We all know that our DNA is passed down to our children. Along with this we can pass illnesses, disease even addictions. We also know we can pass down honesty, truth, integrity, a work ethic, patriotism, selflessness many times our religion. When we see successful people most every time in their past someone from the generation before helped them. Someone in their past payed a price for them to have a better life.
When my father was 24 years old, he signed up for the army, he ended up in Germany, where he was shot through his back. His sacrifice payed the price so that I could live my entire life, right up until now, in a free country. My parents helped me through school and then college.
As we all know today we are in a fight that most of us have never faced. We are in a fight to either pass on what was given to us, or give up and leave our kids and future generations this political mess? (Frustrating to me, that many who have caused our pain and dilemmas, have paid nothing). There is no easy way out of this. It’s going to take determination, faith and sacrifice to get back the freedoms we have conceded. We are going to have to pay the price to get back what we have allowed to happen to our home. The next several years are going to be very difficult but if we can all stay together and never give in to these leftist Marxist we can beat them and take our country back. We must never give up!! J.Goodrich
I hope my little essay here follows the others because I think it compliments all the others have been saying. My story is just this: I have watched a group of “plain people” (old order Amish types) now for 40 years. I’ve lived as close neighbor for 15. As a teacher I am seriously interested in how children are raised and taught. And over that time a few remarkable truths emerged. One, these people are poor by choice. Because they are poor, they live frugally, reusing what they can and buying only what they absolutely need. There are very few luxuries ( thus no envy). Children have no fancy toys. Few toys at all. No electronics obviously because no electricity. All the time in the day is spent productively meaning entertainment is not a part of daily life. Family and other people constitute the most interesting thing in their lives which ends in them always hanging out with each other. Even toddlers sit in the garden with the parents and older child doing what normal farm life does. Sounds boring to us, doesn’t it. But to them it is interesting, peaceful, healthy, full of little learnings. School is taught by young adults who were never trained and often do it part time while pursuing other endeavors. Everyone knows everyone. Children are given tasks or chores to do that fit their age and developmental abilities. By the time they finish school at age 13 they are basically ready to run the farm. By 21 they are considered adults with independent adult rights (like earning their own money) and responsibilities and can begin considering marriage and family. All of them tend to be thoughtful, slow to opine their own beliefs, slow to anger, tremendous self control, a very strong resistance to being drawn into unjust behavior, highly resistant to meanness. There is a moral and ethical backbone that is formed early on that sets these children apart from the kids who visit from the local school. Oh, and they are physically tough. They aren’t pampered and don’t expect it all the while being well loved by their families. The modern pursuit of convenience, the softening of society, the ease of every pain physical and mental, the gradual reliance on some giant caretaker to think for and provide for us, they need for so many suppliers: the water company, the electric company, the insurance company, the bank, the grocery; these all remove self-reliance and when replaced with the pursuit of endless self satisfaction of every possible human desire leads us to the debacle we are in… a people who seem more and more morally and ethically bewildered while more and more depressed and deeply unhappy and unable to get along peacefully with one another. Maybe in the end, less really is more.
I see the Mennonites, Amish in PA all the time, and can't help but be a little envious of their lifestyle, their community, their togetherness.
My wife asked me if I thought they would adopt us, as a 57 and 59 year old couple, haha. I thought that was funny, but then realized that it was more a curiosity than thought it should be.
One day, last year my wife and I stumbled upon a farmers / tractor show in PA, and while perusing the fairgrounds came across some really fine people. Since we were just plugging along with our beagles, the hour or so we spent talking with Mr. Roy (Mennonite former) about life in the community was a little less appealing, and not in a way I expected.
So it was revealed by Mr. Roy that he had been ex-communicated by the Mennonite parish because he discovered that one of the elders was sexually abusing one or more of the children in the parish. He spoke up, and I guess by breaking some code of ethics, he was banned, or removed from the parish, even though he continues to live in the same area, same house, same locale.
Very odd, I felt, but still intriguing.
I guess the Mennonites handle their own problems, and do not involve local, or state officials when dealing,with these issues.
For Roy, physically nothing much has changed, except he was no longer allowed in their religious ceremonies, or he is uninvited to other meetings of the elders. Roy still makes a life / living, still has a few friends, and now, oddly enough, more freedoms to be "American" than ever before. Bizarre that Roy protested this elder abusing a young parishoner, and he was punished for standing,up about it. I only got one side of this story, so I can't make any judgment calls on anyone in particular, other than if the sexual abuse charges are true, someone needs his ass kicked, and punished appropriately for these acts.
A really odd experience and interaction that day turned out to be. I found it to be quite convoluted, and disappointed in my perceptions, now somewhat tainted, of their lives, and at the same time, found myself thinking that the repugnant behaviors in American society, also reside in the Mennonite communities as well, retracting me back,to reality that humans can be repulsive, regardless of the particular sect, or group they reside in
I had a massage last year from a recovering Amish girl. She was in her mid-20s and beautiful. I told her I was a therapist and I asked her probing questions about her life growing up as an Amish girl.
The good news is that she told me the Amish were against the vax and most of not all never got the vax.
The bad news is that pedophilia is an epidemic among many Amish communities as per her internal Amish female network and her community was a horror show. She said many of the young girls are raped and abused like she was. The mothers and all the women know about it but similar to the Mormon cults in Utah on those compounds, all the women and girls are powerless, pushed down, and kept subservient and scared. This young girl told me she is still allowed to visit the women and she does therapy with them (secretly) and follows strict rules to allow her to meet with them.
She told me the women are so afraid of the men, they are kept pregnant and serving others, and they weep from feeling exhausted, tired and unable to protect their children.
When I asked the young girl how she deals with this horror show, she shared that she first had to do her own deep work to heal...and feels it's her calling to go back and help others. She was an amazing massage therapist and made good money at an upscale holistic health spa.
Wow... This makes me soooooo angry, and soooo sad, all in the same breath.
I cannot say on this board, how I personally would handle this myself, against these monsters who do these deeds against innocent children, but it wouldn't be good for the offender
My community would never tolerate that. In fact, as a single woman, I feel particularly safe here because men do not ride without their wives along. No one ever comes to my house unaccompanied and I’m the only phone in the area so they sometimes need to come use it. What you have revealed is absolutely a lesson for us all: human desire requires discipline, laws that govern and when any authority becomes powerful, corruption creeps in. Morality isn’t static. It’s not your home. It’s a challenging journey renewed each day. Your story IS sad because all the good that anyone’s culture or upbringing or religion can give a community is destroyed when even one who breaks God’s law is allowed to do so.
Barbara Lee, What a descriptive essay on the Amish and their children. Parenting in America from when I was a kid is nothing at all as it is now. We are friendly with many couples in our neighborhood and my wife at times tries to get their kids to help around our property. My wife wants to pay like 15 or more dollars per hour to rake leaves, pull weeds wash windows or whatever. All of the parents don’t want their kids to work, in fact after they don’t work the parents give them money to not work, it’s insane. My Uncle Ben used to take me to jobs he did plumbing and heating mostly. When I was 12 I was cutting and soldering copper pipes, soldering baseboard heat, threading and helping to install gas pipe, painting houses, even helping removing and installing boilers. I got 20 dollars a day and I felt like a million bucks. We are raising kids to be primadonna’s. Between that and hiring phone screens and computer screens as baby sitters you can see why our kids have become soft and needy for everything they will need to survive in life. Very sad.
Parents don't realize they set children up for failure because working creates a work ethic mentality at a young age that Carrie's throughout life.
From a mental and emotional status, Kids who don't work till they are adults often aren't able to cope with a 40-hr per week job when they reach 18 or worse yet waiting till 22 after college.
Todays HR directors are pulling their hair out because Gen Z is unable to cope with basic work.
As a corporate leadership coach, I had a young kid tell me he couldn't understand why he had to work 40 hours s per week. He wanted to work 25 and get paid for 40.
Parents have unknowingly ruined their children's futures by preventing work.
If you are a parent and you want your child to be successful in life, start them working EARLY! Small daily and weekly chores prior to 10 years old followed by big tasks at 12 years old (ie picking blueberries, cleaning the garage, wash and wax all the cars...sounds brutal? The alternative is kids living at home forever, gaming, ordering pizza, and unwilling to be productive in society.
Never worked a single day in his life. Lives off the Gubberment teat, and is absolutely clueless with regards to what real life is supposed to be about
Barbara Lee, very thoughtful observations. Re: "...less really is more." Seems important to carefully consider: more of what? less of what? how and why? Perhaps it is time for humanity/each individual to learn how to personally manage self and surroundings for the ongoingness of all Life.
Amen James, thank you. Yes, it has been painful for me to watch this group of elites (whom ever they are), use Biden to try & take down America, & to try & control leadership in other countries. My Father didn't graduate from high school, & joined the USMC; he ended up in/at/on Iwo Jima, loading large weapons (gunnery?)- but, he never talked about his service. My family was blessed he made it back home to Morris, MN. But, today I feel the Morales & values my parent's taught me, & my two siblings, is not being taught to the younger generations today. There seems to be a large disconnect between the past two generations & parents, & I realize the covid pandemic was a major player in this regard. We do have a long & tough fight the next few months before the 2024 election, & I pray we can get through this battle with strength & determination to stay strong & unite together, to keep our country on a positive path forward!
Thanks to the mRNA "vaccines", we may also be able to pass down through our DNA, the ability to manufacture spike protein, through a process known as reverse-transcriptase.
Why were we never taught the Native American philosophy of seeing if taking an action that affects us to the seventh generation is beneficial. Great Law of the Iroquois.
I agree. We are in a fight, and we have to know how to do it. It's not just the founders. We can form democratically, have our own town halls, and network nationally, and in our nonpartisan politics, where at least 2/3 of us agree upon well-evidenced injustices, we may rise to this in the old way. https://markgmeyers.substack.com/p/complete-introduction-to-building
JG, 🧐 a genetic component to "character," behavior characteristics?
What if that were true, what if this weren’t just our DNA but how our DNA is impacted by our parent’s choices — Epigenetics. Been thinking about this of late and your opening pp fit in with my thoughts.
Our first 150 years as a nation, 250-300 as a separate peoples, were defined by a particular mindset for freedom, liberty, survival, reaching the promised land whether it be the east coast or cross country to the west, prosperity thru hard work and sacrifice and a life that embraced some-most-all of those traits, whether they were chosen or forced upon the person/family.
The past 60-70 years, 3, 4 generations have been an increasing move away toward dependence, from striving to win to gimme gimme gimme. Oh, we couch it all in compassion, we’re wealthy and we should, etc., but is it.
What if, like environmental stresses / Toxins / etc can modify our genetic expression(s) thru epigenetics our life choices, our parents’ life choice can have an impact on our genetic predisposition to certain behaviors, characteristics that we ascribe to nurture. It’s brain chemistry and brain chemistry is our genome. Scripture, the OT, talks about the impact our actions can have through the 4th generation - couldn’t that be explained thru epigenetics.
Anyway, I could just be blowing smoke, maybe these subtle changes are just an expression of nurture; but my own family tree makes me wonder - am I just rebellious or am I mutation? A mutation that has been passed on to my son.
Whatever the source/cause, we need to reverse course: we need to reverse this generational dependence on the perversion of Robin-Hoodism where, instead of taking from the rich (government) and returning to those oppressed, the government takes from the productive (while skimming off the top and middle and keeping a large portion for itself) and handing out what’s left to the idle and unproductive. [The bulk of the US budget is wealth transfer - not the character of a free people.]
Indoctrination, outside influences and peer pressure could be cured with doses of truth that reveals the maleficence of government and the existence of Satan, which many people don’t believe in. The further we move away from God the less we understand humanity and its pitfalls and how to recognize right from wrong. The bible is life’s instructions, the blueprint for a life well lived.
Re belief in the devil.. Jung had a fascinating idea about evil. If man is created in the image of God then what we perceive as evil is also a component of God's being. He worked that around it seemed to me to say that the existence of evil is a necessary yardstick we need to ponder its opposite.
Where in God's Nature would you look for that evil component?????
I get in this "fight" all too often within my Christian community: Scripture, here that being Old and New testaments, the covenants, where it is taught that God and only God is perfect - the disagreements being that Heaven is perfect, Eden was perfect and when those who believe in God and the resurrected Son are lifted high we will not be able to sin because Heaven is perfect. I usually respond with a question "but what about the Angels?"
OK, that aside (had to get it off my chest ), what is evil and does it come from God. If one believes in God then evil would be believing is something other than God, or simply restated, disobeying God. God gave us the ability to disobey, we are not automatons without free will AND we have the ability to recognize when we've departed from that narrow path (more ofter/too often for some of us). For believers it looks to me. like a variable sine wave on an oscilloscope with our disobedience reflected by how far we've (OK, I have) left the narrow path.
In Christian hmm dogma, there is no yardstick necessary or available to measure evil - God gave us His Law which we SHOULD ponder, not as hard and fast rules but as fuzzy guidelines to behavior (think Jesus' discourse on what is murder or what is adultery). And, God being the magnificent Creator that He is, He gave us an out, or an escape, from the punishment we deserve for disobedience which of course is Jesus. <- Yes, I drank the KoolAid {wink}
That's interesting, Evil being a means to contemplate good. Satan's goal is for us to reject our Maker, which it does through our free will. Humans basically do what they want at the time and ponder the good/evil aspect later.
SR Miller I do think the parents role in a child’s upbringing mostly sets the tone for what the child will become as an adult. Of coarse there are always exceptions to every rule. I’ll never forget wanting this car a friend of mine was selling. I asked my father if he could help me get the car. He said sure what do you need a ride. I said no dad I mean financially. He said oh well I think you need to get a job and pay for your own car. He wouldn’t give me a dime but I did get a job and he co-signed a loan for me. The loan was 18% interest, I’ll never forget, 138- -/ month for 3 years. I remember my mother say John it’s 18% interest, my father said Anna he really wants the car!! I made every payment on time and earned my own car, what a lesson!! I learned very early if you want something you need to go to work and earn it. I’ll never forget what my father taught me to this day…
OK, that's your experience and it is a good one that I wish was more often duplicated. But, as I mentioned before, I'm the mutation or the exception you mentioned. It is hard to imagine more disappointed parents than mine for the way I turned out.
I think it's more likely I'm just wandering around looking for the sides of box we're supposedly living in. Could be that or I'm crazy; yeah, prolly the latter.
Well many days I’m trying to figure out which sides up. As good as my parents were I had quite a streak of bad in me. My oldest brother who was a big strong guy hurt his back at work, years and years later after a struggle with pain killers he succumbed to the addiction and passed away. My sister was no saint either but I won’t bore you with all the things she did to my sweetheart mother. But they still love us inside. I’m sure we are all in that same boat SR Miller. BTW I always look forward to your posts. Many times I have to read them several times for I’m a little slow. Your posts are always interesting to me!!
That is taken from the very end of "Candide." As I recall, Candide & Co. had found Eldorado, walked away with enormous wealth, lost/squandered it all through their adventures and absurdities, only to return to a life in which ordinary work sustained them.
"Then I realized that it is good and proper for a man to eat and drink, and to find satisfaction in his toilsome labor under the sun during the few days of life God has given him - for this is his lot. Moreover, when God gives any man wealth and possessions and enables him to enjoy them, to accept his lot and be happy in his work - this is a gift of God. He seldom reflects on the days of his life, because God keeps him occupied with gladness of heart." (Ecclesiastes 5:18-20, NIV)
Yes, adverse to the Church and its structure, but not to a Deity and scripture. I believe he thought monarchs were better suited to facility life based on scripture.
Oh my Robert, I laughed out loud so hard today with these funnies. I look forward to them every week. Wisdom from Voltaire: turn off the news, go out and grow something, ignore all the dufus behavior. And the fact checkers drowned. Good stuff.
Quite a timely comment on Hitchhikers. From Turley today:
"When asked about the alarming physical and mental decline of President Joe Biden, Goldman insisted that it really does not matter in responding to a call for Biden’s removal under the 25th Amendment. Goldman insisted the Republic is safe because it is in the hands of great people around him."
The fact that on average 44.2% of voters in battleground states still support Biden is alarming. These's something very wrong with the minds of a significant portion of the American people. Efforts must be made to teach critical thinking skills or the country will be lost when this percentage slips over 50%. There's still a long battle ahead even if Trump is elected. It will take a generation to clean up the education system. We have the same problem in Canada.
Oh my word- the "bird flu cow video" rocks! All of the Friday Funnies are right-on hilarious! I always save the newsletters from Dr. Malone because since 2020, all are historic situations that have happened in our world, & I want my Grand children to read about "what happened to America, & the world", & maybe by then, "future generations" will "know the who-what-where-when &-WHY" these demonic (yes, demonic), situations happened! My favorite though, is the proper statement: "If This Flag Offends You, MOVE"! Amen! Hope everyone had a safe & wonderful Independence Fourth of July, God Bless All!
Shelly, my Amish neighbor has a shallow creek where two of his cows stand, one’s head to the other’s tail. Even the cows are smart. The tails swish the flies away from their friend’s face!! Now that’s cooperation!
We all know that our DNA is passed down to our children. Along with this we can pass illnesses, disease even addictions. We also know we can pass down honesty, truth, integrity, a work ethic, patriotism, selflessness many times our religion. When we see successful people most every time in their past someone from the generation before helped them. Someone in their past payed a price for them to have a better life.
When my father was 24 years old, he signed up for the army, he ended up in Germany, where he was shot through his back. His sacrifice payed the price so that I could live my entire life, right up until now, in a free country. My parents helped me through school and then college.
As we all know today we are in a fight that most of us have never faced. We are in a fight to either pass on what was given to us, or give up and leave our kids and future generations this political mess? (Frustrating to me, that many who have caused our pain and dilemmas, have paid nothing). There is no easy way out of this. It’s going to take determination, faith and sacrifice to get back the freedoms we have conceded. We are going to have to pay the price to get back what we have allowed to happen to our home. The next several years are going to be very difficult but if we can all stay together and never give in to these leftist Marxist we can beat them and take our country back. We must never give up!! J.Goodrich
I hope my little essay here follows the others because I think it compliments all the others have been saying. My story is just this: I have watched a group of “plain people” (old order Amish types) now for 40 years. I’ve lived as close neighbor for 15. As a teacher I am seriously interested in how children are raised and taught. And over that time a few remarkable truths emerged. One, these people are poor by choice. Because they are poor, they live frugally, reusing what they can and buying only what they absolutely need. There are very few luxuries ( thus no envy). Children have no fancy toys. Few toys at all. No electronics obviously because no electricity. All the time in the day is spent productively meaning entertainment is not a part of daily life. Family and other people constitute the most interesting thing in their lives which ends in them always hanging out with each other. Even toddlers sit in the garden with the parents and older child doing what normal farm life does. Sounds boring to us, doesn’t it. But to them it is interesting, peaceful, healthy, full of little learnings. School is taught by young adults who were never trained and often do it part time while pursuing other endeavors. Everyone knows everyone. Children are given tasks or chores to do that fit their age and developmental abilities. By the time they finish school at age 13 they are basically ready to run the farm. By 21 they are considered adults with independent adult rights (like earning their own money) and responsibilities and can begin considering marriage and family. All of them tend to be thoughtful, slow to opine their own beliefs, slow to anger, tremendous self control, a very strong resistance to being drawn into unjust behavior, highly resistant to meanness. There is a moral and ethical backbone that is formed early on that sets these children apart from the kids who visit from the local school. Oh, and they are physically tough. They aren’t pampered and don’t expect it all the while being well loved by their families. The modern pursuit of convenience, the softening of society, the ease of every pain physical and mental, the gradual reliance on some giant caretaker to think for and provide for us, they need for so many suppliers: the water company, the electric company, the insurance company, the bank, the grocery; these all remove self-reliance and when replaced with the pursuit of endless self satisfaction of every possible human desire leads us to the debacle we are in… a people who seem more and more morally and ethically bewildered while more and more depressed and deeply unhappy and unable to get along peacefully with one another. Maybe in the end, less really is more.
Wow!
I see the Mennonites, Amish in PA all the time, and can't help but be a little envious of their lifestyle, their community, their togetherness.
My wife asked me if I thought they would adopt us, as a 57 and 59 year old couple, haha. I thought that was funny, but then realized that it was more a curiosity than thought it should be.
One day, last year my wife and I stumbled upon a farmers / tractor show in PA, and while perusing the fairgrounds came across some really fine people. Since we were just plugging along with our beagles, the hour or so we spent talking with Mr. Roy (Mennonite former) about life in the community was a little less appealing, and not in a way I expected.
So it was revealed by Mr. Roy that he had been ex-communicated by the Mennonite parish because he discovered that one of the elders was sexually abusing one or more of the children in the parish. He spoke up, and I guess by breaking some code of ethics, he was banned, or removed from the parish, even though he continues to live in the same area, same house, same locale.
Very odd, I felt, but still intriguing.
I guess the Mennonites handle their own problems, and do not involve local, or state officials when dealing,with these issues.
For Roy, physically nothing much has changed, except he was no longer allowed in their religious ceremonies, or he is uninvited to other meetings of the elders. Roy still makes a life / living, still has a few friends, and now, oddly enough, more freedoms to be "American" than ever before. Bizarre that Roy protested this elder abusing a young parishoner, and he was punished for standing,up about it. I only got one side of this story, so I can't make any judgment calls on anyone in particular, other than if the sexual abuse charges are true, someone needs his ass kicked, and punished appropriately for these acts.
A really odd experience and interaction that day turned out to be. I found it to be quite convoluted, and disappointed in my perceptions, now somewhat tainted, of their lives, and at the same time, found myself thinking that the repugnant behaviors in American society, also reside in the Mennonite communities as well, retracting me back,to reality that humans can be repulsive, regardless of the particular sect, or group they reside in
I had a massage last year from a recovering Amish girl. She was in her mid-20s and beautiful. I told her I was a therapist and I asked her probing questions about her life growing up as an Amish girl.
The good news is that she told me the Amish were against the vax and most of not all never got the vax.
The bad news is that pedophilia is an epidemic among many Amish communities as per her internal Amish female network and her community was a horror show. She said many of the young girls are raped and abused like she was. The mothers and all the women know about it but similar to the Mormon cults in Utah on those compounds, all the women and girls are powerless, pushed down, and kept subservient and scared. This young girl told me she is still allowed to visit the women and she does therapy with them (secretly) and follows strict rules to allow her to meet with them.
She told me the women are so afraid of the men, they are kept pregnant and serving others, and they weep from feeling exhausted, tired and unable to protect their children.
When I asked the young girl how she deals with this horror show, she shared that she first had to do her own deep work to heal...and feels it's her calling to go back and help others. She was an amazing massage therapist and made good money at an upscale holistic health spa.
I learned a lot that day!
Wow... This makes me soooooo angry, and soooo sad, all in the same breath.
I cannot say on this board, how I personally would handle this myself, against these monsters who do these deeds against innocent children, but it wouldn't be good for the offender
My community would never tolerate that. In fact, as a single woman, I feel particularly safe here because men do not ride without their wives along. No one ever comes to my house unaccompanied and I’m the only phone in the area so they sometimes need to come use it. What you have revealed is absolutely a lesson for us all: human desire requires discipline, laws that govern and when any authority becomes powerful, corruption creeps in. Morality isn’t static. It’s not your home. It’s a challenging journey renewed each day. Your story IS sad because all the good that anyone’s culture or upbringing or religion can give a community is destroyed when even one who breaks God’s law is allowed to do so.
Apparently Mennonites are human, too...
Spoiling my perceptions
What a story T. Amazing they didn’t throw the pedophile out!!!!
No, they threw the whistleblower out.
Really sad.
It sounds like America
Unbelievable… it is sad
Barbara Lee, What a descriptive essay on the Amish and their children. Parenting in America from when I was a kid is nothing at all as it is now. We are friendly with many couples in our neighborhood and my wife at times tries to get their kids to help around our property. My wife wants to pay like 15 or more dollars per hour to rake leaves, pull weeds wash windows or whatever. All of the parents don’t want their kids to work, in fact after they don’t work the parents give them money to not work, it’s insane. My Uncle Ben used to take me to jobs he did plumbing and heating mostly. When I was 12 I was cutting and soldering copper pipes, soldering baseboard heat, threading and helping to install gas pipe, painting houses, even helping removing and installing boilers. I got 20 dollars a day and I felt like a million bucks. We are raising kids to be primadonna’s. Between that and hiring phone screens and computer screens as baby sitters you can see why our kids have become soft and needy for everything they will need to survive in life. Very sad.
This is intentional. This is part of the plan to destroy America from within.
Parents don't realize they set children up for failure because working creates a work ethic mentality at a young age that Carrie's throughout life.
From a mental and emotional status, Kids who don't work till they are adults often aren't able to cope with a 40-hr per week job when they reach 18 or worse yet waiting till 22 after college.
Todays HR directors are pulling their hair out because Gen Z is unable to cope with basic work.
As a corporate leadership coach, I had a young kid tell me he couldn't understand why he had to work 40 hours s per week. He wanted to work 25 and get paid for 40.
Parents have unknowingly ruined their children's futures by preventing work.
If you are a parent and you want your child to be successful in life, start them working EARLY! Small daily and weekly chores prior to 10 years old followed by big tasks at 12 years old (ie picking blueberries, cleaning the garage, wash and wax all the cars...sounds brutal? The alternative is kids living at home forever, gaming, ordering pizza, and unwilling to be productive in society.
Bernie Sanders of VT is a perfext example.
Never worked a single day in his life. Lives off the Gubberment teat, and is absolutely clueless with regards to what real life is supposed to be about
And yet he influences government decisions that affect us, but not necessarily him. He's an idiot.
Barbara Lee, very thoughtful observations. Re: "...less really is more." Seems important to carefully consider: more of what? less of what? how and why? Perhaps it is time for humanity/each individual to learn how to personally manage self and surroundings for the ongoingness of all Life.
Amen James, thank you. Yes, it has been painful for me to watch this group of elites (whom ever they are), use Biden to try & take down America, & to try & control leadership in other countries. My Father didn't graduate from high school, & joined the USMC; he ended up in/at/on Iwo Jima, loading large weapons (gunnery?)- but, he never talked about his service. My family was blessed he made it back home to Morris, MN. But, today I feel the Morales & values my parent's taught me, & my two siblings, is not being taught to the younger generations today. There seems to be a large disconnect between the past two generations & parents, & I realize the covid pandemic was a major player in this regard. We do have a long & tough fight the next few months before the 2024 election, & I pray we can get through this battle with strength & determination to stay strong & unite together, to keep our country on a positive path forward!
Thanks to the mRNA "vaccines", we may also be able to pass down through our DNA, the ability to manufacture spike protein, through a process known as reverse-transcriptase.
Why were we never taught the Native American philosophy of seeing if taking an action that affects us to the seventh generation is beneficial. Great Law of the Iroquois.
I agree. We are in a fight, and we have to know how to do it. It's not just the founders. We can form democratically, have our own town halls, and network nationally, and in our nonpartisan politics, where at least 2/3 of us agree upon well-evidenced injustices, we may rise to this in the old way. https://markgmeyers.substack.com/p/complete-introduction-to-building
JG, 🧐 a genetic component to "character," behavior characteristics?
What if that were true, what if this weren’t just our DNA but how our DNA is impacted by our parent’s choices — Epigenetics. Been thinking about this of late and your opening pp fit in with my thoughts.
Our first 150 years as a nation, 250-300 as a separate peoples, were defined by a particular mindset for freedom, liberty, survival, reaching the promised land whether it be the east coast or cross country to the west, prosperity thru hard work and sacrifice and a life that embraced some-most-all of those traits, whether they were chosen or forced upon the person/family.
The past 60-70 years, 3, 4 generations have been an increasing move away toward dependence, from striving to win to gimme gimme gimme. Oh, we couch it all in compassion, we’re wealthy and we should, etc., but is it.
What if, like environmental stresses / Toxins / etc can modify our genetic expression(s) thru epigenetics our life choices, our parents’ life choice can have an impact on our genetic predisposition to certain behaviors, characteristics that we ascribe to nurture. It’s brain chemistry and brain chemistry is our genome. Scripture, the OT, talks about the impact our actions can have through the 4th generation - couldn’t that be explained thru epigenetics.
Anyway, I could just be blowing smoke, maybe these subtle changes are just an expression of nurture; but my own family tree makes me wonder - am I just rebellious or am I mutation? A mutation that has been passed on to my son.
Whatever the source/cause, we need to reverse course: we need to reverse this generational dependence on the perversion of Robin-Hoodism where, instead of taking from the rich (government) and returning to those oppressed, the government takes from the productive (while skimming off the top and middle and keeping a large portion for itself) and handing out what’s left to the idle and unproductive. [The bulk of the US budget is wealth transfer - not the character of a free people.]
Indoctrination, outside influences and peer pressure could be cured with doses of truth that reveals the maleficence of government and the existence of Satan, which many people don’t believe in. The further we move away from God the less we understand humanity and its pitfalls and how to recognize right from wrong. The bible is life’s instructions, the blueprint for a life well lived.
Re belief in the devil.. Jung had a fascinating idea about evil. If man is created in the image of God then what we perceive as evil is also a component of God's being. He worked that around it seemed to me to say that the existence of evil is a necessary yardstick we need to ponder its opposite.
Where in God's Nature would you look for that evil component?????
I get in this "fight" all too often within my Christian community: Scripture, here that being Old and New testaments, the covenants, where it is taught that God and only God is perfect - the disagreements being that Heaven is perfect, Eden was perfect and when those who believe in God and the resurrected Son are lifted high we will not be able to sin because Heaven is perfect. I usually respond with a question "but what about the Angels?"
OK, that aside (had to get it off my chest ), what is evil and does it come from God. If one believes in God then evil would be believing is something other than God, or simply restated, disobeying God. God gave us the ability to disobey, we are not automatons without free will AND we have the ability to recognize when we've departed from that narrow path (more ofter/too often for some of us). For believers it looks to me. like a variable sine wave on an oscilloscope with our disobedience reflected by how far we've (OK, I have) left the narrow path.
In Christian hmm dogma, there is no yardstick necessary or available to measure evil - God gave us His Law which we SHOULD ponder, not as hard and fast rules but as fuzzy guidelines to behavior (think Jesus' discourse on what is murder or what is adultery). And, God being the magnificent Creator that He is, He gave us an out, or an escape, from the punishment we deserve for disobedience which of course is Jesus. <- Yes, I drank the KoolAid {wink}
That's interesting, Evil being a means to contemplate good. Satan's goal is for us to reject our Maker, which it does through our free will. Humans basically do what they want at the time and ponder the good/evil aspect later.
SR Miller I do think the parents role in a child’s upbringing mostly sets the tone for what the child will become as an adult. Of coarse there are always exceptions to every rule. I’ll never forget wanting this car a friend of mine was selling. I asked my father if he could help me get the car. He said sure what do you need a ride. I said no dad I mean financially. He said oh well I think you need to get a job and pay for your own car. He wouldn’t give me a dime but I did get a job and he co-signed a loan for me. The loan was 18% interest, I’ll never forget, 138- -/ month for 3 years. I remember my mother say John it’s 18% interest, my father said Anna he really wants the car!! I made every payment on time and earned my own car, what a lesson!! I learned very early if you want something you need to go to work and earn it. I’ll never forget what my father taught me to this day…
OK, that's your experience and it is a good one that I wish was more often duplicated. But, as I mentioned before, I'm the mutation or the exception you mentioned. It is hard to imagine more disappointed parents than mine for the way I turned out.
SR you sound like a wonderful I’d say brilliant person!!
😂
I think it's more likely I'm just wandering around looking for the sides of box we're supposedly living in. Could be that or I'm crazy; yeah, prolly the latter.
Well many days I’m trying to figure out which sides up. As good as my parents were I had quite a streak of bad in me. My oldest brother who was a big strong guy hurt his back at work, years and years later after a struggle with pain killers he succumbed to the addiction and passed away. My sister was no saint either but I won’t bore you with all the things she did to my sweetheart mother. But they still love us inside. I’m sure we are all in that same boat SR Miller. BTW I always look forward to your posts. Many times I have to read them several times for I’m a little slow. Your posts are always interesting to me!!
I absolutely loved the cow/swim/watermelon video. I'm saving it!
I feel the first stirrings of poetry here since my "Green Acres" Christmas wishes:
Pigeons on a chessboard,
A cow in the pool,
One hopes above all,
They retain all their stool.
The End
Good'un, James!
That is taken from the very end of "Candide." As I recall, Candide & Co. had found Eldorado, walked away with enormous wealth, lost/squandered it all through their adventures and absurdities, only to return to a life in which ordinary work sustained them.
precisely.
Loved this, Candide, Dr Malone.
"Then I realized that it is good and proper for a man to eat and drink, and to find satisfaction in his toilsome labor under the sun during the few days of life God has given him - for this is his lot. Moreover, when God gives any man wealth and possessions and enables him to enjoy them, to accept his lot and be happy in his work - this is a gift of God. He seldom reflects on the days of his life, because God keeps him occupied with gladness of heart." (Ecclesiastes 5:18-20, NIV)
As I understand him, Voltaire was more inclined to skewer the Church, rather than advocate its teachings.
Yes, adverse to the Church and its structure, but not to a Deity and scripture. I believe he thought monarchs were better suited to facility life based on scripture.
Yet he took his ideas straight out of the Bible. Interesting.
thanks for the Cliff's notes!
. . . never quite got to Voltaire
Dignity
Oh my Robert, I laughed out loud so hard today with these funnies. I look forward to them every week. Wisdom from Voltaire: turn off the news, go out and grow something, ignore all the dufus behavior. And the fact checkers drowned. Good stuff.
Yep! Fauci fits the "P" word!
Invented for him and lay in durance vile until he popped up on the scene
Hilarious indeed! :)
Laughter - the best medicine. That rings a bell...
(remember, cackling is a noise made by witches and demons, it's not laughter)
Pigeon meme is unusually on target.
I like the one about playing chess with a pigeon!!
My pronouns — to the Democrats who just wouldn’t listen (about Biden, jabs, etc.) — I / Tried / To / Tell / You
"None of us are free until the government is free of corruption. MAGA!
I’m not sure this is true, or even attainable.
Government rises up out of the people: government is the people, people are the government.
People are corrupt [yes, even this sometimes humble scribe, and you and you and even you hiding in the corner]
Hence, government will always be plagued with corruption.
I’d be content with: "None of us are free until the government is uniformly held ACCOUNTABLE for its corruption."
Kamala may have the last laugh?!?!
"What can be - unburdened by what has been‼️"
🤷♀️🤷♂️🤷
Camela does not laugh...she (pronoun) cackles! :)
👍 True!
I like alliteration so I'm partial to Laugh Last.
I guess I could have used "Kamala's Kackle"🤷
Lol 😆 🤣 😂 😹
Good point. We must instigate laughter tests/interviews for potential presidential candidates.
Goodby and thanks for all the....fish.. Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy.
yup. The Dolphins ascend.
Didn't that movie/books make you sorry for all the grief to mice committed in your research? My wife made a point of telling me I should.
Quite a timely comment on Hitchhikers. From Turley today:
"When asked about the alarming physical and mental decline of President Joe Biden, Goldman insisted that it really does not matter in responding to a call for Biden’s removal under the 25th Amendment. Goldman insisted the Republic is safe because it is in the hands of great people around him."
https://jonathanturley.org/2024/07/05/the-hitchhikers-guide-to-the-government-rep-goldman-insists-that-the-country-is-safe-in-the-hands-of-others/
And that's how we've arrived at the dangerous positions we now find ourselves at •••
Flushing all the more quickly down ••• the drain!
The fact that on average 44.2% of voters in battleground states still support Biden is alarming. These's something very wrong with the minds of a significant portion of the American people. Efforts must be made to teach critical thinking skills or the country will be lost when this percentage slips over 50%. There's still a long battle ahead even if Trump is elected. It will take a generation to clean up the education system. We have the same problem in Canada.
Oh my word- the "bird flu cow video" rocks! All of the Friday Funnies are right-on hilarious! I always save the newsletters from Dr. Malone because since 2020, all are historic situations that have happened in our world, & I want my Grand children to read about "what happened to America, & the world", & maybe by then, "future generations" will "know the who-what-where-when &-WHY" these demonic (yes, demonic), situations happened! My favorite though, is the proper statement: "If This Flag Offends You, MOVE"! Amen! Hope everyone had a safe & wonderful Independence Fourth of July, God Bless All!
Lovely memes today and I laughed at that silly cow swimming in a pool. Precious 🙏🏻
Ponds are where the cows around me go in the summer. The flies are merciless when not in the water.
Shelly, my Amish neighbor has a shallow creek where two of his cows stand, one’s head to the other’s tail. Even the cows are smart. The tails swish the flies away from their friend’s face!! Now that’s cooperation!
Downloaded Candide from AppleBooks - somehow I missed this even while I was aware of it