If the shoe fits…

 

 

on leadership

 

fwiw – courtesy of facebook 

 

 

 

 

Bastiat and legal plunder

 

{sigh}

This morning I was reading to the kids from Carson about how the Constitution came to be regarded and respected as Higher Law in our country due to a contest between Chief Justice Marshall and the Jeffersonians in the early 1800s.  Interesting.  It was also was understood that each branch of government was to determine its own actions based on its own interpretation of the Constitution.  {{the judiciary branch wasn’t the only judge of what the Constitution says!}}  So Congress often debated the constitutionality of its proposed legislation.  And “until after 1865 many more bills were invalidated by Presidents on the ground of their unconstitutionality than were invalidated by the Supreme Court.” 

Think on that for a minute or ten.  {Then be sure to go back and note the year of 1865.  I could go off on the Lincoln presidency…}

Meanwhile in the year {AD} 2014…

A facebook friend posted yesterday about it being an election day.  I surmised it must be school board election time.  Which we do not get to participate in since we lived outside city limits.  Yet our kids would be considered part of the local school district if we enrolled them in the public schools?  And 53% of our property taxes are sent to the same local district.  {anyone else see a problem with that?}

ANYway, today her status became a short discussion of additional taxes levied to pay for new school buildings…  ad nauseum. One commenter [Jenn] pays for the private education of her children, and she is of the opinion the public schools appear to have an abundance of funds.  Someone else [Barb] was arguing that Jenn also benefitted from the public school systems in her own education {which Jenn refuted with the fact her parents paid}.   But then they both agreed that vouchers were a great option so that Jenn’s taxes could help pay for her own kids’ private education.  End of discussion?

I hesitated.  Thought about posting something like this:

:x

As in, I’m biting my tongue instead of spewing hot lava. 

But then I went looking for Mr. Bastiat’s little gem called The Law.  Since I couldn’t find our printed copy I resorted to an online search:: success!  espec since it’s so much easier to copy/paste.  {and yes, I’m lazy – but I did read much of the writing while searching for his discussion on legal plunder.  So I’m not a total dufus in spite of my own public schools education.  ahem.  God is the Great Redeemer!}

On facebook I only posted the first paragraph I’ve quoted here, but it’s all so good.  So in the midst of my trying to recount the long month of August in our own small world, here’s a little insight to the reality of socialism in America.

Why do we have so many ‘victims’ in our country?  Why is their so much real violence?  Why do we have such an anti-American living in the White House?

Why do the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing?

I am so incredibly thankful that my ultimate citizenship is in heaven by the grace and mercy of God.  Meanwhile we are to be good stewards in the place God has put us.  I believe that includes being a voice for truth and justice.  Now we just need Tim to offer his own blog of wisdom to share with y’all.  For now I guess you could listen to Jan M on WHO Radio along with reading some Bastiat.

While I suggest you click and read the entire book, you could begin with this tidbit from Frederick Bastiat:

 

How to Identify Legal Plunder

But how is this legal plunder to be identified? Quite simply. See if the law takes from some persons what belongs to them, and gives it to other persons to whom it does not belong. See if the law benefits one citizen at the expense of another by doing what the citizen himself cannot do without committing a crime.

Then abolish this law without delay, for it is not only an evil itself, but also it is a fertile source for further evils because it invites reprisals. If such a law — which may be an isolated case — is not abolished immediately, it will spread, multiply, and develop into a system.

The person who profits from this law will complain bitterly, defending his acquired rights. He will claim that the state is obligated to protect and encourage his particular industry; that this procedure enriches the state because the protected industry is thus able to spend more and to pay higher wages to the poor workingmen.

Do not listen to this sophistry by vested interests. The acceptance of these arguments will build legal plunder into a whole system. In fact, this has already occurred. The present-day delusion is an attempt to enrich everyone at the expense of everyone else; to make plunder universal under the pretense of organizing it.

Legal Plunder Has Many Names

Now, legal plunder can be committed in an infinite number of ways. Thus we have an infinite number of plans for organizing it: tariffs, protection, benefits, subsidies, encouragements, progressive taxation, public schools, guaranteed jobs, guaranteed profits, minimum wages, a right to relief, a right to the tools of labor, free credit, and so on, and so on. All these plans as a whole — with their common aim of legal plunder — constitute socialism.

Now, since under this definition socialism is a body of doctrine, what attack can be made against it other than a war of doctrine? If you find this socialistic doctrine to be false, absurd, and evil, then refute it. And the more false, the more absurd, and the more evil it is, the easier it will be to refute. Above all, if you wish to be strong, begin by rooting out every particle of socialism that may have crept into your legislation. This will be no light task.

the little foxes

 

..that spoil the vines…

Is this really what the Bible is talking about?  Seems like that’s how I hear the verse quoted… the little temporal trials that we allow to rob our eternal joy now.  If so, the verse applies.  And I am guilty.

 

 

Why does this machine leave me so frustrated? 

We purchased a new printer/scanner/copier/blahblahblah last December.  Sometime this year {summer methinks} the top feeder stopped working.  Okay, whatever.  Then we couldn’t copy using the flatbed either.  :p  The scanner wouldn’t work unless the computer told it to.  If I didn’t have another printer in the other room, I’d have called HP sooner I suppose.  {Anyone else procrastinate when the job is spending hours on hold to speak with someone in India…?}

I knew I had $$ at Staples to redeem this month, and what I usually buy there is ink or paper.  Good stock of paper already, so I decided I should buy ink.  However I didn’t want to stock up on ink for a printer that was dying and irreplaceable.  So before I went shopping, I called Staples to ask what to do about this printer still under its 12-month warranty.

Since it was more than 60 days since purchase, he couldn’t replace it for me.  He gave me the phone number for HP.  After 67 minutes on the phone for their ‘free’ troubleshooting service, they had agreed I needed a replacement printer.  Hmmm, a “certified” reconditioned printer.  {fyi, “certified” sounds more like “thirty-five”  -- which had me a bit confused in the conversation.  It’s an Officejet 6700…}

Said printer arrived yesterday.  An hour or so later I had the ‘new’ printer hooked up with the original power cord and paper tray and other transferred parts…and the old one boxed up to ship.  {Soon, or I will be billed for the replacement printer.  No refunds.}  Anyway.  I saw a message “Scanner Failure” when I tried to copy something as a test.  But I thought surely after I’d jumped through the rest of the set-up hoops, it would think better of me… and work.

This is becoming a long story, eh?  Sorry.  Well, you can guess what I had to do.  After too much monkey business I called HP again.  And went through the 'free’ troubleshooting service to do a ‘partial reset’ [pretty soon I could work for HP too methinks]… while the tech hoped it would decide to work.  Not happening.  You guessed that already, didn’t you?

They will be sending yet another ‘certified’ reconditioned printer.  {No charge.  Unless I fail to return the broken printer soon enough of course.}  Ms. HP Hardware Support Supervisor assures me the next one will of course work perfectly.  I wish I had requested a coupon good for a NEW printer from my local Staples instead.  Tomorrow I will find the FedEx Store in Ames to ship the first printer… Next week I’ll have to return to FedEx to ship the second…

And hopefully that will make an end.  For at least six months?

 

Oh, here’s today’s additional joke… I opened an email this morning from HP Support with this request:

Please send us the original hardware purchase receipt (Scanned/Faxed)

Um, just how would I do that?  My printer/copier/scanner/fax machine does not work.  Oh, the irony.

# # # # #

 

Meanwhile I need to work on my response when asked how I am doing today by a service technician…  ahem. 

“Better than I deserve”

Giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ ~ Ephesians 5:20

truth can be painfully clear

 
Norma Leah McCorvey, better known by the legal pseudonym "Jane Roe", was the plaintiff in the landmark American lawsuit Roe v. Wade in 1973. The U.S. Supreme Court overturned individual states' laws against abortion by ruling them unconstitutional. Later, McCorvey's opinions on abortion changed, and she is now active in pro-life causes.
Norma McCorvey released her first book in 1994, an autobiography entitled I Am Roe.  McCorvey's second book, Won by Love, was published in 1998. She explained her change on the stance of abortion with the following comments:

I was sitting in O.R.'s offices when I noticed a fetal development poster. The progression was so obvious, the eyes were so sweet. It hurt my heart, just looking at them. I ran outside and finally, it dawned on me. 'Norma', I said to myself, 'They're right'. I had worked with pregnant women for years. I had been through three pregnancies and deliveries myself. I should have known. Yet something in that poster made me lose my breath. I kept seeing the picture of that tiny, 10-week-old embryo, and I said to myself, that's a baby! It's as if blinders just fell off my eyes and I suddenly understood the truth — that's a baby!
I felt crushed under the truth of this realization. I had to face up to the awful reality. Abortion wasn't about 'products of conception'. It wasn't about 'missed periods'. It was about children being killed in their mother's wombs. All those years I was wrong. Signing that affidavit, I was wrong. Working in an abortion clinic, I was wrong. No more of this first trimester, second trimester, third trimester stuff. Abortion — at any point — was wrong. It was so clear. Painfully clear.

Above information found at wikipedia.

  Embryo at 56 days.  Picture from this website.

I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made: marvellous are thy works; and that my soul knoweth right well.

My substance was not hid from thee, when I was made in secret, and curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth.

Thine eyes did see my substance, yet being unperfect; and in thy book all my members were written, which in continuance were fashioned, when as yet there was none of them. 

Psalm 139:14-16

 

The sanctity of life doesn’t end…
                 

one of Tim's favorites

from Daniel Defoe...

Nature has left this tincture in the blood,
That all men would be tyrants if they could:
If they forbear their neighbours to devour,
'Tis not for want of will, but want of power;
The general plague infects the very race,
Pride in his heart, and tyrant in his face;
The characters are legible and plain,
And perfectly describe the monster, man.

Nor can he otherwise be understood,
We'd all be emperors, 'tis in our blood;
Ambition knows no bounds: the meanest hand,
If once let loose, would power itself command;
Would storm the skies, the thund'rer there dethrone,
Be universal lord, and call the world his own.

(and there's even more to the poem!)

Thank you, Mr. Defoe and Google  :-)