A Time For Everything

Election fatigue is starting to fray nerves and make otherwise calm people lose their self control. There may have been a more contentious, outrageous, uncivil presidential election in our past but I don’t recall one, at least not since I’ve been paying attention. 

The year I turned 21 I cast my first vote. It was 1968.  I guess I had an opinion, I’m sure I had not really studied the two candidates - Nixon and Humphrey. I voted for Nixon because. Because why? I can’t tell you. Maybe because he was the Republican? Whatever. I was not an informed voter and yet I voted anyway. It made me feel grown up.

This go round, while gathered in groups, whether in person at events and parties, or virtually on social media, people cannot help but comment and say what’s sitting up top on their conscious minds. The Internet and unlimited access to information has made it possible for everyone to be as informed as they wish to be.

I live in a decidedly Red community so most of the comments are not especially kind to the Democratic candidate. There is much frustration  that cannot be contained. So much is blatantly obvious, to those who wish to see, the angst about how incredible it is that so many misdeeds and lies can be ignored feels like a bad case of heartburn. 

Frankly, I don’t know how bad the information has to be to be considered game changing. If I had to guess I’d say those who are shocked and disillusioned will simply stay home rather than vote for the opponent. And that is always game-changing when the numbers are reportedly neck and neck. 

How will it end? Can it end well and peacefully? Will the whole truth finally be allowed to come out? Will crime be exposed and criminals be prosecuted? Will the elite be held accountable for the many things the rest of us would be put under the jail for? 

Maybe, maybe not. Regardless what happens, even if the worst of the worst is exposed, there are many who will still side with, defend and make excuses for the one they were duped into believing was who she has claimed to be. 

Historical note: there are still many, to this day, who make excuses for Nixon. Who say he was set up and that he would have been a great president if not for a silly made up scandal. I’m not like that. When I find out something is irrefutably true, I don’t hang on to my position just to save face. I say something until the time for speaking is done. 

But well done is better than well said - so I do something. Click if you dare

When a truth must be said, it must be said. To remain silent for the sake of maintaining civility is to deny that there is a time for everything. 

When stakes are high and eyes are still blind is no time to remain silent.

For Him,

Meema

(Ecclesiastes 3:1) For everything there is a season, and a time for very purpose under heaven:  (3:2) a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;  (3:3) a time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up;  (3:4) a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance;  (3:5) a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;  (3:6) a time to seek, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away;  (3:7) a time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;  (3:8) a time to love, and a time to hate; a time for war, and a time for peace.  

Obamacareless

I’d really rather write about lovely philosophical ponderings but sometimes I have to say tough words. I acquired and fine-tuned this skill while raising teenagers. That’s another topic for later - for now, I just need to vent.

I’m somewhat conservative and not given to sudden outbursts but of late I just want to stand in the middle of the room and scream. When the brightest of the bright, or so they wish us to believe, were debating the credits and debits of Obamacare, I quietly said - “It cannot work and we have the British NHS as our precedent.” I also said - “They know it won’t work. What they want is single payer, government run healthcare so they can tell us what to eat, how much to weigh, how much to exercise - or....be refused healthcare.” 

Even little old me could see it way back when our newly elected representatives, who campaigned and won on promises to stand up to Executive overreach, proved to be liars, cowards and and betrayers of the trust of those who elected them. 

And I’ve never been accused of being brightest of the bright. 

But how difficult is it to see what was and is and therefore likely to be? Why, now that the system is imploding right and left, no one asks, ”Who wasn’t bright enough to see this coming?” Those who insisted this would be the best thing since sliced bread now seem shocked. It just needs tweaking, you know...

Uh huh.

Are the liars really shocked? Or just lying again? 

Hindsight seems so futile, except it can teach us valuable lessons - if we are paying attention. To say, I told you so rings a bit tinny. I’d rather say - liberty is a word that can be redefined just as any other. All it takes is a compliant population who still thinks the government just wants us to be healthy.

What is the opposite of hindsight? Forwardsight? Here’s a glimpse at our near future healthcare -

 Nasty Health Service

For Him,

Meema

Something Old Something New

We had one of our best Trinity Pond Farm events ever this past weekend. A wedding. Amazing, blessed gathering. Beautiful people, young and old, everywhere. 

Sunday, as we were all in clean up and recovery mode, small clusters of out-of-town guests dawdled out on the farmhouse porch drinking in the perfect October morning with their coffee. Conversation infused with giggles and guffaws floated out on gentle puffs of air washed clean by a passing pre-dawn rain. As the sun climbed upward and the rigid schedule of real life broke through the lingering revere, making its demands, a few at a time reluctantly loaded up their cars and left. 

Even though the magically charged atmosphere had quieted down, a faint ringing remained of the laughter and music of the night before. Everyone seemed to silently acknowledge this as definitely one for the memory books. 

We will not soon forget this one.

Memory on memory. Family and friends come together to celebrate and perpetuate old traditions, like marriage, in order to create new fresh beginnings. Modernity can try its best to convince us that tradition is obsolete and that only new ways and definitions can take humans into a brave and better future.  

Label me old-fashioned but I don’t think so. 

What was so perfectly crafted in the long ago beginning, what is now so very old, is still as new and fresh a thing as a gentle mid-October Sunday morning. 

And everything old is made new again.

For Him,

Meema 

(Genesis 2:24) Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.

When Anything Goes

In the Age of Anything Goes - everything does. At least, everything of any value.

When standards, largely attributed to Judeo/Christian beliefs, are downgraded and summarily ripped away, anarchy fills the void and slowly seeps in the cracks and finally takes over. 

It’s not as though we don’t have history to prove this cycle. Though modern education does its best to alter and justify historical accounting, traces of truth still remain so that anyone is able who really wanted to see what happens when human nature is allowed to have its way. 

Imagine leaving a group of small children alone in a room with a table full of candy.

One downside of the Anything Goes Era is the inevitable conundrum that the more laws put in place to keep law-abiding citizens in tow, the more that lawlessness, larceny and fraud thrives, succeeds and goes unaccountable and thus is freed up to destroy again and again.

This phenomenon plays out in every way possible, from the obscure individual to the high profile personality. From religion to politics, to giant corporations. Even the once sacrosanct institutions of banking - thievery is enabled to blossom and flourish within a society that has been conditioned to prefer the lie over the truth.

I’ve witnessed this over and over again in recent years to the point I’ve made the topic a personal focus of study. The stories I’ve heard and have witnessed are all different but in many ways exactly the same. And growing in number to the point that there are few who have not experienced the shock of finding out they have been defrauded by a smooth talking liar, most which can be classified as psychopaths by the single defining trait - lack of conscience. These are so good at creating an alternate reality they can convince anyone of anything, including displays of great compassion and concern for others. Dr. Robert Hare describes this as ‘knowing the lyrics but not the music’ in his book Without Conscience - The Disturbing World of the Psychopaths Among Us.

I recommend this book whether you have ever been scammed or not because ... well, in the age of Anything Goes, you can count on being had sooner or later, one way or another. Knowing how to spot the red flags at the early stage is a skill known as being discerning. 

If there ever was an age needing discernment, it is the here and now. 

Unfortunately, the scam artists, whether psychopaths or not, all have fine-tuned instincts to know how to recognize who is a good mark. They mostly pick the vulnerable, and those who seem to be straight up and trusting. They are sheep hunters who often zero in on those who show no outward traits of cynicism or natural mistrust and present as meek and mild. 

But the most clever weapon a con man has in his arsenal is the victim’s own deep desire to believe what isn’t true. And so the con knows how to tap into the hopes and dreams of his mark. And once locked into a target, he knows exactly what rationale and excuses to use if any questions arise because he has already factored in what the mark is likely to want to hear.  

See how that works?

One might correlate this to the way satan finds his prey. He also counts on our deep, unfulfilled desires to be our weakest openings because he knows we’ll hang on hoping that maybe, just maybe, the lie isn’t really a lie. 

In the age of Anything Goes - the lie is the new normal so the once reliable test of what is true by action, result, and longevity shifts to vague feelings, empty, albeit good sounding words, and short-term dazzle, and thus the inevitable decay begins. 

At the lowest point, when truth at last becomes irrelevant, everything is a scam; nothing is reliable. 

I’ve written about this new paradigm as I have seen it unfolding, from many different perspectives. There are abundant scams going on all day every day and there always have been. What is different now is how easy it is to sink into the abyss of delusion because once the standards that held us accountable have been removed there is nothing that can define what is true. 

I could see this raw, seemingly mindless process, beginning years ago when I realized that modern life, driven by commercialism and advertising was the foundation of a dark future world, where everything is a lie, and yet no one cares because it’s expected. Now we have multimillion dollar corporations harvesting profile information via our personal electronic devises so to better craft compelling advertising - to make branding and visual stimulation elevated to an art form. Art is just illusion, after all, but let us call it what it truly is - scamming (manipulating) the masses by using their weaknesses in order to take money from them! 

However, scamming isn’t always about money - sometimes it’s about power quest or control, whether in personal relationships or politics. Regardless, what I have learned, by hard knock experience, is that, once a con artist has locked into the deep desire and fragile hope of the victim, it’s practically impossible to open his/her eyes to see the truth, until the damage is fully done. Thus the devil has his way... for a time. 

But I have to admit, it’s really frustrating to watch. Over. And. Over. 

For Him,

Meema

Dear Mr. Trump

I’m not a political speech writer, (though I did stay at a Holiday Inn once), so no one, especially not a candidate for the office of president would pay me no never mind.  Me, being a little ole grandma who remembers being American was an honorable condition and certainly nothing to apologize for. But if I had the opportunity, I’d love to give it a shot, to write the speech that I’d like to hear Trump give. Since he is never going to see this, out of nothing more than complete frustration, I’m going to say it here. 

Dear Mr. Trump,

I’m just an old school American - I grew up standing for the Pledge of Allegiance, hand over heart. I know the words to the Star Spangled Banner and I have no problem belting it out when our Anthem is played. I’m pretty average, as legal citizens go. I’m friendly and I've worked hard and paid my taxes, even though I know I have little input in how those funds are wasted... uh...dispersed by bureaucrats.

While I’m not notable or famous or one of the ‘beautiful people’ I am known to be reliable and I have what is now considered old fashioned ethics and common sense, traits that seem to be dying out in this age of anything goes. Though I am not special, or influential in any way, I also believe I am not unique in another regard. I would like to believe that most Americans, over the age of 40, are just like I am. 

If I might be so bold, I’d like to offer up the words I’d love to hear you say, here in the final stretch.

---------------

Hello, my name is Donald Trump. I’m running for the office of the president of the United States of America. 

First of all, I’d like to get a couple of things out of the way. I assume everyone listening to my voice knows all about my opponent’s issues - the Benghazi fiasco, her erased emails, her hidden server and lies about the classified emails passing through, her foundation that’s basically a money laundering shell company, and her husband’s history of rape and abuse of women, that she not only condoned but then vilified those unfortunate women, whose lives have been ruined. If you don’t know about these things you must have been on a desert island somewhere for the past four years. Therefore, there’s not much reason for me to recap all these things. So I won’t.

What I want to address, at this late hour, which is way more important, is the next four years hanging in a critical balance. There has been so much damage done to this country in just the last eight years, I can’t stand here and promise that I can fix everything that’s been done to us under the present administration. Not even Superman can do that. I can’t know, for sure, how the Congress will react to my presidency and whether or not they are too far sold out to the high bidders. I can say I have a decent track record in being able to work with all sorts of people and I can only promise to utilize those skills to the best of my ability. 

What I also can promise, upon assuming office, is that I will make some immediate changes that will prove I am sincere in my determination to stop the bleeding. To be sure, we are bleeding out. Our economy, our military, our way of life, all the attributes that have made this country the envy of the world, are now on life support, regardless what the elite and their media tells you from their view from their ivory towers. 

I don’t presume to know the future but I know that, in the here and now, some vital changes must occur to stop and turn around the Fundamental Change that has been put into place with little to no resistance from the Supreme Court and the Congress. 

Now let me speak as plainly as possible here: 

Your vote matters. Voter fraud is a real and present danger. If you choose not to vote at all, you actually choose my opponent by default. If you choose my opponent you choose the path of least resistance to the complete destruction of the values that established and raised this country to its peak. In less than five years this country and all it has stood for will not stand for you any longer; strangers will have more rights than you.

We have always believed this country was too big and too great to fail and could never be destroyed by outside forces. We never imagined it could happen from the inside out.

If you choose to vote for me, even if it makes you wince at the thought, at the very least, you can count on a conservative appointment to the Supreme Court, which can stem the tide of laws that are waiting to reorder our American way of life. You see, I and my family will be negatively impacted just as you and yours will if we continue on this downward spiral. You see, I have a deep and abiding desire to save this country for the sake of my family as well as yours.

Ultimately, I am the only person willing and able to stand up to the force that has gained so much power with intent to deconstruct this great country. My opponent promises to finish the job already well underway.

I am standing here today, speaking about this, even as the media and the establishment is shocked to the point of disbelief to find out that Americans are sick and tired of political business as usual. They prosper as the majority of hard working Americans struggle to pay their health insurance, their mortgages and put food on their tables. Why is this not understood? 

Again - the hour is late - you don’t need me to make rhetorical political promises or remind you of all the ways my opponent has proved herself to be untrustworthy. What you need is hope that someone is more interested in what’s in your best interest than in rising to a position of ultimate power over you.

Please vote - and vote often (just kidding).

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If I heard this from Hillary I wouldn’t believe it, but I am willing to take the chance that, even if he never says this, he believes it.

For Him,

Meema