The Christian Coalition of Washington

Libertarian or Libertine Party?

2011-11-11T12:50:00.000-08:00

I agree with 80 percent or more of their party platform. In question is their embracing individualistic secularism as the answer to our most devastating domestic problems.

In the late 1950's and early 1960's, many individualists who stood for limited government and embraced Judeo/Christian values and truth, often took the title libertarian. I being one. That changed following the Libertarian Party’s birth on December 11, 1971, and their increasingly championing individualistic secularism.

Too many post 1971 libertarians believe in the moral equivalency of an individual’s ‘conscientious consideration’. Knowingly or unknowingly they side with the Politically Correct Enforcers and Christianphobics, those who desire to force Judeo/Christian values out of both the public and private arena.

“As Libertarians, we seek a world of liberty; a world in which all individuals are sovereign over their own lives and no one is forced to sacrifice his or her values for the benefit of others.”
___ Preamble Libertarian Party 2010 Platform

It is a question of who is sovereign. Who is in charge of our values, our decisions, our actions?

We have three choices:
Numerous Americans now put their faith in government succor for life’s comforts. Doing so, they willingly accept the values, decisions, and actions of the hand that feeds them. The old saying is so true, “Whose bread you eat his song you shall sing.”

The Libertarian Party’s platform and others put their faith in the moral equivalency of each individual’s ‘conscientious consideration’—moral anarchy.

Others put their faith in a sovereign, loving, and caring God who takes a hand in their daily lives. Judeo/Christian values and truths built a free and prosperous America—including, an individual’s right to life, liberty, and property is God given.

“Recognizing that abortion is a sensitive issue and that people can hold good-faith views on all sides, we believe that government should be kept out of the matter, leaving the question to each person for their conscientious consideration.”____ Libertarian Party 2010 Platform

I suppose one lacking Judeo/Christian values can say the same thing about pedophiles, euthanasia, or bestiality—depending on their own ‘conscientious consideration’. Refusing to take a stand on abortion may be good for not antagonizing voters. It does nothing to protect the individual to-be-born’s right to life, liberty, and property.

“We favor the repeal of all laws creating ‘crimes’ without victims, such as the use of drugs for medicinal or recreational purposes.”____ Libertarian Party 2010 Platform

Except in the minds of pseudo-intellectuals seeking attention at university cocktail parties and the secular self indulgent, prostitution, alcohol abuse, and drug addiction are far from victimless.

Sexually transmitted diseases are epidemic. The Libertarian Party’s only idea to cure, control, or stop the STD epidemic is leave it to the individual’s ‘conscientious consideration’. If you think it’s right, go ahead and do it. How is it working for us?

Today, an estimated 10 million or more Americans each year contract a sexually transmitted disease. Futures ruined. Families destroyed. New born babies infected face potential mental and physical afflictions, even death. For others the results are fatal. Thousands are dying from AIDS. During AIDs first thirty years our Nation's health care cost escalated more than 2,600 percent—and costs to the taxpayer continue to mount. The result of the secular individual’s ‘conscientious consideration’ in choices of sexual gratification,

"Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. They exchanged the truth of God for a lie"
___ Rom. 1:24-25

The question, who is sovereign in your life? Who is in charge of determining your values, your desires, your actions?

Without any ideas on how to cure, control, or stop our nation’s drug epidemic, the Libertarian Party’s answer, leave it to the individual’s ‘conscientious consideration’. Legalize it.

A victimless crime? The cost in human misery uncountable. Mothers without husbands must raise their children alone. Children with drug-addicted parents struggle to survive. Thousands of babies addicted to meth, cocaine, or other drugs are born each day, many with lifelong mental and physical disabilities. Cost in human life from shooting-up or being shot-down equals an all-out war. Cost in medical and custodial care for the survivors continues to escalate. During coming decades, yearly costs to taxpayer to care for the drug afflicted will continue to increase.

Legalizing addiction will increase the problem—the demand for drugs. Legalizing drug addiction removes the incentive to stop. All the financial, physical, psychological, and family problems connected with drug addiction not only remain, they will escalate.

New and tougher anti-drug laws have not stopped the distribution of illegal drugs. Education programs have not. Traditional treatment programs have only minimal success in curing hard-core abusers. Anti-drug tactics are necessary and should continue. But drugs are not the problem, why a large number of American's use illegal drugs is.

People with hope believe in the future. They have faith in a God who takes a hand in their daily lives. They know they have the opportunity to live a successful and prosperous life. People with hope have no need nor desire for drugs. Drug addiction is a moral problem. It is a question of who is sovereign over the individual’s life? Who is in charge of values, desires, actions?

“A man's worst difficulties begin when he is able to do as he likes.” ___ T.H. Huxley

Only a nation and its people who choose a sovereign loving God to take a hand in their daily lives are truly free. Choose this day.

___ Michael E. Odell

COMMENTS: Your thoughts and comments are welcome. E-mail: odellmike@comcast.net

Tea Party Has It Backwards

2011-08-31T13:11:00.000-07:00

Tea Party activists, Conservative Democrats, and Fiscal Republicans have it backwards.

Don’t talk about cutting government. It is not what should be cut from our federal budget. It is what should be left in to support our federal government’s constitutional functions—to protect the individual’s right to their life, liberty, and property. This means a strong military to protect the Americans abroad and to protect and secure our home borders from all external threats, and a judiciary to guarantee equal administration of law and contracts.

And why not government guaranteed food, housing, education, and healthcare for everyone? It did not work well for those living under Joseph Stalin. Stalin’s government controlled production and distribution of food, farming, housing, and healthcare. The result, death, starvation, and poverty for millions.

Past experience shows it does not work out well for those under any socialist system. Communism, Fascism, and all other forms of secular socialism go against the self interest of human nature. Force is needed, requiring a transfer of increasing power from the many to the few and ending in oligarchy. Certainly not a direction America should be going, but we are.

“President George Bush the younger sought to build a one world based on democracy at a cost in wealth and American life. The result, a President Obama oligarchy at a cost of the freedoms and financial blessing of America’s middle class.”

Greed and envy against our nation’s well off can not solve our financial difficulties. As history has proven, taking from the haves—using taxes or other forms of force—to give to the have nots will not solve the problem, only compound it.

“Forrest Gump’s momma’s ‘stupid is as stupid does’ simply means an intelligent person who does stupid things is still stupid.”

It is irrefutable, the more federal government gets into housing, education, and health care, the more it costs and the poorer a product it produces—and the bigger our national debt.

To balance our federal budget, where to start?

1st What should be left in? The federal government’s constitutional functions—to protect the individual’s right to their life, liberty, and property. A strong military to protect the safety of Americans abroad and secure our home borders from all external threats, and a judiciary to guarantee equal administration of law and contracts. All else left to individual states.

2nd then what?
1. Pay interest on federal debt instruments. Start paying down the debt. And, instead of raising the debt ceiling, start lowering it.

2. Insure military personnel health care and other promised costs are paid. Stop getting involved in no-win ongoing nation-building wars.

3. Honor past Social Security and Medicare entitlement obligations. Do not add to unfunded obligations. Raise Social Security age eligibilities. Start with those now 30 or 40 years of age. Give them private options as well.

We are at war. But, “ . . . we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places . . . ” Prayer is our most powerful weapon.

Our prayers can end the corrupting influence of self-indulgence and moral decay, replace spiritually bankrupts who rule our public and private institutions. And finally fill our judicial system, public institutions, corporate boardrooms, and legislative halls with those who understand and stand on the truth of moral absolutes.

“The true soldier fights not because he hates what is in front of him, but because he loves what is behind him.” ___ G.K. Chesterton

It is not too late. Be Informed Be Involved ___ Michael E. Odell

COMMENTS:
Your thoughts and comments are welcome. E-mail: odellmike@comcast.net

No You Can’t

2011-06-07T12:58:00.000-07:00

Yes I Can - I Expect The Best

When it comes to the daily challenges, negative news, political and financial chaos, most of us—at different times—may suffer some form of fear or self-doubt of not being good enough for whatever task the future may bring.

A fear and self-doubt often fed by those more than willing to criticize, to discourage, to tear down. They camp out with the why-you-can’ters the negative thinkers, those always willing to tell us why we can’t, why it can’t be done, how bad things are. They may even cause us to suffer uneasiness when things are going well.

It is difficult to maintain a positive view in today’s negative atmosphere. And what are our children and grandchildren hearing? “Blame America Firsters” dominate our halls of higher education. Politically correct sycophants dominate the media, and our elected leaders ensnared by the spirit of confusion.

Yet, if we continually look at the present negatively and fret about the future we become trapped in a cycle of non-productive worry and self-doubt. Worse yet, join the why-you-can’ters.

True, denying, ignoring, or trying to suppress our negative feelings or the magnitude of today’s problems will not solve anything. We can, however, stop mentally embracing our doubts and fears. Most of our personal fears about today and our doubts about tomorrow are not based on fact, but on our feelings.

Although it takes self-discipline, we can control what we say, what we think, and what we do. It means recognizing and changing negative actions and negative attitudes—dwelling on the what if this, what if that.

We may not be able to control what happens to us but we can control our reaction. I know, it is not easy. I realize some circumstance may be intolerable, even dangerous. If we can, we need to leave such a situation. Often, changing our attitude—how we look at things and how we act—will change our situation or how we perceive the situation. The most important thing we can do, pray we be changed in the situation, changed to the person our Creator would have us be.

For good or bad, our choices today help determine where we will be tomorrow. The choice is ours to choose how we think, how we speak, how we act. We need to be mindful of what we read and what we allow our eyes to watch and ears to hear. And, although far easier to say than do, resist worrying about those things we can do nothing about, and focus on those things we can.

“Reflect upon your present blessings, of which every man has plenty; not on your past misfortunes, of which all men have some.” _____ Charles Dickens

A wealthy, powerful, righteous, and generous America was not built by the share-the-wealthers, why-you-can’ters, and other negative thinkers. Our Nation was built by the positive-thinkers, the yes-I-canners.

We are a blend of choices we made. Yesterday’s choices helped determine where we are today. But that was yesterday. No sense wasting our time and energy thinking about, “What should have been.” Instead focus on, “What can be.” Raise every morning expecting God’s best. And teach our children and grandchildren to do same.

Be Informed Be Involved ___ Michael E. Odell

Write your Senators and Representative in Washington, D.C. Tell them: No to government sanctioned envy, greed, and sexual immorality. No to political correctness. Yes to supporting self discipline and personal responsibility.

You may follow this format:

Senator Donna Arrogant
Senate Office Building,
Washington, D.C., 20510
Senator Arrogant,

Rep. Bill Spender
House Office Building,
Washington, D.C., 20515
Congressman Spender,

COMMENTS: Your thoughts and comments are welcome.
E-mail: odellmike@comcast.net

Shame and Embarrassment

2011-04-29T11:30:00.000-07:00

Shame and Embarrassment In The Name Of Border Security

I hoped to see the outcry against the growing erosion to America’s fundamental rights of life liberty and property intensify. It did not. Submission and acceptance in the name of security is now our norm.

First, I am not comparing the Holocaust to TSA’s appalling actions or the belligerence of some Border Patrol agents along our northwest border. Recently, however, while watching a movie showing Jews and others being herded to their death, heads down, oppressed, and without objection, I wondered how they reached their point of surrender.

I thought of TSA’s body scans, hand pat-downs, looking into undergarments, the defeated acceptance on passenger faces. The fearful face of a little six-year-old girl, in ‘T-shirt and pants patted and rubbed by a TSA agent.

Has looking inside a little girl’s pants made America safer? Instead of shame and embarrassment:“Hey, if you don’t like it don’t fly.” “Hey, if you don’t like it don’t cross the border.” Words of American sycophants who condone government dehumanization.

I feel shame and embarrassment not only for America’s citizens forced to submitt to such humiliation, also for TSA agents participating. Shame for those elected officials, fearful of being blamed for any future attack, who avoid criticism of Home Land Security. Shame for the majority of Americans—when polled—willingly accepting government intrusion and negation of personal freedoms. Majority my make might, but not right.

I live six blocks off the U.S. Canadian border. A growing number on both sides are fearful to use their name when complaining about a border guard’s demeaning attitude. Some citizens, not wanting family nor themselves subjected to the belittling by a few guards with personality problems, no longer cross the border.

Home Land Security is needed, but at what expense? A terrorist attack might result in horrific loss of lives and financial well being, but not the end of our Republic. An ongoing failure to respect and uphold the individual’s right to live liberty and property and the increasing eroding of our national moral characteristics will.

Due to all the gun toting uniforms in my area one feels secure. And I want our children and grandchildren to look up to those in uniform as their helper and a good neighbor. There is a nagging concern, however, those same guns turning to enforce the growing power of the state.

Gitta Sereny's book, Into That Darkness, From Mercy Killing to Mass Murder, uncovers the step by step dehumanization of good family man Franz Stangl. Sereny traces Stangl's rise from minor police functionary in the early Nazi regime to Kommandant and building Treblinka into the largest extermination camp in Poland.

Can it happen here? Maybe not extermination camps. The dehumanization of our citizens is happening, slowly, step by step.

“Thou shalt not be a victim. Thou shalt not be a perpetrator. Above all, thou shalt not be a bystander.” ___ Holocaust Museum, Washington DC

It is not too late. Be Informed Be Involved ______ Michael E. Odell

Write your Senators and Representative in Washington, D.C. Tell them: No to government sanctioned envy, greed, and sexual immorality. No to political correctness. Yes to supporting self discipline and personal responsibility.

You may follow this format:

Senator Donna Arrogant
Senate Office Building,
Washington, D.C., 20510
Senator Arrogant,

Rep. Bill Spender
House Office Building,
Washington, D.C., 20515
Congressman Spender,

COMMENTS: Your thoughts and comments are welcome. E-mail:odellmike@comcast.net

Mobocracy and America

2011-03-17T14:30:00.000-07:00

“I demand, I want.” 2011, America’s year of mobocracy. America, where government employees’ unions, particularly the public teacher’s union, march in mass on state capitols threatening and howling with rage. Their mantra, “I demand, I want.”

Their ongoing insatiable demands for increased pay and benefits created unsustainable debt across our nation’s states. Not just public employee’s unions, a growing number of voters seeking comfort without labor created an unsustainable federal debt. Seeking government succor they sell their vote and liberty for temporary pottage. It is all about me, me, me.

Vote buying political opportunists and the liberal mass media no longer uphold the commandment, Thou shall not steal. Today’s mantra, “Thou shall take from one citizen to buy the vote of another.” They preach envy, greed, and the commandment, “Thou shalt covet.” Worse yet, those seeking government succor not only covet, they demand the prosperous pay for their covetousness. “I demand, I want.”

Democratic rule without restraint leads to mobocracy. America is not a democracy. America was founded as a Constitutional Republic, protecting all citizens from tyranny of a majority, or a politically supported vocal minority. We are a nation founded on rule of law—not mobocracy. Unfortunately that is swiftly changing. America’s concept of peaceful demonstrations and free speech is being turned into something ugly.

The financial result of this ugliness, crushing debt. Billions of dollars are collected yearly in taxes just to pay interest on the debt. Draining purchasing power from the private sector and depleting middle America's financial vitality.

Budget balancing is difficult if not impossible. Spending cuts cost votes. It hurts, but it must be done. It can be done. At the government level, federal and state legislators can do what you and I do, spend within income. Even a meat-axe approach now is preferable to economic collapse later.

Government is a financial Minotaur, devouring wealth and producing no consumer goods. What this massive bureaucracy does produce is a labyrinth of inane rules and regulations, bureaucratic mandates that stifle progress and increase our cost to live. Government agencies that choke business and smother profits must be abolished along with rules and regulations hindering new enterprises.

Many politicians, in both political parties, still believe increased government involvement and control is the answer. They are unwilling to admit government is now the problem. We need to support and elect lawmakers who understand the potential of a free and competitive market.

We have a financial problem and a moral problem. The good news, an overwhelming number of middle-class voting taxpayers now realize they pay the bill and favor putting government on a strict diet. They also are standing up and speaking out against the self-indulgent mobocracy who demand comfort without labor.

“The Western world has become afraid or is unwilling to acknowledge that there is right and wrong—that there is good and evil. The Western Church led the world toward Christ for almost 2,000 years. But now it has cast aside its leadership and finds itself leaving Christ's path and following its own road." _____ Most Rev. Nicholas Okoh, Anglican Primate of all Nigeria

As to the moral problem, what can be done? We need to re-establish Judeo-Christian values of saving and hard work, replace self-indulgence with self-discipline. We need men and women willing to stand and declare there is a right and a wrong. If that is you, first, become informed then get the truth out and educate those receptive to Judeo-Christian values.
____ Michael E. Odell

For six proven action steps go to Blog Archive at upper right, click on May-11-08, “But What Can I Do?” Pick yours.

Your thoughts and comments are welcome. E-mail: odellmike@comcast.net

Can’t We Get Along?

2011-01-21T08:13:00.000-08:00

“Can’t, can’t we all just get along?”

The answer to that (sort-of-famous) quote by Rodney King—who had his little gray cells scrambled by half a dozen police batons—is no.

Can’t we just compromise and get along with those who espouse abortion, infanticide, euthanasia as answers for the suffering incurable, the unwanted child, the aged, the disabled, and other so-called financial burdens? Civil discourse yes. Compromise no.

Can’t we just give in, a little more, to Progressive Republicans and Liberal Democrats who preach share the wealth, an economic system based on Marx’s, “Each according to his ability, each according to his need?” Can’t we find a common ground with those seeking to build a secular socialist America based on “comfort without labor” and “reward without risk?” No.

Can’t we compromise with those who advocate a national moral carte blanche and embrace heterosexual self indulgence and the homosexual agenda, destroying marriage, family, and Church? Absolutely not. Debauchery is debauchery.

“Truth is so obscure in these times, and falsehood so established, that, unless we love the truth, we cannot know it.” ___ Blaise Pascal 1623 - 1662

Can’t we just find a mutual understanding with Islamic leaders? Leaders who teach and preach eradication of Israel the little Satan and destruction of America the great Satan and who call for Shari’a law in North America. For world peace can’t we just compromise with those who do not allow religious freedom and expression? President Obama’s administration seems to think so

The world tried compromise with Adolf Hitler and Hitler’s National Socialists at Czechoslovakia’s expense. As World War Two ended American administrations attempted to appease International Communism in the name of “World Peace.” Efforts to compromise with evil ending in death, destruction, and world wide war. We can expect the same results if Republican or Democrat Administrations put their faith and trust in dialog with and concession to Islam’s leaders.

“Men do not differ much about what things they will call evils; they differ enormously about what evils they will call excusable.” _____ G.K.Chesterton, 1909

The good news for those who stand on the belief in a loving God who takes a hand in our daily lives, America is still the world’s greatest country. What of our future? We have a choice. We can work, pray, and speak out strongly against the corrupting influence, self-indulgence, and moral decay embraced by America’s secularists. Or we can do nothing. Either we privately and publically resist evil or we surrender to it—compromise.

“Thou shalt not be a victim. Thou shalt not be a perpetrator. Above all, thou shalt not be a bystander.” ___ Holocaust Museum, Washington DC

_____ Michael E. Odell

What can you do? For six proven action steps go to Blog Archive at upper right, click on May-11-08, “But What Can I Do?” Pick yours.

COMMENTS: Your thoughts and comments are welcome. E-mail: odellmike@comcast.net

Economic Judgement or Chickens?

2010-11-05T15:16:00.000-07:00

Economic judgment or “a chicken in every pot and a car in every garage.”

Election 2010 is over but the battle not won. Different party in charge of the House but same problem, a growing number of self-indulgent Americans who look to big government to solve all their problems and supply all their financial wants. That and a willingness to sell their vote to any political charlatan who promises to do so.

Economic judgement or economic ignorance? Today we face possible hyper inflation and an ever lower standard of living.

There are economic truths no political edict can overcome—a fundamental principle we need to heed. A principle too often not heeded by Republican or Democrat administrations, not the last four years of President G.W. Bush and certainly not President Obama’s Administration.

Economic truths are self evident. Wealth does not flow from a mountain of debt. Economic growth comes from savings and investments. Lasting wealth for all comes from hope, ideas, inventions, and hard work—not from bigger government, inflated dollars, government bailouts, increased debt, higher taxes, and comfort without labor. And no country in recorded history became economically stronger by weakening their currency. Neither can we.

Do we ever learn? America’s “spend your way to prosperity” policy during 1960s and 1970s ended in double digit inflation and soaring commodity prices. Democrat and Republican financial polices drove down our dollar's value at home and abroad. Gold prices increased more than 2,000 percent. Sound familiar?

Republican President G.W. Bush’s Administration supported a monetary policy of huge deficits, artificial low interest rates, and pushed for a weaker dollar abroad. President Obama’s Administration also pushes a monetary policy of artificial low interest rates, a weaker dollar, and huge deficits— far more than anyone could have imagined under President Bush.

“Fallacies do not cease to be fallacies because they become fashionable” ___ G. K. Chesterton

Today, the Federal Reserve not only pursues an easy-credit low interest rate policy, it is now monetizing the debt, creating money out of thin air. The result of course, causing more and more dollars chasing the same amount of goods and services—inflation. If not stopped, higher and higher inflation and a lower standard of living. To reverse direction means short term economic pain. Hard choices need to be made. Choices elected officials who think only of reelection will not make. Are Republicans up to making those hard choices? Not to do so means never-ending boom and bust and ever lower standard of living.

“O put not your trust in princes, nor in any child of man;
for there is no help in them.” ____ Psalm 146: 2

Republican or Democrat our periods of boom to bust to boom and bust again come closer and closer together. To stop this cycle requires tough and painful decisions. When it comes to making painful decisions, past experience has nearly exhausted my trust in Republican office holders to do the right thing. I gave up on any Democrat Administration decades ago.

“Hope is no longer appropriate because they have left the One Who is the source of hope.” ____ Unknown

That is the bad news. The good news is we do not to need to put our faith and trust in political parties. Nor should we. The secular world stands on the shifting sands of fear, doubt, and ephemeral pleasures. The good news, those with hope stand on the Solid Rock—a loving God who shall supply all our needs.

Not only can we survive a possible financial apocalypse, we can avoid one. Our economy is wide and varied. A majority of Americans are hard working and innovative—if given the freedom to be so.

“Now therefore thus saith the LORD of hosts; Consider your ways. Ye have sown much, and bring in little; ye eat, but ye have not enough; ye drink, but ye are not filled with drink; ye clothe you, but there is none warm; and he that earneth wages earneth wages to put it into a bag with holes. Thus saith the Lord of hosts; Consider your ways.” ___ Haggai 1:5; 6,7

Continued political awareness on our part is required—as is prayer. America needs to re embrace Judeo-Christian values of self-discipline and personal responsibility. As a nation and as individuals we must pursue the promise of God’s best. As a nation and as individuals we must consider our ways. It is not too late.

______ Michael E. Odell

What can you do to change the negative direction our elected leaders have taken us? For six proven action steps go to Blog Archive at upper right, click on May-11-08, “But What Can I Do?” Pick yours.

Your thoughts and comments are welcome, well most of the time.
E-mail: odellmike@comcast.net

Mad as Hell

2010-10-01T11:28:00.000-07:00

“I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it any more!”
___ The Fed Up Newscaster On the1976 Television News Satire, Network

“...and I’m not going to take it any more!” is the good news. It was the good news in 1776, in1976, and the good news today.

The 1970s, a time of fear, frustration, and dire predictions. Under President Carter’s weak leadership—or worse—the West was in retreat around the world. At home, growing government intrusion. Double digit inflation and interest rates, and the dollar on a verge of collapsing. The financial situation did not look good. Numerous pundits predicted world shortages of food, water, industrial commodities, and financial collapse—the end of America and the need for a one-world collectivist system. Paul Ehrlich’s The Population Bomb and numerous other popular books proclaimed the world’s end. Scientists were forecasting an immediate coming ice age—we were all going to freeze to death.

Today we have former Vice President Gore’s false man-made global warming assumptions and exaggerated predictions. The result—besides a very wealthy Al Gore—frighten school children and a call for a “Green revolution” from the emotionally unstable progressive liberals in press, media, and halls of congress.

One person not concerned by Gore’s award winning frightful movie showing America’s East and West coasts under walls of ocean water, Al Gore. He recently bought a multimillion dollar seaside mansion on California’s shore.

"All the exaggerations are right, if they exaggerate the right thing." ___ G.K. Chesterton

Contrary to the1970s doomsday exaggerations, better days were ahead. Middle America—our Nation’s backbone—the individuals responsible for a strong, prosperous, and generous nation had awakened. They were not going to take it anymore. Prayer and political action brought changes. And it seemed the right change with the1980 election of President Reagan.

As President Reagan took office, the massive outflow of dollars overseas stopped. The dollar recovered. Foreign demand for dollars increased as the need to pay off international loans grew. A stronger dollar abroad and lower oil prices at home helped to curb domestic price increases. Blame “America Firsters” in media and academia were in retreat. But then came pain.

By summer of 1982, the U.S. economy was in a recession, Unemployment the highest rate since the Great Depression—necessary pain to purge a financial system out of wack due to political interference in the marketplace.

But then, political backsliding and a return of political intrusion in the marketplace. The Federal Reserve released the tight-money brake and stomped on the easy-credit gas pedal. By end of 1982, financial institutions falsely appeared strong. The great six year bull market for stocks started. Good times rolled. Reward without risk, or so it seemed.

Investors and financial institutions feeding on illusions of easy money and unstoppable expansion ignored flashing danger signals. October 19, 1987, that which was going to go on forever, didn't. The Dow Jones Industrial Index plummeted 508 points. Next trading day, a wave of selling swamped world markets. And again a return of political intrusion in the marketplace. To the rescue, the lender of last resort, the Federal Reserve.

"Politics may shape economics in the short run, but economics will shape politics in the long run."

Good times were here again, or so it seemed. Waves of optimism swept over stock market investors. Real estate investors soon followed, providing a decade of reward without risk, wealth without effort, a rapidly expanding bubble.

Then 2008, a financial moment of truth. A dropping stock market and crashing home real estate market. U.S. economy again in a recession and high unemployment, necessary pain to purge the financial system due to government interference in the marketplace. And again political interference. The Federal Reserve again stomped on the easy-credit gas pedal—prolonging the inescapable pain.

Periodic economic downturns are unfortunate but inevitable. To avoid the necessary pain of economic downturns, both Republican and Democrat administrations—at the expense of middle America—made money cheap to borrow and went on a deficit spending binge. At first millions, then billions, and now trillions of dollars to bail out inefficient companies and buy the votes of unions, public employees, and the self indulgent.

Neither President G.W. Bush’s big government spending and financial bail out nor President Obama's failed Keynesian deficit spending blunder delayed the recession—only prolonged and deepened it.

Today’s rapid government growth, excessive debt, and rush to centralize control of America’s financial markets and means of production, if not stopped means inflation or stagflation, wage and price controls, and an ever grinding lower living standard for middle America.

True lasting prosperity does not come from big government, huge federal debt, and taking from the haves and dividing it amongst the have nots. Hope, new ideas, hard work, and freedom to succeed are the answers to today’s economic crises. Not envy, greed, and policies of entitlement.

To create new wealth and raise everyone’s living standard we must have the freedom to create new wealth. That requires a government that respects and protects our individual right to life, liberty, and property. Creating new wealth depends on a government that allows the individual to prosper, to freely pursue his or her dream, not a share-the-wealth secular socialist government based on envy.

Is there hope? Yes. We can reverse our downward spiral into collectivism. It has started. Middle-America is awakening. A growing number “... are mad as hell and are not going to take it any more.” You can help. If we influence one person at a time or one hundred, positive changes will take place. But we must be informed and be involved. We must be engaged in our political process.

Our trust and hope, however, cannot be in political parties, their candidates, nor their promises. Our trust, hope, and comfort is in our loving God. A God who takes a hand in our daily lives. For us there is always hope.

______ Michael E. Odell

Your thoughts and comments are welcome, well most of the time.
E-mail: odellmike@comcast.net

What can you do to change the negative direction our elected leaders are taking us? For six proven action steps go to Blog Archive at upper right, click on May-11-08, “But What Can I Do?” Pick yours.

Are O’Reilly & Obama Socialists?

2010-07-22T12:08:00.000-07:00

Is he a Communist or European socialist or just someone who wants to make a perfect world for one and all? Are we talking about Fox’s pundit Bill O’Reilly or our world citizen, President Obama, or both?

But first, what is a socialist? That’s easy. A socialist is one who advocates or practices socialism.

So what is socialism? It can be a society or group voluntarily living together equally sharing all things in common, or an involuntary political system. For some Marxists, socialism means a transition between capitalism and agrarian socialism. Sharing all things in common may sound desirable but never works for long. It goes against human nature.

Regardless of title, socialism is an economic and political system where production and distribution are either owned and/or controlled by the state—resulting in varying degrees of totalitarianism. This is the economic and political system of Fascism, Communism, European socialism, and the trend in Washington, D.C.

“He called for agrarian reform to restructure and limit private ownership, while in the industrial sector he aimed at the “nationalization” of important firms. He saw the chief enemy of “National Socialist German freedom” in stock-exchange capitalism.”
Goebbels ___ Ralf Georg Reuth

Socialism is more than sharing the wealth. Communism, National Socialism, or the secular welfare state, regardless of name and degree are socialistic. All aspire to more than sharing wealth. All seek total public (government) ownership or control of production and public (government) distribution of such production. All look to government as the answer. All seek to build a secular socialistic man-made utopia in their own image. All result in bigger centralized government control and planning. All result in varying degrees of totalitarianism. All seek to replace God with moral relativism. All seek to replace church and family with a dehumanizing state. All are enemies of Judeo-Christian thought and values. All are enemies of our children and grandchildren’s personal freedom and financial future.

To make socialism work and all be equal, some need to be more equal than others. Since socialism goes against human nature’s self interest, force is needed, requiring an increasing transfer of power from the many to the few—the more equal.

For the would-be more equal elitist left, our President is not going fast enough to build the New America, the secular socialism America’s extreme left desires. Middle American in growing number believe our President is going to fast and to far left. They believe our President deplores our constitutional freedom and the competitive capitalistic economic system that built a free and prosperous America. They also believe he wishes to replace it with a stagnate secular socialist state.

Most newspaper pundits and TV chatter boxes, however, continue to defend President Obama’s share-the-wealth ideas and claim such ideas are not socialistic—of course they are. Yet, even Fox’s semi-conservative talking head Bill O’Reilly doesn’t seem to know if Obama is a socialist or not. Maybe because O’Reilly tends at time to turn to government as the answer to all the big problems—real or otherwise.

Although he has since changed his mind, O’Reilly originally supported government health care for all. Because he said, he cared for the “folks.” He continues to support the massive bailouts that plunged America into a binge spending and ever bigger deficits nightmare. Once again he claimed his support was based on carrying for the “folks.” We needed to do it to save America’s economic system.

As always, claiming his care for us little “folks,” he defended Obama forcing British Petroleum to put into escrow 20 Billion for the “folks.” Well yes, BP is responsible for the threat to an individuals right to their property and ability to make a living. BP must be made to accept responsibility and pay damages. America, however, is a land of Constitutional law not White House threats and political pandering. That somehow escapes Bill O’Reilly and many me-too Republicans. O’Reilly once again embraced the power of the collectivist state when he said, “I don’t care how the government (White House) did it.” “...emergency times like these we have to do what we have to do”

In other words according to Bill O’Reilly, suspend our Constitution and rule by law, ends justify means. Let political force and threat rule. As a former public school teacher his sometimes muddled thinking and collectivist tendencies may be understandable.

More than eighty years ago, G.K. Chesterton said compulsory public education’s purpose was to deprive common people of their commonsense. Appears it has happened to a segment of our public school teachers as well, including Bill O’Reilly.

Although his thinking has proven to be somewhat muddled at times, I am sure he is a decent and caring American who deserves our support. Listening to Bill O’Reilly and others of his flavor is similar to eating fish. Carefully pick out the meat. Don’t choke on the bones. But first one needs to be able to identify bones. That takes personal education. Then we need to educate others and stand up and speak out.

Is Bill O’Reilly a socialist? Of course not. Is our President Obama a socialist? Of course he is.

Either way that is not the problem. The problem? Too many Americans depending on the false promise “government shall supply all your need” instead of confessing and standing on the prayer “God shall supply all I need.”

“It will be an ideological war, a war of ideas. But great issues will hang upon the outcome: the fate of a culture and the eternal fate of souls. The culture of the West has adopted and promulgated anti-Christian belief and practice.” ____ Sydney Archbishop Peter Jensen

Be informed be involved. There are many areas of involvement available. First, become informed. Then, what can you do? Go to Blog Archive at upper right, click on May-11-08, “But What Can I Do?”

______ Michael E. Odell

Your thoughts and comments are welcome, most of the time. E-mail: odellmike@comcast.net

They Lie - You Pay

2010-06-11T13:56:00.000-07:00

Pay as You Go Balanced Budget Laws and Other Myths

Remember the good old days of President Jimmy Carter, soaring gold prices, gas shortages, 20% home interest rates and double digit inflation. Our financial fiasco then and our unfolding financial calamities today did not come upon us suddenly. But, how did we get there and what can we do about it?

"The purpose of Compulsory Education is to deprive the common people of their commonsense."

_____ G.K. Chesterton 09/07/29

Unfortunately, today’s public (government) education system robbed too many Americans of their common sense and replaced it with a secular thought process based on my government shall take care of all my problems and supply all my wants.

During the Roosevelt years, an increasing number of Americans began to expect a hamburger today and let someone else pay tomorrow. Not until President Lyndon Baines Johnson enacted his “Great Society” in 1964, however, did America's buy-now let someone else pay-later get into full swing. The political promise you can have it all, regardless of your efforts or lack of same, is both a moral and a political problem

Due to deficit spending and monetizing the debt the first big bill came due during President Carter’s Administration. The money supply increased 13%, resulting in double digit interest rates and high inflation. The price of gold increased more than 2,000 percent. In order to suck fraudulently created dollars out of the system and avoid runaway inflation, Federal Reserve Chairman Volker raised interest rates. Home interest rates climbed to 20% and double digit inflation rates slowed.

During President Obama’s first year the money supply increased 120%. Nearly ten times the amount experienced during Carter’s Administration. If 1970's double digit interest and inflation was a 4.2 magnitude financial earthquake, what do we possibly face now? And what is Congress’s answer to massive deficit spending and trillions of dollars of debt? They pass balanced budget laws. They lie.

“A liar begins with making falsehood appear like truth, and ends with making truth itself appear like falsehood.” ____ Shenstone

They lie and because they do we face confiscatory taxes, double digit interest rates, and hyperinflation—financial devastation and judgement. Why, more than thirty years of desiring comfort without labor and political lies.

Congress passed Public Law 95-435 requiring a balanced budget beginning with fiscal 1981. Yet, the accumulated deficit had tripled 10 years later. What happened? Congress passes laws and Congress ignores laws. They lie.

Congress passed the 1985 Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficit Control Act Commonly known as Gramm-Rudman-Hollings Act, the new law required deficits to decline to zero by 1991. The Supreme Court ruled Gramm-Rudman's automatic cutting procedure unconstitutional.

In 1987, an amended Gramm-Rudman-Hollings Act revised the automatic cost-cutting procedure. The new version was acceptable to the Court. Congress’s amended version put-off reducing spending until later. Making it acceptable to Congress. The new Gramm-Rudman only allowed a $36 billion deficit in fiscal 1990. Further budget deficits would be reduced until achieving a balanced budget in 1993. What happened?

One week into fiscal 1990, Congress ignored Gramm-Rudman. The 1990 budget included a misleading estimated 100 billion dollar deficit. Misleading? Congress used Social Security reserves. The actual fiscal 1990 deficit totaled 220.4 billion dollars. This was 500 percent higher than the 36 billion dollar deficit Gramm-Rudman allowed. What happened? They lied.

In bipartisan irresponsibility, Republican President G. H. Bush and Democrat controlled Congress went for broke and set a new all-time high deficit in 1991, a record 268.7 billion dollars. Wimpy’s hamburger economics theory was in operation, “I'll gladly pay you tomorrow for a hamburger today.”Wimpy also lied. But Wimpy was only a morally flawed comic book character.

The administration predicted a budget surplus in five year's. The optimistic forecasts changed a few months later. The White House Office of Management and Budget forecast the 1992's fiscal deficit would approach 400 billion dollars. The Bush administration admitted the public could expect huge deficits well into the1990s.

To win conservative support, candidate George H. Bush promised no new taxes and a balanced budget. What happened? He lied. President G. H. Bush raised taxes and increased deficit spending. Voters tossed George H. Bush from office and voted in Democrat Bill Clinton who promised change.

White House occupants changed, political rhetoric remained. Disenchanted voters again demanded change. Two years into Clinton’s presidency, voters swept Democrats from office. Republicans controlled both houses and Democrats controlled the White House. But the Wimpy hamburger economic theory still dictated federal deficit spending.

Both Democrats and Republicans called for a balanced budget—in the future. Me-too Republicans promised a balanced budget in seven years. The Democrats called the plan extreme and risky; and promised a balanced budget in ten years. They both lied.

Deficits continued. Then, President Clinton announced a federal budget surplus for fiscal year 2000 amounting to at least $230 billion, the largest in U.S. history—thanks to robbing Social Security reserves. President Clinton predicted surpluses would increase as much as $1 trillion over the next 10 years. It was not to be. He knew it. Congress knew it. The Congressional world of Wimpy Hamburger economics ruled. “I'll gladly pay you tomorrow for a hamburger today." Yes they lie. To soothe his conscience, Wimpy lied—mostly to himself. To get reelected just one more time, Congress lied—to the voters.

During Me-too Republican George W. Bush’s last four years the size of government escalated and federal deficits’ skyrocketed, close to half a trillion dollars his last year. An amount President Obama tripled his first year! His proposed programs and instituted spending are forecast to increase the deficit one trillion dollars or more yearly for the next ten years. And Obama continues to add new programs and new spending—all on borrowed money.

Aware of middle America’s growing anger with his administrations’s binge spending and ever raising the debt limit, President Obama, in great pomp, proclaimed Pay-as-you-go legislation. Pay-as-you-go legislation quickly passed and even quicker ignored. What happened? Binge spending continues. Our President lied. Our Congress lied..

Today we borrow to just pay the interest on our debt. We are at a point where even confiscatory taxes can not bail us out. If Congress refuses to cut spending and balance the budget, only two ways are left to finance the massive deficits. Both ways, like higher confiscatory taxes, will drain the financial lifeblood from America’s economy: First, as long as America can still find lenders, borrow it. The second way, as done in the past, monetize the debt—inflation.

“To live beyond our means today is to live below them tomorrow.” ____ Dr. Hans Sennholz, 1987

Only a limit on spending and a balanced budget can protect middle-America from confiscatory taxes, double digit interest rates, and hyperinflation—financial devastation. That will take a major change in spending habits, a change most elected officials and a growing number of voters are unwilling to make.

Running with the Hare and Hunting with the Hound, Congress continues to promise support for spending cuts and a balanced budget, and Congress continues to pass increased government bailouts and social programs for everyone. The bill is coming due. Financial judgement
approaches. What can we do?

“Without God, without everything," ____ Welsh proverb

Buying gold and storing food to sustain our family during a possible financial Armageddon may or may not be the prudent thing to do. For those who do not have nearly enough as it is, it is not an option. Either way, those whose faith is in a caring God, they know He shall supply all their need. What of those who depend on government to supply all their need when government no longer can? We saw the results in the streets of Greece, hell on earth. Now multiple that by twenty, thirty, or more times. That is the bad news.

The good news, America’s multifarious economy is massive enough to survive. Can it? To do so will be painful. Hard choices need to be made. Choices not made by political con artists promising “Reward without risk, wealth without work.” Lasting prosperity for all comes from hope, ideas, inventions, hard work, and the freedom to succeed—not from bailouts, growing debt, inflated dollars, more and more socialist government programs.

It will take personal and political courage, men and women with strong Judeo-Christian convictions and the intestinal fortitude to stand up and speak out for those convictions—political action. Do we want God’s best for family, friends, and Nation? That requires a moral rebirth.

______ Michael E. Odell

Your thoughts and comments are welcome, well most of the time.
E-mail: odellmike@comcast.net

Write your Senator or Representative in Washington, D.C. Tell them: No to more debt and federal make believe jobs. Remind them that jobs and true prosperity do not come from massive government spending and increasing debt. Hard work and freedom to succeed created a free and prosperous America—not massive government debt, higher taxes, and a bloated bureaucracy.

Suggest as a start, Congress cut their own salaries by 10 percent this year and each year for next three years or until they balance the budget, also they cut their operating budget by 10 percent each year for next three years.

You may follow this form:

Senator Donna Arrogant
Senate Office Building,
Washington, D.C., 20510
Senator Arrogant,

Rep. Bill Spender
House Office Building,
Washington, D.C., 20515
Congressman Spender,

What can you do to change the negative direction our elected leaders are taking us?

For six proven action steps go to Blog Archive at upper right, click on May-11-08, “But What Can I Do?” Pick yours.

Jihad & Healthcare

2010-04-22T10:45:00.000-07:00

We Are Under Attack - But What Can We Do?

A Jihad has been issued against middle America. Those who did seek to replace our Judeo-Christian values with the relative ethics of socialist secularism. First, however, they must demolish our moral fabric and financial strength. Who are they? The enemy within. Their base of operations, the moral vacuum of Washington D.C. Their weapon of mass destruction, the power of big government. Their intended victim, middle America. Their battle cry, “Each according to his ability and each according to his need.”

They have captured or seriously infiltrated a big share of our public and private institutions, leaving them to the spiritual bankrupt to rule and ruin. The 03-21-2010 attack and capture of the production and distribution of our healthcare system was their latest victory. America is a divided camp, half thought it a blessing and half a socialist boondoggle. How can one tell?

Like most elected officials in D.C. as well as the public pundits, I didn’t read the entire bill. I tried. It would be easer to perform a self appendectomy with a wooden spoon.

When discussing the 03-21-2010 healthcare bill with an adherent I admit—like many of our Congressman and Senators and most of the public who support it—I didn’t read the whole bill. Neither did they. So I must make my judgement on past experience. I do know from our federal government’s own lips they will henceforth be even more involved in our healthcare. Is that good or bad? Past experience has given us the answer.

During the last four decades as government became more involved the more expensive and entangled the medical process became. Throughout the late1950s and early 1960s my wife and our four children were all covered under our private health insurance policy. It was affordable. We could go to any hospital or doctor we wished. In fact the doctor came to the house if needed. As government became more involved our great private healthcare system evaporated, replaced with a growing bureaucracy and mounds of paper work, resulting in today’s runaway costs.

“Experience has shown if our federal government was a business it would best be described as a producer of defective products, unprofitable business investments, and morally bankrupt.”

Yet, in spite of run away debt and increased incompetence, government is rapidly seizing more and more of our economy’s means of production and distribution. Some say it is socialism. Is it? Vice President Biden calls it, “Redistribution of the wealth.” Marx called it, “Each according to his ability and each according to his need.”

Call Obama’s government healthcare what you wish. I don’t need to read the entire healthcare bill to understand the concept. Past experience says the outcome does not look good. The present administration in Washington D.C. and many State Capitols are plunging our Nation into a moral void and financial chaos. Buying gold, storing up food, and stop watching the news will not avoid the potential inevitable. We are in a Holy War of moral values and political ideologies. On the surface it appears we are losing. That is the bad news.

“It will be an ideological war, a war of ideas. But great issues will hang upon the outcome: the fate of a culture and the eternal fate of souls.” ____ Sydney Archbishop Peter Jensen

The good news, there is an awakening. A growing number of middle America now realizes we are at war. The battle involves two fronts, the moral values front and the political ideologies front. The first will take prayer and national repentance. The second a willingness on each of our parts to stand up and speak out. The one thing radical socialist secularists fear is the truth being heard. Do not let them silence you. Do not become fearful. Become informed, stand up, speak out, join with others who wish to have a government that protects our individual rights and our religious freedom.

“It's not that we don't have enough scoundrels to curse; it's that we don't have enough good men to curse them.” G.K. Chesterton

By influencing public opinion or being involved in the political process you can replace a judge, change a school director, or elect a legislator. Through prayer we can change a nation. It is up to us.

Be Informed Be Involved _________ Michael E. Odell

What action can you take? Go to Blog Archive at upper right, click on May-11-08, “But What Can I Do?” for six proven action steps. Pick yours.

Your thoughts and comments are welcome, well most of the time.
E-mail: odellmike@comcast.net

Things I Never Learned

2010-04-01T15:07:00.000-07:00

Seven Things I Never Learned In School

1 How to set positive goals
2 How to motivate self.
3 How to motivate others
4 How to use time profitably
5 How to deal positively with adversity
6 How to eliminate self-defeating habits
7 How to build positive habits

Actually there were a lot of things I never learned in school. My fault not theirs. I should have said there were seven life changing things they never taught in school. Their fault not mine. We cannot, however, teach what we don’t know.

Why are these seven so important—particularly to our children and grandchildren? Because those who came before us, built our Nation on the attitude of "Yes I can." Today, however, we live in an era of negative thinkers and no-you-canter's—an era of blame America Firsters and self proclaimed victims. Anger and apprehension about the future grips much of America. Too many Americans now put their trust in government supplying all their needs and wants.

An increasing number of young people lack direction. Too many middle-aged men and women dwell on what should have been instead of "what can be." Both groups end up feeling hopeless about the direction of their lives and helpless to do anything about it. For them, life holds little enthusiasm.

If we don’t think we can, why try? And many don’t. That is not the way it should be. We are learning, growing, thinking, productive creations.

"Our goals can only be reached through a vehicle of a plan, in which we must fervently believe, and upon which we must vigorously act." _______ S. A. Brennan

I don’t know where I acquired the above list. But, after seven decades, I think I am getting the first couple down. At least the first one, How to set positive goals, and that helps me with the second one, "How to motivate self."

Our life is a journey. Clearly defined goals are signposts along that journey. To help us on our journey, here are seven proven steps to goal setting:

1. Identify Goals:
We need to be as well-rounded as possible. Develop a multiple list of goals: personal and spiritual goals, family goals, church goals, physical goals, intellectual goals, business goals, etc.
2. Set Deadlines:
Set goals for a week, a month, a year. Start with easy short-range goals. Then step-by-step build toward your long-range purpose.
3. List Obstacles To Overcome:
After making our obstacle list, write down how we will overcome, correct, or go around each obstacle. Some obstacles may be our own shortcomings or perceived shortcomings.
4. Identify People And Groups We Need To Work With:
Associate with other positive individuals whose goals are similar.
5. List Skills Needed To Attain Our Goals:
Then devise a plan for achieving those skills. Write it down.
6. Develop Our Plan Of Action:
Goals create positive activity. Write down priorities and two or three daily action steps.
7. List Benefits Of Achieving Our Goal(s): Benefits to family, to friends, to our nation, to ourselves.

Wish to change the world, or at least your world? If we are enthusiastic, we never know what we might accomplish until we try. Enthusiasm creates a powerful positive attitude. Enthusiasm overwhelms doubt and fear. At church, at work, or with family, our enthusiasm will motivate us and cause us to motivate others. We can change our world.

Our enthusiasm is in direct proportion to what we expect the day to bring. So let us rise each morning expecting God’s best. That might even be our first new goal.

"We know what we are, but not what we may be." ______ William Shakespeare

______ Michael E. Odell
Your thoughts and comments are welcome, well most of the time.
E-mail: MichaelOdell@Lycos.com

What can you do to change the negative direction our elected leaders are taking us? For six proven action steps go to Blog Archive at upper right, click on May-11-08, "But What Can I Do?" Pick yours.

The Unholy Trinity

2010-03-05T09:58:00.000-08:00

The unholy trinity’s war on your values and economic well being.

The 20th Century saw the birth of big labor, big business, and bigger government—the unholy trinity. The result, today’s huge federal deficit, intrusive government, an ongoing assault on Judeo-Christian values and those who espouse them.

All members of this trinity are equal, but one member is more equal—the ponderous corporate state. Big business and big labor think they call the shots. They don’t, the corporate state does and it has a massive appetite. Its mouth is open wide and ready to swallow all. If it does, there will be no escape for middle America.

"Vice is a monster of so frightful mein.

As, to be hated, needs but to be seen;

Yet seen too oft, familiar, with her face.

We first endure, then pity, then embrace."

_____ Alexander Pope, Essay on Man

Vice, middle America is forced to endure it and the unholy trinity embraces it. Appealing to corporate and individual greed, our Federal Government uses bailouts, stimulus packages, contracts, and special legislative favors to bind big unions and big corporations into an unholy axis. It is a political problem. It is a morale problem.
Using envy and the promise of something for nothing, Senators and Congressmen use your taxpayer funds to psychologically enslave and buy the votes of the self indulgent—those who desire comfort without labor. It is a political problem. It is a morale problem.

Leaders of organized labor do not want to compete fairly in the marketplace. Lawmakers, seeking to be reelected, promise to pass laws providing special status to organized labor. In return organized labor provides campaign funds and foot soldiers to help elect candidates who promise special backroom deals. It is a political problem. It is a morale problem.

Billionaires, corporations, and numerous big financial institutions accept and support government control in exchange for market place advantage—government contracts, bail outs, and insider financial gain, all at taxpayers’ expense. These are not competitive capitalists. They seek not the free competitive market place that made America prosperous. They seek reward without risk. It is a political problem. It is a morale problem.

Neither wealth nor religious freedom flow from the unholy trinity. Governments cannot use ever increasing debt to spend their way to prosperity any more than you or I can. Big government devours wealth and individual freedom. The bigger it grows the bigger the appetite.

"Instead of solving economic problems, government welfare socialism created monstrous moral and spiritual problems—the kind of problems that are inevitable when individuals turn responsibility for their lives over to others." _____ Star Parker Uncle Sam's Plantation

If our federal government was a business it would best be described as a producer of defective products, unprofitable business investments, and morally bankrupt. Yes it is a political problem. It is more so a morale problem.

Through the prayers and bold actions of those rooted in Judeo-Christian truths we can and will change the hearts of the spiritually bankrupts who rule our public and private institutions.

We have a choice: the Judeo-Christian values that made America a free, prosperous, and generous nation, or further moral collapse, financial chaos, and eventual tyranny.

It is not too late. Be Informed Be Involved ______ Michael E. Odell

COMMENTS: Your thoughts and comments are welcome. E-mail: MichaelOdell@Lycos.com

What can you do? For six proven action steps go to Blog Archive at upper right, click on May-11-08, "But What Can I Do?" Pick yours.

Write your Senator or Representative in Washington, D.C. Tell them: No to more debt and federal make believe jobs. Remind them that jobs and true prosperity do not come from massive government spending and debt. Hard work and freedom to succeed created a free and prosperous America—not massive government debt, high taxes, and a bloated bureaucracy.

You may follow this format:
Senator Donna Arrogant
Senate Office Building,
Washington, D.C., 20510
Senator Arrogant,

Rep. Bill Spender
House Office Building,
Washington, D.C., 20515
Congressman Spender,

D.C.’s Burlesque Show

2010-01-23T17:25:00.000-08:00

Our life at worst would just be a silly comedy if Congressman Barney Frank and Vice President Joe Biden and their fellow chaps in Washington, D.C. were mere buffoons.

Unfortunately we are not talking about a Bud Abbott and Lou Costello burlesque act. We are talking about those who use debt, fear, greed, class warfare, and political harlotry to procure political domination. A political deception not seen in an industrialized nation since the moral and financial collapse of the German Republic and eventual rise of Adolf Hitler.

In the very early 1900s, Germany was Europe’s great economic and industrial success story unequaled in Europe. In little more than a generation, this financial and industrial powerhouse was morally and financial bankrupt. That is where the Barneys and Joes operating in Washington, D.C’s moral vacuum are taking us—if not stopped.

How do we end up with such leaders? It is often said we get the leaders we deserve. I pray not—particularly Barney.

Once considered the poster boy for immoral Congressional buffoons, the rumpled and plump Barney Frank is now the senior leading light—not too bright a bulb at best—in Congresses’ push to enact President Obama’s divide-the-wealth and other national socialist policies. Barney, whose lover Stephen L. Gobie once ran a gay prostitution ring out of the Congressman’s home, is now House Financial Services Committee Chairman. Barney’s committee oversees the financial services industry—including banking, housing, insurance, and securities.

Oh yes, although he denies it now, it was Barney who led the fight to force banks to lend to unqualified low-income would be homeowners. The result, a housing bubble and burst, near collapse of financial markets, and several trillion more in debt for the American taxpayer. And now Barney is in charge of the show.

So, if you are looking for someone to lead America into moral and financial bankruptcy, Barney is the poster boy. For comedy at home and abroad we have our own Number One Blunder in Chief.

Vice President Joe Biden is a man well known for his public comments. In one of his 2009 exceptional statements, Joe claimed President Roosevelt went on TV during the 1929 stock market crash to address and reassure the public. Even Barney knew that was dumb—I hope. But then our Joe is known worldwide for his inaccurate and outlandish, if not dumb, comments.

Roosevelt of course was not President in 1929. We were decades away from national TV. Roosevelt’s historic six-and-a-half minute address to Congress in 1942 regarding Japan’s December 7, 1941, attack on Pearl Harbor and the start of World War Two was televised, but not his image. Instead, an image of an American flag was shown. Even then, there were only about two thousand TV sets in the U.S.

As I said, how do we end up with such leaders? If only Joe and Barney did not represent the majority of Washington, D.C.’s policy makers, but they do. Worse yet, Washington, D.C. is more than America’s center of corrupted buffoonery. It is now the center of an arrogant and disconnected federal government.

Worshiping their own wisdom, House and Senate members seek to rule every aspect of our life, including nationalization of energy, education, health care, and financial institutions. And we are left with trillions of dollars in government spending and trillions of dollars of additional debt, and thousands of pages of strangling laws, rules, and regulations.

"It is terrible to contemplate how few politicians are hanged."

____ G.K. Chesterton, The Cleveland Press, 3/1/21

Perhaps a wee bit strong, even if said tongue in cheek—I think. Many in Washington, D.C., however, no longer consider themselves our public servants but our masters.

There is good news. Middle America is awakening. And it is not too late to reverse our national descent into carnal morality and financial chaos. There is still time. The carnal citizens of Nineveh were given only forty days to repent or be overthrown. Repent they did and saved themselves from destruction.

"The people of Nineveh believed God, and proclaimed a fast, and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them even to the least of them."

Just holding down a place on a pew Sunday and going about our secular life the rest of the week has not and will not stop our slide into collectivism. It will take intercessory prayer on the part of those who support Judeo-Christian values—and political action by those called to do so.

The fate of our culture is in our hands. We have a choice: the America of Biblical standards and moral absolutes, the Judeo-Christian values that made America a strong, prosperous, and generous. Or we can be sucked into the moral vacuum of secular national socialism being formulated and imposed by the Barney and Joes in Washington, D.C.

Middle America’s failure in the past to stand up and call to account the Barneys and Joes has resulted in the enemies of Judeo-Christian thought and values to capture and control Washington D.C.. But, be as it may be, if we wish to see a change, we must sincerely pray for all our elected leaders and appointed officials—all.

We can stand up and speak out or we can surrender to further moral collapse, increasing financial chaos, and eventual tyranny.

It is not too late. Be Informed Be Involved ______ Michael E. Odell

What can you do? For six proven action steps go to Blog Archive at upper right, click on May-11-08, "But What Can I Do?" Pick yours.

Write your Senators and Representative in Washington, D.C. Tell them: No to government sanctioned envy, greed, and sexual immorality. No to political correctness and its special treatment of sexual deviates and other special classes. Yes to supporting self discipline and personal responsibility.
You may follow this format:

Senator Donna Arrogant
Senate Office Building,
Washington, D.C., 20510
Senator Arrogant,

Rep. Bill Spender
House Office Building,
Washington, D.C., 20515
Congressman Spender,

COMMENTS: Your thoughts and comments are welcome. E-mail: MichaelOdell@Lycos.com

Al-Qaeda & Dale Carnegie

2010-01-04T13:27:00.000-08:00

And the man who led the attack on Pearl Harbor

Mitsuo Fuchida’s life was spared many times during World War Two. On December 7, 1941, Fuchida led the air attack on Pearl Harbor and safely returned. The day before the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima he was called away from the city. The day after he and two Navel officers inspected the city’s destruction. Although two shortly died of radiation, Fuchida manifested no symptoms. Fuchida’s life was spared numerous times during the war and after.

Later Fuchida became a Christian Evangelist and peace activist. When asked what he thought of America’s dropping the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. He replied, "War is always unfortunate and evil, but once it breaks out the only way to fight it is all-out. That’s how both Japan and the United States fought it." ___ God’s Samurai

And what does Fuchida’s statement—"War is always unfortunate and evil, but once it breaks out the only way to fight it is all-out"—have to do with us today? Well, how are we executing our "War on Islamic terrorism" a term our President cannot bring himself to use?

At first, both President Bush and candidate Obama led us to believe their intent in Afghanistan was to find, attack, and destroy Al-Qaeda—fight the war all-out. President Bush, however, had us staying for years to nation build in our image. While campaigning, Obama swore he would destroy Al-Quada. Now, as President, Obama’s strategy is based on Dale Carnegie’s How to Win friends and Influence People.

General McChrystal’s directive in 2009, explained President Obama’s rules to win friends and influence people: "Like any insurgency, there is a struggle for the support and the will of the population. Gaining and maintaining that support must be our overriding operational imperative—and the ultimate objective of every action we take."

As I said, I thought our—using McChrystal Obama speak— ". . . overriding operational imperative and the ultimate objective of every action . . . " was to find and destroy Al-Qaeda and their supporters, those responsible for the attack on New York’s Twin Towers, then come home.

If an all-out effort to find and destroy Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan is not our intent, we should get our nose out of the Afghan tent and bring our military home.

"It is fatal to enter any war without the will to win." __ General Douglas MacArthur

We defeated Imperial Japan and Nazi Germany by military destroying their capability and will to resist, not with Dale Carnegie’s Six Ways to Make People Like You. Any nation building would come second.

The no-will to win political rules of engagement are responsible for the prolonged Korean, Viet Nam, Iraq, and now Afghan no-will to win wars. If we must go to war, let our military use our power justly, swiftly, and totally to win and end it. In the long run less civilians and military personnel will die, be maimed, or suffer deprivation.

Rules of "engagement" sound more like a wedding plan than war plan. A restriction on calling in air support is just one of the new rules General McChrystal laid out. The guidelines are meant to cut down on civilian casualties and collateral damage. That is good. But more Americans being killed or seriously wounded may be the cost. That is not good. And if prolonged, a no-will to win war in Afghanistan will lead to a decline and collapse of our militaries’esprit de corps—as experienced in Viet Nam.

Imagine if we had World War Two rules of engagement as follows:
U.S. troops cannot engage the Nazis or Japanese troops if any civilians are present. They cannot fire unless they see the Nazis or Japanese troops preparing to fire first. They are not permitted to conduct a search without the presence German or Japanese police. No searches can be conducted at night or by surprise.

Ridiculous, of course, but so are the McChrystal Obama rules of engagement:
U.S. troops cannot engage the Taliban if any civilians are present. They cannot fire unless they see the enemy preparing to fire first. They are not permitted to conduct a search without the presence of Afghan army or police.
No searches can be conducted at night or by surprise.

Who would want a son, daughter, grandchild, or anyone else’s to risk their lives fighting Al Quada and the Taliban in Afghanistan under President Obama’s no-will to win rules?

And why the Taliban? Where the Taliban hide and support Al Quada, let us find and eradicate them. Where they don’t, that is Afghanistan’s problem. Yes they are anti-woman, anti freedom of speech, worship, and everything for which America is supposed to stand. But, so is most of the world, including the growing secular community of Western Europe.

We need a plan for victory in Afghanistan, Yemen, Somalia, and other areas where Al Quada are trained to carry out attacks on America and her citizens. Victory will not come by promising billions of American dollars in social aid. Victory will not come with thousands of more American troops operating under President Obama’s How to Win friends and Influence People rules of engagement.

Dale Carnegie’s book How to Win friends and Influence People has changed millions of lives, I recommend the book to all, but not as a weapon in a physical life or death confrontation.

"War is not 'the best way of settling differences; it is the only way of preventing their being settled for you." ___ G.K. Chesterton 1915

But, first we must win victory at home. There are two Americas—in moral values and political ideologies—and the difference between the two grows wide and deep. One, middle America, holds to traditional Judeo-Christian values. But is slowly losing her grip. The other America is led from Washington D.C. by secularists operating in a moral vacuum. Their spiritual blindness has led us into confusion abroad, financial chaos and moral decay at home. The first America needs spiritual renewal, so does the second America. America needs moral restoration.

Victory will come through our most powerful weapon, repentance and prayer. We need to pray for those who run our judicial system, public institutions, corporate boardrooms, and legislative halls. We must also become informed and politically active. As Christians we may not be of this world, but we are certainly in it.

Be Informed Be Involved ______ Michael E. Odell

What can you do? For six proven action steps go to Blog Archive at upper right, click on May-11-08, "But What Can I Do?" Pick yours.

Write your Senator or Representative in Washington DC. Tell them: "No" to so called international nation building and no-will to win wars. Yes to building our own nation. Yes to maintaining a strong well-financed voluntary military and let the world know we will use our power justly, swiftly, and totally when needed. Let our military do so in Afghanistan or bring them home.

You may wish to follow this format:
Senator Donna Arrogant
Senate Office Building,
Washington DC, 20510
Senator Arrogant,

Rep Bill Spender
House Office Building,
Washington DC, 20515
Congressman Spender,

COMMENTS: Your thoughts and comments are welcome. E-mail: MichaelOdell@Lycos.com

Republicans Repent

2009-12-01T11:04:00.000-08:00

No More Sham Fights - Republicans Repent and Say Yes to "No"

"It is the mark of our whole modern history that the masses are kept quiet with a fight. They are kept quiet by the fight because it is a sham-fight; thus most of us know by this time that the Party System has been popular only in the sense that a football match is popular."
____ G.K. Chesterton - A Short History of England

A sham-fight? How true since the early 1960's when conservative Barry Goldwater lost his bid for the presidency. The Democratic Party continued moving further to the extreme left, elitist establishment me-too Republicans were delighted to follow. During President G.W. Bush’s last four years, both political parties supported bigger government and massive deficits. But nothing like the nightmare that followed.

In one year Obama’s promise of change became a national nightmare, the yearly deficit tripled and massive deficit spending continues out of control. New legislation and appointments of pro homosexual and anti-Christian activists threaten our personal and religious freedom.

Our children and grandchildren face a possible irreversible financial calamity and religious persecution. Is all lost, of course not. It will, however, take our prayers and political action.

Where do we to turn politically, me-too Republicans? To regain middle-America’s trust and support, Republican leadership must "Repent" of their fiscal irresponsibility. Admit the years of President G.W. Bush's Administration were years of massive deficits, bigger government, and weakening the dollar to benefit the few at the expense of the many.

I know this is hard for many, admit with or without weapons of mass destruction, Iraq presented no military threat to America and her citizens anymore than Yugoslavia posed a threat to America when President Clinton bombed Yugoslavia and her citizens. Is Iraq better off now, for a majority of Iraq’s citizens possibly so, thanks to the sacrifices of our men and women in the military and their families. For Iraq’s Christians the answer so far has been definitely no. Time will tell.

America must remain strong militarily, but not to attack nations who do not militarily threaten our safety. If we must go to war, pull out all stops and let our military win and end it. No more Korean, Viet Nam, Iraq, Afghan, or other prolonged or no-will to win wars.

Republican or Democrat? Let us support the party or candidate that says no, "No" to big government, "No"to more debt, "No" to secular socialism. What does the candidate stand against? It is time we just said "No"

"No" to attacking nations who do not pose a direct military threat to our Nation. Yes to maintaining a strong well-financed voluntary military and let the world know we will use our power justly, swiftly, and totally if needed.

"No" to Democrat vs. me-too Republican sham-fights. Yes to a choice when we vote.

"No" to ever more taxes, debt, bailouts, and other federal boondoggles. Yes to government fiscal responsibility. Yes to rolling back taxes and government programs and controls.

"No" to further destruction of the dollar to benefit a few at the expense of the many. Yes to making the dollar once again strong, a strong dollar means a strong and prosperous America for all Americans.

"No" to big government. Government’s primary function is to protect the citizen’s God given right to life, liberty, and property. Yes to restricting our Federal Government to its Constitutional functions: to protect her citizens from external attack and equal administration of the law.

"No" to so called international nation building. Yes to building our own nation.

"No" to open borders. Yes to legal immigration for those who wish to obey our laws and support American values.

"No"to pseudo diversity, giving into the loud shrill voice of bulling tiny minorities at the expense of the majorities right to freedom of religion and speech. Yes to proclaiming Biblical standards and moral absolutes in the marketplace.

"No" to political correctness and its special treatment of sexual deviates and other special classes. Yes to calling things as they are and running those politicians of either party who refuse to do so out of office.

"No" to legalizing smoking, sniffing, or shooting up drugs—further anaesthetizing young America. Yes to promoting self discipline and personal responsibility.

"No" to government sanctioned envy, greed, and sexual immorality. Yes to the Ten Commandments.

"No" to judges, politicians, public officials who seek to create a socialistic and secular moral vacuum. Yes to voting them out, recalling them, impeaching them, or firing them.

"Yes" to men and women with strong Judeo-Christian convictions, and the intestinal fortitude to stand up and speak out for those convictions, men and women willing to be involved in the political process. By influencing public opinion and through prayer we can change a nation.

It is not too late. Be Informed Be Involved ______ Michael E. Odell

What can you do? For six proven action steps go to Blog Archive at upper right, click on May-11-08, "But What Can I Do?" Pick yours and get started.

Write your Senator or Representative in Washington DC. Tell them: "No" to more taxes, debt, bailouts, and other federal boondoggles. Yes to government fiscal responsibility. Yes to rolling back taxes and government programs and controls. Follow this format:

Senator Donna Arrogant
Senate Office Building,
Washington DC, 20510.
Senator Arrogant,

Rep Bill Spender
House Office Building,
Washington DC, 20515.
Congressman Spender,

COMMENTS: Your thoughts and comments are welcome. E-mail: MichaelOdell@Lycos.com

Food & Sex

2009-11-02T16:29:00.000-08:00

Food And Sex And How We Can Change The World

"The deepest principle in human nature is the craving to be appreciated." ______W. James

Our desires for food and sex are strong. But these are desires of our flesh. We have stronger desires, deep cravings in our innermost being to feel important, to be appreciated.

We all need to feel important to someone. We all know the person who, to feel important, needs to embellish even the most insignificant statement. And there are those who go to violent extremes to be noticed, to feel important.

Without appreciation from her children and husband, a woman’s face becomes weary and cheerless. When employers fail to show appreciation and recognize their importance, employees become sullen. Customers not shown appreciation become ex-customers. Nothing is more heartbreaking than a child being misshaped by feelings of ineptitude. He or she will do almost anything for those who show them appreciation. And there are those who will do anything to get attention, to feel important—sometimes with tragic results.

Showing sincere appreciation is the right thing to do. It is also the smart thing to do. It will help us to prosper in all areas of our personal life. It is not, however, an easy thing to do. We live in a world filled with negativism. A world where many feel they are entitled, a world of false pride where we think we must be number one, or just a little better than the next guy or gal—even if it means embellishing the truth or putting the other person down.

We are increasingly becoming a secular society, turning away from being God centered to "Me" centered. It is difficult to maintain a positive view in today’s negative atmosphere.

What are our children and grandchildren hearing, from us, at school, on TV, from our elected leaders? Daily they are influenced by a secular news and entertainment media who negatively manipulates tastes and values. Our secular news and entertainment industry knowingly belittle and opposes Judeo-Christian values. Our youth are persuaded to substitute convictions for acceptance, to trade ideals for worldly possessions, or put their trust in the deceitful promise of government security—wealth without work, reward without risk.

A powerful and generous America was not built on a self-centered "me first" secular life. "Me first" socialist secular values did not get America through an agonizing civil war. Secular values did not give hope to struggling families during economic depressions and financial panics. "Me first" secular values did not sustain earlier Americans through death dealing epidemics and two world wars. America's Christian values and spiritual strength did.

What can you and I do to overcome today’s "me first" secular values? We need to look for the worth in those we deal with: family, friends, students, customers, fellow employees, or strangers. Build them up. Show them sincere appreciation. Let them know they are important—they are.

Can we change the world? Well, you and I can change our personal world, one sincere appreciation at a time. Let us teach our children and grandchildren to do the same. We may have a long way to go, but it’s a start.

___________ Michael E.Odell

COMMENTS: Your thoughts and comments are welcome. E-mail: MichaelOdell@Lycos.com

O’ Just Go With The Flow

2009-09-29T17:57:00.000-07:00

"The poorest person of all is not the person without a cent but the person without a dream."

At least once each year during summer, I think about and miss those hot, lazy, Eastern Washington sunny days floating on the Little Spokane river. As a pre-teen I allowed the current to carry me at its discretion. Drift into a side channel or quiet backwater, or go aground on a warm sandbar. Navigation left to chance. Time unchanging, worldly cares unknown. Enjoyable. A time to daydream. For a pre-teen that is okay.

As one matures, drifting along on the river of life is not the best way to navigate. To keep from going aground demands a properly charted course—direction. Growing older without direction, we become self centered, mentally lethargic.

That is not how it is meant to be. We are learning, growing, thinking, productive creations. The direction we focus on depends on us. When we live in the past, either yearning for past successes or bewailing past failures, we waste our present and soon despair of our future.

Start building on today. What we do today helps determine where we will be tomorrow. Do things today to positively effect our lives in years to come. Develop a positive vision.

What vision of the future are our children and grandchildren hearing from us, at school, on TV? It is difficult to maintain a positive vision in today’s negative atmosphere. Fear, anger, and despair seem to dominate.
The result? For those standing on the shifting sands of secular values, hope is lost. They have turned from the source of hope. For those who stand on the solid rock, the belief in a loving God who created each for a purpose, who takes a hand in our daily lives, there is always hope.

To feed that hope avoid the no-sayers, negative thinkers who are more than willing to tell us all the reasons why as a nation and as an individual we can’t—how bad it is, how bad it is going to get. At times that may be somewhat true. There have always been reasons not to try. Does it mean we can’t? Of course not. We need to look for reasons why we can, why it will work. Read about, listen to, and associate with those who triumphed over adversity, those who say, "I can do all things through Christ." This is what built a free, powerful, and prosperous America.

Where are we today regarding yesterday’s dreams and hopes? Did we even have a dream? If not, identify and clarify a vision of what can be. Maybe it is to write a novel, learn a musical instrument, race vintage cars, volunteer or run for public office, climb a mountain, turn your hobby into a full or part-time business, go to Bible college, change occupations.

It is not always easy. As we grow older we may become hesitant to take on new things. And the twin enemies, self doubt and fear of failure, can bring on a non-productive negativism. To defeat negativism we need inner joy, a joy not controlled by circumstances, but by our faith in a loving God who takes a hand in our daily lives.

Whatever our aspiration, we need a burning desire to accomplish—this builds enthusiasm. And enthusiasm overcomes self doubt and fear of failure. Enthusiasm provides the mental and physical energy needed to overcome setbacks and obstacles others consider impossible. Yes, it may take more than one try. And yes, we need to keep at it. But, how can we become over comers if we do not have anything to overcome?

Instead of the negative thinkers’ Murphy’s Law, try John C. Maxwell’s Law: "Nothing is as hard as it looks; everything is more rewarding than you expect; and if anything can go right it will and at the best possible moment."

Our nation was not built by those just going with the flow. It was built by those who had a vision of what could be—then did.

_______ Michael E. Odell

COMMENTS: Your thoughts and comments are welcome, well most of the time.
E-mail: MichaelOdell@Lycos.com

Barbershop Revolt

2009-09-14T16:38:00.000-07:00

“I think he is a Communist.” “Our kids won’t be able to pay off all this debt.” “Our votes don’t matter.” “People I know are scared and buying guns and ammunition.” “They don’t care what we want or think.” “We must do something.”

These voices are from a small town barbershop, not Hugo Chavez’s Venezuela. A year ago these same voices were expressing hope and change. They got change. But not what they hoped. Their hope has changed to anger and frustration.

Sitting in a small town barbershop and listening to today’s concerns and thoughts gives one an ear into middle America’s hard working citizens: one person business owners, retired individuals on fixed income, hardworking blue collar workers. This is middle America, individuals who built a strong, prosperous, and generous nation. They believe those who took an oath to protect it are destroying it.

Many voted for President Obama. Not that they felt they had a big choice—or so it seemed. After all, too many Republicans proved unworthy when they controlled Congress, Senate, and White House. A few, who publically championed family values, fell into immoral escapades or financial shenanigans—Republicans, it seems, are expected to hold a much higher moral standard than Democrats. Other Republicans, desiring to buy votes and be reelected, slid into the Democrat Party policy of big government and deficit spending. Then we have East coast liberal Republican’s and their mantra: “We can run it better.” What they did was make government larger, more intrusive, and our National debt bigger.

We cannot, however, blame the Bush Administration for everything going on now. Democrats controlled Congress and Senate the last of President G.W. Bush’s Administration, and added to the problem. Just because the Bush kid down the block set fire to the garbage barrel out back, does not make it okay for the Obama kid to burn down the whole building.

The Obama Administration’s polices do threaten to burn down the whole building. This year’s federal deficit triples last year’s, adding to our soaring debt, further devaluing our dollar. Add the Administration’s rapid attempt to centralize control of America’s financial markets and means of production in order to change us—from the market-oriented system that made America prosperous and powerful—into a stagnant European collectivist system, a secular socialistic man-made utopia that seeks to replace church and family with a dehumanizing state.

Present Administration polices, unless halted and reversed, will plunge us into third world status. As a militant 1950's Anti-Communist and early 1960's Barry Goldwater for President political activist, what is happening should not be a surprise. Warnings Senator Goldwater gave regarding dangers of government growth, excessive debt, and collectivism are even truer today. I know that. Yet, I was surprised how quickly and with such intensity Obama’s Administration sought to control America’s means of production and communication, and how quickly middle-America became alarmed.

Middle-America’s growing anger and the liberal left’s hate are a concern. During past political seasons we had heated debates, charges and countercharges. That is normal. Today’s political season is endless, more sinister.

Bitter seeds of partisan politics planted during President Nixon’s Administration helped produce today’s bitter fruit. The 1972 Watergate break-in and charges of White House sanctioned illegal activities led to the 1974 House Judiciary Committee Articles of Impeachment. President Nixon resigned before a vote could occur.

Partisan anger and bitterness remained. A Republican controlled House voted in favor of impeaching President Clinton for perjury and obstruction of justice. The result of President Clinton’s attempts to cover up his relationship with a 21-year-old White House intern. The Senate conducted an impeachment trial. The vote, not guilty.

Media driven partisan anger and bitterness blossomed into a mindless hate against President G.W.Bush. Cries for his impeachment grew during his second term. Loony liberals in U.S. House and Senate continue to demand both our former president and vice-president be tried for high crimes.

In spite of all this I am greatly encouraged. Middle-America knows something is deeply wrong and dangerous—that is good. But they are deeply frustrated. Their frustration is growing—that is not good. Many do not make the connection between their frustration and the self-serving activities of their own Congressman and Senators—yet.

Anger across the political spectrum and across America in general is reaching combustible levels. Anger and frustration will not reverse the downward direction America is heading, politically and morally. To extinguish the blazing anger threatening our Nation takes repentance and prayer. To replace spiritually bankrupts who rule our public institutions also takes political action.

"The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and left untried." ____ G.K. Chesterton, 1910

There are Christians who believe by keeping silent on controversial political matters they will be left alone. They are mistaken. As Christians we may not be of this world, but we are certainly in it. Also, voting and political action are part of being a good U.S. citizen.

Our trust, however, cannot be in political parties, their candidates, nor their promises. Our trust, hope, and comfort is in the loving God. A God who takes a hand in our daily lives. For us there is always hope.

We can reverse our downward spiral into godless collectivism. It has started. The signs are there. Town hall meetings where a handful came, now a hundred, where there were a hundred, now a thousand. Tea Parties spring up all over and grow. We have middle-America’s growing underground movement, the Barber Shop Revolt.

Middle America—our Nation’s backbone—is starting to awake. You can help. If we influence one person at a time or one hundred, positive changes will take place. But we must be informed and be involved.

For those looking for help in understanding and explaining to others the negative consequences of today’s political and economic actions, may I suggest Economics in One Lesson, by Henry Hazlitt. A book written to help the layperson understand and explain basic economic truths and their implications.

What can you do? For six proven action steps go to Blog Archive at upper right, click on May-11-08, “But What Can I Do?” Pick yours.

Be Informed Be Involved _________ Michael E. Odell

COMMENTS: Your thoughts and comments are welcome. E-mail: MichaelOdell@Lycos.com

Like Ugly Children

2009-09-03T13:18:00.000-07:00

Time To Take Them To The Woodshed

Rebellious or Ugly Children may not be the most tasteful description, but accurate when referring to numerous Congressional and Senatorial leaders—both Republican and Democrat. After being elected they act like many children reaching teenage years, they know it all. And "we the people" know very little if anything—unless we agree with them. If we don’t, to avoid answering questions concerning their own conduct, they are not above referring to "we the people" in distasteful terms: haters, racists, or religious loons.

Like rebellious children, today’s elected officials presume our money would be best spent by them. What cars we drive, news programs we watch, and radio stations we listen to best chosen by them. Our eating habits, doctors we choose, and parenting skills to be used best dictated by them

Time, however, has proven them immature and incapable. Past experience shows the more they take over public education, the more costs go up and product quality goes down. Fifty years ago health insurance for a working man and family was not a big budget item. item. You could go to the doctor or hospital of your choice. But then, knowing best, our elected officials and their bureaucrats became involved. The more involved the higher the cost and less efficient the service. Now they demand they run the whole show. Yet time has proven them out of touch, incapable of managing, and worse of all, arrogant.

"Once abolish the God, and the government becomes the God." ___ G.K.Chesterton, 1933

Those holding conventional Christian beliefs are most embarrassing to our Ugly Children. Wishing to show their progressive European friends how with-it they are, they cry, scream, and throw a temper fit to keep our voice silent.

During the last 50 years our Nation's secularists have worked to remove prayer, bible reading, and Judeo-Christian values from our public and private institutions. Those who advocate Judeo-Christian beliefs are continually and viciously belittled, including threats of lawsuits and jail, leaving Christians with the choice of compliance or harassment. This has not worked out well either.

Sexually transmitted disease, drug addiction, and broken families are a national pandemic. A generation has turned from the Judeo-Christian values that built our Nation. Instead they seek worldly messiahs. Lacking a moral compass, they become self indulgent and engage in destructive diversions. Unable to discern between right and wrong, or desiring not to, they embrace the day’s secular fetish or mouth the latest politically correct thought. To them life is of no particular consequence.

Moral decay, crushing national debt, and decreasing religious freedom for Christians is now their legacy. No, it has not worked out well.

"They who feel no shame in doing what is obviously wrong ,

are the most shameful of all."
__ Unknown

Time has proven many of our Congressional and Senatorial leaders unacceptable and arrogant. Although we may not be able to bring back public stockades or the whipping post, we can still spank them come election time. Whom am I voting for? At this point, mainly anyone who is not an incumbent. Most incumbents have proven a need to be taken to the wood shed for a good spanking.

By influencing public opinion and being involved in the political process, advocates of Judeo-Christian values can replace a judge, change a school director, or elect a legislator. And through prayer we can change a nation. It is not too late. But we must start now.

Be Informed Be Involved _________ Michael E. Odell

For six proven action steps go to Blog Archive at upper right, click on May-11-08, "But What Can I Do?" Pick yours.

COMMENTS: Your thoughts and comments are welcome. E-mail: MichaelOdell@Lycos.com

Let Them Die?

2009-08-17T12:18:00.000-07:00

Disregarding today’s politicians, what value will future Americans place on human life? How will that value affect the physical safety and financial well-being of the old, the sick, the handicapped—those unwanted, nonproductive, and financial burdens.

"Man is only man at the surface. Remove his skin, dissect, and immediately you come to machinery."____ French Poet, Paul Valery

In one sentence, Paul Valery expresses the thinking of today's secular leaders, opinion molders, and bureaucrats. Fascist Germany and Communist Russia also considered their citizens machinery. Their secular governments terminated the unwanted, the nonproductive, the financial burdens. Supporters of Hitler’s mercy program justified mercy killing on humanistic grounds. The real reason, economic and political correctness.

A growing percentage of America's population is approaching retirement age. With the graying of America, Social Security payments and health care costs claim more and more tax dollars. Now add increasing cost to care for those younger Americans suffering the consequences of drug addiction, AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases—including the newborn. Their mental or physical impairments the result of their mother's drug addiction or sexually transmitted disease. Every year thousands of these children are discarded, left in the maternity ward to be cared for at public expense. A heartbreaking problem legalizing drugs will escalate.

Future annual cost to care for the unwanted or nonproductive financial burdens could amount to trillions of taxpayer dollars. Who will pay? Will younger productive members of society be willing to maintain the living standard of an increasing older generation? Will young families sacrifice their own financial well-being to support the aged, the drug impaired, the mentally and physically handicapped?

In the future, what value human life? Is the only answer mercy killing—suicide, abortion, infanticide, and euthanasia? Will the only value the aged, the destitute, and the handicapped have is for harvested body parts? Who will decide? How will we meet these needs?

We have two choices. The first may require self-sacrifice. We can meet the cost to care for the growing number of America's afflicted, based on the God given value of human life and the Biblical truth of "My God shall supply all my needs..." The second choice—secular materialism—will further cheapen the value of life and all the evil consequences that go with it: legalized murder, death undertaken for economic and political reasons. The second choice is the direction today’s advocates of abortion, suicide, euthanasia, and government managed healthcare are taking us.

Which choice? Which America will we leave for future generations? It is up to you.

Be Informed Be Involved _________ Michael E. Odell

For six proven action steps go to Blog Archive at upper right, click on May-11-08, "But What Can I Do?" Pick yours.

COMMENTS: Your thoughts and comments are welcome. E-mail: MichaelOdell@Lycos.com

Nanny Staters & Other Looters

2009-07-31T15:15:00.000-07:00

"All the other kids are doing it." And your Mom would ask if all the other kids are going to jump off a bridge would you want to. Evidently some people would.

And there is the other old cliche: "You can run but you can’t hide." I live in a small town, about 4,200 within the city limits. Unfortunately, Nanny State malaise infecting bigger towns and our federal government has done so here. We too have those with looters mentality who wish to build a perfect utopia in their own image, a secular and socialistic political system based on moral relativism.

This time our local Nanny Staters demanded our town immediately enact "confiscator" land legislation. Why? Because numerous other cities have—and these people we are told are highly educated and intelligent. Does that mean it is the right thing to do? Nanny Staters think so. Others of course see it otherwise.

Under Nanny State "confiscator" land legislation, properties affected will in essence no longer belong to the owners. Value in their land and homes stolen. To be in compliance with the legislation’s rules and regulations, not required in our county, would burden local taxpayers with more unnecessary costs and bureaucracy. But, when you are building a perfect world in your own image, you must dismiss the cost to the individual—costs in both finances and individual liberties.

Nanny State malaise is both a national political problem and a moral problem. In this case bureaucrats are given power to break a legal contract and take away the individual’s use of his or her property for the community’s ascetic good—possibly without compensation.

A contract or promise, however, is a moral obligation. An individual’s word was once honored and considered a strong contract, a promise, a moral obligation. Today, even a written contract or promise mean nothing to Nanny Staters.

Always hoping to buy support, Nanny Staters offer the "fear, greed and envy" carrot, the potential of losing public funds if the proposed rules or legislation are not enacted immediately. Using someone else’s money exposes their looting mentality: "If we don’t get the funds someone else will." Taking from one individual through government force to financially or ascetically benefit another is thievery—an attack on our treasure. And in this case, breaking a contract, is an attack on our God given right to life, liberty, and property.

As one local Nanny Stater explained: "...property rights and our system of capitalism to seek profits are no longer sacred . . . our individual rights and an individual’s profits may have to give way for the sake of the environment . . . "

From Washington D.C. to my small town, those seeking to build a perfect world in their own image do not recognize our Constitutional right to life, liberty, and property as God given. To these collectivists all rights—including our religious freedom—are government given and therefore government can alter or take away those rights.

A Nanny of course is a British child nurse. Our Nanny Staters, however, are a child’s worse nightmare. They believe the general public—you and I—consists of not-to-bright children who must be directed and punished as they deem necessary. Hitler, Stalin, Mao, and their regimes took the Nanny State to its ultimate destination. A direction our Nanny Staters in Washington D.C. are rapidly taking us.

As these secular progressives’ tighten their collectivist grip on our Nation, we hear the sucking sound of our Nation’s moral vacuum as more and more young people are sucked into the collectivist state’s relative ethics and popular immoralities.

America is still the world’s greatest country. What of the future? We have a choice. We can quietly hold to our standards and values, leaving our grandchildren and institutions to the Nanny Staters who wish to control every aspect of our life. The Nannys wish to create a secular and socialistic political system, a system that robs success and rewards failure, a system that seeks to replace any sense of God with moral relativism, a system to replace church and family with the dehumanizing state. Or we can publically resist evil and speak out.

It is not too late. But what are you going to do?

Be Informed Be Involved _________ Michael E. Odell

For six proven action steps go to Blog Archive at upper right, click on May-11-08, "But What Can I Do?" Pick yours.

COMMENTS: Your thoughts and comments are welcome. E-mail: MichaelOdell@Lycos.com

Sort of A God’s Car

2009-06-14T16:12:00.000-07:00

At last, at last, our leaders in halls of Congress and majestic Senate now control—with approval from union leaders—the once great but now bankrupt General Motors. A total victory for the progressive liberals in press, media, and halls of congress.

Yes, at last a peoples car, a car for us folks, or as Hitler called it in German, the Volkswagen. It will be like every federal boondoggle, unworkable and exorbitantly expensive. All cars and all people, however, will now be equal. Of course some people and their cars will need to be more equal than others. We would have it no other way. Then again we will not have a choice.

The new peoples car or Volkswagen, a car developed out of the politically correct imagination of more than 500 US Senators and Congressmen. Or is it Congress people? A car environmentally correct. A car fulfilling special interest desires from PETA to Hollywood. An all-inclusive Peoples Car.

Congressman from corn growing areas will demand certain percentage only burn fuel made from corn. Congressman Barney Frank will insist a certain percentage come in color pink. As to the Peoples Car for the spooky and bizarre Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi and her San Francisco supporters, who knows. The Congressional Black Caucus, of course, will have their own criteria as will every other member of House and Senate. And everyone will demand part of the car be built in their district.

The number of new Car Czars—from Headlight Czar to Gas Pedal Czar—appointed will solve half our unemployment problem. And what a wonderful opportunity for people like President Obama and Vice President Joe Biden who have never ran a business—let alone changed their own oil or spark plugs—to get experience. I know, I know, this same concept along with every other five-year plan was a disastrous failure in the Soviet Union—and everywhere else. Until now.

The emotionally unstable progressive liberals tell us we only need to trust, to believe, not to be of little faith. According to Newsweek’s Evan Thomas, our President is " . . . standing above our country, above the world, he’s sort of God."

The call to "trust and believe" will be of little comfort to taxpayers financing the coming Peoples Car. Another exorbitantly expensive federal flop to be bitterly known as the Obama Boondoggle, Pelosi Put Put, and numerous unprintable names.

We know the President is not God. But progressive liberals who do believe the President is a "sort of God," look forward to the Peoples Car. They worship the idea of these same great minds running a National Government Health Care and Educational system. They will, however, suffer a great disappointment in this world and the world to come. Unfortunately if they are not stopped, we all will pay a great price in treasure and freedom.

America needs moral restoration. This can only be accomplished through the prayers and actions of those rooted in the Judeo-Christian moral absolutes on which our Nation was founded.

Be Informed Be Involved _________ Michael E. Odell

What other action can you take? Go to Blog Archive at upper right, click on May-11-08, "But What Can I Do?" for six proven action steps. Pick yours.

Your thoughts and comments are welcome. E-mail: MichaelOdell@Lycos.com

Fear, Envy, Greed & The Obama Agenda

2009-04-15T09:34:00.000-07:00

Up until of late, former Vice President Gore was the "Sky is falling" Chicken Little award winner. His false global warming assumptions and startling warnings took first place. Most of his damage has been in frightening school children and the emotionally unstable progressive liberals in press, media, and halls of congress. That and his traveling around the world—and from the look of things—consuming far more than his share of our world’s food supply.

We must admit, President George W. Bush’s deficit spending and then his "The Sky is falling. We must do it now." multibillion dollar stimulus and bail out blunder set the atmosphere for President Obama’s "Chicken Little" agenda—and the possible demise of our free and prosperous America we have known.

A definite lack of realism is coming from the Presidential Palace. We are daily subjected to Presidential proclamations, questionable claims, and false assertions, all designed to manufacture a national spirit of fear, envy, and greed. Taking advantage of the atmosphere, vote buying self-serving members of Congress and Senate promise government succor and security for all at the expense of someone else. A scheme many voters—who lack an ability or desire to discern right from wrong—gladly buy into.

The good news is the Sky is not falling, although the unholy trinity of fear, envy, and greed has created a combination of political harlotry, financial chaos, and a national rush into socialism and loss of personal freedom. President Obama seems to believe he has the divine wisdom to manage and control all our financial institutions and any other public or private institution he desires. So far the results show a lack of divine wisdom or any wisdom at all—unless there is a hidden agenda.

Maybe there is no evil intent. Perhaps our divide-the-wealth socialist President and Congress are just a misguided bunch of good-hearted guys and gals willing to borrow and spend whatever it takes to solve all the worlds’ problems. Or is there another agenda? An agenda to use fear, envy, and greed to claim political control over every aspect of our life, including the nationalization of energy, health care, and educational system? An agenda to create a secular and socialistic political system, a system that robs success and rewards failure, a system that seeks to replace any sense of God with moral relativism, a system to replace church and family with the dehumanizing state?

As I said, the Sky is not falling—yet. President Obama’s socialistic restructure based on a promise of financial equality and security for all can turn into far worse than a stagnant welfare state. The following quote used previously is worth contemplating again.

"Whatever moral qualms Germans may have felt toward Nazi policies were swept away by waves of government handouts, tax breaks, and preferential legislation."
_______ Gotz Aly, Hitler’s Beneficiaries

The waves of government handouts, tax breaks, and preferential legislation coming from our Nation’s Capitol are quickly misshaping and undermining middle-Americas’ social attitudes and moral values. In a lust for political power, Washington, D.C. uses the unholy trinity of fear, envy, and greed to sell stimulus packages, bail outs, huge budget deficits, and government control over ever area of life. Is it legal or Constitutional is not a consideration.

Our President’s plan for more debt and more government will not fix economic injustices and establish a perfect society. It will, however, be a giant step toward a totally regulated collectivist and secular welfare state. Human nature acts in one’s own interest not the public or group’s interest. Socialism goes against that nature. Being insensitive to human behavior, all collectivist governments fail.

With every inflated boom comes the bust. Our lack of self discipline, desire for unlimited credit, and a growing belief in wealth without effort and reward without risk created a false boom and sent cities, states, individuals, and Federal government to the edge of bankruptcy. No business is too big to fail. Neither is any nation.

Economic growth comes from savings and investments. Lasting wealth for all comes from hope, ideas, inventions, and hard work—not from inflated dollars, government bailouts, increased debt and higher taxes. Creating true wealth depends on a government that allows the individual to prosper, to freely pursue his or her dream—not a monstrous government based on debt, fear, envy, and greed.

The political problem will take political action. Being a citizen is not a spectator sport. We must become involved and replace the spiritually bankrupts who rule our public and private institutions with men and women of faith.
The Sky is not falling. To keep it from doing so, we must reorder priorities and stop living beyond our means. Not give into the politically manufactured unholy trinity. Reject political pandering with its promise of government succor. The answer is not more government. Wealth does not flow from government. Government devours wealth. The bigger the government the bigger the appetite.

We also have a moral problem. The seeds of secular immorality being planted by press, media, and halls of congress are producing an epidemic crop of self-destructive behavior: envy, greed, drug abuse, abortion, euthanasia, homosexual perversion, heterosexual promiscuity, political deception and fear. It is not good. But the sky has not fallen. It is not too late. America, however, needs moral restoration. Too many Americans’ have forgotten without God nothing is worthwhile.

If we wish to reverse our national rush toward secularism, the Church must be more than a Sunday diversion. Being a man or woman of faith must be more than a spectator sport.

"Sanctify ye a fast, call a solemn assembly, gather the elders and all the inhabitants of the land into the house of the LORD your God, and cry unto the LORD,"
____ Joel 1:14

"We have sinned, and have committed iniquity, and have done wickedly, and have rebelled, even by departing from thy precepts and from thy judgments."
____ Daniel 9:5

Be Informed Be Involved _________ Michael E. Odell

Agree? Disagree? E-mail your thoughts and comments too: MichaelOdell@Lycos.com E-mails received may be posted to blog.

What action can you take? Go to Blog Archive at upper right, click on May-11-08, "But What Can I Do?" for six proven action steps. Pick yours.

Feb-20-09 Let’s Discriminate
Jan-17-09 Obama’s Gospel
Dec-08-08 But, Is It Socialism
Nov-12-08 Anguish & Political Messiahs
Oct-16-08 Two Americas
Sept-26-08 Have You Been Bought
Sept-15-08 Abstinence or VD
Aug-18-08 Noble or Secular Life
July-25-08 Monetary Crack Cocaine
July-02-08 Faith Based In Whom
June-13-08 Vote for Change?
May-19-08 Poverty & Envy or Hope & Prosperity
May-11-08 But What Can I Do? Christians Should Not Be In Politics
April-11-08 Sex, Debt, Drugs - America's Epidemic & New York’s Governor
March-28-08 Rare Coin Investments 101 & Choosing A Dealer
March-20-08 Gold Mining Stock Investing 101 - Booms & Busts
March-15-08 Gold Coin Investing 101
March-15-08 Investment 101 - only safe way to double your money
March-03-08 Real Men or Girly Men
Feb-29-08 A Cup of Hemlock for Washington State
Feb-13-08 Death & Suicide Initiative 119 Are Back
Feb-12-08 Thorns or Roses - The Choice Is Ours
Feb-12-08 Recession & Inflation - Government the Problem
Dec-08-07 A Hamburger Today & Pay Tomorrow

Let’s Bring Back Discrimination

2009-02-20T10:22:00.000-08:00

I don’t know about you, but I would like to watch the news for more than a day or two before someone prominent in finance or politics is exposed for fraud or indecent conduct. Or an overpaid sports star does something dumb or disgusting. Or we must hear of another church leader or entertainment celebrity involved in or championing some salacious and self-destructive behavior.

"A liar begins with making falsehood appear like truth, and ends with making truth itself appear like falsehood." ____ Shenstone

There are a right and a wrong. As a nation we must renew our ability to discriminate between the two—to use a right judgment in all things. Does that mean judging. Yes it does.

One scripture secular Biblical illiterates know and quickly quote is Matthew 7:1, "Judge not, that ye be not judged." They of course are unfamiliar with the second part, if you do judge, be willing to be judged by the same judgement, "For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: ..."

We are not talking about being a judge but using good judgement or discernment. You or I cannot know or judge the spiritual condition of an individual’s heart. We are to judge what they say and do. At the same time keep in mind we are called to be witnesses, not lawyers or judges.

We are to discriminate between right and wrong, and then make a right judgment. Too many Americans are unable or unwilling to do so. They are willing, however, to accept the day’s popular immoralities—if touted as inclusive or a call for diversity, two "new speak" words for accepting sinful and destructive behavior. Words no longer meaning what they are supposed to mean.

"When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less." "The question is," said Alice, "whether you can make words mean so many different things."
___ Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking Glass

Sorry Alice, the question is not whether today’s secular progressives in news, entertainment, and politics can make words mean so many different things. The question is, are they making words mean the opposite of what they are supposed to mean. Remember when being gay indicated happiness or light-hearted and lively? And now, it is a popular but deceptive word for engaging in sexual perversion and self-destructive behavior.

For good or bad, our Nation is the sum total of each individual’s behavior. To stop our destructive direction we need more Americans to stand up and say "no" to today’s cry for inclusion and diversity. Today’s call for inclusion and diversity is a call to embrace both the sin and the sinner. A call to put on blinders or accept the day’s popular sins of envy, greed, abortion, euthanasia, homosexual perversion, heterosexual promiscuity, drug abuse, and political deception.

Those who still discern between right and wrong, condemn the sin yet love the sinner—inclusion of the sinner but exclusion of his or her sin. Not embracing today’s Humpty Dumpty’s inclusion and diversity conformity speak, is not to exclude anyone from God’s love and forgiveness, but to reject their sinful and destructive behavior. After all, each of us has fallen short and sinned in thought, word, and deed—and desire to be forgiven.

"Then she named the child Ichabod, saying, "The glory has departed from Israel! because the ark of God had been captured……" 1 Sam. 4:21

Are we still a Christian nation? Or is a significantly eroded Judeo-Christian heritage the best we can claim? If so, what of our future?

Some believe America is now Ichabod. The Ark, however, has not been captured nor has the glory departed.

Yes, I know, as a nation we are undergoing great distress. Our economic, political, and religious structures are under attack. Illegal drugs and sexually transmitted disease are national epidemics. A growing debt crisis threatens our personal financial health and our national financial institutions. Internationally our enemies increase in number and strength. At home the enemies of Judeo-Christian thought hold prominent positions in news, entertainment, and our legislative halls. Too many Americans, lacking a moral compass, are unable to discern between right and wrong, or desire not to.

Nevertheless, in times of moral decay, economic distress, or national disaster, the Church thrives. Only the Church can offer true hope and real comfort to the afflicted and to the heartbroken. To do so, She must not withdraw into cultural isolation. She must be more than an hour of Christian diversion each Sunday. She must be bold.

America’s best days can still be ahead. Ours is still the land of hope and promise. To keep that hope and promise alive will not be easy. It will take prayer and bold action.

Be Informed Be Involved _________ Michael E. Odell

What action can you take? Go to Blog Archive at upper right, click on May-11-08, "But What Can I Do?" for six proven action steps. Pick yours.

Your thoughts and comments are welcome, well most of the time. E-mail: MichaelOdell@Lycos.com

Obama’s Gospel

2009-01-17T10:20:00.000-08:00

Born Again Socialists And The Two Gospels - 1929 and 2009

Sounds familiar to me. A politically motivated Federal Reserve strategy of easy money and artificially created low interest rates producing a booming highly-leveraged stock market, a land speculation bubble, and a national desire for wealth without effort. Then that which is to go on forever doesn’t—the bust.

That was "Black Tuesday" and the brutal stock market crash of Oct. 22, 1929. Near year end, the tide seemed to turn and investors stopped jumping out of windows. Waves of optimism swept across the investing public. The Dow Jones Industrial Average and the declining Bond Market began to recover. At first all seemed well. A year later, however, the worldwide recession of 1931 was underway. The natural law of economics began to rectify the monetary magic of easy money and artificially created low interest rates.

Trying to undo what they had done, the Federal Reserve reversed its easy money and credit policy, collapsing the U.S. Bond and Stock Market. President Hoover's easy money recession of 1931 became President Roosevelt’s tight-money depression of the late1930's.

The new President called for massive government stimulus and public work programs. President Franklin D. Roosevelt declared the problem too big for anyone except the federal government. F.D.R. got his wish and the public got a substantially bigger, more expensive, and intrusive federal government. The despair, insecurity, and economic woes of the 1930’s, however, continued. That was then.

In spite of today’s doomsday news headlines, the stock market crash, real estate bust, and financial break down is nowhere the social and financial slaughter of 1929 and depression of the1930s—at least not yet, and hopefully not at all.

America's post-World War One leaders engineered the 1920's prosperity. America's financial engineers'—President Hoover was known as the "Great Engineer"—sought to keep the world prosperous with monetary magic. Hoover and the progresive wing of the Republican party rejected a sound money policy and kept interest rates artificially low. This made possible easy money, cheap loans, and a highly leveraged stock market. This monetary magic generated a false prosperity bubble, then the1929 crash.
Like today’s financial turmoil, the 1929 crash and depression set loose a spirit of fear and despair. And like today, one America turned to God and the Gospel to sustain them. The other America looked to government and embraced a modern nineteenth century socialism—the social gospel.

Protestantism’s socialist movement was underway even before America entered World War One. Norman Thomas, a Presbyterian minister, embraced a "social gospel" to rectify America’s social and financial injustice. While Fundamentalist ministers committed their lives to preaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ, Thomas committed his life to preaching a socialist gospel and becoming America’s ongoing socialist presidential candidate.

Thomas came from a Calvinistic family and his wife Frances from an aristocratic-minded banking family. Together they worked with the big city poverty-stricken. To rectify economic needs and social injustice they experienced, Norman and Frances preached socialism, the avant-garde movement of pre-World War I Protestantism.

Although he remained a Presbyterian minister for twenty-one years, Thomas moved from the pulpit to the political soapbox. He moved from preaching the "City of God" to building a socialistic man-made utopia.

Thomas and other social gospel preachers rejected individual salvation and preached the collective brotherhood of man. Faith in science and government replaced orthodox religious beliefs. That was then and so it is now.

While Thomas preached one gospel, Billy Sunday preached "the" Gospel. Prior to World War One, Billy Sunday was already America's greatest evangelist. Thousands flocked to hear the former baseball player call for spiritual renewal.

Like Norman Thomas, Billy Sunday was an ordained Presbyterian. Unlike Thomas, Sunday believed spiritual renewal, not government, was the answer to America's social problems. His message was simple, "With Christ you are saved; without Him you are lost." Billy's was a fundamental theology with middle-class appeal.

Billy believed God and hard work was the answer to America's economic problems, not socialism. He preached honesty and hard work for the working man, and castigated the dishonest boss and crooked businessman. A message needed today.

But, it was not Billy’s preaching that set Thomas and the socialist movement back. It was the return of financial prosperity following the 1920-21 recession—a Golden Age of business expansion and abundance. Mass production provided automobiles for middle-America. Movies provided entertainment and diversion. The birth of broadcasting provided music, sports, and amusement for the American masses. America was on the move, physically and financially.

The 1920's prosperity was not prosperous for either gospel, church attendance dropped and interest in the socialist movement faded. In 1920, a time of recession and hard economic times, socialist candidate Eugene Debs campaigned from a penitentiary cell. Debs received more than 900,000 votes. In 1928, a time of prosperity, socialist candidate Norman Thomas made his first bid for the Presidency. He received less than 275,000 votes.

The 1929 crash and resulting depression let loose a spirit of fear and despair. America also experienced spiritual renewal. In 1936, the United States Religious Census reveled that for the first time there were more church members than not. A flood of Americans poured into mainstream Christianity, more Americans than ever looked to God and the Gospel to sustain them. Others turned to government for their daily bread and to heal the country’s economic ills and rectify its social problems. That was then and so it is now.

Although Norman Thomas severed ties with his church in 1931, he continued to preach the socialist party gospel until his death in 1968. He also continued to be their Presidential candidate. But Franklin D. Roosevelt and the Democrat Party stole his platform for their own. It took Republicans a few more decades to turn from the Gospel preached by the Billy Sundays and embrace the social gospel of Norman Thomas and the Democrat Party.

By the second term of President Bush’s administration, federal programs and debt were growing at their fastest rate. With the 2007-08 financial melt down, Republican leadership questioned competitive capitalism—the market-oriented system that made America prosperous, powerful, and free. And in its place championed a bureaucratic restructure of economy and society, and a welfare state stimulus and bailout package—more debt and bigger government.

"Unfortunately, economic income and wealth do not flow from a mountain of debt; they spring from savings and investments."

"It is self-evident that an excess of national spending over saving tends to impoverish society, just as the excess of individual spending over savings tends to drain an individual."

______ Dr. Hans F. Sennholz

The bailouts and vote-buying welfare state stimulus packages President Obama and congressional leaders’ advocate are the same ideas that caused the problem in the first place—only on a more massive scale. The cure is the disease. A bigger expensive government borrowing money to bailout an ailing economy caused by excessive borrowing—debt. Similar to using one credit card to pay the minium payment on another maxed out credit card. It does not work for individuals nor will it work for governments.

Bigger government and more debt will not fix economic injustices and establish the social gospel’s perfect society. It will, however, be another giant step to a regulated collectivist welfare state.

Governments or societies built on the collectivist idea that public interest takes precedence over private profit for the well-being and advancement of all goes against human nature.

It is human nature to act in one’s own interest not the public or group’s interest. The social gospel goes against that nature. Being insensitive to human behavior all fail, be it the early American utopian experiment of Robert Own’s at New Harmony, Indiana, or the social gospel experiment and resulting Jim Jones Town tragedy. These, however, were groups not a whole nation.

"All animals are equal. But some animals are more equal than others."
______ George Orwell, Animal Farm

In a collectivist society all are equal. To make it work, however, some become more equal than others. Group or public (government) ownership, operation, and equal distribution of goods and services goes against human nature. Therefore, utopian societies or collectivist governments end up using force to restrict freedom of action and thought.

Which gospel will guide our future, the social gospel of Norman Thomas or "the" Gospel of Billy Sunday?

Be Informed Be Involved _________ Michael E. Odell

Your thoughts and comments are welcome, well most of the time.
E-mail: MichaelOdell@Lycos.com

There are many areas of involvement available. First, become informed. Then, what can you do?
Go to Blog Archive at upper right, click on May-11-08, "But What Can I Do?"

But, Is It Socialism?

2008-12-08T12:22:00.000-08:00

The Cure Is The Disease. But, Is It Socialism?

Although our memory of 2008's election marathon will fade, destructive economic decisions the candidates made will not.

To cure our financial ills, President Bush and both major presidential candidates championed the multibillion dollar bail out blunder—a quasi socialistic agenda designed to increase government control and/or ownership of private institutions. Newspaper pundits and TV chatter boxes continue to defend the bailouts and public works share-the-wealth ideas of President Obama, claiming such ideas are not socialistic. And of course they are.

The cure is the disease. We are borrowing money to bailout a problem caused by too much borrowing—debt. It is not only a financial problem it is a moral problem. The socialistic restructure promoted is based on envy. It arouses the looting mentality in the best of people: "If we don’t get the funds someone else will."

The stampede to get bailout funds is bad enough. Lusting after government succor and security, however, can turn into far worse than a stagnant welfare state.

"Whatever moral qualms Germans may have felt toward Nazi policies were swept away by waves of government handouts, tax breaks, and preferential legislation."
_______ Gotz Aly, Hitler’s Beneficiaries

Government control and/or ownership of production and distribution in Nazi Germany was called National Socialism, in Marxist Russia it was called Communism. Socialism has many names, from the self-inflicted suffering socialistic African Nations to the despotic socialistic regimes of South and Central America. Regardless of name and manner, the same results: bigger government, economic failure, less individual freedom.

The bail outs and numerous "comfort without effort, reward without risk" programs President Obama and our congressional leaders’ advocate are based on benefitting national political party interests to the detriment of individual consumer and producer. A giant step away from the market-oriented system—competitive capitalism—that made America prosperous and powerful. In its place, evermore subsidies and regulation, resulting in evermore government cost and control.

Wealth does not flow from government. Government devours wealth. The bigger the government the bigger the appetite.

"The effect of Welfarism on freedom will be felt later on—after its beneficiaries have become its victims." _______ Senator Barry Goldwater, The Conscience of a Conservative

Yes, socialism is more than sharing the wealth. Communism, National Socialism, or the secular welfare state, regardless the name and degree all are socialistic. All aspire to more than sharing wealth. All seek total public (government) ownership of production and public (government) distribution of such production. All look to government as the only answer. All seek to build a secular socialistic man-made utopia in their own image. All result in bigger centralized government control and planning. All result in varying degrees of totalitarianism. All seek to replace any sense of God with moral relativism. All seek to replace church and family with the dehumanizing state. All are enemies of Judeo-Christian thought and values.

Is that the direction we are being taken? Is this what we voted for? We cannot judge the hearts of our elected leaders. We can judge what they say and do. We are to use a right judgment in all things. Too many Americans, however, are unable to recognize lack of substance. Too many show inability or unwillingness to discern between right and wrong.

The result, voters elect leaders who seek a secular state: Where—with the promise to take care of all—a paternal dehumanizing state replaces church and family. Where Judeo-Christian thought and values are replaced with a national moral carte blanche, "If it feels good do it." A state where those who speak out or preach from the pulpit against the day’s popular immoralities will be charged with discrimination and hate crimes. A state where neo fascist mobocracy takes to the streets to terrorize dissenting voices.

"Real fascists know how to deal with dissent. They are not overburdened by an insipid bourgeois conscience. If someone gets in the way, they step on him like an insect. The fact that our society is dominated by a self-indulgent protest class is proof that oppression from the Right died a long time ago. On the other hand, oppression from the Left is just coming into its own." ______ Rev. Canon J. Gary L'Hommedieu

There is good news. I know, for many of us, things may not look great at the moment. But, there is good news. As citizens we do need to speak up and speak out and be politically active. We do not need, however, to put our faith in voters, elections, political parties or their candidates. Therein lives the "Good News." We may agree or disagree with their personal life styles or political decisions, nonetheless, we are to pray for those who administer our public institutions, those who govern our cities, states, and nation. Hard choices will need to be made. Pray our leaders seek God’s guidance, wisdom, and learn to put their trust in Him.

Ours is a great country. Our prayers can keep it that way.

Be Informed Be Involved _________ Michael E. Odell

There are many areas of involvement available. First, become informed. Then, what can you do? Go to Blog Archive at upper right, click on May-11-08, "But What Can I Do?"

Your thoughts and comments are welcome, well most of the time.

E-Mail: MichaelOdell@Lycos.com

Anguish & Political Messiahs

2008-11-12T14:11:00.000-08:00

Sometimes, when disillusioned by the antics of those who rule our public and private institutions, I wonder, if as a people, have we not only lost our mind but our moral compass? I pray not. When in moral decay a nation loses its virtue, then despair replaces hope. When a nation descends into financial chaos, then impulse replaces patience. Such a nation will cry out for a worldly messiah—as did Germany after World War One. For us today, if not a lesson to be learned, at least a warning.

By 1900, Germany was Europe’s great economic and industrial success story. Her culture and educational offerings unequaled in Europe, so too the strength of her financial institutions. Only America rivaled her in modernization of industrial technology and advances in scientific research. Then, in little more than a generation, this financial and industrial powerhouse was morally and financial bankrupt. She voted herself into the hands of a false messiah and plunged Europe into ruin.

In 1929, John Heygate a young Englishman seeking diversion visited Berlin. What he found was disheartening, a nation in moral collapse and financial ruin.

"So degraded was the picture, Heygate formed the impression that Germany had not only lost the war but, in its hopelessness and distress since, had lost its virtue: 'A whole generation of growing-up girls and boys came to think that it didn't matter...’ " ____ Peter Padfield's Himmler Reichsfuhrer-SS

World War One’s human and financial cost was high. The social cost that followed even higher. Pestilence and economic catastrophes demoralized those who survived the battle field. The 1917-19 influenza pandemic—the twentieth century's "black death"—killed multiple millions throughout the world, including more than 500,000 Americans.

In peasant Russia, the Communist revolution aborted any hope of a future Soviet middle-class. Lenin's socialist utopia swept away all idea of a caring God. In place of church and family, Lenin established the dehumanizing state.

In Germany, World War One’s impact was worse. Germany printed and borrowed money to finance the war. After the war, the inflationary policy continued until Germany’s currency was destroyed. But inflation destroys more than a nation's currency.

Run away inflation crushed Germany's potential for a growing and stable middle-class. Instead, violence and political intrigue shaped postwar Germany. Fear and despair fueled the class struggle for jobs, security, and position. Mobocracy ruled. Marxist, Fascists, and other socialist groups marched and battled each other. To perpetuate their privilege and position, industrialists, large landowners, and the military class embraced violence and political intrigue.

The general population lost faith in inherited customs and beliefs. They blamed God, other social and economic groups, or anyone different from their own norm. An embittered population packed the country's major cities. Perversion and eroticism saturated Hamburg and Berlin. Berlin provided the European sex-market with young bodies. Facing a future without hope or promise, teen and preteen boys and girls from the provinces flocked to Berlin. Desperate for money, wanting acceptance, Germany's future sold itself into drug addiction, sexual perversion and sadistic practices.

Germany lost the war, their hope, their virtue—a nation in financial ruin and moral collapse.
Families disintegrated. Husbands and wives abandoned each other. Parents abandoned their children, leaving them to fend for themselves or to die. Some Germans’ embraced mysticism. Others, with the cry, "For tomorrow we may die, "sought refuge in hedonism.

Prior to the war, anti-Semitism was only an undercurrent. Anti-Semitism was far worse in France. But, after the war, the Jewish community bore the blame for Germany’s afflictions. Anti-Semitism became a national policy. Press, political leaders, and the public blamed their fellow Jewish citizens for the war’s loss and for Germany’s moral and financial bankruptcy.

Out of financial chaos and moral decay rises a false savior. Germany’s messiah, Adolph Hitler and National Socialism, a socialist state system based on new-age paganism. Hitler became a human deity. He would deliver Germany from despair and disgrace. But, instead of a savior, extermination of Europe’s Jews and a global holocaust—World War Two.

"Two things only the people anxiously desire, bread and circus games." ___ Juvenal

World War One’s human and financial cost was high. The chaos and suffering that followed, higher. To establish order, Marxist Russia and Fascist Germany replaced church and family with the dehumanizing socialistic state. Millions were to die and millions more to suffer.

Seeking after bread and circus, Germany rejected God and abandoned Biblical truth. She sought after a worldly messiah—and got one. She lost her moral compass, her source of hope and virtue. And today, what of America’s moral compass? Will we turn our back on Biblical truths and embrace the false gods of secularism and the socialistic state? Will we put our faith in political messiahs? We appear to be going in that direction.

"Hope is no longer appropriate because they have left the One Who is the source of hope."
____ Unknown

Many American’s have forgotten without God nothing is worthwhile. A growing number of middle-aged men and women fear the future and feel they cannot do anything about it. Many young people either believe they face a future without hope or promise, or have a false sense of entitlement. And we are not just losing our moral compass, but purposefully throwing it away. Drug abuse, sexual promiscuity and perversion are now our norms—practiced and publically accepted by many.

As America faces financial chaos, many are ready to trade their dreams, hopes, and freedom for government’s false promise of security. More and more voters pursue political messiahs, divide-the-wealth politicians who preach a government based on envy, a secular and socialistic dehumanizing state that robs success and rewards failure.

To avoid the economic chaos and the moral collapse that engulfed Germany, we must reorder our priorities. Forsake the false values of entitlement. As a people, stop living beyond our means. Reject political pandering with its promise of government succor. Wealth does not flow from government. Government devours wealth. The bigger the government the bigger the appetite.

Let us learn from history. It is not too late. Ours is still a great nation. Let us work and pray to keep it that way.

Be Informed Be Involved _________ Michael E. Odell

Your thoughts and comments are welcome, well most of the time.
E-mail: MichaelOdell@Lycos.com

If you wish to initiate right change in both our public and private institutions, go to Blog Archive May-11-08, "But What Can I Do?"

The Two Americas

2008-10-16T13:02:00.000-07:00

Our two widely divided Americas—in moral values and political ideologies—came into full bloom in the last half of the 20th Century.

During the first half, we were still basically one America. But seeds were planted. A liberal theology planted in the pulpit and John Dewey’s progressive education planted in the classroom. Many of America's authors, journalists, and playwrights turned from informing and entertaining to criticizing "old fashion" values of middle-America.

The first half of the century was not easy. America endured World War One, World War Two, the Dust Bowl, and the Great Depression. Americans of the first half of the century also suffered two death dealing waves of Influenza. The pandemic swept across America and the world, killing an estimated 50 million worldwide.

World War Two ended. The Great Depression was in the past. Previously unemployed were working, millions of women and young people for the first time. Peace and better times returned. A wave of prosperity washed across our nation, farmers' incomes tripled, wages increased, businesses flourished, and medical science brought many communicable diseases under control.

Prior to the mid-1950s, Polio was the number one killer and crippler of America's youth. The virus usually struck in summer or late summer. Giving my mother, in fact every mother, fear-filled visions of crippled legs and iron lungs—the results of polio. Then during the 1950s, modern medical science brought polio, tuberculosis, and venereal disease under control.

America’s future looked hopeful. Although we had regional, economic, political, and religious differences we were predominately one America.

The1950s, however, brought new concerns. Many felt threatened by communist subversion from within. Many more were fearful of atomic annihilation from without. It was a time of the Cold War and bomb shelters. Social attitudes came under attack. Middle-America values were bent and undermined. Fashionable literature declared war on Christian thought and behavior. Popular books accepting anything and condemning nothing ranged from beatnik Jack Kerouac’s On the Road, to Objectivist Ayn Rand's, Atlas Shrugged.

"A man's worst difficulties begin when he is able to do as he likes." ______ T.H. Huxley

During the decades following the1950s, the other America raised its hideous head, feeding on anger and discontentment. Social attitudes changed rapidly and radically. Civil unrest increased. Rioters looted and burnt America's inner-cities. Anti-Vietnam war demonstrators' declared war on America's universities. Anarchists and left-wing extremism captured college campuses. For many younger Americans, political activism and social revolution replaced the quest for material success. Others just "tuned in, turned on, and dropped out."

The gulf between the two Americas expanded. The entertainment industry glorified sex perversion, violence, and greed. The secular news media ridiculed those who espoused Judeo-Christian morals and values. Media, academia, politicians and apostate church leaders championed the sinful homosexual life style. Death advocates champion the sins of abortion, infanticide, and euthanasia. Biblical standards were out. Sin was in.

Secularism’s self-indulgence had a price. Families blew apart. Sexual abuse and violence escalated. America's moral decline produced a drug abuse and AIDS epidemic. Other sexually transmitted diseases once under control became epidemic.

Concerned Christian Fundamentalists, Evangelicals, and Conservatives from mainline denominations—many who previously did not believe Christians should be politically involved—became active in partisan politics. During the 1970s and 1980s they grew in political strength.

"They valued profits. And money. Especially money, and all the things that money could buy, and all the kudos that attached to the person with most of it."

______ Michael Lewis, Liar's Poker—Rising Through The Wreckage on Wall Street

Although more middle-Americans' sought traditional values, secularism’s moral carte blanche poisoned political and corporate life. The consequences, greed and dishonesty. America became a nation of you-deserve-it consumption and unlimited credit.

America's split personalities widen during the 1980s. Traders and salesmen at Salomon Brothers turned millions of dollars' in bonds with just one call. Pride and greed reigned. Gutfreund, Salomon's chairman, challenged his chief trader to a hand of lairs’ poker for one million dollars.

At Drexel Burnham Lambert, junk-bond king Michael Milken raised billions to finance takeovers and leveraged buyouts. Those working with Milken became millionaires. One called Drexel a god, and declared gods can do whatever they want. These gods did. They pursued success and materialism and confused individualism and laissez-faire capitalism with greed and dishonesty. Wall street manipulators and takeover artists made millions in paper profits. Junk bond salesmen pedaling financial nonsense made billions. Dishonest high-living S&L officers, along with self-serving politicians and incompetent bureaucrats raped an entire industry—costing taxpayers nearly half a trillion dollars.

Today, when we look at the recent bailouts, handouts, and other additions to our Nation’s burdening debt and unfunded liabilities, it seems a small sum in comparison.

Envy, greed, dishonesty, and political lust for power have given us a 10 trillion-dollar federal debt, a debt that grows every day. This does not include multi trillions more of unfunded liabilities. By 2008, interest payments on the Federal debt consumed the first four months of federal tax revenues.

"We can have it all." Well, not really. Our national lack of self discipline, desire for unlimited credit, and a belief in wealth without effort and reward without risk has sent cities, states, individuals, and our Federal government to the edge of national bankruptcy.

We have a serious financial and political problem, also a sinister and deeply rooted moral problem. Neither problem is self correcting, just the opposite.

There are two Americas. One embraces secular values of self indulgence. The other, Judeo-Christian values of hard work, and self-discipline. One looks to government as the answer and seeks to build a socialistic man-made utopia in their own image. The other trusts in Biblical truth, without God nothing is worthwhile. One espouses the sins of abortion and homosexuality. The other America does not. One—a minority but a loud shrill voice—embraces the relative ethics and moral vacuum of secularism. The other holds to Biblical standards and moral absolutes—but often does not stand up and speak out.

Yes, there are two Americas and the difference between the two has grown wide and deep. One major political party strongly embraces a secular America and one tends to lean to the other. As citizens we need to be politically aware. Our faith, however, cannot be in political promises and political parties.

America is still the world’s greatest country. What of the future? Which America? We have a choice. You and I can work, pray and speak out against the corrupting influence of self-indulgence and moral decay of a secularist America. Or, we can leave our public and private institutions to the spiritual bankrupt to rule and ruin. Is a nation of political harlotry, crushing debt, and moral decay the legacy we wish to leave our children and grandchildren? Of course not. It will be if we do nothing. Either we privately and publically resist evil or we surrender to it.

Be Informed Be Involved _________ Michael E. Odell

Your thoughts and comments are welcome, well most of the time.
E-mail: MichaelOdell@Lycos.com

Have You Been Bought?

2008-09-26T09:37:00.000-07:00

Many politicians believe your vote and your beliefs are for sale. They outbid each other, promising more federal monies, programs, bail outs, and giveaways—adding to the size of government, our crushing federal debt, and further depreciating the dollar.

"The state has learned from the merchants and industrialists how to exploit credit; it defies the nation ever to let it go into bankruptcy. Alongside all swindlers the state now stands there
as swindler-in-chief." _____ Jakob Burkhardt

Office seekers promise to gratify present desires at the future expense of someone else. There is no someone else. The distance between government revenues and expenditures is exploding and must be addressed. Neither Democrat nor Republican Presidential candidate seems willing to discuss the sacrificial steps we all must take. Why? It will mean self-denial and it may take decades. A message candidates believe will not buy your vote.

They do advocate improving fiscal accountability and eliminating government waste. That is admirable and painless—and more talk. But, it will not end nor stop the ever widening gap between revenues and expenditures. There are no painless solutions. It will take hurtful cuts in present federal programs and in the unrestrained cost of future entitlement programs. So far, they seem unwilling to give particular solutions.

Instead, we are promised hundreds of billions more in spending and/or tax cuts—at the future expense of someone else.

The Republican Presidential candidate promised a balanced budget by 2013. Yet gave no solid ideas for doing so, no painful cuts in present programs and future entitlement programs, nor did the Democrat candidate.

To solve all our social and economic problems, Democrat Presidential and vice-presidential candidates publically advocated taking from the so-called haves and giving it to the have nots. Their financial policy, "From each according to his ability to each according to his need." A basic Marxist axiom advocating a divide-the-wealth socialist government based on envy.

True prosperity for all cannot be built on the Marxist idea of dividing the wealth—using government force to take money from one citizen to economically benefit another. Nor can true prosperity for all be built on reward without risk. True prosperity for all comes from hope, ideas, hard work, fiscal responsibility, and the freedom to succeed—not from envy, political promises, inflated dollars, government bailouts, bigger government, and more debt.

Government is meant to serve the people. Not, the people are to serve government. All too often government is the problem, not the answer. But what can you and I do?

When it comes to our Nation’s political and moral situation, it is not enough to just hold strong Biblical beliefs. If we wish to have our beliefs acted on, we need to express our concerns to the decision makers. When you and I act alone our message only has the strength of one. The greater the number of people giving a message, or appear to be giving it, the mightier the message.

The group who produces the most votes—or appears too—has the biggest voice. Political candidates, once elected, concentrate on getting reelected. Usually by fulfilling promises to groups who appear to get them elected or self interest groups with the shrillest voice.

To gain a bigger voice and multiply our effectiveness, we must form, join, and support groups with similar Judeo-Christian values and goals. When it comes to our public and private institutions, we need to become informed and involved. The enemies of Judeo-Christian values, those who accept anything and condemn nothing, are very active.

Voting is part of being a U.S. citizen. But it is going to take more than voting and political action. What is it going to take? Regardless of election outcome, it is going to take prayer. Those of us who want God’s best for our Nation, for our family, friends, and children’s children, realize there are perilous problems. Still, America remains the land of opportunity. But for how long? It is up to us to preserve that opportunity. Our vote counts. Our voice counts. It is not too late.

Be Informed Be Involved _________ Michael E. Odell

If your beliefs and vote are not for sale and you wish to help initiate right change in both our public and private institutions, go to Blog Archive May 11, 2008 "But What Can I Do?"

Abstinence Or VD?

2008-09-15T09:59:00.000-07:00

A recent letter to the editor of my local paper attacked one vice-presidential candidate for advocating abstinence sex education. The writer blamed the candidate’s belief in teaching abstinence as the cause of the candidates’s teenage daughter’s pregnancy.

If the young lady listened to her parents, it would not have happened. Abstinence is 100 percent effective in preventing unplanned pregnancies.

After four decades of non abstinence secular sex education, our young men and women continue to be tragic victims of this new morality. Nowhere has secular morality, making wrong appear right, taken such a heart wrenching toll than on America’s youth. They pay a burdensome price. The Center for Disease and Control statistics show, in America's major cities, approximately one out of four teenage girls has at least one sexually transmitted disease—some more than one. And the epidemic is spreading to our rural areas. Teenagers’ futures ruined, babies born to infected mothers suffer mental and physical afflictions. For some—mother and/or child—the results are fatal.

Historically, a teenage father and pregnant teenage girl are nothing new. Today it is more than that. Teaching secular ethics instead of Judeo-Christian values has resulted in increased teen suicides, drug abuse, venereal disease, as well as unplanned pregnancies.

Venereal diseases under control in the 1950s are now rampant. Incurable and deadly new sexually transmitted viruses are epidemic. More than 20 sexually transmitted diseases are widespread.

To prevent the spread of sexually transmitted diseases, abstinence is as close to100 percent effective as you can get. Judeo-Christian tangible values, including abstinence, are founded on the idea of self discipline and delaying gratification until the right time. These are values our Nation's secularists have replaced with a moral carte blanche.

It is not good. Is it too late? No, but real change is needed. It will take a complete turn about of our Nation’s direction.

Teenager or senior citizen, in public and private life, America needs to re embrace Judeo-Christian values of self-discipline and personal responsibility.

___________ Michael E. Odell

For Other Posts by Michael E.Odell - Click on "Blog Archive" at upper right

Noble Or Secular Life?

2008-08-18T15:39:00.000-07:00

"To be nobody-but-yourself—in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else—means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting."
____ E. Cummings

And a battle it is. We are influenced by a secular society that bases human worth on money accumulated and goods possessed. We are influenced by a secular news and entertainment media that negatively manipulates tastes and values. Our youth are persuaded to substitute convictions for acceptance—popularity. Later, many are persuaded to trade their dreams and hopes for the false promise of worldly or government security.

Hope of a better tomorrow and a noble life cannot be built on today’s political pandering and promise of government succor. Ask those Americans on government reservations—free physically, trapped psychologically. Ask those seduced by welfare; those snared by the despair of rural poverty or imprisoned by the moral decay of inner-city ghettos.

And today, all too often, hope of a better tomorrow cannot be found in corporate promises. Ask the man or woman, who after 5, 10, or 20 years of loyalty and hard work found themselves no longer wanted.

In our quest to achieve the noble life, you and I must not allow others to manipulate our tastes and values. We must not trade our hopes and dreams for false security. And we must not compromise our convictions for popularity.

Never has secular soliciting for our national soul been so great. Going against this pressure is tough. It takes spiritual strength. It takes persistence. It takes fellowship with other like-minded individuals.

In business and politics—as well as our personal life—we need individuals who seek truth, not business as usual. Developing a noble life takes the intestinal fortitude to ask: Is this true? Is what I do consistent with what I say or what I believe?

"Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing... you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect."
_____ Romans 12:2

We need to be aware, and not let our dream of a better tomorrow turn into a nightmare of corrupted secular values. We need to take personal responsibility and not allow our tastes and values to be manipulated by ads, fads, and untruths of the day. We must not trade our hopes and dreams nor compromise our convictions in order to receive popular acceptance.

The rewards of a noble life are in direct proportion to our contributions. The more we serve the bigger our rewards.

A noble life in service to others or a self-centered secular life? The secular values of today’s political "progressives"did not get America through an agonizing civil war. Secular values did not give hope to struggling families during economic depressions and financial panics. Secular values did not sustain earlier Americans through death dealing epidemics and two world wars. America's Christian values and spiritual strength did.

___________ Michael E. Odell

For Other Posts by Michael E.Odell —click on "Blog Archive" at upper right
07-25-08 Monetary Crack Cocaine
07-02-08 Faith Based In Whom
06-13-08 Vote for Change?
05-19-08 Poverty & Envy or Hope & Prosperity
05-11-08 But What Can I Do? Christians Should Not Be In Politics
04-11-08 Sex, Debt, Drugs - America's Epidemic & New York’s Governor
03-28-08 Rare Coin Investments 101 & Choosing A Dealer
03-20-08 Gold Mining Stock Investing 101 - Booms & Busts
03-15-08 Gold Coin Investing 101
03-15-08 Investment 101 - only safe way to double your money
03-03-08 Real Men or Girly Men
02-29-08 A Cup of Hemlock for Washington State
02-13-08 Death & Suicide Initiative 119 Are Back
02-12-08 Thorns or Roses - The Choice Is Ours
02-12-08 Recession & Inflation - Government the Problem
12-08-07 A Hamburger Today & Pay Tomorrow

Monetary Crack Cocaine

2008-07-25T12:22:00.000-07:00

Avoid the Pain With Monetary Crack Cocaine

We may be avoiding withdrawal pains today, but we are impoverishing our tomorrows. The dollar has hit all time lows. Real estate and stock market values have taken a beating. Some major financial institutions face insolvency. Banks have failed or are on a verge of doing so. Our individual savings rate has dropped to nearly zero.

Not everything, however, is going down. Under President Bush’s administration, federal government and federal programs continue to grow at their fastest rate. Home foreclosures hit all time highs. Inflation is increasing, federal deficits soaring. Interest paid to foreigners who hold our debt reaches yearly new highs. Individual household debt up 15 percent and consumer debt up 22 percent.

Do we need to consider our ways? Our bill for living beyond our means is enormous and coming due. But, to avoid the pain of withdrawal from decades of personal and national monetary irresponsibility, we grasp for another quick but temporary fix. Our monetary drug dealer, the Federal Reserve, mans the monetary pump. Our financial system is given another hit of monetary crack cocaine—adding to our trillions of dollars in unfunded government liabilities, or creating billions of dollars and expanding the U.S. money supply. The result, inflation, more and more dollars chasing the same amount of goods and services.

Eventually the natural law of economics will overrule political decree—regardless the party in control. And then?

"To live beyond our means today is to live below them tomorrow." ____ Dr. Hans Sennholz, Debts and Deficits, 1987

It is not too late—yet. But we need to consider our ways. Less than four decades ago America's "spend your way to prosperity" policy of the 1960s and 1970s ended in double digit inflation.

In 1970, the Nixon administration declared the U.S. dollar abroad no longer redeemable in gold. After all, claimed media and political pundits, "The dollar is as good as gold." But it wasn’t. The dollar's value at home and abroad plunged. Gold prices soared and worldwide inflation accelerated.

To restore faith in the dollar, we needed major financial surgery. Instead cosmetics were used.

The Nixon administration did what Republicans do not do, impose wage and price controls. Controls that do not and did not work. The problem, not higher wages nor higher prices. That was the result. The problem, more and more US dollars chasing the same amount of goods and services—government inflating the money supply.

The financial debacle intensified. The politicians became sillier. None more so than President Ford when he declared war on inflation. His ammunition? He suggested everyone wear WIN buttons (Whip Inflation Now). Ford went out and Carter came in. President Carter’s answer, "tight money" talk.

As we said, the natural law of economics eventually overrules political decrees. As it did Nixon’s failed price controls, Ford’s silly WIN buttons, and Carter’s "tight money" talk. As Carter talked, we flooded the world with U.S. dollars. International banks were reluctant to accept more. The U.S. faced soaring double digit interest rates and double digit inflation.

Forced to add action to President Carter’s "tight money" talk, the Federal Reserve raised the discount rate—the interest rate charged member banks. Higher rates discouraged further borrowing from the Federal Reserve Central Bank. Member banks borrowed from the private sector at lower interest rates in order to pay off loans owed to the Federal Reserve. Dollars flowed out of the world financial system into the Federal Reserve. But not in time for President Carter. Carter went out and Reagan came in.

As President Reagan took office, the massive outflow of dollars overseas stopped. The dollar recovered. Foreign demand for the dollar increased as the need to pay off international loans grew. A stronger dollar abroad, lower oil prices at home, and massive importation of cheap foreign goods all helped to curb domestic price increases. In the summer of 1982, the U.S. economy was in a recession, unemployment the highest rate since the Great Depression—pain.

The Federal Reserve released the tight-money brake and stomped on the easy-credit gas pedal. At the end of 1982, financial institutions appeared strong. The great bull market for stocks started.

Wave after wave of optimism swept over the stock market. Investors fed by illusions of easy money and unstoppable expansion ignored flashing danger signals. Then October 19, 1987, that which was going to go on forever, didn't. Stock market euphoria ended. Without buyers, sell orders piled up. The Dow Jones Industrial Index plummeted 508 points.

Next trading day, another wave of selling swamped the London Stock Exchange. The biggest one-day loss hit the Australian stock market. The Hong Kong market remained closed. Large U.S. securities firms and over-the-counter market makers on the brink of collapse. To the rescue, the lender of last resort, the Federal Reserve.

Waves of optimism swept over stock market investors—real estate investors soon followed. Then 2008, after more than a decade of seeming prosperity, a financial moment of truth.

Housing, stock market, and financial institutions faced a crisis. To avoid the pain of financial self discipline, both Republicans and Democrats pushed the Bush stimulus package—further increasing both federal debt and inflation. And some politicians are asking for a second stimulus or rebate package. Congress and the Federal Reserve’s housing real-estate bailouts have already added more than one trillion dollars in additional unfunded government liabilities. Saving us, hopefully, again from a much needed but painful correction. Like crack cocaine, however, each comedown takes a bigger fix to get high, and more often.

Lasting wealth for all comes from hope, ideas, inventions, and hard work—not from inflated dollars, government bailouts, and even more debt.

The good news, America’s economy is still strong. Will it remain strong? I pray so. We want God’s best for our family, friends, and Nation. That, however, cannot be built on vote buying political promises and voter desires based on secular values of "Reward without risk, wealth without work." We need moral restoration.

Ours is still the land of opportunity. To preserve that opportunity and renew hope for a better tomorrow we need to consider our ways.

Now therefore thus saith the LORD of hosts; Consider your ways. Ye have sown much, and bring in little; ye eat, but ye have not enough; ye drink, but ye are not filled with drink; ye clothe you, but there is none warm; and he that earneth wages earneth wages to put it into a bag with holes. Ye looked for much, and, lo it came to little; and when ye brought it home, I did blow upon it. Why? saith the LORD of hosts. Because of mine house that is waste, and ye run every man unto his own house. _____ Haggai 1:5,6,9

Be Informed Be Involved _________ Michael E. Odell

To help initiate right political change, go to Blog Archive May11, 2008, "But What Can I Do?"

For Other Posts by Michael E.Odell —click on "Blog Archive" at upper right
07-02-08 Faith Based In Whom
06-13-08 Vote for Change?
05-19-08 Poverty & Envy or Hope & Prosperity
05-11-08 But What Can I Do? Christians Should Not Be In Politics
04-11-08 Sex, Debt, Drugs - America's Epidemic & New York’s Governor
03-28-08 Rare Coin Investments 101 & Choosing A Dealer
03-20-08 Gold Mining Stock Investing 101 - Booms & Busts
03-15-08 Gold Coin Investing 101
03-15-08 Investment 101 - only safe way to double your money
03-03-08 Real Men or Girly Men
02-29-08 A Cup of Hemlock for Washington State
02-13-08 Death & Suicide Initiative 119 Are Back
02-12-08 Thorns or Roses - The Choice Is Ours
02-12-08 Recession & Inflation - Government the Problem
12-08-07 A Hamburger Today & Pay Tomorrow

Faith Based In Whom?

2008-07-02T17:01:00.000-07:00

"Whose bread you eat his song you sing."

Democrat Presidential nominee Obama stated he would not only keep President Bush’s Faith Based program, he will expanded it. But, ah yes the big but, he will insist all federal laws and anti discrimination polices be enforced—and proselytizing will not be allowed. No praying. No witnessing. What then is left for evangelical Christians? Just another secular government program I am sorry to say,

Federal monies are not free. There is always a price to pay. Sodomites, atheists, and every other secular advocate will insist on being part of any and all future Faith Based programs. And they will be fully backed by the President and the Federal government and its agencies. When the program started, many left-leaning social gospel organizations were already the first in line.

As I said, federal monies are not free. It costs someone. Government grants, loans, and funds lead to increased rules and regulations. Worse yet, the offer of federal monies brings out the looting mentality in best of people. "Thou shall not steal"and "Thou shall not covet" are ignored in the quest for federal monies.

"If we don’t get the funds someone else will." A paraphrase I heard, I am sorry to say, from several evangelical Christian friends when I questioned supporting the Faith Based endeavor. I did not support the idea then and certainly do not now.

Government has no money. All federal funds are monies taken from someone else, either through taxation, or through increasing the money supply and pilfering from everyone through inflation.

The federal government’s constitutional mandate is to protect us from an external threat and to insure equal administration of justice. When government force is used to take money from one citizen to economically benefit another that is thievery—looting.

Escalating government spending and increasing debt sap the dollar’s purchasing power. The increasing plethora of government regulations increasingly chokes economic growth. The inevitable result? Our frayed social fabric finally shredded. Our dwindling middle-class nonexistent. A wealthy few reign, the rest live in want and despair.

The good news, it is not too late to attain the promise of God’s best that can be ours. The best that can be ours, however, will not come through vote buying political promises offering more secular government programs.

There were those who believed President Bush’s Faith Based Program a good cause, and supported it with good intentions. But there are thousands of federal financed causes, causes others believe are deserving—particularly those who receive or hope to receive federal funds.

Faith based yes, but faith in whom or what? Will it be "Government shall supply all my wants" or will it be "My God shall supply all my needs?"

__________ Michael E. Odell

To help initiate right political change, go to Blog Archive 05-11-08, "But What Can I Do?"

For Other Posts by Michael E.Odell —click on "Blog Archive" at upper right

06-13-08 Vote for Change?
05-19-08 Poverty & Envy or Hope & Prosperity
05-11-08 But What Can I Do? Christians Should Not Be In Politics
04-11-08 Sex, Debt, Drugs - America's Epidemic & New York’s Governor

Vote For Change?

2008-06-13T13:02:00.000-07:00

Whom should we vote for? Which political party should we support? What about change?

Yes, we need change. But, what are we going to change? How are we going to change it? And what will we change it too? Change for sake of changing will not solve challenges we face individually and as a nation. Neither will wrong change. Karl Marx offered change. Mao and Stalin offered change. Hitler offered change. Many supported their call to change. Change came and multimillions died horribly—leaving a world still suffering from those changes.

As World War Two ended we too were undergoing negative change—slowly at first. Then, the late 1950s through the1960s, political and social attitudes underwent rapid radical change.

Playboy porno-pushers offered change. Mechanical sex and promiscuous affairs replaced love and intimacy. Change brought sexual emancipation—adultery and sexual promiscuity without guilt. More than 20 sexually transmitted diseases gained epidemic status. Marriages decayed then disintegrated. America’s men failed as husbands and America’s men failed as fathers. Change.

LSD Guru Timothy Learn offered change as did numerous other proponents of recreational drug use. LSD became the 1960's gospel. Street ministers without God preached chemical salvation. University professors without answers taught chemical unconsciousness. With drug blown minds and inflated egos, hallucinogen sorcerers cast their spell: "Tune in, turn on, drop out." Rebellion against authority ensnared America's youth. Youth without moral direction heeded the secularists’ call: "Do your own thing." They did.

During the 1970s, those believing "a little pot never hurt anyone," included aging hippies living in old Volkswagen buses and stockbrokers toking an afternoon delight in a Wall Street rest room. In the later 1980s, many graduated to cocaine abuse. Then crack cocaine and meth became another self-inflicted American epidemic. Change.

Men failed as husbands and fathers. A growing number of youth without direction dropped out. The next victim, wife and mother, the family mainstay.

Female liberationists offered change. Liberationists demanded equal opportunities and an end to the double standard—legitimate complaints. They also focused on belittling the role of wife, mother, and homemaker—the family mainstay. As go our Nation’s mothers so goes the family, and so goes our Nation. Change.

America established its greatness on the truth that human life has intrinsic value. Life is God given. Human worth today, however, is often based on secular materialistic values. Our U.S. Supreme Court legitimized abortion. The U.S. Senate legitimized late term abortion—the taking of a human life as he or she is being born. In 1990, Detroit Pathologist Dr. Jack Kevorkian proudly announced the use of his homemade suicide machine. And the "death with dignity" advocates not only wanted legalized physician-assisted suicide for terminally ill patients, but "death-on-demand" for everyone. Change.

Lusting after materialism, our personal and public debt has reached pandemic dimensions. Our entertainment media once produced patriotic and family entertainment. Today’s media negatively manipulate tastes and values. TV, music, and movies push profanity, brutal violence, and promiscuous sexual behavior. Change.

Oh yes, the small in number but vocal "God is dead" publicity seeking revisionist church pastors. These tiresome apostates preach a secularist social gospel—a moral carte blanche. Change.

Six decades of wrong change. Change that mislead the bewildered. Change that ensnared the dissatisfied.

Yes, change is needed in many areas. But we need right change, a positive change. When a political party, a candidate, or a neighbor tells you they support change, ask them: What are you going to change? How are you going to change it? And what will you change it too?

"Without Christianity, our society is doomed" ____ Rev Dr. Peter Mullen, Rector of St. Michael's, England

Yes we have our problems. The "Blame America Firsters" and the "Sky is falling" prophets of doom are wrong. Ours is still a great country. To keep it great and make it greater, however, will take a renewal of America's spiritual strength. Without Christianity our society too is doomed. The good news, it is not too late, if, as a Nation we turn from secularism. Its moral void. Its call to self indulgence. It’s false promise of leisure without labor.

We need to reestablish Judeo-Christian moral values and the ideas of saving, hard work, self-discipline. It will not be easy. It will take prayer and the right political change. As individuals and as a nation we must pursue the promise of God’s best that can be ours.

_____________ Michael E. Odell

To help initiate right political change, go to Blog Archive May 11, 2008, "But What Can I Do? "

For Other Posts by Michael E.Odell —click on "Blog Archive" at upper right
05-19-08 Poverty & Envy or Hope & Prosperity
05-11-08 But What Can I Do? Christians Should Not Be In Politics
04-11-08 Sex, Debt, Drugs - America's Epidemic & New York’s Governor
03-28-08 Rare Coin Investments 101 & Choosing A Dealer
03-20-08 Gold Mining Stock Investing 101 - Booms & Busts
03-15-08 Gold Coin Investing 101
03-15-08 Investment 101 - only safe way to double your money
03-03-08 Real Men or Girly Men
02-29-08 A Cup of Hemlock for Washington State
02-13-08 Death & Suicide Initiative 119 Are Back
02-12-08 Thorns or Roses - The Choice Is Ours
02-12-08 Recession & Inflation - Government the Problem
12-08-07 A Hamburger Today & Pay Tomorrow

Poverty & Envy or Hope & Prosperity

2008-05-19T10:08:00.000-07:00

"There is no shame in being poor. But it sure can be inconvenient." ____ Unknown

Poverty is a sad fact. We are bombarded with erroneous academic theories and self-serving political prattle on the causes—particularly at election time.

These proponents of pessimism want us to believe wealth is limited. If you are blessed with two pairs of shoes and three meals a day you should feel guilty and forced to divide with those having less. After all, the world’s wealth is limited.

These bad news bearers are wrong. Opportunity to create new wealth is unlimited. New wealth comes from hope, ideas, inventions, from the earth itself—not from the negativism of envy.

Until the 19th century, oil was a gooey muck with limited use and value. Then came the internal combustion engine and numerous new petrochemical products—and billions in new wealth.

In the 1950s, tiny transistors began to replace bulky and power consuming electron tubes. Transistors revolutionized electronic circuit construction. Engineers produced entire integrated electronic circuits on a single silicon wafer. Existing products were simplified and improved. The transistor gave birth to new products, new businesses, and new wealth. For those of us in the electronic and communication business the possibilities were exciting.

None could imagine the wealth creating opportunities the microchip and personal computer would bring.

Today, the microchip continues to create new industries and new wealth. Made of silicon an element of sand, the microchip is a winning combination of dirt, an idea, and hard work.

Hope, new ideas, hard work, and freedom to succeed are the answers to poverty. Not envy. Not lowering everyone’s living standard by taking from the haves and dividing it amongst the have nots.

To create new wealth and raise everyone’s living standard we need men and women with character, entrepreneurs dedicated to honest work and service to others. And that is the small-business owner.

Each year thousands of entrepreneurs start a new business. It may be a one-person enterprise today, but a potential Fortune 500 company. It may be a part-time business conducted from the kitchen table. All create new wealth—the real answer to poverty.

Ever so often someone like Microsoft’s Bill Gates takes an idea or a resource and creates billions in new wealth. For that we are thankful. It is, however, the hundreds of thousands of ongoing small entrepreneurs and would be entrepreneurs who created and continue to create trillions of dollars in new wealth.

"But things look so bad now." Don’t listen to these bad news bearers—the why you can’ters. They are wrong. Why you can’ters always have a reason not to try.

Even after the devastating Market Crash of 1928-29 and the1930's Great Depression that followed, thousands of new and successful small businesses were started each year. Today, an estimated 45 percent of all U.S. households support a home office or business activity. Many are successful part-time ventures, endeavors undertaken to earn extra income. Others are flourishing full-time enterprises.

"If people did not prefer reaping to sowing, there would not be a hungry person in the land." ______ Unknown

America has her difficulties, but the opportunities to accomplish have never been better. To succeed it takes the three Ps: preparation, perspiration, and persistence. And today’s business, investment, and personal opportunities available are varied and numerous.

Unfortunately, there are many pseudo-opportunities, ideas with little or no possibility of making money for anyone other than the promoters. They usually operate on the "Greater fool theory." The theory that caused the Dot-com bust of a few years ago and the real estate debacle of 2008. This is the belief that no matter how much you pay, regardless of true value, a greater fool than you will come along and pay you more. The "Greater fool theory" is similar to the children’s game of Hot Potato. To avoid being left holding the Hot Potato, do not play with those who prefer reaping to sowing, wealth without effort.

Yes, poverty is a sad fact. The poor we will always have with us. When it comes to helping the poor, due to our Judeo-Christian heritage, we are the world’s most generous people. We Americans give billions of dollars in aid out of both our public and our private purse. To continue to do so, we must have the freedom to create new wealth. That requires a government that respects and protects our individual right to life, liberty, and property. Creating new wealth depends on a government that allows the individual to prosper, to freely pursue his or her dream. Not a government based on envy.

_____________ Michael E.Odell

For Other Posts by Michael E.Odell —click on "Blog Archive" at upper right
05-11-08 But What Can I Do? Christians Should Not Be In Politics
04-11-08 Sex, Debt, Drugs - America's Epidemic & New York’s Governor
03-28-08 Rare Coin Investments 101 & Choosing A Dealer
03-20-08 Gold Mining Stock Investing 101 - Booms & Busts
03-15-08 Gold Coin Investing 101
03-15-08 Investment 101 - only safe way to double your money
03-03-08 Real Men or Girly Men
02-29-08 A Cup of Hemlock for Washington State
02-13-08 Death & Suicide Initiative 119 Are Back
02-12-08 Thorns or Roses - The Choice Is Ours
02-12-08 Recession & Inflation - Government the Problem
12-08-07 A Hamburger Today & Pay Tomorrow

What Can I Do? Christians Should Not Be In Politics

2008-05-11T17:57:00.000-07:00

Christians should not be in politics, or should they? The enemies of Judeo-Christian values are. Voting is part of being a U.S. citizen. We may not be of this world, but we are certainly in it. Do you wish to have a government that protects our individual rights and our religious freedom? Or will you surrender to a nation of public and private institutions ruled by the spiritually bankrupt, individuals who vigorously seek to destroy our religious freedom? We have a choice. It is not too late. It will, however, take more than voting.

But what can you do? Here are six proven action steps:

(1) Writing letters or E-mailing is one of the more influential actions we all can take. Personal letters are usually more effective. Write letters to legislators, educators, advertisers. Also write letters of appreciation and encouragement to those in the public spotlight who have taken a public stand for Judeo-Christian values or protecting the individual’s right to life, liberty, and property.

(2) Form a committee. How many people does it take to be a committee? Just one. Local news media is far more receptive to press releases from a committee. The price to rent a post office box and print a letterhead is minimal. You can form an ongoing general committee. The committee can monitor political candidates and their actions. You can also form a temporary committee to expose and combat a specific issue. Is a local judge more concerned with criminal rights than justice? Form a committee to monitor his or her courtroom. Be sure to let everyone know you are doing it.

(3) Promote traditional values literature. First become informed then get the truth out. Some will only read an article, some a pamphlet, others a book. Follow up with further information and a call for action on their part. Invest your time, money, and energy educating only those receptive to Judeo-Christian values.

(4) Speak up. If we influence one person at a time or one hundred, positive changes will take place. If you are well informed and have the ability, become a speaker. Offer your speaking services to various groups. Attend public functions where policy makers encourage public feedback. Then stand up and do so. If you are informed and can think on your feet, your verbal skills are needed to challenge the enemies of Judeo-Christian values. The vehement vocal minority, apologists for spiritual bankruptcy, are quick to speak up or appear before various local groups. Those holding Judeo-Christian values must be prepared to challenge these people.

(5) Being a picket or a pamphleteer is not for everyone. For some it can be fun, those who enjoy the activity. Your visual presence is encouraging to others holding Judeo-Christian values. They know they are not alone. Those who attack and belittle Judeo-Christian values will profess their right to do so. Well you have the right to speak out for your Judeo-Christian values.

(6) Prayer is our most powerful weapon. Your prayers can change our Nation’s negative direction.

To end the corrupting influence of self-indulgence and moral decay, we must replace the spiritually bankrupt who rule our public and private institutions. We need to fill our judicial system, public institutions, corporate boardrooms, and legislative halls with those who understand the truth of moral absolutes.

By influencing public opinion or being involved in the political process you can replace a judge, change a school director, or elect a legislator. Through prayer you can change a nation. It is up to you.
__________ Michael E. Odell

"Right is right, even if nobody does it. Wrong is wrong, even if everybody is wrong about it."
____ G. K. Chesterton

For Other Posts by Michael E.Odell —click on "Blog Archive" at upper right

04-11-08 Sex, Debt, Drugs - America's Epidemic & New York’s Governor
03-28-08 Rare Coin Investments 101 & Choosing A Dealer
03-20-08 Gold Mining Stock Investing 101 - Booms & Busts
03-15-08 Gold Coin Investing 101
03-15-08 Investment 101 - only safe way to double your money
03-03-08 Real Men or Girly Men
02-29-08 A Cup of Hemlock for Washington State
02-13-08 Death & Suicide Initiative 119 Are Back

Sex, Debt, Drugs - America's Epidemic & New York’s Governor

2008-04-11T11:59:00.000-07:00

I love the United States. I hope you do too. We are the world’s most generous people. We give out of both our public and our private purse. We give hundreds of billions of dollars in aid. We sacrifice the best of our youth in the defense of others. We are not perfect. But as people we are generous and freedom loving, a result of our Judeo-Christian heritage.

We have been blessed with prosperity. Our prosperity made us powerful. Early Mediterranean civilizations of Greece and Rome were also prosperous and powerful. They are no longer prosperous nor powerful.

From 800 to 600 BC, a hundred or more Greek city-states arose along Mediterranean shores—a Golden Age of learning, an age of diversity in people and thought.

The prosperous Athenians became the might of the Mediterranean. By 500 BC, their fleets controlled the water ways. Then in a single season Athens was decimated. Decimation came not from a conquering army nor a powerful navy fleet. The attack came from a mysterious and deadly disease.

In a single season, an epidemic rendered the proud and powerful Athenians impotent. During ensuing years, political and social corruption brought down other promising Mediterranean civilizations. Softened by self-indulgence and corrupted by moral decay, they fell prey to conquering armies from the East and barbarian hordes from the North.

Today's rapid worldwide travel and cross-culture mixing open the door for a potential international health disaster of biblical proportions. Computers and satellites connect the world's interlocking financial institutions. Communications are instantaneous. World stock markets trade around the clock. Failure of one can overnight plunge the world into financial panic—or worse.
Only one epidemic destroyed the pride and the power of Athens. Self-indulgence and moral decay destroyed the other city-states. Due to our own national self-indulgence and moral decay, three potential epidemics threaten our pride and power: debt, drugs, and a self inflicted epidemic.

So far "The Sky is Falling" proclamations of this or that potential worldwide pandemic have proven without substance. America, however, is incubating its own self inflicted epidemic.

March of 2008, we saw self-indulgence and moral disintegration bring down another powerful and promising political figure, the Governor of New York. He was using the illicit services of high-priced prostitutes.

After being caught and exposed, he apologized to his family and the people of New York—and resigned.

For many, the Governor’s moral failure presented either a political problem or a political opportunity. For the morally bankrupt, however, no problem at all. Including one well-known Professor of Law who said on national TV, the American public needed to get over such things. He used the erroneous argument that many great leaders had affairs—politically correct term for engaging in sexual promiscuity. So, according to the Professor, that must make it okay. And of course, the esteemed Professor of Law used the old standby: What one does in his or her private life is his or her business and it should not affect one’s public life. Sorry Professor, but it does—and sin is sin.

Forgotten were the Governor’s three innocent daughters he shamed. Forgotten the innocent wife he publically humiliated and whose life and health he put at risk.

"Men are not punished for their sins, but by them." ____ Elbert Hubbard

And so are the innocent—the wife or husband infected by an unfaithful mate, or the unborn child of an infected mother-to-be.

Since the later 1980s, each year an estimated 10 million or more Americans contract a sexually transmitted disease. Families are torn apart. Teenagers’ futures ruined. New born babies infected face potential mental and physical afflictions. For others the results are fatal. Thousands are dying from AIDS. Yet our Nation's TV and movie media continue to romanticize sexual debauchery. Sexually transmitted disease is a moral problem—the failure of the 1960's so-called new morality.

After four decades of celebrating the new morality and secular sex education for our Nation’s youth, more than 20 sexually transmitted diseases reached epidemic proportions in America. By 2008, one in four teenage girls had a sexually transmitted disease—some with more than one. AIDS causing HIV has already infected an estimated one to three million Americans, or more. Even if we contain the AIDS epidemic, multiple thousands will still die. During the first thirty years of AIDS our Nation's health care cost escalated more than 2,600 percent—and costs continue to rise. In America, AIDS is no longer confined to male homosexuals and intravenous drug users. They are still, however, by far our two highest risk groups.

AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases are more than a health problem. Sexual promiscuity is a moral problem.

Another devastating failure of the 1960s so-called new morality, illicit drug use. But drugs are not the problem. The numerous Americans of all ages and social standings addicted to drugs are the problem.

The cost uncountable in human misery: Mothers without husbands must raise their children alone. Children with drug-addicted parents struggle to survive. Thousands of babies addicted to meth, cocaine or other drugs are born each day, many with lifelong mental and physical disabilities. The cost in human life from shooting-up or being shot-down equals an all-out war. The cost in medical and custodial care for the survivors continues to escalate. During the coming decade, the yearly cost to care for the drug afflicted could double or triple. It is more than a financial problem. It is a moral problem.

"Go ahead. You deserve it." "Buy now pay later." Our personal and public debt has reached pandemic dimensions. Depending on credit cards or government succor, a growing number of self-indulgent cling to the belief they can have wealth without work, comfort without labor. And the 1990's lust of materialism filled the boardrooms of corporate America with greed and dishonesty.

The voting public demands more, always at someone else’s expense. Democrat or Republican, each succeeding administration promises more. Tax increases to pay for vote buying programs now alienate more voters than can be bought. Congress must increasingly borrow money to pay for votes.

During the 1950s budget deficits grew. During the 1960s federal deficits nearly doubled. In the 1970s deficits soared, then exploded during the 1980s. Interest payments on our Nation's debt became the second largest budget item in fiscal 1990. Interest payments on the debt exceeded the total federal deficit of 1960—that's just the interest payment. And by 1992, interest on the debt consumed more than 50 percent of all personal income taxes collected. From 2004 to 2008 federal deficits exploded. The result? Our dollar’s purchasing power plunged and financial markets shaken.

The struggle to balance the budget long ago replaced any talk of paying off the federal debt. How big is our national debt, including unfunded liabilities? Nobody knows.

"To live beyond our means today is to live below them tomorrow."
____ Dr. Hans Sennholz, Debts and Deficits, 1987

America’s debt, drugs, and sexual promiscuity epidemic is a moral problem. It is also a political problem. As citizens we must work to replace the spiritually bankrupt who rule our public institutions. Our hope, however, cannot be in political parties or their candidates. America needs moral restoration. As the Church we may not be of this world, but we are certainly in it. The Church, individually or collectively, must not withdraw into cultural isolation. In times of moral decay, economic distress, or national disaster, the Church thrives. Only the Church can offer true hope and real comfort to the afflicted and to the heartbroken.

The bad news bearers are wrong. It is not too late. Ours is still the land of opportunity. Time, however, may be running out. To preserve the American Dream, to renew hope for a better tomorrow will take a complete turn about of our Nation’s direction. It will not be easy. But it can be done. But, are we up to it?

Be Informed Be Involved __________ Michael E. Odell

For Other Posts by Michael E.Odell —click on "Blog Archive" at upper right
03-28-08 Rare Coin Investments 101 & Choosing A Dealer
03-20-08 Gold Mining Stock Investing 101 - Booms & Busts
03-15-08 Gold Coin Investing 101
03-15-08 Investment 101 - only safe way to double your money
03-03-08 Real Men or Girly Men
02-29-08 A Cup of Hemlock for Washington State
02-13-08 Death & Suicide Initiative 119 Are Back
02-12-08 Thorns or Roses - The Choice Is Ours
02-12-08 Recession & Inflation - Government the Problem
12-08-07 A Hamburger Today & Pay Tomorrow

Rare Coin Investments 101 & Choosing A Dealer

2008-03-28T10:56:00.000-07:00

Like other markets, the rare coin market has its ups and downs. The 1978-80 boom—similar to 2008—was a time of high bullion prices. The general public, driven by stock market uncertainty and inflationary fears, sought refuge in hard assets, including rare coins. Money managers and financial planners discovered the coin market. Rare coins became a suitable investment. Adding to the respectability of collecting and investing in rare coins, the government okayed rare coins for retirement accounts. Investors put retirement funds into rare coins at record levels. Coin grading slackened and dealers expanded the list of coins they were willing to buy.

As the market peaked, favorable daily media coverage kept up interest. But higher prices upon higher prices that fed the market ended—similar to the recent housing and real estate market. Knowledgeable collectors and investors were already out of the market. A year later the general public lost interest. Prices plunged.

Here is what happens at market peaks:
At the peak of the 1978-80 market, the general public packed coin shows and auctions. Still believing coins were underpriced; inexperienced buyers continued to pay ever higher prices. It was also a time of heavy dealer promotion. Television ads and numerous mass-mailings held forth enticing promises of quick wealth in the coin market. Rare coin gurus pointed the general public toward the land of promise. Rare coin and precious metal seminars abounded. Major seminars grew into annual or semiannual investment circuses.

"Getting-rich-beyond-your-wildest-dreams" newsletters proliferated. The 1978-80 boom, however, was over.

Here is what happens at market bottoms:
The gurus are gone, at least gone from the precious metals and rare coin market. The television ads and mailings are rarer than the rare coins they promote. Precious metals and rare coin dealers are no longer investment seminars’ main attraction.

Many coin dealers that flourished during a boom go out of business. Others move to smaller quarters. Coin grading tightens. The list of coins an individual dealer is willing to buy becomes smaller. The packed crowds at coin shows and auctions give away to smaller groups of collectors and onlookers. Bankers, stockbrokers, and money managers no longer consider precious metals or rare coins a viable investment. And the daily news is no longer interested.

Coin Prices
Like stocks, supply and demand determine price, however, for rare coins condition also determines price. But coin grading suffers from inconsistency. Individual dealers will favor one coin over another of the same grade, simply because he knows it will sell better. Both the market maker in over-the-counter stocks and the coin dealer take a financial risk. The coin dealer often owns the commodity being offered; buying at one price and hoping to sell at a higher price. Unlike the market maker in stocks, the coin dealer is not limited in the amount of commission ( mark up) charged. In the rare coin or precious metals bullion market it may vary—5 to 20 percent depending on the risk the dealer must take. In an up market the spread (what the dealer will buy or sell a coin for) narrows. With increasing prices the dealer's risk decreases. The more popular the coin the less the risk. In a down market the spread widens. With more sellers than buyers the dealer's risk increases.

What should I buy? First, there are no bargains. Comparison shop. Buy what you like. Buy rarity. Buy quality. Buy diversification. Buy long-term performance. Buy a coin priced for liquidity. Be willing to pay a fair price for a properly graded coin. Be patient. This is a long term investment.

"If you don't know your coin know your dealer"

I don't know who first said it, but it is excellent advice. More than likely you will deal with more than one dealer. There are some dealers whose market knowledge is limited. You will need to locate a reliable adviser or dealer. Find a well informed full-time professional with market knowledge—particularly when investing in rare coins. The dealer's location or size of operation is of less importance than his or her reputation and experience—two qualities that only come with time.

Your advisor-dealer should be involved personally and financially in the market. The rare or bullion coin market, like other markets, has its ups and downs. No one buys at the very bottom and sells at the very top. The wise coin investor will be rewarded with an investment to enjoy during the years and profit from as well.

The rare coin market wholesale spread—the difference the dealer may pay or be paid by another dealer— may vary 5 to 20 percent. It depends on the market and the risk the dealer must take. A dishonorable dealer may mark up the retail price another 100 to 200 percent, or whatever he or she can get away with. So know your dealer. A reputable dealer, and most are, adds enough to cover expenses and still be competitive, and hopefully make a profit.

Buy and sell on a cash and carry basis when possible. Don't let a coin or a bullion dealer talk you into storing your coins or bullion—unless the storage facilities’s goods are insured. Too many dealer doors have closed, leaving the investor without money, goods, or recourse. So let me say again: "Know your dealer."

Here are two preliminary questions you can ask when first meeting a potential advisor-dealer:
"Can I make a lot of money quickly?" If he or she answers in the affirmative, put your hand over your wallet and back away as quickly as possible. "I have $30,000 to invest. What percentage should I put into rare coins?" The answer is somewhat subjective, somewhere between 5 to 15 percent. If the answer is more than that, proceed with caution.

To get your business, some dealers offer a buyback guarantee. You will not need a buyback guarantee if you bought your coins from a reputable dealer and the coins properly graded and fairly priced. Besides, it may not be possible in a down market, no matter how well intentioned the dealer might be. If everyone is selling, the dealer may not have funds for buying.

Remember, be patient. And once again keep in mind Proverbs 21:5: "Steady plodding brings prosperity: hasty speculation brings poverty."

____________ Michael E.Odell

For Other Posts by Michael E.Odell —Click on "Blog Archive" at upper right
03-20-08 Gold Mining Stock Investing 101 - Booms & Busts
03-15-08 Gold Coin Investing 101
03-15-08 Investment 101 - only safe way to double your money
03-03-08 Real Men or Girly Men
02-29-08 A Cup of Hemlock for Washington State
02-13-08 Death & Suicide Initiative 119 Are Back
02-12-08 Thorns or Roses - The Choice Is Ours
02-12-08 Recession & Inflation - Government the Problem
12-08-07 A Hamburger Today & Pay Tomorrow

Gold Mining Stock Investing 101 - Booms & Busts

2008-03-20T13:01:00.000-07:00

Should I invest in gold stocks? Is it too late? Is the financial reward worth the financial risk? During a booming gold market your profits can be fast and furious. Unfortunately your profits can disappear as quickly if boom turns to bust.

When it comes to a new gold mining venture succeeding, the odds are overwhelming. Questionable mineral rights, metallurgical uncertainties, or environmental problems may be insurmountable. A smaller Nevada ore body may have more profit potential than a larger richer remote Alaska ore body.

In one area, political uncertainties can hinder the most promising foreign gold mining venture. Yet, in another area, positive political changes will open new opportunities.

Odds against even discovering a new gold deposit is formidable. In North America, the odds of discovering an actual deposit are 150 to 1. Odds against that deposit being profitable10 to 1.

Should you invest in a gold mining company? Is the financial reward worth the financial risk? It can be. During a jump in precious metal prices, most gold mining stocks increase in value substantially and exponentially in proportion to the actual increase in bullion price.

But, you don't need higher gold prices to be a big winner. Your company may make a new or additional discovery, or another company make a rich strike on a nearby property. You could realize profits of 10 or 20 times your original investment—or more.

A well-chosen exploration company can be your biggest winner, your investment increasing 100 times more than a similar investment in a larger gold-producing mining company. An exploration company can also produce your biggest loss.

Which mining properties? Mining properties fall into six basic categories.

Mining Properties:
Speculative Properties have definite indications of mineralization. Funds and work are needed to determine if the property may be economically viable.
Dormant Properties have mineral deposits believed to be uneconomically viable at present metal prices. But, with higher metal prices or a new metallurgy innovation the property may have future potential.
Dead Properties can consist of older mines with exhausted ore reserves or without future potential, higher metal prices or not.
Pre-Development Properties have reserves based on preliminary drilling and are ready to undergo feasibility studies.
Development Properties have proven reserves and a tested metallurgical process for extracting the precious metals. A feasibility study supports the project's economic viability.
Producing Properties are doing just that—producing gold.

Those are the six basic mining property categories. A company may have one type of property or any combination of properties.

The gold market—like the U.S. Stock market—could go considerably higher or considerably lower. From 1975 to 1980 the Dollar continued to drop and gold increased from $140 to $1,040. Two years later, 1982, the precious metals market collapsed Market lows showed gold $298. The stock market started to climb—and climb it did. The Dow Jones Industrial Index Average increased 144 percent in only five years.

October 19, 1987, that which was going to go on forever, didn't. Stock market euphoria ended. Without buyers, sell orders piled up. The Dow Jones Industrial Index plummeted 508 points.

The next trading day, another wave of selling swamped the London Stock Exchange. The biggest one-day loss, exceeding 24 percent, hit the Australian stock market. The Hong Kong market remained closed. Large U.S. securities firms and over-the-counter market makers were on the brink of collapse. And to the rescue, the Federal Reserve. The Federal Reserve manned the credit pumps and flooded the system with billions of inflationary dollars of credit.

In 2008 the dollar hit all time lows and the financial markets shaken. The Federal Reserve once again manned the credit pumps and flooded the system with billions of inflationary dollars or credit.

Who will pay the bill for billions in easy money and credit created to save large securities firms and profit major banks? Eventually the middle class will pay with higher taxes, or the thrifty and retired will pay through inflation, or both. The bill will be paid.

"Panics do not destroy capital: they merely reveal the extent to which it has been previously destroyed by its betrayal into hopelessly unproductive works."____ John Stuart Mill, 1867

What signals are flashing today? The answer will come with passing of time. Boom or bust, to cushion future financial shocks we need to greatly reduce or completely eliminate personal debt. Then for both profit potential and financial preservation think about adding gold to our investment portfolio—as a long term investment.

When it comes to gold mining stocks, we have a choice, from exploration to producing. Your choice depends on your investment needs and comfort level. To help you make that choice, find a well-informed investment professional with a proven background in precious metal mining stocks.

"Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom: and with all thy getting get understanding." Proverbs 4:7

_____________ Michael E. Odell

For Other Posts by Michael E.Odell —click on "Blog Archive" at upper right
03-15-08 Gold Coin Investing 101
03-15-08 Investment 101 - only safe way to double your money
03-03-08 Real Men or Girly Men
02-29-08 A Cup of Hemlock for Washington State
02-13-08 Death & Suicide Initiative 119 Are Back
02-12-08 Thorns or Roses - The Choice Is Ours
02-12-08 Recession & Inflation - Government the Problem
12-08-07 A Hamburger Today & Pay Tomorrow

Gold Coin Investing 101

2008-03-15T12:39:00.000-07:00

Boom to bust and back again describes precious metal and financial markets the past three decades. First, as it relates to gold coins and bars, let us look at how we got where we are.

It really started in 1933, President Franklin Roosevelt declared an emergency and took away the American citizen’s right to own gold. The gold was confiscated. The President promised the gold would be returned. It wasn't.

It took more than 40 years, but, in 1974 the American citizen won back his and her right to own gold. Then in 1985, President Reagan signed into law the minting of legal-tender gold and silver bullion coins.

Why own precious metal coins? Legal tender gold and silver coins offer the investor the intangible benefits of owning an attractive article and the tangible benefits of a legal tender bullion coin. The coin's precious metal content increases in value with higher gold and silver prices. Some coins are limited editions, adding a potential rare coin value. Should the worse happen, a complete collapse of our paper currency, gold and silver coins can be used to sustain one's day-to-day survival.

Most foreign gold and silver coins, like U.S. gold and silver coins, are universally recognized and easy to resell. Most come in four gold weights: one ounce, half ounce, quarter ounce, and 10th ounce. Bullion bars available to the individual investor include the popular 1 troy ounce, 10 ounce, and 100 ounce silver bars and the one gram to kilo sized gold bars.

To avoid possible assay costs and loss of instant liquidity, stick with well-known brand names. Each bar is stamped with its own registration number, purity, weight, and are easy to buy and resell.

How are precious metal prices set? Prices constantly change, trading in precious metals continues 24 hours a day, following the sun westward around the world. In the U.S., early morning and afternoon commodity prices are constantly updated by the Commodity Exchanges. Major wholesalers provide most local dealers with spot prices throughout the rest of the day.
Prices respond to daily market conditions and each dealer's own supply and demand. Dealer retail prices for bullion bars and coins are based on the spot price, plus manufacturing and distribution costs, wholesalers risk, and retailers’ commission.

Gold and silver dealers range from small local coin dealers and large well-established precious-metal brokers, to a few fly-by-night scam artists. If at all possible, do your trading with your local dealer on a cash basis. If it is a large order, and you must deal with an unfamiliar out-of-state broker, use a "sight draft" in conjunction with your local banker. "Sight draft" means what it says. The merchandise is shipped to your local bank and when your banker sees the coins or bars, the banker wires your funds to the dealer.

Here is what counts when buying precious metal bars and coins: It is the total price you pay and receiving the merchandise. It is not "discount" commissions or a "hot deal" used by some to get you to buy now. If an investment is good today it will be good tomorrow.

America's "spend your way to prosperity" policy of the 1960s and the 1970s ended in soaring interest rates, double digit inflation, and a shaken stock market. Our dollar, the world monetary standard, was on the brink of collapsing. By 1980, the price of gold had increased more than 2,000 percent and silver more than 3,000 percent.

Gold’s
Year - Low & High
1975 $140 - $173
1978 $185 -$385
1979 $342 - $716
1980 $483 - $1,040

Two years later, 1982, the precious metals market collapsed Market lows showed gold $298, silver $4.98, platinum $244, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average of 776.42. But the great bull market for stocks had started.

Boom to bust and back again? The gold market—like the U.S. Stock market—could go considerably higher or considerably lower. Either way, gold coin investing is not for quick and big profit speculation, but as a long term investment

"Steady plodding brings prosperity: hasty speculation brings poverty."
Proverbs 21:5

_________ Michael E. Odell

For Other Posts by Michael E.Odell —click on "Blog Archive" at upper right
03-15-08 Investment 101 - only safe way to double your money
03-03-08 Real Men or Girly Men
02-29-08 A Cup of Hemlock for Washington State
02-13-08 Death & Suicide Initiative 119 Are Back
02-12-08 Thorns or Roses - The Choice Is Ours
02-12-08 Recession & Inflation - Government the Problem
12-08-07 A Hamburger Today & Pay Tomorrow

Investment 101- A Safe Way To Double Your Money

2008-03-15T12:19:00.000-07:00

The investment opportunities available today are varied and numerous. Unfortunately so are the investment vehicles with little or no possibility of making money for anyone other than those promoting their own particular investment wares.

Today’s frenzied financial markets—both the stock and gold markets—provide possibilities for both big profits and big losses. Frenzied markets also provide opportunity for honest individuals with limited abilities to create or promote questionable investment vehicles. These same volatile markets also provide individuals with above average abilities—but limited moral compunctions—opportunity to scam the unwary.

Some investment ideas begin legitimate then turn sour. Usually the idea was dubious and the management inept. Other investment ideas were frauds to begin with.

Then there are individuals in positions of trust who get into financial trouble. Unwilling to sacrifice ego or high-life style, they sacrifice their ethics and begin using their investors' funds for personal or business use. Others, however, start out to be swindlers. And are good at it.

There is no typical con man or con woman profile. You can't tell by their dress, looks, or personal demeanor. They do have three things in common: they are crooks, they are convincing, they are after your money.

And since they don't have to make good on their promises, they promise or guarantee whatever it takes to persuade you to part with your money: They promise low risk and large profits in a short time. They promise the advantage of inside tips—information not available to less enlightened investors. And there is always the urgency, the high-pressure to "act now" or lose out.

Find a well informed full-time professional with market knowledge, one with a proven reputation and experience—two qualities that only come with time. And remember, if an investment is good today, it will be good tomorrow. Don't be rushed. It is better to lose an opportunity now, than lose your money later.

Now, want to double your money? The only safe way is to take the advice of Will Rodgers: "Fold your money over once and put it in your pocket."

_________ Michael E. Odell

For Other Posts by Michael E.Odell —click on "Blog Archive" at upper right
03-03-08 Real Men or Girly Men
02-29-08 A Cup of Hemlock for Washington State
02-13-08 Death & Suicide Initiative 119 Are Back
02-12-08 Thorns or Roses - The Choice Is Ours
02-12-08 Recession & Inflation - Government the Problem
12-08-07 A Hamburger Today & Pay Tomorrow

Real Men or Girly Men

2008-03-03T13:46:00.000-08:00

"There is demand today for men who can make wrong appear right."
____ Terence

Terence's words are more than 2,000 years old. Nevertheless, men and women in media, education, and politics who can make wrong appear right are still in demand.

Who should we vote for? Does it even matter? Yes it does. Although it is apparent that too many political candidates are willing to promise the voting public whatever they want to hear, making wrong appear right. And TV and movies? Our entertainment industry makes a fortune perverting morals and making wrong appear right. During the last several decades, America's major news media mastered making wrong appear right while viciously belittling those who advocate Judeo-Christian values. And today, revisionist church leaders of major church bodies rush to embrace the latest politically correct theme—making wrong appear right.

There is a cost. Nowhere has secular morality, making wrong appear right, taken such a heart rendering toll than on America’s youth. The "Blame America Firsters" dominate our halls of higher education. From kindergarten to highschool, public education is a full-time apologist for the latest secular fetish or politically correct fear campaign, whether it be explicit homoerotic sex education for kindergartners or Al Gore’s "the sky is falling" Chicken Little campaign.

Many dedicated and capable public school teachers remain. But they now work in a moral vacuum. A void created during the last 50 years by secularists who have worked to remove prayer, bible reading, and Judeo-Christian values from our public and private institutions.

Relative ethics of secularism is replacing the moral absolutes of Judeo-Christian values. From abortion to euthanasia, secular answers, basing human worth on materialistic value, have failed to convince many youth life is worth living. That human life has value. The result?

A number of American youth—many adults also—lacking sustaining values feel hopeless about the direction of their lives and helpless to do anything about it. Without hope and unable to cope with life’s problems, many seek worldly messiahs or temporary destructive diversions—or the final diversion, suicide.

The seeds of secular morality are producing a growing crop of fear, anger, despair, and loss of hope. The result, an expanding number of Americans no longer see America as the land of opportunity. Many give up. This trend of secular induced anger, despair, and self-indulgence can be reversed. To do so will take the leadership of real men.

Unfortunately too many of today’s American men are hand wringing Girly men. Others are self-indulgent neanderthals more interested in sports' magazines with playboy covers than America's institutions. America needs real men—not macho men who swagger like a John Wayne, nor sensitive flowers who prance like Phil Donahue. America needs men—and women—with strong Judeo-Christian convictions, and the intestinal fortitude to stand up and speak out for those convictions.

Perhaps we are seeing a nation, under the judgment of God, with government tyranny, the largest Internet pornography business, the country owned by others, pansexuality proclaimed from its pulpits, and divorce rates among Christians as high as those who proclaim no religious faith—a nation fast becoming, in the words of one columnist, "impotent and irrelevant."
____ David W. Virtue - Virtue on line

Not good. Is it too late? No, but real change is needed. It will take a complete turn about of our Nation’s direction.

By influencing public opinion and or being involved in the political process, advocates of Judeo-Christian values can replace a judge, change a school director, or elect a legislator. And through prayer we can change a nation. It is not too late.

_________ Michael E. Odell

"Right is right, even if nobody does it. Wrong is wrong, even if everybody is wrong about it." ___ G. K. Chesterton

Other Posts by Michael E.Odell click on "Blog Archive" at upper right
02-29-08 A Cup of Hemlock for Washington State
02-13-08 Death & Suicide Initiative 119 Are Back
02-12-08 Thorns or Roses - The Choice Is Ours
02-12-08 Recession & Inflation - Government the Problem
12-08-07 A Hamburger Today & Pay Tomorrow

A Cup of Hemlock for Washington State

2008-02-29T10:22:00.000-08:00

A Cup of Hemlock for Washington State & Suicide Initiative measure 1000

Ah, 1991, a great year for America's 50-year-old suicide and euthanasia right-to-die movement. That year, the suicide and euthanasia Initiative 119—backed by the Hemlock Society—made Washington State’s ballot. If passed, Washington would be the first state to legalize physician-assisted suicide. Also that year, Hemlock Society’s founder Derek Humphry's how-to suicide book, Final Exit, became a best seller. No amateur theorist, Humphry had experience. He helped Jean, his first wife, take her own life. He also helped Ann, his second wife, with her parents suicide, or their "final exit"—the terminology the "death with dignity"advocates’ prefer.

Voters’ rejected Initiative119. "Final exit" supporters, however, are back to put Initiative119 on Washington’s November 2008 ballot. Although Washington State’s 1979 Natural Death Act already allows withholding extraordinary life support as directed by a "Living Will," Initiative 119 "final exit"advocates—as we shall see—desire to go far beyond that.

Final Exit was not Hemlock’s Derek Humphry's first book. Previously, Humphry and second wife Ann Wickett collaborated on Jean’s Way, a book glamorizing his first wife’s demise. Jean was in the last stages of breast cancer when Humphry helped administer her final exit. The book described Humphry tenderly and lovingly bringing Jean a cup of coffee laced with drugs. Then, in case the drugs made her uncomfortable, he compassionately waited, ready to smother her with a pillow.

Helpful Humphry also helped wife number two assist her parents in their suicide. Ann's relationship with her wealthy parents was at best strained. Her parents were in poor health, but not dying. Her 92 year-old father suffered from heart disease. Her 78 year-old mother had suffered a stroke.

Ann and Derek originally meet in England, where Ann moved to get her doctorate. Lonely, she advertized in a magazine for companionship. Derek, a newspaper reporter, answered Ann's call for companionship. They married in 1976, less than a year after he helped wife number one commit suicide. Later Ann and Derek moved to California.

In 1980, Humphry and Wickett founded the National Hemlock Society. The two worked side by side, building the Hemlock Society on the romantic myth of Jean's death. Later they moved to western Oregon. With the $300,000 inheritance from Ann’s parents they purchased a 50-acre property and built a home. Ann and Derek named it "Windfall Farm."

In 1989, Anne was diagnosed with breast cancer. The marriage broke up. Ann said Humphry left three weeks after her cancer surgery. Derek left a message on their answering machine. He said he would not be back. Ann Wickett underwent chemotherapy and divorce.

Then, on October 2, 1991, Ann got into her pickup, and with a horse trailer behind drove out of Windfall Farm. She headed for Oregon's Three Sisters Wilderness Area. Ann rode her horse into a peaceful meadow where later her body was found. The National Hemlock Society cofounder had taken a fatal dose of drugs. The same drug she and Derek fed her parents five years before.

Shortly before her own suicide, Ann Wickett video taped a conversation with a friend. A video tape made public and shown on "The 5th Estate," a Canadian news program. On the tape, Ann talked of her parent's death. Ann said she knew her mother had not been ready to die. "My mother started to die and then something went wrong and it was awful. Her breathing started to get sort of agitated and I got really scared... and Derek had always said to me you know, just use a plastic bag or pillow. And I did it. I was so terrified."

"There was a plastic laundry bag with her linens, her soiled linen in it, and I took the bag and I just very gently held it over her mouth... But I walked away from that house thinking we're both murderers and I can't live like this any more."On the same video tape, Ann talked about the death of Derek's first wife Jean. "And he told me what happened was that there was some sort of choking and regurgitation and breathing that got sort of...And so he took a pillow and suffocated her."

Ann Wickett's allegations and the adverse publicity did not slow down Derek Humphry. Following the demise of Ann, with third wife by his side, Humphry announced his plan to write another best seller on the suicides of his previous two wives. His attention and energies had also turned elsewhere. Humphry and his Oregon-based Hemlock Society had an exceptional interest in the neighboring State of Washington. Initiative 119 was going to the ballot in November of 1991. The Initiative, if passed, would make Washington the first state to legalize physician-assisted suicide for terminally ill patients.

A majority of Washington State's voters—and with good reason—believed too many medical and moral questions remained unanswered. There were some who believed euthanasia, by commission or omission, was premeditated murder. Many others felt government sanctioned euthanasia, like abortion-on-demand, would add to further desensitization of America. Washington State's voters defeated Initiative 119. But Derek Humphry and Initiative 119 supporters vowed to fight on. And they are. Initiative119 is back, or it will be if it makes the November 2008 ballot

Initiative 119 "death with dignity" advocates—the politically correct terms for suicide and euthanasia—claim death can be a friend. But whose friend? For those who do not believe in divine intervention, death is that friend. But for the elderly, the terminally ill, the mentally impaired, the disabled newborn—for all the unwanted— in the future just whose friend will death be? With Washington’s new Euthanasia Initiative 1000 on the November 2008 ballot, voters will need to make that choice.

"Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him." ____John 8:44

______ Michael E. Odell

Other Posts by Michael E.Odell click on "Blog Archive" upper right
02-13-08 Death With Dignity & Suicide Initiative 119 Are Back
02-12-08 Thorns or Roses - The Choice Is Ours
02-12-08 Recession & Inflation - Government the Problem
12-08-07 A Hamburger Today & Pay Tomorrow

Death With Dignity Suicide Advocates are Back

2008-02-13T09:33:00.000-08:00

Death With Dignity Suicide Advocates
And Washington State’s Initiative 1000

Yes, there are many heart touching stories of people moved by compassion for loved ones; stories of discontinuing intravenous feeding or turning off artificial respirators. Washington State’s 1979 Natural Death Act, however, already allows withholding extraordinary life support as directed by a "Living Will." Initiative 119 suicide advocates desire to go well beyond that.

Is the only answer death: suicide, abortion, infanticide, euthanasia? For those who do not believe in divine intervention, so-called mercy killing is the answer for the suffering, the incurable, the unwanted, the financial burdens.

Prior to the 1960s, most Americans' believed abortion, infanticide, and euthanasia were pagan customs—ungodly customs practiced in China and other faraway places. Legal abortions were not normally performed in the Western World. Although early-term abortions were quasi-legal in America until 1860, late-term abortions—the politically correct word for infanticide—were not. By 1910, every state had anti abortion laws or had declared abortion illegal. Most states made abortion a criminal felony.

Then, in 1962, the national press launched an emotional story of Phoenix Romper Room teacher Sherri Finkbine. Mrs. Finkbine took a thalidomide tranquilizer while pregnant. Later, she learned the drug could cause deformities. Her unborn baby might be severely hindered, a sorrowful fear for any expectant mother—particularly for Sherri Finkbine. She loved children. She had four of her own.

Cities across the nation carried their own version of "Romper Room"—a syndicated program with local teachers and local children. With anticipation preschoolers waited for the program's theme song, "Pop Goes The Weasel." While thousands of young children identified with the program, many young mothers across America would soon identify with Finkbine. The mother and teacher of children quickly became a national cause. Finkbine sought a public statement from civil authorities authorizing her choice to abort her unborn baby. When none came, Sherri Finkbine flew to Sweden for her abortion.

For the death crowd, Finkbine became a heroine. A woman who could not in good conscience bring a child with limited chances into the world. Her unborn child, however, did have an eighty percent chance of being born normal. Also, regardless of any abnormalities, others offered to adopt Finkbine’s unborn child.

In 1973, the U.S. Supreme Court legitimized abortion across America. For the media and the death crowd, Sherri Finkbine became proof that abortion could be a positive act. The next positive act would be infanticide.

Along came Baby Jane Doe. Ten years after the U.S. Supreme Court's decision legitimizing abortion, abortion and infanticide were no longer considered pagan customs. The news in 1984, Baby Jane Doe's parents were to let her die with dignity. News media and death advocates quickly rallied support for Baby Jane’s parents, championing the parent's right to let their baby die.

One can sympathize with the parent's concerns. The Long Island infant was born with spina bifida, a condition where the spinal column does not close properly before birth. Medical operations would allow her to grow into a happy but braces-requiring adult. Nonetheless, Baby Jane was a candidate for an "after birth abortion." Baby Jane Doe was a nonproductive financial burden. Baby Jane was unwanted. She would not be allowed to live.
Baby Jane Doe was considered another positive act. But a positive act for whom? Certainly not for the million or more unborn terminated each year. Performing abortions is a big and lucrative business in America, including late term abortions—the politically correct term for infanticide.

After Finkbine and Baby Jane Doe, the "Let us do someone in crowd" was on the march. Next came a cry for "death with dignity"— the politically correct term for euthanasia. Whenever euthanasia is accepted, crypthanasia—the active euthanasia on sick people without their knowledge—is soon condoned also. A truth the earlier Dutch euthanasia experiment proved.

November of 1991, Washington State’s Initiative 119 went on the ballot. If passed, Washington would be the first state to legalize physician-assisted suicide for terminally ill patients. Too many questions remained unanswered. It failed. But they are back.

Mercy killing advocates claim death can be a friend. But whose friend? WithWashington State’s new suicide Initiative1000 on the November 2008 ballot, voters will again make that decision.

What value life? It is up to you.

"The thief (Satan) cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I (Jesus) am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly." John 10:10

_____ Michael E. Odell

Other Posts by Michael E.Odell click on "Blog Archive" upper right
02-13-08 Death With Dignity & Suicide Initiative 119 Are Back
02-12-08 Thorns or Roses - The Choice Is Ours
02-12-08 Recession & Inflation - Government the Problem Not the Solution
12-08-07 A Hamburger Today & Pay Tomorrow

Government the Problem Not the Solution

2008-02-12T11:50:00.000-08:00

Recession & Inflation

Here we go again. The last five decades of government interference in the marketplace produced the1950s and 60s dollar devaluation, the1970s recessionary inflation, the1980s boom and bust, and today’s financial uncertainty, falling dollar, resulting inflation.

Political interference continues to be the problem—not the solution. The natural law of economics will eventually overrule political decree.

"The art of taxation consists in so plucking the goose as to get the most feathers with the least hissing" ___Jean Baptiste Colbert

The Democrat Party of today wishes to pluck us with higher taxes to support massive government programs—supposedly at someone else’s expense. In doing so, purchasing power is transferred from the producing private sector to the consuming non-productive public sector. Meanwhile, today’s Republican Party has proceeded to pluck us with massive deficits and resulting depreciating currency. The goose realizes it is losing feathers. But does not know why. So come election time, the goose keeps running back and forth between big tax Democrats and big government Republicans, only to be plucked even more.

Federal funds are monies taken either through taxation from one citizen to benefit another, or through increasing the money supply and stealing from every citizen through inflation. Using government force to take money from one citizen to economically benefit another is thievery. When this happens, envy and looting replace the values of saving, hard work, and self-discipline. The federal government’s constitutional mandate is to protect us from an external threat and to insure equal administration of justice, not to perpetuate a spirit of envy and looting.

Not all Democrat and Republican politicians are guilty. Far too many, however, are. Federal deficits continue to escalate at an alarming rate. The U.S. money supply is expanding far faster than goods and services. Overseas money markets once again are flooded with U.S. dollars, dollars continuing to decrease in purchasing power. The more political interference, the more capital markets at home and abroad will oscillate between high expectation and sudden disappointment.

Where is our economy heading? Economists and financial analysts are akin to sages of old who based their predictions on reading chicken entrails. Everyone looks at the same facts and figures, then come up with different predictions. Chicken Little "the sky is falling"economists and media pundits warn of a coming deflationary collapse and depression. Other Chicken Littles warn of hyperinflation and economic chaos.

The sky is not falling—yet. It is not too late. Our economy is still strong. We cannot, however, maintain a free and prosperous America on secularism’s self indulgence and false promise of comfort without labor. Flying helicopters across the country and scattering bundles of dollars over shopping malls like bundles of hay will not solve social or economic ills. Nor will political parties and political candidates advocating sending each American $600—or $6,000.

A free and prosperous America can only be built and maintained on the Judeo-Christian values of saving, hard work, and self-discipline.

Yes, America’s economy is still strong. But will it remain so? There are questions. Shall we trust in political parties and their candidates to supply all our need? Or, will we trust in a living God to supply all our need? During good times or bad, where will we put our trust?
___________ Michael E. Odell

"Right is right, even if nobody does it. Wrong is wrong, even if everybody is wrong about it."
____ G. K. Chesterton

Thorns or Roses - The Choice Is Ours

2007-12-12T15:53:00.000-08:00

Some people complain because God put thorns on roses,
while others praise Him for putting roses among the thorns."

I do not know to whom we should give credit for the quotation. I do know there are a multitude of no-sayers dedicated to getting us focused on the thorns. And it escalates at election time. The no-sayers willingly tell you why you can't: nobody has done it before, what makes you think you can, they always crush the little guy, things are really bad, it is only going to get worse, on and on. True, a lot of thorns are out there, but how can we become over comers if we have nothing to overcome?

In 1940, the Great Depression was ending and prosperity returning. Society, however, remained in a funk. The depression left many focusing on the thorns. Movie attendees embraced John Ford's somber depression saga, "The Grapes of Wrath." Readers flocked to book stores to purchase Steinbeck's award winning but dispiriting Of Mice and Men—and America entered the Second World War.

When the war ended most previously unemployed were working, millions of women and young people for the first time. Peace and better times returned. A wave of prosperity washed across our nation, farmers' incomes tripled, wages increased, businesses flourished. The future looked hopeful. People began to concentrate on the roses. America's top song in 1944, "Accentuate the Positive." Some problems remained, and each decade since brought its own problems. But, as Abraham Lincoln said, "...most folks are as happy as they make up their minds to be."

It takes, however, more than making up our mind to be happy. We need to develop that inner joy. Joy not controlled by circumstances or election outcomes, but by our faith in a loving God who takes a hand in our daily lives. Then maintain a positive attitude.

Keeping a positive attitude does not mean we pretend thorns do not exist. They do. But in both our personal and public life, we need to overcome the negative and accentuate the positive—concentrate on the solution and not the problem.

How long may it take to reverse America’s negative direction? William Wilberforce was twenty when he became a candidate in his area’s parliamentary election. An outspoken voice for Christ centered justice, he made his first speech against the slave trade in1789 and then lead the anti-slave movement in the House of Commons. Church hierarchy, powerful government leaders, and wealthy business interests violently opposed him. It took Wilberforce more than 30 years of political action and dedicated prayer to end slavery. He changed history. So can we.

Through the political process you can influence the system: replace a judge, change a school director, elect a legislator. Through prayer you can change the world. It is up to you.

__________ Michael E. Odell

"Right is right, even if nobody does it. Wrong is wrong, even if everybody is wrong about it."
____ G. K. Chesterton

Hamburger Today & Pay Tomorrow

2007-12-08T12:19:00.000-08:00

Remember Wimpy, Popeye the Sailor's portly friend who would gladly pay you tomorrow for a hamburger today? The self-indulging Wimpy was always seeking to satisfy his wants at your expense. Wimpy was only a morally flawed comic book character. The money Wimpy eventually ended up owing for all those hamburgers could not have amounted to much. Today, more Americans than ever are giving into Wimpy’s "gladly pay you tomorrow for a hamburger today."

During the Roosevelt years, an increasing number of Americans began to expect a hamburger today at the expense of someone else. Not until President Lyndon Baines Johnson enacted his "Great Society" in 1964, however, did America's buy-now maybe pay-later binge get into full swing. President Johnson attempted to fight two wars simultaneously—the massive Vietnam War buildup and his War on Poverty.

Lyndon Johnson and administration passed into history, but cost for the "Great Society" continues. By 1992, cost for the "Great Society" and the resulting entitlement programs consumed more than 50 percent of the federal budget.

We paid a price for the deficit spending binge and the resulting increase in money supply. In 1979-80, inflation and interest rates reached double digit figures. Our dollar became questionable on international markets.
Blaming the huge deficits for the double digit rates, presidential candidate Ronald Reagan promised spending cuts. The electorate voted Reagan into office and voted President Jimmy Carter out. A pork-barrel Congress and a growing number of self-interest groups did not take warmly to the new President's proposed budget cuts. Special interests and their congressional toadies—of both political parties—reacted to the possible cuts with howls of self-righteous outrage.

The new President gave into the vote buying program the Democrat controlled Congress favored. Both political parties embraced the Wimpy hamburger theory of economics. The old vote buying deficit spending scheme of Keynesian Economics was given a new name, "Supply-side Economics." We were now told deficits did not matter. Republican and Democrat Congressman acted like drunks let loose in a liquor store and went on a deficit spending binge—buy votes now and let someone else pay later. And today, regardless of balanced budget rhetoric, both political parties continue to embrace Wimpy’s, "I will gladly pay you tomorrow for a hamburger today."

Growing debt and spending, both personal and at all levels of government if not brought under control will shred our social fabric. Our dollar will no longer be wanted. We will become a "Banana Republic," a third-world power. Our middle-class will not exist. A wealthy few will reign. The rest will live in want.

Nonetheless, believing they deserve it, an expanding number of voters demand more at the expense of someone else. Self-serving political candidates coveting elected office above all else, promise more. And both, voter and office holder, propose someone else pay for it.

"Thou shall not steal." "Thou shall not covet." Two commandments Wimpy ignored. Unfortunately, so do too many Americans. The offer of federal monies brings out the looting mentality in the best of people: "If we don’t get the funds someone else will." Federal funds are monies taken from someone else, either through taxation or through increasing the money supply and stealing from everyone through inflation. Using force to take money from one citizen to economically benefit another is thievery.

Yes, it is a political problem. But, our hope cannot be in political parties or their candidates. No matter which party control’s Congress or White House.

Yes, it is a moral problem. We Americans are the most generous people in the world. We are not perfect but we are generous and freedom loving, a result of our Judeo-Christian heritage.

We have been blessed with prosperity. Our prosperity and Judeo-Christian values made us powerful. But other powerful and prosperous civilizations have risen and fallen—victims of self indulgence and decaying values.
We cannot build a free and prosperous America on self indulgence and the false promise of comfort without labor. We must reestablish the Judeo-Christian values of saving, hard work, and self-discipline. And that will take both political action—and most importantly prayer.

Will we go the way of previous civilizations? Or will we attain the promises of God’s best that can be ours? It is up to you. __________Michael E. Odell

"Right is right, even if nobody does it. Wrong is wrong, even if everybody is wrong about it."
____ G. K. Chesterton

Welcome!

2007-12-04T15:47:00.000-08:00

Welcome to the Christian Coalition of Washington's blog! Standby for the latest reviews, on the 2008 Elections and current events, from a biblical world view.