly average birthrate in the United States is approximately 40,000. Clearly, not all of these born last month will reach a mature age and be looking for a job, but it should be surmised that we have a pretty big number of people coming of age every month who are wanting to join the work force. 5,000 new jobs won’t cut it! We are going in the hole! Do you think that is the right direction? Are there any pro-Obama math teachers out there who want to deny reality here?

Then there are the latest attack ads by the Obamaites, claiming that Mr. Romney was the outsourcing king at Bain Capital and that he has suspicious bank accounts in Switzerland and the Cayman Islands. Truth checks have concluded that Romney was not even with Bain at the time when any such outsourcing was alleged to have taken place and it should be noted that Swiss and Caribbean bank accounts are still subject to taxes, which appear to have been paid in full. The mainstream media has neglected to point these FACTS out to inquiring minds out there. I don’t think making the Obama administration look petty and ignorant is high on there priority list. It might also be pointed out that the Obama administration outsourced billions of tax-payer dollars to foreign businesses in their money laundering schemes to pay back Solyndra and other stupid green-energy star-ups who donated heavily to the Obama campaign last time around.

So, if you were open-mind enough to read thus far, and if I have not offended you to the point of distraction, I hope it has been to your benefit and education. If you voted for Mr. Obama last time, not knowing what you were voting for, beyond being able to say that you were such a good person that you voted for the first “Black President” and was part of history, or if you got caught up in all of the “Hope and Change” nonsense, then I HOPE you have CHANGED your mind and will help me vote this atrocity out this time. We cannot afford him and his cronies and their socialist, if not Marxist, policies. Of course, you may be so disgusted with the whole voting thing, or you may feel that you just can’t pull the lever for Romney because you are such a Mormon-hating bigot, that you plan to sit this one out. Good for you. If you are that stupid and self-absorbed, you should not vote. It’s time to actually educate yourself before you destroy us all. This is for all of you “teachers” and “news reporters”. The truth is out there, if you want to know it and are not afraid of it. YOU CAN LOOK IT UP!. Can you tell that I’m a bit put-off by all of the ignorance and out-and-out deception?

One of the Best Missionaries I Have Known

Today, I would like to focus on my uncle, Leonard Nicolay.  He passed away last night after taking a fall the day earlier at his home and breaking his neck. He was 95, I think: Roughly the same age as my pop would be, if he were still here.  Leonard was my mother's older brother by a couple of years and they were very close. So close that he endorsed her marriage to one of his best friends: My pop.

I spent a lot of time with my uncle, Leonard--more so after my pop died when I was 23-years-old.  He was like a surrogate father to me in those years. We worked together in the roofing trade and would spend the days talking about his experiences own growing up and his experiences with my mom and pop. He was a treasur trove of information in that regard, verifying some of the outrageous stories pop used to tell me about his phisical feats and various sundry deeds. And, more importantly, we talked philosophy and religion.

Leonard was the first in my family to convert to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons).  I remember him in my earliest years as a bit of a worldy guy. For example, I don't think was a church-goer, and he owned a bar and smoked cigars, among other things. Whe I was eleven-years-old, he and his family joined the Mormon Church.  As he told it, he was visiting afriend of his who was married to my pop's cousin when the LDS missionaries came by asking if the family there would be interested in hearing their message about the Book of Mormon and Christ visiting the Americas after His reserection in Jerusalem.  The people in the house said "no", but my uncle said that he liked to read and would be glad to take a copy of their book. 

The rest is history, as they say. Leonard read the book, believed it, had the missioary discussions, sold his bar, quit smoking and was baptized with his family. This was remarkable, since organized religion was something that he seemed to be skeptical of. Leonard caught fire with respect to his new-found faith: He immediately went about trying to share his testimony with whoever would listen to him.  He had great success as a missionary, eventually bringing his parents, several siblings (including my mom) and bunshes of nephews and neices for several generations. When you consider that not a few of my generation and younger filled full-time missions and had pretty good success sharing the Gospel, hundreds benefitted by Leonard's missioary zeal.

I mentioned that he liked to read. In fact he was a voracious reader, reading everything he could get his hands on concerning relgion. He became a wonderful scriptorion. This was not an easy thing, whe you consider that he only had one eye--he lost it as a child when another child threw a stick at him--and he was near-sighted in his remaining eye. I have to say here that he could be pretty scary to ride with when he was driving.

As far as physical challenges wnet he had several. Due to other work accidents, he had a leg shorter than the other by a couple inches and a left arm that could not extend out all the way. Yet he was one of the fastest shinglers I ever worked with.

He was an inspiration to me in may ways and I am grateful to hime for the personal support he gave to me and all of my family through the years. He drove me to Utah when I left for my mission and helped me a bit financially in getting some of my first recordings done in the early 70s after my mission.

Uncle Leonard, you were a great man and I will look forward to meeting you again on the other side. Give the family a big hug. I know that you have met the Savior and He has said "Well done, good and faithful servent!" Of course, there is a lot of missionary work to do in the spirit world too, as we LDS know, and I know that you will be a busy man.

Romney: What You See Is What You Get?

I have recently traded emails with a friend in the entertainment business, a fellow Republican, who has been a Gingrich supporter and, since Gingrich’s prospects have dimmed, has turned his support towards Santorum. He says he and his wife have felt like Mitt Romney comes across as too slick. He told me in the past that Gingrich and Santorum were more truly conservative than Romney. I have refuted that sentiment in the past, so I will argue the question of Mitt’s slickness here.


I think I understand their feelings, about Romney—and I do categorize them as feelings and not thoughts, because I do not think they have thought it out from my perspective as of yet. However, I do not see Romney as slick. I see Romney as somewhat awkward and uncomfortable, which might look like slickness to some who either don't know him personally or don't fully understand where he has come from in his life. If you are Romney, you know you have a portion of the voting public who –I am not suggesting that you, the reader, are in this group, because you know if you are—jealously think Romney is a spoiled rich kid who is trying to "buy" the presidency, some who bigotedly think he is a member of a satanic cult, and yet others who think he's a racist. Sadly, some are in the Republican Party. I think Romney consciously tries to be careful what he says, knowing there are plenty, including too many republicans, who are waiting to seize onto any unguarded statement out of context to try to prove their beliefs about him. As I see him, Romney is really not a politician in the sense that most in the public eye are. He seems ill at ease speaking about the things he truly believes in "political speech". I think it's difficult for him to blow his own horn about his success in business or what a good and decent and religious family man he really is. I think it goes without saying that you will not get far in politics if you are humble about your accomplishments. But, if you are a man of principle and faith and you love America and feel strongly about the importance of saving the America, and you believe in personal responsibility to your country beyond your own personal comfort zone, you step out of that comfort zone and do the uncomfortable.


As a business man and as a lay minister in his church, Romney would necessarily be more comfortable talking about numbers and economic theories and religious subjects, stressing Christian compassion, repentance and forgiveness. I have not been in the boardrooms of big financial concerns, but I have served as a Mormon missionary in a foreign land, so I can speak to what Romney has experienced, serving as a Mormon missionary for two-and-a-half years in France at the ages of 19, 20, and 21, and as a Mormon Bishop and Stake President for more than a dozen of his later years would be great in a one-on-one situation counseling in a business situation, discussing bottom lines and productivity and how to create and to succeed financially. He would also be great standing at a pulpit encouraging faith, repentance, morality and Christian compassion and charity to one’s fellow man. He would not have spoken bombastically with unbridled emotion, but in subdued and rationally expressed thoughts. If you are looking for an emotionally charged, fire and brimstone presentation from an ex-Mormon lay clergyman, you will always be disappointed. Those kinds of presentations are the ones which appear slick and rehearsed to me.


Romney has spent much more of his life filling the aforementioned rolls than as a politician. When we conservatives hear and see the things the Democrats say and espouse, we marvel at the ease at which they keep a straight face, or at least their gullibility in believing the crap they say they believe. They can seemingly look at the sun and declare that it is midnight. I think it is safe t say that when you have learned to fake sincerity well enough, you are ready to have a long career in politics, especially in the Democrat party.


So, my suggestion for those who might genuinely think Romney a slick politician, you are probably giving him too much credit as a politician—or, discredit, depending on your point of view. You might rethink that thought. What I see when I look at Mitt Romney is an extremely successful Mormon businessman who, unselfishly, did not shy away from serving his fellow believers for many, many, years (without pay) in the past, and now feels compelled to serve his fellow Americans by sharing his wealth of economic knowledge and experience in a great time of need. What you see with Romney may or may not be what you get. But then again, if you insist on seeing bad, slick, Mitt, you will likely “get” what you want no matter what he actually does. Some see the glass as half full…

Stake President of the United States

My old Friend, Scott Wright sent the following article to me and I have taken the liberty to post it again on my site. Though I don’t know Mr. Jones personally, I can identify with his thoughts and experience feel that he has expressed what I think in this instance better than I could. I have known many bishops and stake presidents during my life—I have served as a lay minister myself for many years on and off in many areas of the country—and I can attests to the general truth of Mr. Jones’ article. These men are always willing to serve with only spiritual compensation. One of my old Stake Presidents, D. Todd Christofferson, is now in the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. At the time I knew him, he was an exceptionally humble and Christ-like man—not a perfect man, but one trying to emulate Christ in his life, serving his fellowman at every opportunity. For this reason, I have a lot of confidence that Mitt Romney will be more than just an honorable President of the United States. I and all of my “very conservative” Mormon friends have voted for a lot of non-Mormons during our lives, as have very nearly all of my fellow Mormons since the organization of our church in 1830, hoping that the nominees would share our values as Christian Americans. I ask my Christian friends and family, who do not agree with my doctrinal beliefs, to at least accept that we love this country as much as they do and back Romney because he shares all of our values. We Mormons are almost all backing Romney this time around because of our experiences with him, not because of shared doctrinal beliefs. After all, Harry Reid supposedly believes in the same doctrine, but most Mormons can’t abide his politics or his slimy—my opinion—personality.

This fellow, Maury Jones, is described as an intrepid hunting guide, always hard working and now almost retired in Jackson Hole running a Dude Ranch... the rest of us could only wish for such a life!
Stake President of the United States
By Maury Jones
Posted on February 22, 2012

A few years back, a hive of hornets decided to make its nest on top of a second-story swamp cooler outside my cousin’s Boston-area home. My cousin made an ill-fated attempt to remove the hornets, which resulted in a two-story fall and a broken arm.
“This looks like a job for your home teacher,” said my cousin’s home teacher.
The home teacher brought over his own ladder and clothed himself in homemade beekeeping gear. He then made his way to the hornet’s nest and gathered the whole thing up in a garbage bag, avoiding any stings or the more severe injuries that had beset my cousin. He did this with no public fanfare, no accolades, and no thought of collecting payment for his efforts.
And who was this noble home teacher? A man by the name of Mitt Romney.
Now, unless you’re familiar with Mormon lingo, you probably got lost when I introduced the phrase “home teacher,” or you may have conjured up images of some kind of private educational tutor who was taking care of my cousin’s kids. That would have left you wondering why a tutor thought it was their responsibility to wrangle hornets.
But if you’re a Mormon, the phrase made perfect sense, as did the rest of the story. You would know that every month, every member of a Mormon congregation receives a visit from two “home teachers,” who share an inspirational message but, more importantly, are charged with the responsibility of looking out for the family’s welfare. So if a family is struggling, the home teachers are the spiritual “first responders,” and a good home teacher jumps at any opportunity to be of service.
Among other things, Mitt Romney is a good home teacher.
People who look to Mitt’s faith for clues about how he’d govern as president usually miss the target by a wide margin. They rip the more obscure elements of Mormon doctrine out of their theological and historical contexts – polygamy or underwear or planetary real estate – and think they’ve discovered or explained something. They haven’t. The world at large, as it focuses on unusual theoretical elements of Mormon doctrine, all but ignores the eminently practical aspects of Mormonism as it is manifest in each Mormon’s daily life.
Consider the fact that “home teachers” receive no compensation for what they do. In fact, neither does anyone else in a Mormon congregation. The whole enterprise is supervised by a lay clergy that will often work over forty hours a week in their unpaid positions in addition to their “real” jobs – you know, the ones that actually earn them money. Mitt Romney has spent his entire adult life in these kinds of high-responsibility, time-intensive positions. He has been both a bishop – a leader of a “ward” that consists of a congregation of about 500 people – and a stake president, who oversees a “stake” which consist of about six or so wards, giving him ecclesiastical responsibility for thousands of people.
So what does this mean? What, precisely, does a bishop or a stake president do that eats up so much of their time?
Go to a Mormon meeting on any given Sunday, and you’ll see three dudes sitting up by the pulpit. The guy in the middle is the bishop, and he’s already spent most of the day in meetings where he reviewed the ward’s staffing needs and organizing relief efforts for families who may be struggling with health, financial, or spiritual issues. He’s also been meeting one-on-one with members of the church who look to him for counsel and support for personal problems that would turn your hair white. Usually, he’s been doing all this since before the sun came up, so don’t be surprised if he nods off while the meeting progresses.
Please keep in mind, too, that there are no elections for bishops and stake presidents, nor are there reelections. Each leader is “called” to serve, and they accept the responsibility dutifully, no questions asked. They then serve for a period of time, usually between five and ten years, after which they are “released,” meaning they rejoin their congregations as lay members and have no more responsibility than anyone else.
The call to serve can come to any priesthood holder in good standing, but it usually comes to a certain personality type. Remember, bishops and stake presidents are confronted with massive organizational challenges accompanied by the most intimate, personal, spiritual struggles imaginable. So they must lead without being authoritarian; they must judge without being judgmental, and they must minister without offending. That means the people who get this assignment are often more even-tempered that exciting, more reassuring than revolutionary, and more competent than colorful.
Sound like any particular presidential candidate you might know?
Those who remain baffled by Romney’s cool public persona have not spent a whole lot of time with an LDS stake president, a role for which Romney provides the quintessential example. If one truly understands his background, one shouldn’t expect a President Romney to dazzle the masses with rhetorical virtuosity.
One should instead expect him to practically and quietly remove the hornet’s nest from the nation’s second-story swamp cooler.