There are those who believe that our Republic is in a greater crisis than ever before in its history. They believe that between ongoing military campaigns, the economic struggles, and the idealogical struggle against terrorist jihad (which is sanctioned by religious doctrine) our nation is in great peril. I have listened as some have remarked that the general American public is merely a bunch of drones working out their lives. It is true our society & media seems to favour education that helps the population make money only so they can spend it before they have it.
There is certainly much to be criticized and concerned about in our day.
It’s odd, a few weeks ago Chrissy and I were discussing inflation & food storage. It started with the idea: How much will our grocery budget change when we have to pay $10 for a gallon of milk? It’s not a pleasant thought, nor at this time of having three children in the home do we feel prepared to deal with such circumstances. Inflation is a concern of several economists. There are those who are extremely polarized who believe that the US may see a form of hyperinflation the likes of which no nation has before seen.
I’m no doom-sayer, but I do know that I have a job which is not as succeptable to the turbulant waves of economic discord as others in my family. I’ve even slighly played out the scenario where the month Chrissy and I get out of debt (oh yeah, BTW we’ve been told by the media that it’s our fault the economy is tanking–cause we’re saving instead of spending) we have to financially assist those in the family who are having trouble making ends meet. I’m concerned that our small income, combined with some form of inflation, in conjunction with our foodstorage, will only be enough for our family and I may not have any left to help. You all know me, I’ll find other ways to help somehow, and let’s hope that day never comes. But I play out the scenario anyway because the Church’s welfare system can’t sustain its entire membership, and tough times will require family involvement before they require the Church’s help.
I was sitting across the table from a man last night who was discussing the grievances outlined in the Declaration of Independence. Among the many accusations outlined against King George is this one: “For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent.” This grievance was often popularized by the slogan of “No Taxation Without Representation.”
Ok, now here, Let me introduce you to some folks: These are my children. Their names are Eliza, Daniel, and Rainey. Their ages are 7, 3, and 2, respectively. Every dime and dollar of bailout money and stimulus package is a tax they will have to pay in their future. If this democracy endures long enough for them to vote then they will shoulder the economic fallout of this generation’s spending.
Our representative government appears less and less to represent who I am: a father concerned for the future of his children.
I’m reminded of a section of Thomas Paine’s great document, “The Crisis“ while describing a Tori in his day he remarked: a noted one, who kept a tavern at Amboy, was standing at his door, with as pretty a child in his hand, about eight or nine years old, as I ever saw, and after speaking his mind as freely as he thought was prudent, finished with this unfatherly expression, “Well! give me peace in my day.” Not a man lives on the continent but fully believes that a separation must some time or other finally take place, and a generous parent should have said, “If there must be trouble, let it be in my day, that my child may have peace;” and this single reflection, well applied, is sufficient to awaken every man to duty. Not a place upon earth might be so happy as America. Her situation is remote from all the wrangling world, and she has nothing to do but to trade with them. A man can distinguish himself between temper and principle, and I am as confident, as I am that God governs the world, that America will never be happy till she gets clear of foreign dominion. Wars, without ceasing, will break out till that period arrives, and the continent must in the end be conqueror; for though the flame of liberty may sometimes cease to shine, the coal can never expire.
I probably quoted too much here. But no one talks like this on the news, in our congress, and rarely in our conversations. I find it refreshing.I have several times made remarks of this sentiment. It’s one of the ways I justify being in the military.
Maybe I should stop watching the news. After all when I drive to work it’s hard to see that there is potential for the economic, idealistic, and physical worlds to come crumbling down upon me. It just looks like gray winter skies, and highway. Or maybe we ought to stop letting our politicians label us, and our children as “The Silent Majority” (thank you Richard Nixon). Maybe somewhere someone will get these folks organized in some way so congress will pay attention. In the meantime I’m working on a letter it goes something like this:
Dear Sir/Madam:
Thank you for taxing the future income of my children and unborn grandchildren. I appreciate that half of the $700 billion is gone without any oversight. If I were that sloppy with my money I wouldn’t have food on the table. It’s nice to know we have more compassion for corporations than we do our citizens.
Were you aware of how much money you allocated without consulting any expert witnesses? Let’s put this into perspective. Line up a bunch of $100 bills and start putting them across America. At it’s widest point you’d be able to cross the country twice with the money you alloted. Oh, and did you know that if you actually had to “print” that money it would take your presses 5 years printing only $100 bills (your largest denomination) working 24/7?
Maybe this is all my fault. After all you might argue that I only participate in this demoncracy every November when I get to vote, and that I’m silent the rest of the year. For this I’d like to apologize, but I figured wearing a uniform with an American flag on it for the past 11 years was participating in deomocracy. If my country now requires that I not only spend long hours defending its freedom, but have to influence its politics, and raise my children, then I’d like you to propose legislation to change the number of hours in the day. I’ll need about 32.
If legislation to change the hours of the day is impractical than please consider acting as a representative of me, my children, my grandchildren, and every generation that follows. I know when I cast my vote that’s who I’m representing. I thought I made a good choice. Please prove me right.
Thank you for your time.
-Jacob Roecker
So what’s next? Well, if you’ve got it in mind to do something about this issue, help get people mobilized. Take this same idea of “Taxation without representation” and make some noise. Link to this blog, cut and paste the entire thing and email it around, DO something. Otherwise our nonrepresentative government will label us the Silent Majority and tell us what we’re thinking.
It seems each generation has to get a lesson on the history of the middle east. News programs do a good job covering things as they happen, but they often fail to tell the backstory.
This video does a good job telling the backstory of the current Isreal / Palestinian conflict. I’d like to present it here because the media seems very good about presenting the pro-palestinian side of the conversation.
It only takes a few minutes to watch.
Oh, and if someone could explain this to me, I’d really like to know: How come you can spend your humanitarian aid on rockets, use them to fire at your neighbor during a ‘cease fire’ and then expect them to not defend themselves. Ummm…. If these folks had to be intereviewed to be on the church welfare system, It might look something like this:
Do you smoke? Do you drink? Do you purchase rockets? If you’ve answered “yes” to any of these questions, you’re unable for financial aid.
Can you tell this stuff gets under my goat? Even FOX News refuses to take a ‘hard stand’ on this issue. Generally they’re pretty good about choosing a ‘moralistic high ground’ to appeal to their deomographic. I hate to say it, but on this issue they’ve gone soft.
I see the war on this brand of idealogy being the moralistic struggle of our generation. Let’s review what we’re going through:
My Generation:
Economic times that can only be compared to the great depression
Our society loves numbers. We often reduce human beings to demographically organized figures 0 through 9. It’s unfortunate that we do this. I personally believe that when the Savior numbered each one of us in thegarden of Gethsemane & on the cross that he didn’t view us as numbers on a checklist.
It will be a great day when our minds can move beyond the numbers to the humanity behind them. In the interim I would like to submit this video to help personalize what many of us are watching on the news.
I’ve added this because I know what it’s like to be on the recieving ends of these things. Many times our ‘alarm’ system was just the first explosion, and you just hoped that they missed.
I hate to do this. I showed this picture to Chrissy the other day, and a first glance she didn’t get it. It reads “Death to All Juice.” It’s not a call to hinder the buisiness models of Tropicana or Sunkist. Say “Juice” fast, accent the the first part of the word and what do you get?
Death to all Jews.
Now history has seen this before. We’re likely to see it again. As a country we seem to reinvent our identity about every 15 years. And it was that many years ago that Shinder’s List came out.
Isreal’s patience while suffering under over 200 missle attacks during a cease fire is something I can understand. I know what it’s like to have to sleep at night wondering if you’ve going to wake up in the morning because of rocket attacks.
Now it’s an election year in Isreal. Motivated to protect the country and possible political gain, Isreal has gone to war with the rocket launchers and those who possess them.
War is the most terrible and wasteful of all human inventions.
When the sons of Mosiah left on their mission call there was quite a bit of opposition. Here’s was the popular solution to the “Lamanite problem” during their time.
Let us take up arms against them, that we destroy them and their iniquity out of the land, lest they overrun us and destroy us. (Alma 26:25)
Many people have fallen victim to this line of thinking. Please whoever reads this, don’t ever get yourself trapped in the thinking that it’s better to whipe a particular deomgraphic from the face of the earth. It’s not the right solution.
Now, would you like the kicker on this photo. It’s not taken in an Arabic country. It’s taken in New York City, on U.S. soil. On the same island where terrorists attacked killed nearly 3,000 people just 7 years ago. On the same island that contains a Latter-Day Saint Temple.
Similar signs have arisen throughout the United States.
Our country has a history of stopping genocides. Although I’m a big fan of “free speech” I wish we’d hold people more responsible for what they say. Promoting genocide in this country should have some seriously negative social consequences.
I generally take pride that I’ve helped preserve free speech in this country by serving in the military. Sadly, this photo has changed that.
Happy New Year.
Oh, and by the way. I don’t think this mosque was hijacked, or the caretaker had his family threatened by terrorists when they asked him if they can use their building to store rockets. I’m sure he did it willingly. Could you imagine your cultural hall being used as an ammunition dump?
If you can’t don’t worry. You’re not required to know the answer to any of these things to keep your blog. There’s not a whole lot of technical discrimination online these days. Nothing technical is genetic. Everyone has to start at zero when it comes to producing cool looking content online.
Tonight I’d like to talk about ad-ing to your blog. You’ve surfed around and seen other blogs have ads. I’m sure you’ve wondered if it’s worth the trouble to have them. Can you really make money on advertising? How hard is it to set up? If you go to the sites that want you to host advertising life gets a bit confusing.
Let me see if my formula helps you decide if this is a solution. My formula involves setting up two different ad accounts to compete for the best advertising on your site. Let’s start first with google Adsense. Most bloggers I’ve come across use blogger.com. This means they already have a google account. They just need to activate their adsense account. It takes a few minutes, they’ve got good screens to talk you through the process and when you’re done you should have some sort of code that will turn into an ad on you page. In blogger you can add this pretty easily:
Layout–>Page Elements–>Add a Gadget–>(Scroll Down)Adsense–> “+”
Sign in and select your ad
Really it’s that simple. When you look at your adsense reports you’ll be able to see how many times people saw your blog & ad. It’ll be in the “page views” column. If you’re a long-term blogger and haven’t done this yet, you might be suprised how many people are coming to visit your blog.
If you’re doing this in WordPress you’ll want to install the AdSense Manager plugin. Follow the instructions on the plugin and you’ll be in business in no time. Getting really creative? Try this one. Google has a competitor for advertising. It’s a company called AdBrite. Their business model involves a bit of bidding. If you’d get paid more from google, it shows a google ad. If you’d get paid more from AdBrite, it’ll show an AdBrite advertisement.
It’s pretty easy to set up as well. Visit AdBrite and sign up for an account. Create your ad unit. When you’re at the “Pricing Options” tab you’ll be able to input the code from adsense that you generated earlier. This maximizes you’re chances of making some cash. Now I know what you’re thinking: Can I really make some money doing this? The answer isn’t a simple yes or no. There’s whole college classes dedicated to making advertising more effective. I just don’t have the time to cover all the ins and outs here. I’m already aware that my posts are generally “too long.” We’ve all heard the concept that “Time=Money.” That being true, there’s the idea that anything you invest your time in, should have some financial gain. Don’t take me too literally on this philosophy. Family is waaaaay better than money.
You can make some money on this. Google will send you a check every $100 increments, and that may take a year or more depending on your site traffic. It’s a nice check when it does show up. I wouldn’t try to pay the bills from what you’d make, but it does make for some good splurge money. Some blogs I read are probably considerably more popular than mine.
I could imagine that if Emily posted some on her blog “Muskrat Love” she’d probably have a bit of cash flowing faster than this site. With a master’s English her blog is certainly more polished prose than what you see here. Her humor, whit, and timing match her skills in writing. It’s definately one worth adding to your blog list.
I know the word’s not very exiting. It conjures up ideas of dusty places and smelly old men, women who’d be tried for witchcraft in other centuries and general boredom. There’s no glossing over it. We’ve got a generally bad impression of the word “archive.” Let’s see if we can’t change that.
Remember in Indiana Jones there was that room where the ark was locked up? Who didn’t think of all the treasures that were locked up in that room? I mean really, if they were going to lock up the Ark of the Covenant then what else did they have in those crates?
I like to think of archives like that warehouse. Sure there’s some dust, but there’s also great treasures. Dad stumbled across two great treasures this week. First was the blog entry from yesterday where he discovered the great books that are available online for free. Then there was a more personal discovery. In an email Dad discovered an old news reel that showed the West Point graduation class of 1942. That was the year that his dad, my grandpa, graduated from the United States Military Academy.
Dad has asked if there’s a way that I’d be able to download the file. Well, dad the answer is YES! The reason why is because the link he’d found was an to archives.gov, one of the many archives available and growing online. I’d like to submit a bit of a review of three of my favorite sites that I frequent:
Archive.org :: This is one of the first and great online archives. I’ve been particularly drawn to the older cartoons and TV shows. A while back I downloaded the feature length Gulliver’s Travels and burned it onto DVD. It’s now rotated in with the rest of our DVDs the kids watch.
Archives.gov :: Need a PDF version of the Declaration of Independence? This is the place to get one. How about the 7.2 million dollar check to purchase Alaska? Or Edison’s patent on the light bulb. This is also the same branch of government responsible for the Presidential Libraries. Now that many of them are online school kids should have a much easier time doing research. You can listen to FDR’s great speeches, or review some of the campaigning novelties of the Kennedy campaign.
Loc.gov :: The official website of the Library of Congress this is by far the oldest online archive I’ve visited. Here you can read Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and George Washington, in their own handwriting.
Now dad, here’s the good news. The video you were exited about, and asking about… I did it. Because it was located at Archives.gov I was able to download it. Click the title below to download the file.
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