When I was a kid and would see adults argue, I would observe and listen to both sides. From my outside perspective, I could see that the two adults were arguing on two different channels of thought. Each person had their core values that they felt were being stepped on. Each brought their own perspectives to the argument. Sometimes, I would literally say out loud, “Person A is saying this… Person B is saying this.” I’d try to get the two parties to see that they were each talking about two completely different things.
Since I was a child, they would look at me for a moment, disregard what I had to say and continue their fruitless conversation. Each continued to drive home their point more vehemently, never trying to see where the other person was coming from.
I feel like I’m that kid again, except the whole world is a chorus of the same madness. I scroll through my Facebook feed and see that same dynamic playing out over and over again. We talk at each other, on top of each other, around each other, on completely different channels. And we think that if we get snarkier or angrier or more indignant or judgmental or label them with some offensive label that somehow that’s going to help. We have an entire world of people touting their opinions, never stopping to really understand each other or how some people are speaking from their core value of security while others are speaking from their core value of freedom, or others from their core value of fairness, etc. We will never, ever get along until we learn to speak with another person on their station (or in relation to their core value).
You can talk to someone til you’re blue in the face about freedom, and they won’t care a thing about it if their core value is security. Or if someone’s core value is fairness, they won’t care about your core value of freedom if they don’t see that what you want is “fair and equal.”
We’re never going to change someone’s core values. But if we can at least respect that their core values are just as valid as ours and explain things to them in terms of their values, then perhaps we can start to have a civil discourse again.
Ironically, in a world of instant communication on steroids, our greatest need is the ability to communicate. That begins with respect and a willingness to understand what’s making the other person tick (their core values).
My husband Dave’s recent post about silly Covid-19 pandemic rules was wrong. Turns out that closing vast tracts of public park land to people wanting to get fresh air and sunshine is NOT silly when We the People are irresponsible, when we violate our sacred trust.
He complained about public park closures, using as a case in point the #ChickamaugaNMP in NW Georgia. That Civil War battlefield is 5300 acres of National Military Park with roads, trails, vistas, fields, woods, nature, sunshine and fresh air … but all roads through it are closed. He thought it was to protect people.
Wrong! It was to protect the park from people.
He learned from park volunteers that, as Covid-19 hit, hundreds, even thousands of people, came to this Civil War battlefield, this sacred space. Many walked the trails, meditated, enjoyed nature and honored this hallowed ground, as they should. BUT others held parties, set up BBQ grills near monuments and tent shelters in fields. They caused traffic jams. They left garbage all over. Some even got out their metal detectors, searching for and digging up Civil War artifacts … which has been illegal for decades.
In short, they trashed the Chickamauga National Military Park. And so the park superintendent took responsible, care-giving action, and shut down not only the visitors center, but all access to the park.
In his first post, my husband Dave said: “The park’s land should be available” …. But now, in this video, he says that when We, the People can’t take care of sacred ground, places that are entrusted to us, then those types of places should be shut down.
We the People can do better. We the People MUST do better … or we deserve to have these national shrines and treasures closed, even when we need them the most.
National Park closures during Covid-19 Pandemic are justified
I read an article recently about how socialists just want good things for everyone. They can’t bear that anyone should be weighed down with student debt or have to use gofund.me to pay their medical bills or suffer in any way.
Here’s the thing. I’ve been homeless, weighed down with parent plus student loans that could choke a horse, making below poverty level in the US… quite recently, in fact. And I’d take every bit of it again before I’d say government had to make all my problems go away.
Government can make everyone equal… equally miserable, equally impoverished, equally unable to rise above their circumstances.
Even when I was in the lowest of lows, I knew I lived in America and that somehow, someway, I could use my initiative and my mind to rise above my circumstances and rebuild my life. Socialism might look sexy in the short run, but in the long run it always leads to widespread poverty and misery for the masses while an elite core run the show and take all the power and spoils. Hmmm… isn’t that what socialists claim they’re trying to get rid of???
Don’t sell your soul to Satan because you want a free ride or because you can’t watch people suffer. Suffering builds character IF the person is free to learn and grow and adapt in a free environment. Don’t rob yourself or your fellow citizens of the priceless self-growth that comes from rising above their circumstances and the sheer joy of conquering challenges.
We’re on this planet to go through hard things and grow from them. You’re never going to eradicate pain and hardship. If you can’t bear to watch people suffer, lend a helping hand, encourage and lift others, share what you have. Giving isn’t giving if you stole the money from someone else to give it or if you use the force of government to redistribute other people’s wealth. You aren’t benevolent being generous with other people’s money. You’re just a thief.
If you want to make a difference: Work, learn how to think, get yourself out of the scarcity mentality, stop playing the victim and take advantage of the incredible privilege of living in a free country where anyone can make something of themselves… IF they will. Become a producer and everyone around you will be blessed in the process.
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By some reports, Bernie Sanders wants to tax people who make $250,000-$500,000 starting at 40%, and nothing on the first $29,000 people make. He wants to tax the top tier people at 90%. So if you’re someone who makes $250,000, you’re going to get to keep about $161,000 (then of course take out state tax, social security (which is another 15% for the self-employed), Medicare/Medicaid with-holdings).
There are a lot more people than you might think who make this. They are small business owners who employ others many times. Or perhaps they’re paying people to clean their houses, or putting money into the economy with restaurants, buying cars, clothes and furniture. They’re paying for services like manicures, massages, haircuts, etc.
If you’re one of these people who are improving the economy and employing others, what’s the incentive to continue to do so? What’s the incentive to take on that pressure and stress? I’d rather downsize and just live simply on less and not kill myself. Heck I’d rather do the service work I love for free than give them all that money.
So what is THAT going to do to our economy when they’ve snuffed out everyone’s incentive? If your job is working in retail, entertainment, arts, personal services, luxury items or an industry that people don’t absolutely need, you’re in for some serious hurt.
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I still remember watching the news of September 1, 1983. I was a senior in high school at the time. It was the day Georgia Congressman Larry McDonald’s plane (Korean Airlines Flight 007) was shot down by a Soviet Su-15 interceptor. Supposedly, through a navigational error, the commercial flight entered Soviet prohibited airspace.
The most conservative member of Congress (Lawrence P. McDonald) was aboard. He was a vocal opponent of socialism and communism. Congressman Jesse Helms (another very conservative member of Congress) was scheduled for that flight, but made a last minute change. He was not aboard.
While this tragic event greatly disturbed most Americans, my family felt it more acutely than others. Why? My father (Jack Morton) knew Larry McDonald personally, admired him, and worked on his campaign. (A photo of Larry’s inscription in my father’s copy of “We Hold These Truths…” is featured in the image with this article.)
Dr. Ron Paul said of the late Congressman Larry McDonald, “He was the most principled man in Congress.” My father agreed.
Would the Soviets Shoot Down a Commercial Flight to Take Out the Two Most Conservative Voices Against Communism in the U.S. Congress?
While studying the words of Congressman Larry McDonald, it occurred to me that the Soviets shot down a plane (KAL 007) to silence and remove this man who vocally opposed their philosophy. About 4 months before his plane disappeared, he proclaimed on national television:
“There is an elitist core in this country that has seen value in subsidizing communism, in protecting communism. There is an elite core in this country that has dominated American society (the Trilateral Commission, the Council on Foreign Relations) that have dominated the State Department for forty years and pretty much openly so. Their objective is to bring about a gradual transition in our society, a dissolving of sovereignty, and a moving steadily to the left on the political spectrum … on the road to world government.” Congressman Larry McDonald, Crossfire around May of 1983.
Watch Congressman Larry McDonald on Crossfire, May 1983
I believe the fate of KAL-007 was premeditated. Here’s why…
McDonald and Helms were calm, reasonable voices against the forces in the U.S. who were supporting communism. McDonald called out the Trilateral Commission and the Council on Foreign Relations. (You might recall that it was in a CFR meeting where Biden bragged about having the Ukrainian investigator who was working on the Burisma Holdings / Hunter Biden case removed or the Ukraine wouldn’t get their billion dollars. Yes! Biden is CFR.)
McDonald had just been named president of the John Birch Society – an educational group that openly exposed the elite players who were undermining American sovereignty and working toward socialism and one world government.
The following evidence leads one to believe that the plane actually landed and Congressman McDonald was interrogated, tortured and imprisoned.
Evidence Suggests McDonald Did NOT Die in the Plane Crash
While the Soviets claimed there were no survivors, the Israeli Research Center for Prisons Psych-prisons, and Forced Labor Concentration Camps of the USSR, directed by Avraham Shifrin discovered otherwise. Their reports provided the following information:
Photo of Prisoner Number 3 (to the left) alongside computer aged photos of Congressman Larry McDonald
“McDonald had been brought by KGB to Sakhalin Island and then to Moscow. Upon arrival in Moscow, McDonald was taken to the Lubyanka KGB prison where he was given the designation, “Prisoner Number 3.” While at the Lubyanka, he was kept in isolation, taken from his cell only for questioning. He was interrogated several times by the head of the First Chief Directorate of the KGB, Vladimir Kryuchkov.
Following a number of questionings, Mr. McDonald was moved to the Lefortovo KGB prison also in Moscow for continued interrogation over a period of several months. After a time in Lefortovo, Mr. McDonald was then moved to a “dacha” (summer house) in Sukhanova near Moscow where the interrogations continued.
Mr. Shifrin’s sources indicated that they had strong reason to believe that, while in Sukhanova, McDonald was interrogated under drugs that may have eventually resulted in identity loss.
He was brought eventually to a prison in Karaganda, Kazakhstan,from which he was moved in mid-1987, by special transport, to a small prison near the town of Temir-Tau, also in Kazakhstan. The wardens of this prison identified him from a photograph that had been computer-aged to show what he would have looked like at the time. It also showed a scar that runs from his left nostril to the left end of his lips. Here he was given special treatment but was not allowed to communicate with anyone.
In the summer of 1990, he was taken to the transportation prison in Karaganda. Here, as an unknown prisoner whose file is sealed by the KGB, he remained. As of 1995, all efforts to obtain additional information from the Karaganda prison have failed.” Quoted on Conservapedia.
“One of the greatest tragedies of the Cold War was the shoot-down of the Korean Airlines Flight 007 by the Armed Forces of what was then the Soviet Union on 1 September 1983… The KAL-007 tragedy was one of the most tense incidences of the entire Cold War. However, now that relations between our two nations have improved substantially, I believe that it is time to resolve the mysteries surrounding this event. Clearing the air on this issue could help further to improve relations.” Helms appended to this letter Interrogatories including the following:
“From Soviet reports of the incident, please provide
a) A list of the names of any living passengers and crew members from the airplane;
b) A list of missing passengers and crew;
c) A list of dead passengers and crew;
d) A list and explanation of what happened to the bodies of any dead passengers and crew;
Please provide detailed information on the fate of U.S. Congressman Larry McDonald.”
Senator Helms’ letter to Yeltsin was prompted, according to the Chief of Staff under Helms for the Minority Staff of the Committee on Foreign Relations, Rear Admiral Bud Nance, by the CIA verified information coming from Israel concerning a water landing of KAL 007. See the Admiral Nance letter to the Director of the Israel Research Centre for Prisons, Psych-prisons, and Forced Labor Concentration Camps of the U.S.S.R.
And finally, Helms added:
“How many KAL-007 family members and crew are being held in Soviet camps?
Please provide a detailed list of the camps containing live passengers and crew, together with a map showing their location.”
The Russians did not cooperate. Even though people petitioned Obama to re-open the investigation into KAL-007 in 2012, nothing appears to have been done then either.
On March 2, 2020, I emailed and snail mailed a letter to President Donald J. Trump requesting that he honor Congressman Lawrence P. McDonald, and if possible, re-open the investigation into what became of the KAL-007 crew and passengers.
Prophetic Warning
People said Larry was crazy. They called him a conspiracy theorist. Today we see the fruit of that “elite core” he talked about and would more likely call Larry a prophet. What Larry said in 1983 that got him killed can no longer be denied. There is a Deep State. There is a Swamp. The socialists are out of the closet and some Americans are so duped that they actively support socialist candidates.
On the bright side, there are too many patriots to silence. Big tech shuts some down, censors, yet this action only awakens more patriots. The battle lines are drawn, and every citizen must take a stand.
Will You Choose Life & Liberty or Captivity & Death?
I hope that we will remember this valiant pioneering patriot who paid dearly to warn us. I hope we will fight to keep our freedom of speech, of religion, to bear arms, our rights of life, liberty and property. We will need every last one of our God-give rights to thwart the swelling tide of socialism that no longer feels the need to plot in the shadows but openly flaunts itself as a seductive alternative to the naive and uninformed.
Every patriot must become a teacher of truth. Awake and arise and hold your flags of liberty high.
The other day, I heard a statistic that two-thirds of Americans do not believe there is absolute moral truth. Many today believe that because we are a highly technological society that “old outdated principles” should be disregarded. Many believe that the laws observed and articulated by our Founding Fathers need to be dismissed in favor of more progressive ideologies. Never mind that our system of government has sustained a free society for 230+ years.
There are those who feel moral laws that underpin our free society are equally antiquated and to be disregarded. For these mooring-less Americans there are no moral absolutes. There are no laws that protect and preserve freedom.
Why Universal Laws Matter
Let me explain why laws of the Universe do exist and why they do matter.
Johannes Kepler (1571-1630) discovered 3 Laws of Planetary motion which we still use today. We wouldn’t have been able to go to the moon or Mars or anywhere else in space without a knowledge of Kepler’s 3 Laws of Planetary Motion.
Sir Isaac Newton (1642 – 1726) discovered 3 Laws of Motion. Without an understanding of Newton’s laws, we wouldn’t be flying airplanes around the world. Countless technologies have been built around the laws Kepler, Newton and others discovered.
Can you imagine saying,
“Those guys are antiquated and from the oppressive, misogynistic era of the 1500’s and 1600’s. We don’t need their observations. We need something new and progressive! Our technology is far beyond theirs. They never even foresaw space or airline travel! We need something new and modern for our modern times and modern problems!”
Go board a plane flown by a pilot who doesn’t understand or work in harmony with those laws. You’ll be eating your words as you plummet to the ground.
Universal Laws Exist Outside Human Influence
Kepler and Newton did not invent these laws. The laws already existed. Kepler and Newton simply discovered them and stated them clearly so that scientists could go forward and create new innovations and technologies.
Principles or laws do not change over time. They remain constant regardless of what mankind chooses to think, believe, say or do. A societal temper tantrum doesn’t change them. A majority vote won’t change them.
Like Newton and Kepler, the Founders spent years studying thousands of years of history, economies and the rise and fall of civilizations to distill laws or principles that govern freedom. The laws they discovered might be called The Laws of Freedom.
As far back as Adam & Eve, Noah and Moses, God gave mankind certain laws that govern happiness. You might call them the Laws of Happiness. Over thousands of years people and civilizations who obeyed these moral codes lived happier, more well-adjusted, productive, and safer lives. Those who disregarded basic moral laws did so at their own peril.
Universal Laws Don’t Sway with Our Beliefs
Whether we choose to believe, accept, or see that there is absolute moral truth and absolute principles that govern freedom, is irrelevant. These laws or principles do not change across time. They aren’t up for a popularity contest. We don’t get to vote on whether they’re right or wrong and expect them to budge — not any more than we could vote on Kepler and Newton’s laws and make the smallest change in them. The fact is these laws simply ARE IMMUTABLE and there are CONSEQUENCES for operating in ways that work in opposition to them.
When you operate in alignment with these laws, they lead you to freedom and life. Work contrary to them and you end up in captivity and death.
Only a fool ignores them. Like a child donning a Superman cape and jumping out a second story window, we will fall if we foolishly ignore or fight against the Laws of Happiness or the Laws of Freedom. Just like gravity for the child, these universal laws that govern happiness and freedom are timeless and the violation of them has severe consequences.
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We each must decide what we want to give our lives to — what matters most to us and what will give our lives meaning. For me, there is nothing more valuable than freedom.
One month from today I’ll be an empty nester. My youngest of 6 children is heading off to Guatemala to serve a 2-year mission with our Church. For the last few days, I’ve had the most unsettled feeling… listless, irritable, and as if nothing I do matters. Why bother? It’s crazy. My life is good. I’m happy. I’m loved. Why the strange emotions?
Today, after a bit of self-examination, I realized I’ve spent the last 31 years rearing children and the last 30 running a business. I made a lot of mistakes along the way, yet in spite of me, my six children managed to turn out wonderful. Sure, there are those who are still working through the ramifications of being parented by an imperfect mother. Yet, overall, they are successful, smart, and independent individuals. So independent, in fact, they don’t need me anymore.
Despite my screw-ups, I succeeded in the one thing that mattered most to me – rearing independent adults who could make their own way in the world.
As I look to the future, I ask myself what’s next. What matters? I’ve been in business long enough to know that there is no business success that (for me) creates the sense of satisfaction from life I’m looking for. It’s no longer about the acknowledgement or the kaching of the cash register. I’ve been there, done that, umpteen times. I sure wish I could swap a lot of that time for having spent more of it with my kids.
Business tends to be a hamster wheel with just enough carrots along the way to give you the illusion that what you’re doing matters. Please, don’t get me wrong. Entrepreneurship is a wonderful thing. We need entrepreneurs to have a free society. Entrepreneurs create jobs; they invent things that make other people’s lives better; they put food on the table for their families and other people’s families. Every major society that has had entrepreneurs has had freedom. When a society loses its entrepreneurs, it loses its freedom.
Which gets to the heart of what I discovered myself. In asking myself, “What would give my life meaning?” The answer was obvious … fostering freedom. If that means encouraging entrepreneurship, if that means spurring independent thought, if that means educating people on the priceless treasure of freedom we enjoy – that is where I intend to spend my remaining days.
My grandchildren may live far away and never know me. I may never meet my great grandchildren or great great grandchildren. Yet, there is one thing I can work toward and work for … leaving them a legacy of freedom. If I can do something, anything, even a small thing that can turn the tide and leave more freedom for my posterity, my life will have mattered.
The question I’ll be asking myself daily is: “What can I do to foster freedom today?” Then, I intend to act courageously upon the answer.
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Why do we need the Electoral College and why is the National Popular Vote (NPV) Interstate Compact so dangerous to our freedom? The National Popular Vote Interstate Compact binds states with contracts that require them to appropriate their electoral college votes to the Presidential candidate who has the national popular vote.
This episode explores the dangerous convergence of
open border immigration policy
the proposed lack of citizenship recording in the 2020 census,
the National Popular Vote movement (already approved by at least 15 states + DC)
the proposed policy to make no ID required for to vote.
The combination of these radical policies will prove deadly to our republic.
Warning: As of July 2019, National Popular Vote has been adopted by fifteen states and the District of Columbia. Together, they have 196 electoral votes, which is 36.4% of the Electoral College and 72.6% of the 270 votes needed to give the compact legal force.
The following states have adopted NPV. The number out to the right of each state is the number of Electoral College Votes that state represents.
Maryland – 10 New Jersey – 14 Illinois – 20 Hawaii – 4 Washington – 12 Massechusetts – 11 DC – 3 Vermont – 3 Califorina -55 Rhode Island – 4 New York -29 Connecticut – 7 Colorado – 9 Deleware – 3 New Mexico – 5 Oregon – 7
This video from PragerU explains what’s going on in more detail. It was made when only 10 states were on board. Now there are 15.
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“Are you a U.S. Citizen?” … a question proposed for addition to the 2020 U.S. Census has caused controversy. In the past there were two questions. The first asked where the person was born and the second asked those who were foreign born whether they had been naturalized. These questions were not asked in 2010 because a short form census was used. Some say a citizenship question should not be asked. Others say it should.
You might be wondering why it matters. This episode of Front Porch Sense explains the role of the census in how our representatives and presidents are elected and why the citizenship question is critical.
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We have been given a unique window of opportunity to teach Americans correct principles – the principles that govern a free nation. In the past, conservatives went to sleep when their man was in the oval office. With President Trump, they aren’t going back to sleep. They’re either keeping a close eye on what he’s doing or they’re defending themselves against the onslaught of hostility being fired at them from the other side of the aisle.
Because people are still alert and concerned about what is happening in America, we have the opportunity to help people really get what’s going on — to truly understand the principles that made our nation free. In this episode Marnie talks about how we can be using the next 5 years to turn the tide away from socialism and back toward the republic we were created to be.
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