Thanks for those of you who voted in the poll. Sorry to keep bothering everyone with this stuff but it's just so important to talk about. Everyone picked either 10 or 17 countries that our military continues to maintain a presence. Your optimism is outdone only by our government's ceaseless spending and reckless foreign policy. The reality is that our military is currently in 130 countries. Any country we have ever been in for a war related reason (or practically any other reason for that matter) we have never left. We continue to operate military bases in peaceful ally nations where frankly we have no business being. Kind of shocking huh? No wonder our implicit federal budget deficit is over 53 trillion and growing at breakneck speed.
You really don't need to specify a week or a day for that matter, playing with trains is a constant. Addie is getting to be very smiley. It's a lot of fun to talk to her and have her respond with something other than spit up.
Carrie, Colson and Griffin came over to play. It was really fun to have them here again. Jack LOVES his cousins.
We had a pretty decent snow storm over the weekend. Turns out that Jack really enjoys the snow.
You're thinking it does look familiar, but why? I'm sure if you have kids you've seen a run like that many times. But you might also be thinking of this...
You don't need to watch the whole video to get the idea.
Over recent months my mind has become increasingly troubled with the direction in which we are headed as a country, the wars we will have to fight and the future we are giving our children. I spend as much of my free time as I feel I am able in learning about what true liberty is and I regret to say that the report is horrifying. If the saying is true that “evil prevails when good men do nothing” then the good men are definitely doing nothing, and lots of it.
Some of you who will read this have likely already been turned off and will not finish reading this or simply just don’t care. This is not to say that what I specifically have to say is ground breaking, but taking a step back to see where we are as a supposed republic is paramount. I have spent a significant amount of time thinking about how to awaken people to a sense of patriotic awareness on this front. It is difficult, near impossible I would say to get the masses of Americans who have been blessed with so much to show even the slightest bit of interest in what is becoming of our nation. People will stand in lines for hours to get in to the latest Harry Potter movie or buy the newest version of the Wii but you would be hard pressed to get people to try and educate themselves about the gravity of our current political plight.
Recently I purchased a copy of the Communist Manifesto and have been reading it along with several other books outlining the essential fundamentals of liberty or, in the manifesto’s case, the antithesis of liberty. I feel both are important to understand.
The ten points of the Communist Manifesto are as follows:
Here are the 10 measures the proletariat will use to bring about the full realization of the communist utopian dream, once they have the political power: 1. Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes. 2. A heavy progressive or graduated income tax. 3. Abolition of all rights of inheritance. 4. Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels. 5. Centralization of credit in the banks of the state, by means of a national bank with state capital and an exclusive monopoly. 6. Centralization of the means of communication and transport in the hands of the state. 7. Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the state; the bringing into cultivation of waste lands, and the improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a common plan. 8. Equal obligation of all to work. Establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture. 9. Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries; gradual abolition of all the distinction between town and country by a more equable distribution of the populace over the country. 10. Free education for all children in public schools. Abolition of children's factory labor in its present form. Combination of education with industrial production, etc. I hope someone is beginning to see what I’m talking about. We have, as a nation, fully embraced several of these communist doctrines and are in the process of adopting the rest. The greatest travesty of it all is that even if everyone were fully aware of this, and I feel that on some level most people recognize this, it would not be motivation enough to get off the couch and do anything about it.
In addition to this here is a piece of audio recently aired on the Glenn Beck show but it is the former Secretary of Agriculture (under Eisenhower) Ezra Taft Benson
“Unwise legislation, too often prompted by political expediency is periodically being enacted that seductively undermines man’s right of free agency, robs him of his rightful liberties, and makes him but a cog in the crushing wheel of regimentation which, if persisted in, will end in dictatorship.” David O. McKay
On Sunday after church we tried to take some family pictures for our Christmas cards. It wasn't the best experience we've ever had. I love this picture because it pretty much sums up the whole experience. I'm having a good time, Jack has had it, Addie is sleeping, and Eric is trying his hardest to look like he's having fun.
