"News"week Nonsence

In response to the December 15, 2008 cover story and the conjoining editorial, we wish to go on record as saying:

Never in modern history have we beheld such irresponsible reporting and dissemination of swill and tripe as this lead essay and follow-up drivel of an editorial. Congratulations to Newsweek and its plebeian editor for acceding to the ranks of the supermarket tabloid.

For an intelligent expose we recommend to the readers this article by Albert Mohler.

On Socialism

Glen Beck plays audio of Sec of Agriculture Ezra T. Benson on his meeting with Khrushchev

On Socialism

Financial Freedom

Financial freedom or financial independence is what most people call retirement. That is finally having the resources to live without working. The reality is that most people today reach retirement age without those resources in place. There are no more golden parachutes, no more pensions, and social security is a bigger oxymoron than the term military intelligence.


People must realize that retirement is an individual matter. It cannot be left to fate or to chance. It must be planned for and worked toward deliberately and meaningfully. To do so means to live on less than you earn and to do very deliberate things with the rest.

There is only one thing you can do with the money you intend to save: invest it.

There are only three investment vehicles: Stocks, bonds and real estate. (The money you bank is invested by the banks in these vehicles and they keep most of the earnings. Mutual funds are mostly stocks and bonds)

The Millionaire Real Estate Investor is a book compiled as a how-to through interviews with hundreds who are expert in the field.

Those who become adept at the principles of creating "real" wealth for their retirement find that they may amass the resources they need well before they reach 65.

We are teaching financial freedom workshops centered around the principles in this book.

Join us to learn the principles of financial freedom, the value of real estate as a vital part of your portfolio, and be introduced to your full service investment team.

For more information email facultas@The4Freedoms.net or phone 303-683-0462.




The Millionaire Real Estate Investor by Gary Keller

Book Review

Why Good People Do Bad Things: How to Stop Being Your Own Worst Enemy by Debbie Ford

A critical read for a complete understanding of the human condition.

Ford illustrates that the root causes by which sabotage our relationships, our finances, our families, and our careers are rooted in our unknown and unconscious programing.

This programming results in an unhealthy belief concerning our dark sides. The pain and shame we feel "drives us to use food, alcohol, sex, drugs, excitement, collecting, gossiping and philandering as ways to distract ourselves from seeing that which we deem unacceptable or unflattering."

The scary thing is that we ALL do this to some extent or other. Some self-sabotage to the extent of the criminal.

In the end, it is important to recognize the lies we sell ourselves as the root cause of our short comings.

On Discrimination

Until recently I had a different understanding of civil rights. I thought that civil rights were pretty clear cut and I could not understand all of the hullaballoo over civil rights issues. What I realized, I admit somewhat embarrassingly, was that I was confusing civil rights with ‘unalienable’ rights.

Thomas Jefferson enumerated Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness as among the rights endowed upon mankind by virtue of our humanity. Civil liberties or civil rights, on the other hand, are bestowed by consensus of the civilization or community.

To remove the stigmas and connotations of the word ‘government,’ let us consider joining a club. The Club has rules and privileges that club founders agreed upon and the members adhere to. Membership in the club is contingent upon that adherence.

Our Founding Fathers not liking certain aspects of the club to which they had belonged, formed a new club wherein they said the members could speak against the leadership if they wanted. Further, members would be permitted to worship God as they chose and the press could print essentially what ever it wanted.

So the Fathers formed a new Club. But unlike membership limited to those of wealth or family name, this club was open to all men—that is all white men. Black men and women were not permitted. They were shunned in certain respects and discriminated against. That was a civil or club decision. Women and blacks protested their exclusion and eventually the club was made to see that their exclusion, or discrimination, was wrong. That America was founded by Christians for Christians is factual as evidenced by the national emblems numerous.Though this country was founded on principles of a Jeudeo-Christian ethic, there are those non-Christians who resent their exclusion from the Christian nature of national holidays and the national culture and they are pressing for their inclusion, or rather to neutralize their exclusion.

Over the centuries many such civil liberties matters have been addressed. At one time adultery was punishable by death by stoning, but no more. For millennia, slavery was acceptable. So it was for an Egyptian man of Pharos’s house. Moses was raised around Israelites who had been enslaved for hundreds of years. And then one day he was persuaded that enslaving a nation was not right and he took action. It was not until Lincoln that slavery was abolished in this country. Discrimination against people for their race, color or creed, has been a long time dying in this nation. The common cry has been that discrimination is wrong and should not be part of our club rules.

In recent news, discrimination against the gay community has come to the forefront. Proposition 8 passed in California defining marriage recognized in that community as only between a man and a woman. Connecticut’s Supreme Court ruled in October that same-sex marriages would be recognized in that state on the grounds of separate standards. (see article CONNECTICUT SUPREME COURT RULES ON GAY MARRIAGE)

So what of this business of discrimination? Ex-convicts have to answer to their past on job applications and a company may refuse to hire them based on their record. Is that not discrimination? What about lenders who may not lend based on credit history? Are not the credit-risky being discriminated against? What about a child who wants to work but is denied because he is not yet 16? Is that not age discrimination? The point is being discriminate is the nature of weighing options and rendering judgment or decisions.

There could never be a complete elimination of discrimination without eliminating the basis for sound judgment and the very rules of civilization. So the question then must be, how do we draw the lines of permissible discrimination? And that is why civil liberties issues become so cloudy.

The answer must be centered in principle, as principle exceeds the various circumstances. In all organizations of humanity—family, business, clubs, churches, governments—principle must drive the rules. Rules are in fact founded in principles. The real matter is to correctly understand the founding principles as causes and their effects.

Wisdom of club or government leadership rests in understanding cause and effect and having and accurate vision of the desired effects in order to implement the necessary causes. This is why the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the one. While we are free to choose our actions, we are not free to choose the consequences of those actions—they are either natural results or imposed by civil mandate.

Freedom of speech is not absolute. It is civilly limited by slander. Freedom of the press is not absolute. It is civilly limited by liable. Freedom of religion, rights to privacy, right to own property, etc. all are civilly limited by the intrusion they become on others' inalienable rights—rights that cannot be sold or transferred.

So as with all civil liberties issues, when the issues of gay rights or same sex marriage, or plural marriage, are brought forth, the rights of the individuals must be considered in the light of cause and effect. Particularly, the effect on the whole of the community must drive civil decisions. In every case, club rules are going to discriminate against those who do not wish to comply with the rules. So the civil debate cannot be about discrimination alone. Like it or not, it must be about whether such discrimination is in the best interest of the community and what are the effects upon the rest of the individuals, the family and the community at large. In doing so we must look past self interest, fear, ignorance, delusion, denial, or opinion and look to know the truth of the effects of our decisions. As those decisions are deliberated, let us behave, well, civilly.

On Wealth Re-distribution

(Received via e-mail, author unknown)

Today on my way to lunch I passed a homeless guy with a sign that read "Vote Obama, I need the money." I laughed.

Once in the restaurant my server had on an "Obama 08" tie, again I laughed as he had given away his political preference--just imagine the coincidence.

When the bill came I decided not to tip the server and explained to him that I was exploring the Obama redistribution of wealth concept. He stood there in disbelief while I told him that I was going to redistribute his tip to someone who I deemed more in need--the homeless guy outside. The server angrily stormed from my sight.

I went outside, gave the homeless guy $10 and told him to thank the server inside as I 've decided he could use the money more. The homeless guy was grateful.

At the end of my rather unscientific redistribution experiment I realized the homeless guy was grateful for the money he did not earn, but the waiter was pretty angry that I gave away the money he did earn even though the actual recipient needed money more.

I guess redistribution of wealth is an easier thing to swallow in concept than in practical application.

(But just imagine if the waiter freely and voluntarily gave the tip to the homeless man. A society that forces the bestowal of good will may feed a man for a moment, but it ultimatley undermines the social will and therefore the ability to do so in the long run. Better it seems to teach the principle of benevolence, and let them govern themselves.)

Sage Political Advice

The budget should be balanced, the Treasury should be refilled, public debt should be reduced, the arrogance of officialdom should be tempered and controlled, and the assistance to foreign lands should be curtailed lest Rome become bankrupt. People must again learn to work, instead of living on public assistance.

Cicero, 55 BC

Introduction to Personal Freedom

Personal Freedom is the realization of who you really are and what you are capable of becoming and that only you stand in your way.

Psychologist Victor Frankl discovered this great truth while a Jewish prisoner in a Nazi concentration camp. He observed that those who survived developed a will to survive. He realized that no matter what was inflicted upon him, he could choose how to feel and think about it. He poignantly illustrates the depth of this discovery when, considering a guard, he says to himself, “You have more liberty than I, but I have more freedom.” Frankl concludes from his experience that a prisoner's psychological reactions are not solely the result of the conditions of his life, but also from the freedom of choice he always has even in severe suffering.[1]

Freedom of choice is the first great personal freedom.

Personal Prisons

Personal Prisons are cages of our own forging. They are the things that keep us down, that keep us in a rut, keep us in our box, prevent our growth, and weigh us down with depression, discouragement, and defeatism.

These bars and shackles are forged out of the alloy of misperceptions and bad habits. Ideas that we are victims in this world, that we are owed something, our poor self-image, laziness, complacency, addictions; ideas that “this is all there is,” or that “nothing can be done” and the like form our individual prisons.

Dr. Carter G Woodsen described it this way:

"If you can determine what a man shall think, you will never have to concern yourself with what he will do. If you can make a man feel inferior you will not have to compel him to seek an inferior status for he will seek it himself. And if you can make a man feel justly an outcast, you will never have to order him to use the back door he will go without being told, and if there is no back door, his very nature will demand one."

But as Frankl points out, you can choose what to think. In fact, in every circumstance you choose what to think, feel, say and do with respect to that circumstance. Many of us are accustomed to reacting, or playing off of and reflecting the circumstance back on itself. Most of us respond out of habit and without thinking and by so doing demonstrate our character or lack thereof. These habitual responses, or auto-responses, are the sum of the choices we made long ago based upon our experiences. They become reflex so we no longer consciously make a choice. The good news is that at any time, you can choose to take control of your programming. You can choose to change.

"It is not what happens to you but how you think about what happens to you that determines how you feel and react. It is not the world outside of you that dictates your circumstances or conditions. It is the world inside you that creates the conditions of your life." --Brian Tracey

"I used to say, "I sure hope things will change." Then I learned that the only way things are going to change for me is when I change." --Jim Rohn

---

[1] Victor E. Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning, October 23, 1984 Revised and Updated, Washington Square Press.

For the continuation, see Part I: Law of Cause and Effect

Election 08

With the election fast approaching, I find myself wondering about the nature of the political arena. If the last debate is any indication, it is a bloodbath of insults and issue regurgitating. Where are the statements of leadership? Those decisive statements that drive a nation like "Mr. Gorbechev, tear down this wall," or "In ten years we will land a man on the moon."

Such is the regrettable state when individuals bread in the legislative primordial soup become executive political combatants. Thankfully, Sarah Palin can offer that leadership perspective to the mix.

As the ideological differences have become more clearly defined than ever before in my memory, I find myself wondering why the McCain camp has not taken up the cry, "I am for self-reliance and I oppose Socialism."

Where are the definitive statements like:
"America has the technology. Let us be energy independent in ten years time."

"The US will support the rights of all people and all nations to worship as they will until that worship violates the rights of others' life and liberty."

"If any United Nations country such as Israel is attacked it is the duty and oath of the United Nations to defend that nation. If other UN nations will not abide their oath, the United Sates will do so without reservation and without measure."

"Al-Qaeda is an enemy to civility and civilization. I call upon leaders of all nations to join with us in eradicating it whether by persuasion or by force. As Americans we are committed to doing so, with you or without you."

"If a nation knowingly harbors terrorists, they must know that we are coming after those terrorists, with or without their permission."

"Let us make the way clear for businesses to operate and provide the products we need. But be forewarned that you will be held accountable for the way you use our national resources and how well you clean up your mess when you get finished."

"We as Americans must reform our thinking from that of consumers to that of producers."

Perhaps I am alone in this.

Truth

"The truth is incontrovertible. Malice may attack it. Ignorance may deride it. But in the end, there it is." Winston Churchill