Is God In Heaven?

The viewpoint of where God is, depends upon so many factors, so that the answers that one is wont to receive will vary all over the place, to which, though, mainstream thought is often along the line that God is somewhat removed from planet earth, so that He is often pictured on a celestial throne, to which He may well send down to us, great souls and great prophets, but for the most part God is not pictured as walking amongst us. That's fine for what it is, but probably isn't the best way to view God and certainly isn't a very personal way to see God, to which humans have an innate need to picture God as something far more personal.

While there are certainly many passages in the Bible that speak of Heaven, of God, of ascending and descending, so too there is one very special passage: "Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you." (Luke 17:21).  It is this scriptural passage which is so crucial for developing a different mindset, something that is of value to children and adults alike, which makes God much more personal, makes God much more tangible, and makes God much more real to us.  The fact of the matter is when you believe that God is part and parcel of you, meaning that He is as close to you as a best friend could possibly be, never to leave you, you thereby make God much more meaningful for you and your subsequent behavior in this life.

There are few advantages of having a detached viewpoint of God, a sort of a disinterested God, who may or may not respond to our prayers in times of crisis or whenever, and is overall seen more like a gentle, slumbering giant, who takes a bit of pleading or plodding to get revved into action.  That isn't God!  In point of fact, God is always with us, each one of us, from the time of our conception, to the time of our physical death.  God will never leave us, never forsake us, never to not love us, God is all that we could ever ask or desire for, and He is right here with us, right now.  This is the truth of the matter, that each of us has God available to pick us up when we are down, to guide us through troubled times, to comfort us in times of sorrow, and to celebrate with us when we have done right.

The better understanding that God is always with us, allows us to have a more, meaningful relationship with God, so that rather than placing God on a pedestal to which we must continually bow down to Him in servitude and abject surrender, instead we see God as our greatest Friend, someone to trust and to open our hearts to, who will never forsake us and will always be there for us, no matter how events may transpire on a given day. 

God should be our best friend, and this isn't meant to say that we should ignore nor not desire human company, as God is not here with us in human form, but rather we would all be better served to believe that God is imminent within us and that thereby "… If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth." (Mark 9:23)

British Convicts Imported to Colonial America

Most everybody are quite aware that slavery was part and parcel of American life, till the end of the civil war; of course, somewhat forgotten, is that slavery in America, was originally initiated when America, wasn't the United States of America, but was instead an English colony.  Also forgotten in the sands of history, is that Britain decided that colonial America was a valid destination to send their convicts to, and subsequently in the 17th and 18th centuries England transported over 50,000 convicts to their American colony.

A significant amount of the convicts shipped to America, landed in Virginia and Maryland, to which their labor was put to work specifically to help the tobacco trade, to which at that time, tobacco was the most important exported product produced in America, as well as being used occasionally as a cash substitute to transact financial matters at home.  In an era in which machinery played a very minor role in crop production, much labor therefore was necessitated to cultivate tobacco, and for those planters that lack deep financial resources, the indentured servitude and thereby employment of British convicts, was actually significantly cheaper than the purchase of slaves, so that in return for a modest fee upfront to the transporter and/or trader of convicted labor, the planter received an indentured servant whose term with him would be from five to seven or even fourteen years, to which at the end of such service, the planter would owe the indentured convict, no money, and the convict would now be free to make a living on his own or to somehow return back to England.

Not too surprisingly, since these were convicts, they weren't treated well during their passage on the Atlantic Ocean, to which, they were often chained, subject to infectious and debilitating diseases due to the poor sanitary conditions, and/or subsequently died from privation.  Upon their arrival in America they were not accorded any respect as they were seen for what they were, convicts.  They were, as indentured servants, exploited heavily, to whom most were paid nothing for their labor, except to receive in return room and board, and often hired as field hands and thereby worked the hard labor of cultivating tobacco.  For the few convicts that had notable skills, their options were more accommodating, in which they might receive a modest compensation for their craft, but would legally still be an indentured servant.

While there was some controversy and complaint by respected and notable Americans, that this colony should not be a dumping ground for convicts, this was mainly overshadowed by the fact that the tobacco plantations recognized the utility of cheap convict labor and were only too happy to be an active participant and party to this trade.  In addition, the sheer number of convicts exported to America as well as the color of these convict's skin, helped to effectively reduce the pricing of African slaves, because both these forcefully imported labor forces competed within the same general market.

The importation of convict labor to America that were transported here by England could not have occurred without the active complicity of American plantation owners, who saw these convicts as a lucrative source to increase their wealth upon the bent backs of those in a country not of their origin and without the resources or wherewithal to effectively stand up

Fair Weather Believers

A significant amount of Americans have a professed belief in a particular faith, be it Christian, Catholic, Jewish, Islamic, and so forth.  This belief in God, and a respect or love for God and his prophets often brings comfort for many people as well as a source of solace in times of pain and difficulty.  The thing is that every religion, somewhat akin to a learned trade, demands something in return from those that are practitioners of that particular faith or work.  That is to say, to really be a good Christian, you must not only have a basic understanding of what the religion represents, but you must also live up to that representation in your life and your actions, as well as for those that have a degree in Engineering, for instance, must know their craft and exercise their skills and knowledge in a competent way so as to make their living by it.

Although it is fair to say that many of us do not feel qualify to proselytize or to teach someone the art of our particular trade, there is an incumbent responsibility for every believer to stay consistent with, as well as to uphold their beliefs in the public sphere.     That means that those that are Sunday believers, or perhaps only for the actual time spent within that church on Sunday,  andthen on all the other days of the week, they are their "real" self, are at best, nominal believers, and for all practical purposes, hypocrites to their faith.  The type of belief that is painted so faintly upon a person's demeanor is lukewarm at best, "So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spew thee out of my mouth," Revelation 3:16.

Most believers, however, actually do believe that they are of the flock, and will justify their belief by demonstrating actions that they have done on behalf of their faith, such as monetary donations, donations of time and labor to their church, the bringing up of children in the faith, bible study, prayer, and the observance of faith-based limitations on their behaviors, as all being representative examples of their good deeds and good works.  While one must respect this type of devotion as having substance, the true test of any substantive faith is when it is tested in the cauldron of life's vicissitudes.

There will be times, perhaps even every day, but more often not, to which your faith will most definitely be the real issue of your test, whether recognized by yourself or not.  It is in these times, that your real implicit belief will be shown to be incorruptible and thereby strong like a shining shield or on the other hand your belief will cower down and fade as if it never existed.  If, when given to the test, you know explicitly that something that you are being challenged to do, challenged to conform to, challenged to be or not to be, and you conform to what it is because you fear for your bodily safety, suffering, privation, or similar, you have effectively written in stone exactly the type of man that you really are.

Do not fool yourself, and claim that you are what you are not, because those that will not stand with their faith in times of a significant test which harbors a significant cost will surely reap exactly what they have sowed.  True faithfulness, means true commitment, and if you are not a good and faithful servant to your Lord, than you never truly were part of the faith or part of the flock, rather instead, you represent in truth: fool's gold.  So too you cannot ever be a secret believer, believing that your faith is your own little private secret between you and your Lord, thinking that God will understand your discretion and applaud you for it, whereas in truth, it's a house made out of straw, unable to withstand either wind or fire.

Meet your New Family, the State

Today's State is often at odds with families, for a lot of reasons, some valid, most not, to which the most important reason why the State wants to be the de facto kingpin of your family is that by so doing, the State puts themselves into a far better position in order to indoctrinate children, for after all, it is written, "Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it" (Proverbs 22:6).  While it is true that both the State and parents want obedience from their children, only one of these parties truly has their children's best interests in mind.

Although your children do live with you, their waking hours, especially during the school year, are not spent exclusively at home, but rather are spent Monday to Friday predominantly at school, to which, you, the parent, are the outsider, as to what actually transpires within the school grounds.  This, in itself, isn't necessarily bad; it may well be desirable, since parents have work and other obligations to attend to during school hours, as well as the fact that there is a necessity for some sort of educational responsibility to be shouldered by some entity, in order to properly educate children.  

The problem with most public education today, is that the educational system itself, answers for the most part, to their master, and that master is not the taxpaying parents of the children in aggregate, but the State, to which these schools ultimately get their funding, their infrastructure, and their rules. The upshot of all this, is that in many cases, the State and the family are not really on the same page, with the children being caught within the crossfire.  The State has relentlessly, over time, aggrandized onto itself, more and more responsibilities that typically were once the exclusive domain of the family, which to a significant extent, have very little to do with the actual true education of children.  This means that the State wants to provide meals for children, immunization for children, study halls for children, State-sanctioned educational agenda for children, teacher's aides or tutors for children, after school care for children, outside activities for children, intrusive supervision of the family life of these children, and through all this an abiding interest and obligation to track and collate everything about these students and their family.

While on the surface, these things provided for students by the State seems beneficial, maybe even appropriate, it isn't a fair game, or right, to wrest parental authority and structure from the parents.  For instance, the thing that the State has ready access to is a monetary credit system which provides the State with essentially unlimited resources and money, whereas most parents' means are somewhat limited or very limited.   This access to money is very important for the State, so as to make it clear to the children as well as the parents that without the State's help, that the parents and children would suffer.  Unfortunately, this means that the more that the State provides in services and aid to your children, through the borrowing of governmental funds and misappropriation of the taxpayer's monies, the greater their influence on your children, who perceive the State as the great benefactor.

The State has a master plan to inexorably replace family units with the State so that the State can indoctrinate what use to be your children into the proper mindset to serve the State.  In order to accomplish this, the State first ingratiates itself with your children, and then it incentivizes poor people to give up their parental rights for the good of their children, so that the State can clothe, feed, and house these children under mandated conditions authorized and enforced by the State.  Once, the State has effectively assumed those rights, parents will be parents in name only, and each family unit will be effectively subsumed by the State, having merged into this brave new world.

The Ultimate Success

Life in America, seems to be a constant race to achieve this or to achieve that, to overcome this or to overcome that, to become this or to become that, or perhaps to mentor for this or be mentored by that, and so forth, until we breathe our last.  There isn't necessarily anything wrong with having this basic viewpoint, at least at a minimum, for those that are motivated and goal driven, it certainly seems sensible, but life at a fundamental level is beyond the somewhat bleak belief that we are in a constant race against our own mortality.  It is fair to state, then, that if we don’t know what life is about, than it will be problematic, at best, to live a life that is most productive for ourselves as well as the people that we interact with and care most about on an everyday basis.

The issue that so many have, living in a country that is as rich as America, with so many material things as America, that often give us pleasure or satisfaction in our daily activities, is that we get drawn into believing that what our five senses relates to, must be the very meaning of life, but alas, that isn't even in the ballpark.  For those that identify strictly with the material aspect of their body, their mind, their toys, their house, their job, their family, and so forth, life at best, is wonderful as long as the mind, prosperity, and health are good, while often it is despairing or tragic when not.  In any event, good or bad, time has a way of marching on, so that even for the best of us, effective life comes to an end sooner than what we would wish, and for those struggling or meandering, the end seems interminable or endless but comes nevertheless.

The biggest trap that mankind puts itself into far too often, is that they self-identify with the person staring back from them in the mirror; and while that is certainly understandable, they fail to recognize often enough that the real you is actually your invisible soul encased within your physical body, which is quite unfortunate, because it is the soul that is immortal and the body that most definitely is not, so that those that spend an inordinate amount of time feeding the mortal and ignoring the immortal have veered significantly off the narrow path.  We read in Genesis 1:27 that "…God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him…" to which a reasoned contemplation of this wisdom necessitates the conclusion that the image we are made in, cannot be our body, which is mortal and ever changing, and not even our mind, which is constantly cogitating all sorts of different information, instead it can only be that still, small voice within. It is that still and constant voice that is ever there, never to leave us, always with us, that is our real self, and this voice is the touchstone that allows us to recognize that the image of God is within each of us.

The cares and concerns of this world, troubles us, baffles us, engages us, to which, so many trap themselves into believing that this world is all that there ever is, and thereby it is a never ending task to make the world conform to what we believe it should be.  Perhaps that goal is noble, perhaps misguided, or a bit of both, but clearly it is missing the big picture, which is the fundamental purpose, the fundamental success, is to first recognize whom that we are and upon that recognition to fulfill that ideal.   When we truly understand that our neighbor is our self, because our neighbor is made in the same image of God, no better, no worse, it is then that we become enlightened, and is then that we recognize as if for the first time, that our real self, is part and parcel of God, and knowing this, we have unlocked the door that will through mindful devotion bring us to the ultimate success, which is the re-uniting of our soul to our Creator, which is how it was, in the beginning.

The True Cost of Free Trade

In any country, to which contained within its basic motto, is the phrase "land of the free", something like free trade sounds just like what epitomizes what it is to be a great American.  The problem is that free trade and freedom aren't the same and there are lots of reasons for that belief.  First off, free trade, in its most naked form, means trade between nations that does not charge for imposts, duties, excises, tariffs, or initiate quotas on imports and in theory both nations operate within those same rules and regulations.  This means, that each country is pretty much operating with open borders, allowing the unlimited import and export of goods and without a doubt, by so doing, the end result will most definitely be, more cost-effective goods and thereby a net savings for these goods which can be quite considerable.   That does sound great, but it's one thing for the United States not to charge imposts and such for trade between one State to another State, which makes sense so that goods can transfer and be sold seamlessly by State to another State without governmental interference, but it is an entirely different thing to open up our borders to anyone and anything that is not an integral member of and subject to the laws and regulations of the United States.

For instance, there was a time when slavery was legal in America, to which those that utilized slaves, were able to extract labor from those slaves, for free, subject to the procurement and basic upkeep of said slave.  Not too surprisingly, when Europeans began to migrate in numbers to America during antebellum times, most of those immigrants chose to migrate to the Northern, non-slaveholding States, because those immigrants often came here with nothing more than the clothes on their back as well as a deep desire to earn their fair keep by their labor in this country of opportunity.  This meant that all things being equal, immigrants did not wish to or felt they could not compete against slave labor, and wisely chose not to do so.

Today, in America, there are all sorts of laws, rules, regulations, taxes, and so forth that cover a whole host of circumstances which for the most part are fair, sensible, and knowable, within America.  The thing is once the free trade door is open, this means that many businesses and labor within America have to compete against other sovereign nations, to which, the playing field is most definitely not fair, because their rules, circumstances, and conditions are often materially different than America.  To make matters far worse for many citizens of America, as the equipment and knowhow that we create here through our ingenuity, is exported to other nations, than there is virtually no hope that our labor will be cost effective against those same developing nations.

For major corporations, free trade is often a godsend, because they benefit from being able to produce and create products at a lower cost point, while increasing their gross margins, which serves to boost their stock price and market capitalization value.  This means that free trade definitely benefits certain parties which would be: the upper echelon of multi-national corporations and their stockholders, the idle rich, the non-working retirees, and wards of the State, because goods overall are cheaper.  The people that lose because of free trade are all those working in jobs to which they are threatened by or subject to wage compression, job loss, insecurity, non-advancement, trade union erosion, and so forth.

Those that have-- love free trade, because free trade most definitely gives them even more; whereas those that have not, are caught in a perpetual catch-22, as they do get more bang for their buck, but they have far fewer bucks to try to get that bang.

TSA Precheck and other Gimmicks to separate those with money and connections from everyone else

There are several modes of transportation that a given individual can utilize on any given day such as an automobile, bus, train, subway, or airplane; but it is only those that travel via airplanes that have to suffer through endless bureaucratic security lines that often seem disorganized, inconsiderate, and completely pointless.  The reason for being for these security lines is in theory to help keep us safe, but it seems simply to serve no other purpose than to waste countless hours of time from everyday citizen's lives without any real effectiveness. 

Not too surprisingly, just like about everything else that happens in America, security lines, and how you have to deal with them, depends a lot of whom you are.  That is to say, if you work for the government, the military, an important corporation, have money to spend on privileged treatment, or a person with real connections, and so forth, you aren't going to be treated like a "commoner" when arriving at the airport, instead, you will be permitted to walk though expedited lines, because you are special, or have paid extra money, or gone through some sort of vetting process, which allows you to circumvent the airport security lines set aside specifically for the rest of us.

This means, in effect, that there are two basic classes of people at the airport, those that are treated differently as special and privileged people, whether through connections or a monetary payment, and those that have to suffer through circuitous lines, harassment, body scans, pat downs, and the general annoyance of being treated as "presumed guilty" when going through security.  Because of the fact that people are treated differently depending upon their security classification or status, the situation for most of the citizens of the United States at airports, is rather intolerable, while for those that don't have to go through the time wasting and indignity of being treated like sheep, are blithely unconcerned, and feel that this sort of special tribute given to them, is the least that their country should do for them.

In theory, this is supposed to be a country that treats all of its citizens equally, with laws equally applied, but airports are a prime example of how this is completely untrue.  While the government can give or site all sorts of reasons for allowing TSA Precheck, and other assorted programs, that allow certain people to have privileges, and thereby are given a green light of "presumed innocence" while all others, by virtue of the fact that they are none of these things, are all grouped as "suspects", that sure doesn't seem right.

When laws are unequally applied and those that write those very laws and their most important constituents to them are the primary beneficiaries of such laws, than those laws will not be changed, because the power brokers of America are unaffected by them; whereas, if it was the other way around, that the elites of this country in order to fly commercially, had now to be subjected to immeasurable lines, basic disrespect by security personnel that their taxes pay for, as well as groping and strip searches by these very same poorly trained and weakly reasoning personnel, then it all would change the very next day.

Mortgage debt, leverage, and Housing Prices

According to the federalreserve.gov the total mortgage debt as of the 1st Quarter of 2016 for family residences, nonfamily residences, and farms was $13,848,359 trillion dollars, to which the overall GDP of America is only about $18 trillion dollars.  This signifies that American mortgages are still highly leveraged despite the previous meltdown of housing prices in America from 2007-2009, as well as taking into account, the historic low interest rates available for present-day mortgages.  The problem with this high amount of notable mortgage debt is that the America that we currently live in, suffers from low GDP growth, to which America has been unable to grow on a yearly basis of at least 3% since 2005, yet home pricing, home indebtedness, and home sizing has continued to inexorably increase for the most part quarter by quarter, until the present time.

The investment in housing by mortgage debtors is typically the largest investment, by far, of any material asset that anybody will ever purchase at any time, yet, America continues to provide relatively easy paths for Americans to own the American dream without insisting upon or mandating that a significant down payment for such an asset be the very foundation that our housing market should count on.  It almost goes without saying, that the less "skin" that any purchaser of a home has in the game, the less due diligence of finances that is done, the less verification and consideration that takes into account a litany of factors when someone applies for financing of the purchase of a home, the greater the risk of any particular loan of not performing as expected.   

You might think that banks would do all of these things, without the need of governmental oversight or knowledge, because the largest banking institutions in America are in the business of making money for their stockholders, and that they therefore will as a matter of principle, do all the necessary things to assure themselves of making fiscally sound loans.  This would be true if the mortgages issued by private banking institutions, were backed by those same institutions, but in fact, banks believe in their safety first, which means that their loans are typically packaged and re-sold to other financial institutions and therein lies the first chink in the armor; the second chink is the fact that the government implicitly backs mortgages by utilizing Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae to provide both financial support as well as liquidity to the financial market under the aegis that home ownership is the American dream, and should be actively encouraged by the federal government.

The thing that is often not recognized by this enormous amount of mortgage debt, is that the more people that buy homes that are either under qualified and/or highly leveraged the more homes that will be built because the market of buyers has increased, and by virtue of the fact, that Americans wants typically exceed their means, the bigger and the more bells and whistles each home will therefore have.  This means that the encouragement of excessive mortgage indebtedness increases the price of homes as well as their size, because the more borrowed money that is available, the more chasing after homes that there is; whereas if mortgage qualifications were more stringent, more fiscally demanding, and with far less flexibility of banks being able to pass the bulk of their risk onto other parties, would necessitate more affordable homes, in price, function, as well as size.

Murder can never be abolished by Murder

The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines murder as: "the crime of unlawfully killing a person especially with malice aforethought."  By this definition, this would clearly mean that lawfully killing someone, as compared to unlawfully killing someone, is not murder.  The problem with that type of flawed thinking is that the State's laws may not meet with moral law.  That is to say, if you live in some sort of country, to which certain crimes, are sanctioned for death, as given by the laws of that country, than you as an instrument of that country, are permitted to kill, without having to worry about being later indicted for murder, even though you have taken another human being's life. 

In America, members of the armed forces, certain other associated military and governmental personnel, as well as law enforcement officers, are either explicitly permitted to take another person's life under certain circumstances, or implicitly allowed or even encouraged to do so.  That sort of power, that is to say, the power to take away life, is a power that trumps all other rights, because without life, you are no longer of this world.

It is always a lot easier to kill people, if first you demonize them, trivialize them, ostracize them, or do just about anything to make the case that these people appear to be something less than a human being and thereby not really deserving of a fundamental right to life.   That is to say, if you strip a man of his humanity and dignity, then you are that much closer to transforming that man into prey.

All of these things to which lethal force is used against another human being, to which, that killing force is neither necessary in order to defend oneself or necessary in order to defend one's country are in a significant amount of cases, morally wrong, whether they are legally sanctioned by the State, or not.  The big picture that most countries and many people seem to miss is that murder has been part and parcel of how human beings, tribes, and countries have treated each other through the eons of time, and all of that killing, and all of that bloodshed, and all of that misery, has yet to bring peace and harmony to families, communities, and countries--and it never will.

There is a mistaken notion demonstrated by the actions of basically good men with reasonable common sense, that evil, or the bad guys, have to be stopped with bullets, no matter the cost, and therein lies the problem.  There is a cost for every bullet shot, there is a cost for every action of revenge, there is a cost for hatred for your neighbor, and that is as long as you participate in the cycle of killing, by approving of it, aiding and abetting it, or participating in it, than the killings and the murders will never end.

Murder is like an argument, to which, one party just has to get the last word in, and they wrongly believe that by killing a fellow man, the dispute has ended there, and all will be good.  But, you can't end murder by murder, you can't end killing by killing, you can't end any negative action by responding in like, because it will end nothing.  The only possible way to abolish murder is to walk away from all of the killing, to not participate or partake in any aspect of it, but instead to make your life an exemplar that each of us is granted life by our Creator and that each of us is birth with "…the kingdom of God is within you" (Luke 17:21) to which that kingdom is a world without beginning and a world without end, of which murder is the trade of those who are left behind.

Do you really believe what you claim to believe?

In America, there are all sorts of people that consider themselves to be Christians, or honest, or good citizens, or good parents, or good children, or hard workers, and so forth, but it is one thing to claim these things verbally and it is an entirely different thing to actually demonstrate through your actions and through your behavior that you represent the epitome of those very same things.  The first thing that must be understood, is to say that you are anything, would implicitly mean that you must meet the conditions of being that very thing, so that if you claim to be a good plumber, you must actually have received training, have competent and comprehensive experience, and demonstrated that you actually are a fairly good master of your trade. If that can't be seconded by some neutral third party, who is competent to judge your actions, than you are probably not a good plumber, although perhaps in the future, you may become one.

There are in this country many, many people that claim to be all sorts of things, of which, some of those people are outright liars about their claim and know it, some of them are claiming things that they are in actuality taking on faith, some are absolutely clueless about who or what they really are and don't seem to want to acknowledge it, and some actually are who they claim to be.  The thing is, words are words, and they are not actions, and beliefs are beliefs, butbelief without action behind it, is the type of belief, that as the Christ spoke about in regards to the sower sowing his seed, that "Some fell on rock; and as soon as it sprang up, it withered away because it lacked moisture," (Luke 8:6), signifying that those that don't have true beliefs, in which their roots take hold of good soil, than they will subsequently not be able to withstand the weather as well as the vicissitudes of real life and thereby their beliefs will when they are tested, as they will invariably be, will blow away like chaff.

So too, how can people forget Peter, as foretold by the Christ, denying that he even knew Jesus, not once, but three times, yet, demonstrating later that those that fail in times of crisis, can learn from their failure, can rebuild themselves, and transform themselves to display indomitable courage and unassailable faith, so as to become the very rock to which Christianity build itself.  The fault for those that do not act consistent with their professed beliefs is not that they have failed and are therefore failures, but whether or not they have failed and then after such a failure, have made amends to become what they profess their belief to truly be.

If a man is unable to act upon or defend to his utmost, his belief, than what sort of believer is this, actually?  After all, a fair weather believer, is no believer at all, and isn't worth the designation of a believer, for a man that turns tail and runs when the chips are down, is hardly worthy of the distinction of being labeled a man.  It is far too easy, far too common, for people to say what they are but aren't, what characteristics that they are but aren't, as well as to make promises that are not fulfilled but are empty; for how many have said, that they will take their spouse "for better, for worse, till death do us part", yet later only to calmly walk away from such a solemn vow.

It is important to have beliefs, even more important to have correct beliefs, and then having these correct beliefs to stand behind these beliefs, to defend and proselytize for them in your own way, and finally to live a life consistent with these correct beliefs.  If you can do these very basic things, your life will be successful in the greatest measure of things, you certainly will be at peace, and you will have been a faithful servant to truth, honor, and your fellow countrymen.

Blasphemy and the Law

Blasphemy is defined by thefreedictionary.com as:  "The malicious or wanton reproach of God, either written or oral," and while this is no longer a crime in Western nations, it most definitely is a crime in some present day countries that do not broach disrespect of their God and treat blasphemy essentially as apostasy to their State religion and will enforce those that blaspheme, to such an extent, that those offenders' may actually meet State-sanctioned death. 

When you think about blasphemy, you might well ask the question, as to whom this crime is actually hurting, since in the scheme of things, you would think that God being omniscience, omnipotent and so forth, probably isn't taking our deprecations and cursing no matter how vociferously expressed, personally.  This leads to the thought that if God isn't striking us dead or mute, why should the government, or its representatives have laws against blasphemy in the first place?

The answer lies more in the fact that within our jurisprudence system, it is common practice, for those giving testimony, to swear an oath to testify to the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help them God.  While there are some that choose instead to "affirm" to the truth and subsequently are under pains and penalties of perjury, in either case, though, the point is held to be crystal clear, that a court of law is about the whole truth and woe unto him who would fail to recognize the solemnity of such a vow.  This means, that those that have a somewhat cavalier attitude in regards to their own swearing, blaspheming, or taking of our Lord's name in vain, are probably also the type of people, that have a tendency to bend truth as opposed to testify to it.

Additionally, history is replete with governments, typically monarchies, but just about any government consisting of this same basic footprint; to which there is the supreme leader, such as the King, who is God's representative here on earth, and that the power that the King has is power granted to the King by God. This than signifies that those that disrespect God are in point of fact, disrespecting the King, and the thing is, the King is a living, physical being, and most Kings demand respect as well as typically desiring to be feared by their subjects, so therefore they often feel that if they allow their populace to openly express disrespect, that it will only be a matter of time before absolute chaos ensues, so that is why there are such stringent laws against blasphemy on record in most countries of any note.

While a country such as America, has no King, it nevertheless has historically through its laws been against blasphemers because a man that is no respecter of God, is probably also someone that doesn't have any particular respect for authority in general, as well as most likely being a man that believes he is himself the best judge of what is right and what is wrong, and that type of loose cannon is not the type of citizen that any structured government wants to deal with.

Living in a Sea of Debt

The total federal government estimated debt is $19.3 trillion dollars, but this number probably is way under the true debt if one was to take into account legacy programs such as governmental guaranteed pensions, healthcare, and social security which could easily double or even triple our current debt levels.  To get an idea of how vast this amount of money is, consider that the entire Gross Domestic Product on an annual basis for America is around $18 trillion dollars.  While, some people might not be too concerned about our debt levels because it just seems as if the business of America is business, and that business appears to be functioning okay, the fact of the matter is, debt is money borrowed, typically with an associated interest rate and other miscellaneous payment terms, to which the debt-holder is not only legally entitled to that money being paid back but has rights to it.  This means, in short, when it comes to debt that it is never going to be a free ride that at some point, there will come a reckoning.

As reported by the newyorkfed.org, "As of March 31, 2016, total household indebtedness was $12.25 trillion," which represents how much debt in aggregate the citizens of America owe to their debt-holders.  This means that taken together the amount of debt between our federal obligations as well as our consumer obligations is a minimum of $31.55 trillion dollars, a sum which is truly unfathomable.   Considering on this staggering amount of debt, the question might well be asked as to what do we as a country own or we as people own, if we were to be honest and stipulate that things that we have not fully paid for, are not truly our own.  It should be recognized that in absence of timely payments to these loans, debt-holders can avail themselves of a multitude of options to enforce their rights to our property or things that we consider being our own which are actually contingent upon us making continually good on our obligations until the debt has been fully satisfied.

Perhaps, America has done it all wrong, that far better than living in a sea of debt, which appears to have spiraled almost completely out of control, that this country and its citizens, would be better served, if we were more fiscally conservative, which translated means, taking on far less debt, and living more within the means of our current situation and income.  While the argument against not taking on personal debt, would be that we would have to thereby postpone big purchases for items such as cars and houses, a reasoned response might be that loans and debts are never free, and at a minimum we need to seriously consider making far larger down payments on big purchases to demonstrate that we are fiscally responsible, as opposed to leveraging up at ridiculous levels, and hoping that everything will just work out okay.  As for the federal government, it needs to have a balanced budget so as to put an end to its current policy of actively encouraging a feeding frenzy at the public trough and instead get its fiscal house in order so as to set a prudent example for its citizens to learn from.

America and its citizens need to reverse its current course on debt as well as to remember the wise words of our Founding Father, George Washington, that: "to contact new debts is not the way to pay old ones."

Evidence, Jurors, and Story Construction

Joe Friday the fictional detective of Dragnet, the TV show, had his character ultimately summed up into this one sentence: "Just the facts, ma'am."  The thing is, we like to believe that those that are jurors while they are listening to testimony that they are concentrating on just the facts of the case, and none of the histrionics or misdirection, and we also like to believe that witnesses to a crime, will just recite to law enforcement the pertinent facts of the situation, but none of this is true to life.  In point of fact, the way that we often process information and divulge information is through stories, if we didn't do that, than there would be little or no interest in us watching plays, dramas, soap operas, or reading fictional books, because all of these are stories and they interest us because stories engage our attention, far more than dry facts do, because stories allow us to construct pictures in our mind which helps us relate to it as well as to re-construct and de-construct the story to fit our mindset.

In our criminal prosecutorial justice system, we are entitled by the 6th Amendment to an impartial jury of our peers, so that, even though, the judge, the prosecutor, and the defense attorney, are all lawyers, the jury box typically contains no lawyers, whatsoever.  This means, that the special games and lawyer-speak that lawyers typically construct so as to justify their high fees and station in life, somewhat goes over the head of jurors, because the respective jurors are neither part of the field of law, nor typically do they really care to be.  This means, that a good lawyer, must therefore know his audience, so that the display of the most eloquent elocutions and the most incisive dry wit, demonstrating that the lawyer is a maestro of his field, probably impresses only and is effective specifically for those that are fellow lawyers and of minimal relevance to the jurors themselves.

The jurors on a given case do care about the evidence, but because most jurors have never been a juror before, have had minimal or no training in the intricacies of the law, and are for the most part at a loss as to how to frame, record, and to construct good and pertinent notes during the trial, they must as an alternative, construct stores in their mind in regards to the testimony that they are hearing.  These stories that jurors construct are based on what the prosecutor and the defense council have presented to them during the course of the trial, to which it is from these stories presented, as well as the stories constructed in each juror's mind that the story of what appeared to have happened is ultimately decided for each juror.

All this would imply that the opening statements that are made by each respective attorney are of crucial importance, perhaps the most importance of anything presented to the jurors during the course of the trial, because it is these statements that fundamentally create at the inception two opposing story lines inside the juror's head to which at the conclusion of the testimony, but often well before, the juror will have reconciled these two stories in such a manner as to construct a story believable unto himself, and having come to their own conclusive story, jurors will often dismiss all evidence, no matter how compelling, that would tarnish the story that they have so constructed.

When lawyers complain, and often rightly so, that the jury did not render the correct decision based on all of the evidence, the fault lies most often in the inability of one of the lawyers to construct a meaningful story that not only makes sense but also resonates with the respective jury.

Newark v. New York City and the Stupidity of New Jersey

There are huge advantages living in close proximity to where all the money is, and New York City, is the financial capital of not only the United States, but of the world.  You would think by virtue of being within just a few miles of New York City as well as having a major airport which is utilized for people traveling to and from NYC in Newark, New Jersey, that almost for a certainty, Newark would be a rich and vibrant city in and of itself.  In fact, it isn't, its income per capita is significantly below the median for the United States, and a significant amount of that blame can be laid at the feet of the governmental policies of New Jersey.

Assuming that a city like Newark, wants to be a viable alternative to the high cost of living and doing business in NYC, than the first step in order to become that "go to" spot is to undercut NYC on taxes.  NYC is not only a high tax city, it resides in a high tax State as well as being a high tax and high cost of living place to conduct business in, yet, as long as you are close to the epicenter of NYC, you don't have to physically reside in NYC in order to provide services to those that are looking to save a little money. This means that because Newark is not NYC, it needs to entice people to their city by saving them money overall and when it comes to money, most everybody, has a desire to save money and NYC is an easy target to take advantage of.

Most people have short memories or just assume that taxes have always been the way that they are, but in fact, taxes change all of the time.  For instance, the overall sales tax rate for retail products in NYC is 8.875%, whereas in New Jersey it's 7%, but the thing is, New Jersey didn't even implement a sales tax until 1966.  This means, that New Jersey could readily drop their sales tax rate, and probably by doing so, capture significant purchases from people taking the short trip from NYC to Newark in order to transact their business, and so despite a lower sales tax rate, New Jersey would possibly generate more sales tax revenue by so doing.  In regards to the State income tax rate, NYC tops out at 8.82%, whereas New Jersey tops out at 8.97%, and while it is true that the lower income tax brackets in New Jersey are taxed significantly lower than lower earners in New York, the upper tax bracket for New Jersey kicks in at $500,001, whereas in NYC it begins at $1,029,250.  New Jersey didn't even have a State income tax until 1976, and needs to drop its upper tax rates down significantly in order to entice businesses and their employees that have large amounts of income to move to New Jersey and the only possible way to do so is to reduce their income tax rates.

The American dream for most people is to own a home, and in this area, New jersey, is the absolute worst of the bunch, with the highest property tax rates in the nation, whereas New York, while also being quite high, is lower than the New Jersey rate.  There is absolutely no justification for New Jersey's property tax rate being so high, and that hurts its competitiveness with NYC.  In addition, the New Jersey corporate tax rate is 9%, whereas NYC recently reduced their rate to 6.5%.

The bottom line is that Newark is not interested in garnering some of that great wealth which is literally right next door to them, because their tax policies are pretty much as bad or worse than NYC's itself.  What New Jersey should do, is to understand that fundamentally that taxes matter, and by lowering their taxes, they will be the recipients of and be able to tap into some of that prosperity of NYC.  Newark is the prime example of being in the right place in order to become a vibrant city, but it needs to take positive steps to do so, and pretending that what has occurred via its tax policies over the last two generations has helped them is flawed and misguided, to which, they should recognize that they are totally clueless about how to properly pluck the goose, cause it sure seems like they have instead just gone ahead and cooked it.

Lack of Economic Opportunity and the lure of Prostitution

In an ideal world in which all were afforded equal opportunities, with no discrimination whatsoever on the basis of sex, creed, wealth, or color, prostitution within those countries would be considerably lower than then are in any one country, today.  While there are many reasons why prostitution exists, there are two basic driving forces for it; which is a desire for sex as a commodity bought for by men, and the willingness or coercion of providing that sex by women for money.  Anytime, that you have a situation in which there are men that have lots of money or an excess of money, through whatever means, as well as there being an underclass of women or underage girls that have typically neither money, opportunity (including education), yet need money or its equivalency in order to have shelter and food, then you will invariably get prostitution.

While there are some people that like to believe that prostitution is just another form of barter, and to a certain extent it is, the field is never level, it always favors the man in any situation in which he has the money and she lacks it but needs it.  In addition, the policing of prostitution always favors the man, as in most jurisdictions throughout the world, prostitution is either illegal or socially unacceptable or both, but invariably the penalties for prostitution are almost always borne by the female and never by the male.  This means, that the male need not excessively worry about being arrested, being fined, or any other concerns that would adversely affect his life, whereas the female, is placed into a position to which she has little or no recourse to policing elements to help her in regards to any harm or damage done to her while a prostitute, and thereby having often to obtain her own protection via male muscle to protect herself from danger as well as to hopefully mitigate circumstances with any law enforcement.

While certain moral elements within society will rail against prostitution, with justification, their voices are often more vociferously directed against females, rather than against the males, when in actuality, in most cases, it is the male that is the pursuer, it is the male that is the instigator, and it is the male that leads with his money; always willing to corrupt or persuade or validate females of all ages in pursuit of carnal pleasure.

Political society in most countries with widely unequal income and widely unequal opportunity, deliberately pretend that all is alright, because for those at the top, it is.  As the real truth of the matter is that those that have both money and power, prefer things just the way that they are in order to exploit those that have neither of these things.  At best, the females that gravitate to prostitution, do so, because their opportunities are so limited, their education so anemic, and their lives so desperate, that this is the one thing that will enable them to get something to live on, despite the risks and despite their aversion , rather than the most  basic alternative, of giving in to quiet desperation. 

They say it's a dog-eat-dog world, but really it isn't, it's more akin to a fixed poker game in which one player has all of the fifty-two cards marked, and that player never loses, although during the playing of the game he might buy you a drink or two.

The Hazards of War

It goes without saying that the rich have all the advantages in life in the first place, and certainly one of the most important advantages of being rich is to not have to hazard one's body in times of war, as it is certainly difficult to enjoy your money, or your daddy's money, if you are dead.  In America, we as a country have been obligated historically to enact conscriptions in times of war, but in recent times, the military of America, which is estimated to be about 1.5 million active soldiers, is completely voluntary.  That's great news for everybody in America, as those that volunteer to be in the military, have in theory, acted upon their innate desire to serve and/or to be a part of our military, and those that have not volunteered to be part of our military, in most cases, didn't have a real desire to do so.

In previous wars, such as our Civil war, World Wars I and II, the Korean and Vietnam wars, the draft was put into effect throughout the United States, to which, for instance, in the Civil war one could pay for a substitute to take their place on the field of battle and/or pay a commutation fee in order to avoid being drafted.  In modern times, directly paying a commutation fee is no longer permitted, so those that wished to avoid the draft would enroll in college so as to achieve a college deferment or get married, when drafting a married man was not permitted, and if those options weren't available, would try other avenues of less certainty or legality.

The thing is the rich and their progeny typically hate being drafted so by making the draft in a manner of speaking, egalitarian, it makes for the distinct possibility, that significant numbers of the very rich and powerful will not have a desire to support the war, and will in fact, especially if none of their riches come from war, put them often at cross purposes to the war.   That makes for a rather difficult political situation, especially when the war as advertised doesn't appear to have a very compelling reason why our American boys should have to go out and fight and die for whatever it is in the first place. 

This means, that politicians being practical people in all regards, should recognize that compelling rich and well-placed citizens to have to hazard their bodies at a young age in the field of battle, no matter how "soft" or "secure" their military position will be, isn't going to get an enthusiastic thumbs up from those people.  The rich believe that they are different and want to be treated differently, so that, politicians can either recognize that, or they can ignore it to their own destruction.  A far better solution, rather pathetic, considering that this is America, is to simply recognize the things as they really are, as opposed to our desires of how they should be, which is, that the whole point of being rich or on the path of material success, is not to have to hazard your life in some sort of obscure foreign war. 

This would indicate, rather clearly, that today, with plenty of foreign wars, and a future which will undoubtedly include more foreign wars by America, that the rich and successful have never had it so good, since our military is all voluntary.  This means, in effect, that the rich are exempt from having to hazard their bodies as well as to having to hazard their money, and subsequently in that type of situation, America will continue to be at perpetual war.

If America wants to substantially reduce its foreign incursions, it doesn’t need to return to a draft, although that would certainly accomplish the mission; what it does need to do, is to add on a tax for all the super-earners in America, including all corporations that earn super-profits, and call it the "combat security tax" applicable only to those making the really big money, as that is the least the rich should provide as tribute to the poor that fight their wars.

Facebook and the Stoppage of Time

The media likes to display two basic types of stories: the first being of the type of "if it bleeds, it leads", which helps to remind you that the world can be a dangerous and unfair place.  The other type of story is that human interest story, about somebody overcoming something, such as a grave illness, or obtaining something after first being denied it, such as becoming a successful entrepreneur, supporting the premise that this is a nation of "winners, and not quitters".  So that it can be said that the media loves stories with happy endings, often following the theme of love discovered, love lost, and then, finally, love re-discovered.

There is, however, an entirely different story that doesn't get nearly enough play, and that is, in the world of Facebook, that time seemingly has no meaning. That is to say that time appears to stand still for certain people that can't get over the fact that in high school or whatever, they never got the time of day from Suzie, or whomever, and now, twenty years later, there she is, in living color, on Facebook and well, even though technically you're not really friends, you are friends on Facebook, and now you can learn just about everything about her;  see the pictures, the events, the places, family, friends, hobbies, habits, posting, her wall, and so forth.   Making matters even worse, some people on Facebook have their phone number available, and so you can now text or call this person, or post or email something and well, it's like a time machine throwback to when you both went to school.  It's like a perpetual do-over machine.

Of course, most all of this Facebook stuff is being exclusively done and obsessively researched by one party, more appropriately known as a stalker, to which, if this was just one of those private fantasy type of things, sort of like a fan, that finds self-satisfaction in vicariously projecting themselves into your life, this might be OK, kind of creepy, but relatively harmless.  However, these stalkers often want to actually see you in person, after all they consider that you both have things in common, such as you went to the same high school and took some classes together, and remember that one day when you actually talked for like thirty seconds.  Now it's twenty years later, with the stalker figuring that it's time to meet up, so as to catch up just like old times, as if your life has been in a perpetual "pause" over the last two decades, just waiting for the opportunity to renew your acquaintance with this stranger.

The bottom line is that somebody that has been steadily monitoring your Facebook page, isn't behaving like someone that really wants to be your friend, they are behaving instead like someone that is stealthily looking for an opportunity to take advantage of you, for their own benefit, so as to fulfill a fantasy, take revenge, or to satisfy some certain urge, and they don't really care, about your real life, the fact that you have children, a job, responsibilities, and other important obligations, instead you're just an object, perpetually eighteen years old, because for them, time has stood still.

Hunger and Taking Food for Granted

No doubt, you probably at one time or another, have stated yourself, or heard stated from someone else, that "you're starving", when in actuality for most people, that statement is merely reflecting the point that you are hungry and are therefore very intent in getting something to eat.  The thing about eating food is that it isn't just a routine, and it isn't just something to enjoy or like, it is in fact, a necessity, because without adequate food and water the body cannot sustain itself.  So then, for most people, the hungry pangs that we feel are very real, usually based more on keeping in tune with a rhythm that we have developed in our eating habits as opposed to outright privation, but for others those hungry pangs are an inconvenient truth that they don't have ready access to proper nutrition

It seems unfathomable that there are in the United States plenty of people that actually are not sure where there next good meal is coming from, and are considered to be "food insecure", to which it is estimated via ers.usa.gov that: " 14.0 percent (17.4 million) of U.S. households were food insecure at some time during 2014."  The sheer total of households suffering from this insecurity while living in both the richest nation in the world as well as the world's highest exporter or agricultural products is extremely disappointing.  Not only that, but America has proven that it has logistics for distribution of all sorts of products, including food, down to a science, which is why when we go to our corner grocery store at pretty much any time of the day, at any time of the year, the shelves and warehouses are full, and virtually never barren or even disorganized.

While it is true that we have great charitable organizations that both distribute food and are often setup to serve food to the homeless and indigent, along with having the National School Lunch program to assist children at school, as well as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), aka food stamps, that the poor can apply and qualify for, yet somehow, there are still in America a staggering multi-million amount of households that are food insecure.  The reasons for this food insecurity are myriad, but the prevailing reason is that America suffers from an underclass that simply does not earn enough money to make ends meet on a regular basis without some sort of continual assistance.

The great thing about food in this country, is not only is it prevalent, it is readily available, and it also is relatively inexpensive.  This means that under the right programs and incentives America should be able to materially alleviate the food insecurity of so many households by simply addressing the problem with real purpose and determined throughput.  No doubt, this signifies that our current governmental programs need to be revamped, rethought, and reconfigured, because as is, they aren't truly successful in their mission.

 America needs to face the truth, that there is in this modern age, hunger at our very door, to which, we as a responsible nation, have an obligation to take care of our own, before turning food into fuel, as in ethanol, or exporting food all over the worldwhile our own people's hungry eyes look on, and ask why.

Educational Expenses have skyrocketed

If you're wondering exactly how bad the current generation of college students has it when it comes to the cost of higher education, times have never been worse, and there doesn't appear to be any downtrend in the works.  As stated by Bloomberg.com in 2012, "… college tuition and fees have surged 1,120 percent since records began in 1978" and further that this is: “…four times faster than the increase in the consumer price index.”  In an era in which, hi-tech tools have never been more prominent, powerful and prevalent, and to which the internet has seemingly brought the information world to every student's computer with ease, it just seems unfathomable that college educational costs have soared to stratospheric heights, yet it has done so.

While there probably are many reasons, some valid and some not, why college tuition costs have risen to levels far exceeding the consumer price index, certainly one of the most pertinent is the fact that public universities are in part, subsidized by State taxes, and when those taxes are either reduced, or diverted from those public universities, than the students attending such a university must pay the difference.  Although this is true, that doesn't fully explain why private university tuition has also risen at nearly the same rate, which implies that within the administration of universities, public as well as private that someone or some institution are directly or indirectly benefiting from these higher tuition rates.  In addition, the numbers would imply that the pricing of tuition has less to do with the actual costs associated with running a given university and more to do with running what is in effect, is a higher educational cartel.

Then there are our public schools for children K-12  which are "free"  in the sense that no bill is invoiced to a given family, but those real costs to the taxpayer have also soared over the years, so that as reported by statista.com, in 1980 the per capita expenditure for a given student was $2272 whereas in 2013 it was $11503, so that even taking into account inflation and adjusting the 1980 expenditure per student into 2013 dollars that expenditure would only rise to $6423, so today's expenditure per student is still 79% higher in inflation adjusted dollars than it was back in 1980, which again seems perplexing, especially considering all the other products that have gotten better, more efficient, cheaper, and more reliable in the interim.

Once again, this rise in expenditures for K-12 costs per student, is not something to which we can state that it was been worth it because, regrettably, our students today as witnessed by their test scores are scoring worse than they were back in 1980, so that we have the dual problem of students learning less while the cost of their education has soared.  This implies quite strongly that it is the administration costs that have gone up at a pace far exceeding inflation and no doubt, shows the power of the teacher's union, to negotiate contracts that are beneficial for the teachers as well as their pensions, at the expense of the taxpayers and to the discredit of public servants negotiating such deals who seem incapable of good stewardship of the taxpayer's money.

While America is rightly recognized for having some of the best and highest ranking universities in the world, that doesn't mean a whole lot to the vast majority of students that would be far better served with more affordable tuition expenses and competent universities that focus on educating college students for entry into the real world.  As for our K-12 public schools, the taxpayers and parents are caught paying a premium for an education that far too frequently is far less than should be expected from the country that prides itself on claiming to represent the best and brightest of the free world.

Your Conscience and the Law

Each one of us is born with a conscience, given to us by God.  That conscience is the still quiet voice that we can hear within our being, to which, some ignore it, some try to drown its voice out by drink or drugs, some rebuke it, and some embrace it.  As a child, our conscience existed, a conscience in development because we were yet still children, to which, intuitively we recognized that when injustice was done to us by our parents, by our teachers, or by bully's, that we had been wronged, but because of our lack of physical size, or lack of authority, or out of respect or duty towards our parents or teachers, we obeyed their dictates.  These dictates forced upon us may not have been all that wrong, yet they were wrong in that they conflicted with our conscience, and thereby we often learned to harness our conscience into the conformity to the world that we lived in. There does come a time, though, when all of us, are responsible for ourselves, our decisions, and our actions, to which the pointing of our finger at some other person as the blame for our wrong deeds, is inherently dishonest.  This means, in short, whether we want to recognize it or not, that we now can live our lives in obedience to our conscience as the highest law or we can blend our conscience into societal expectations and norms.

Depending upon your life and depending upon your country, your conscience overall may not be out of sync with much of anything that goes on in your everyday life.  On the other hand, your conscience may be challenged by the law, by political forces, by your family, and in those sorts of situations a man with a conscience must make a decision as to whom he will serve.  It is these very circumstances that determine whether you are a man of integrity, a man of practicality, or a man that merely goes with the prevailing flow of the times. 

It is one thing to have a family dispute that involves your conscience as that often is kept, in one way or another, within the family, as compared to a dispute of conscience that affects your livelihood, your freedom, or your very life.  While there isn't necessarily anything wrong with balancing your conscience with the exigencies of a given situation, recognize that each time that you do so, you are denying your true essence in order to maintain a status quo, and a bit of you dies for having done so.

Then, there are times, for some people, to which the civil authorities, or the ecclesial authorities, or perhaps the place of your employment, place you into a situation to which a stand must be made for conscience or for its denial, because there is no in-between and no compromise, possible.  The thing to recognize when it comes to authority of any sort over another human being is that that particular authority has little or no legitimate jurisdiction if by obeying its dictates you deny your very conscience. 

No society can be considered truly free, if civil authority or its equivalency trumps over any man's legitimate conscience, because the highest authority for mankind is natural law which is immutable and unerring and thereby any authority which is not in tune with natural law is no legitimate authority itself.  James Madison wisely stated that: "Conscience is the most sacred of all property…" to which it behooves all of us, to imprint this upon our minds, and to thereby recognize that the defense of our conscience is our foremost duty, to which all other duties must pay homage to.