Friday, January 30, 2009

Even if you're not a Mormon

Anyone who has conversed with me about the current state of our union has likely heard me say something along the lines that "maybe the United States has served its purpose" For those who are not LDS let me clarify...We believe that the United States is the only place on the earth that Christ's church (which we believe is our church...hence the name, the organization, the claim to Priesthood authority, etc.) could be restored. However we also believe that the United States Constitution will hang by a thread, as this has been prophesied of over the past 175 or so years by the men we sustain as latter-day prophets and apostles.

You don't need to be a Mormon to see that the true principles whereon this country was founded are scarcely found in the government we have today. We have lost many liberties and are sure to continue to lose them as long as we lack the virtue needed to uphold good and wise men as our leaders. We are in the midst of an economic crises, a dollar crisis, undeclared wars abroad kill our boys, and innocent citizens of foreign lands and are paid for with the plundered funds of honest, hardworking people. It is difficult to see how we will recover from this, and this is kind of my point. What if we don't, what if in God's plan we don't need to? This is really just me brainstorming no one knows what's going to happen...but I'm not the first one to have that thought.





We also believe that the Book of Mormon, which is a record of civilizations which have preceded us on this continent, is a type and shadow of what will happen in the latter days.

3 Nephi 7: 2; 6-7 states:

"And the people were divided one against another; and they did separate one from another into tribes, every man according to his family and his kindred and friends; and thus they did destroy the government of the land.

"And the regulations of the government were destroyed, because of the secret combination of the friends and kindreds of those who murdered the prophets.

"And they did cause a great contention in the land, insomuch that the more righteous part of the people had nearly all become wicked; yea, there were but few righteous men among them."

I realize that the combination of being a Mormon and loving liberty is not a popular position to be in. I have been made fun of all my life for my religion but it doesn't change the fact that it is true. Just as being made a fool for the cause of liberty and freedom is worth it, because they are principles whereon God would have us live (it all comes down to agency). My experience has nearly always been that the less popular something is the more likely that thing is to be right, good and true. Which is why I find it so important to stand and be counted as one who loves the freedoms I have and wish to God I could be a hundred times more free.

Tuesday, January 27, 2009

I may not have been blessed with STYLE...

but I was blessed with stylish sisters. Here's 2 of them...



Sunday, when these girls came to visit, a stack of clothes came with them. I can't explain how much I LOVE hand-me-downs!! They're probably being given away because they're a season behind, but they're right on time for me.


I asked the girls if they would trim my bangs for me. (I didn't want to pay someone to do it.) And I ended up with more than a trim!

Thanks for trying to help your fashion impaired sister!

Monday, January 26, 2009

Blessing Day

We finally blessed our little girlie! She was so sweet and happy all day. She didn't make a sound during her blessing. In fact, the whole church was oddly quiet. Right after the blessing a kid a few rows back just started crying...at a very high volume. Thanks for waiting kid!

We have church right at Jack's nap time, so he was really tired and extremely uncooperative when we got home. We couldn't get any good pictures of the 2 kiddies together. Oh well!


Carrie, Brad, Colson, Griffin, Taryn, Brady, Ryan, and Jacki all came up from UT, and Grandma Aanerud attended the blessing as well. It was so nice to have family with us. Jack had a blast playing with his cousins. Those boys are so cute together.



By the end of the night the three boys were ready for bed.

Saturday, January 24, 2009

Why you should listen to Ron Paul too

Several people have asked me about Ron Paul. Yes, I am a Ron Paul fan because unlike most members of the House, Senate, presidential cabinet and the President himself, he actually lives up to the oath he takes and protects and preserves the Constitution. Even in Barak Obama's inaugural address he vowed to do things that are unconstitutional and illegal...but I digress.

To give you a better idea of the man I thought I would give some excerpts from a book called "A Foreign Policy of Freedom" which is a collection of House addresses he has given from 1976 to 2008.

The following remarks were made on February 2, 1999.

Remember this was almost 10 years ago exactly. I have added italics in places that I find exceptionally relevant or important. This is not the speech in its entirety just excerpts.

“Mr. Speaker, I ask my fellow colleagues, how long will the war go on before Congress notices? We have been bombing and occupying Iraq since 1991, longer than the occupation of Japan after WWII. Iraq has never committed aggression against the United States. The recent escalation of bombing in Iraq has caused civilian casualties to mount. The Clinton administration claims UN resolution 687, passed in 1991, gives him the legal authority to continue this war. We have perpetuated hostilities and sanctions for more than 8 years on a country that has never threatened our security, and the legal justification comes not from the U.S. Congress, as the Constitution demands, but from a clearly unconstitutional authority, the United Nations.

“The Constitution has been blatantly ignored by the president, while Congress has acquiesced in endorsing the eight-year war against Iraq. The War Powers Resolution of 1973 has done nothing to keep our presidents from policing the world, spending billions of dollars, killing many innocent people, and jeopardizing the very troops that should be defending America.

“The continual ranting about stopping Hussein – who is totally defenseless against our attacks – from developing weapons of mass destruction ignores the fact that more than 30,000 very real nuclear warheads are floating around the old Soviet empire.

Our foolish policy in Iraq invites terrorist attacks against U.S. territory and incites Islamic fundamentalists against us. As a consequence, our efforts to develop long-term peaceful relations with Russia are now ending. This policy cannot enhance world peace. Instead of changing it, the president is about to expand it in another no-win centuries-old fight in Kosovo.

Credit expansion is the root cause of all financial bubbles. Fiat monetary systems inevitably cause unsustainable economic expansion that results in recession and/or depression. A correction always results, with the degree and duration being determined by government fiscal policy and central-bank monetary policy. If wages and prices were not allowed to adjust and the correction is thwarted by invigorated monetary expansion, new and sustained economic growth will be delayed or prevented. Financial dislocation caused by central banks, in the various countries will differ from one another due to political perceptions, military considerations and reserve currency status.

“The U.S.’s ability to inflate has been dramatically enhanced by other countries’ willingness to absorb our inflated currency, our dollar being the reserve currency of the world. Foreign central banks now hold in reserve over $600 billion, an amount significantly greater than that even held by our own Federal Reserve System. Our economic and military power gives us additional license to inflate our currency, thus delaying the inevitable correction inherent in a paper money system. This only allows for a larger bubble to develop, further jeopardizing our future economy.

“Federal Reserve Board Chairman Alan Greenspan, when the Dow was at approximately 6,500, cautioned the nation about irrational exuberance; and for a day or two, the markets were subdued. But while openly worrying about an unsustained stock market boom, he nevertheless accelerated the very credit expansion that threatened the market and created the irrational exuberance.

“From December 1996, at the time that Greenspan made this statement, to December 1998, the money supply soared. Over $1 trillion of new money, as measured by M-3, was created by the Federal Reserve. MZM, another monetary measurement, is currently expanding at a rate greater than 20 percent. This generous dose of credit has sparked even more irrational exuberance, which has taken the Dow to over 9,000 for a 30 percent increase in just two years.

Government propaganda promotes the false notion that inflation is no longer a problem. Nothing could be further from the truth. The dangerous financial bubble, a result of the Federal Reserve’s deliberate policy of inflation, and the Fed’s argument that there is no inflation according to government-concocted CPI figures, is made to justify a continuous policy of monetary inflation, because they are terrified of the consequence of deflation. The Federal Reserve may sincerely believe maintaining the status quo, preventing price inflation and delaying deflation is possible, but it really is not.

“There is good reason why we in the Congress should be concerned. A dollar crisis is an economic crisis that will threaten the standard of living of many Americans. Economic crises frequently lead to political crises, as is occurring in Indonesia.

Congress is responsible for the value of the dollar. Yet, just as we have done too often in other areas, we have passed this responsibility on to someone else; in this case, to the Federal Reserve.

The Constitution is clear that the Congress has responsibility for guaranteeing the value of the currency, and no authority has ever been given to create a central bank. Creating money out of thin air is counterfeiting, even when done by a bank that the Congress tolerates.

Too often the American people have chosen security over liberty. Allowing the president a little authority to deal with world problems under a UN banner has been easier than reversing the trend of the past 50 years. Accepting the financial bubble, when on the short run, it helps everyone’s portfolio and helps to finance government spending is easy, even if it only delays the day of reckoning when the bills come due, as they already have in so many other countries in the world.

“Giving up a little privacy seems a small price to pay for the many who receive the generous benefits of big government, but when the prosperity comes to an end and the right to privacy has been squandered, it will be most difficult to restore the principles of a free society.

“Materialistic concerns and complacency toward the principles of liberty will undo much of what has been built in America over the past 200 years, unless there is a renewed belief that our God-given rights to life and liberty are worth working for. False economic security is no substitute for productive effort in a free society, where the citizens are self-reliant, generous and nonviolent. Insisting on a limited government designed to protect life and property, as is found in a republic, must be our legislative goal.



If we had listened to him in 1999 (or in 1976 for that matter) there is a very strong chance all of the things we are dealing with today would be non-issues.

If you are interested you can buy the book here.

Monday, January 19, 2009

National Bankruptcy Day is coming to a store near you!

One of my favorite moments in the movie Finding Nemo is when Squirt the sea turtle gets thrown outside of the current and his wise father stops Marlin (Nemo's dad) from going to get him and says something to the effect of "let us see what Squirt decides to do about this". (probably not an exact quote, but you get the idea)

We must all be incredibly stupid. We must all be so ill-educated and naive that we need the government to step in in nearly every portion of our private lives to tell us how to act.

In August Congress passed a law called the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act of 2008. This law takes effect on Feb 10, 2009...many free thinking and level headed individuals have nicknamed 2/10 National Bankruptcy Day.

The reason for this is one facet of the new law requires any product of any kind that is marketed towards children to be tested for lead by an unbiased third party. The law is also retro-active. Testing can range in price but the lowest price I've found anyone quote so far is $100, I've heard as high as $1,000, per product. It all sounds a little benign until you begin to think about the ramifications of the law.

Sarah, my lovely and talented wife has begun to make these adorable little head bands and clips for girls. She has collaborated with her sisters on a few things and I think there were some very earnest aspirations to begin selling some home-made products online. However if the goon squad found her clips (which at the high end would probably still cost less than $2) were intended for children and she hadn't tested them for lead...no mas. All products would be pulled immediately and she could probably even get herself a tidy little fine.

So all hand-made, home-made stuff (if a kid ever touches it) now has to be tested. So long to ingenuity and craftiness. This is going to put many, many people out of business. Places like second hand clothing stores with children's clothes, children's book sellers, discount shoe stores, "dollar" stores, and many other small time businesses are going down. Hence National Bankruptcy Day.

On ABC radio today I heard with my own two ears that "some are considering banning children from libraries as the ink in some of the books may contain trace amounts of lead."

I understand some people are trying to protect us, but here's how you do that. If the market finds that a product is unsatisfactory word will get around and people will stop buying it. People will boycott China. This is a consumer decision, one I trust myself and anyone with a pair of brain cells and one good lung to make on their own. We don't need the government to do it for us.

So what is likely is there will be a new bureaucracy formed in order to watch over us and enforce this new law and its provisions. The price of every conceivable children's product will go up substantially and many of your favorite, small time stores are going to be put out of business. This will then cause many people to join the ranks of the unemployed (here's to economic stimulus). The makers of raw materials, distributors, store fronts and consumers are all going to be affected tremendously.

The reason I'm so upset about this is because it is yet another encroachment on our freedom. What products we purchase is our decision, the same with food, the same with services. I can think, my momma taught me how.

I have heard some rumors among people who are Washington observers state that some legislators think that they should implement a law requiring all children be tested for psychological or personality disorders. What will result is the long-term medicating of our children without knowing the long-term affects of the medication. This is likely the brainchild of a pharmaceutical company.

Anyhow if you decide that you think your kid is fine, they don't need to be tested, they will probably have you reported to family services and your kid will be medicated and you will go to prison while they are put in to the system.

Once again, you do not need the government to decide for you and your children if they should be medicated. That is a family decision. You don't need the government to tell you anything. I trust you to act in your own best interests and by so doing you will likely not adversely affect me.

The funny thing is, the free market system worked for a long time, a very long time and the economy thrived during most of that time. It has only been the government's interference in our personal lives that has stymied so much of what could and should have been. The only thing that is more disappointing to me than the crooks in DC is that most people don't even care about this kind of stuff. As long as people are entertained and well fed....right?

Can you imagine if they banned pornography. There would be rioting in the streets.

So happy MLK day. Happy Barak Obama is the new god day in advance (I hope you're getting the sarcasm here). Let the unconstitutional, illegal and immoral rubber stamping continue, who am I to question it?

(just a short aside...I told many this already but HR 4040 passed on a vote of 424-1 in the House.....Ron Paul was the 1. In the Senate the vote was 89-3 Sens. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., Jim DeMint, R-S.C., and Jon Kyl, R-Ariz were the 3. Congratulations gentlement on having read the Constitution.

here is another article about the impact of HR 4040

if you want to do something you can contact your congressmen or senators.

And may God continue to bless the good people of Texas' 14th district for continuing to give us Ron Paul.

Thursday, January 15, 2009

All grown up

Its been obvious from past pictures of Jack that I don't know how to cut hair and I've been putting off the inevitable, but it could be put off no longer. Jack got his first REAL haircut today. It was harder than I thought it would be (no, I didn't cry). Right when the woman started cutting his hair I thought, "oh no, what did I do!" I loved that floppy hair that bounced when he ran. She kept cutting and when she was done I was suddenly looking at a Big Boy...all grown up. He looks so handsome, and now I don't have to be embarrassed when we show up at church with a little guy who is dressed for Sunday, but still has Saturday hair.


Before...

After...

Wednesday, January 14, 2009

Giggles

I love little baby laughs!

Monday, January 5, 2009

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!

This guy turned 2!

Sunday was Jack's b-day. We thought about having a party with actual guests, but opted for a low key family party. Which, in retrospect, worked out well since Jack and Addie were both sick.


We sure love this little guy (even if he has entered the terrible twos).

Nap time


That must have been one awesome nap.

Friday, January 2, 2009

Happy New Year!!


Its the second day of 2009...so far so good!