Do we still have a Government of the People?

Lincoln's Gettysburg Address is one of the most important historic moments in United States history, to which Lincoln resolved that the: "… government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."  The above quotation implies quite strongly that Lincoln, considered to be one of the clearest, thoughtful, and most honest politicians ever, believed that this was indeed a government of, by, and for the people, at least in 1863. However, today, looking around at the concentration of so many industries in too few hands, of mass media that at best represents two sides of the very side coin, clearly this seems to be a government that in effect is one that marches to the beat of the military-industrial complex, massive multi-national corporations, and special privileged elite people, all under the god of mammon and power. 

America is a nation of around 320 million peoples, of which, for most people, though not all, upon turning eighteen, one is eligible to vote in democratic elections.  That part seems to indicate positively that this really is a government of and by the people, but that unfortunately, doesn't reflect truly the present situation.  For instance, at the time of Lincoln's first presidential campaign, there were four major candidates that received electoral votes, of which Lincoln received the majority of those votes and was duly elected.  While America subsequently has had many third party candidates that have attempted to win the Presidential election, the reality is that since 1952, the only third party Presidential candidate to win any electoral votes at all was George Wallace in 1968, and that's it.

In order for the people to have choice, you need to have at least two choices, to which our present day Republicans v. Democrats, represent something erringly similar to Coca-Cola v. Pepsi Cola, Airbus v. Boeing, Bloomberg v. Reuters, Unilever v. Proctor & Gamble, and so forth, to which each of these mighty companies together, dominate their respective markets, and any other players are so small as to not being able to make a meaningful market impact or are simply seen as fringe players.   Although, ostensibly these companies are fierce competitors, they are as seen from a different and truer perspective, in the same sort of business, which is first of all protecting their own turf from any upstarts, along with monitoring regulations that would adversely impact them and conversely supporting legislation that protects them, as well as keeping on top of any and all activities that does not support the current status quo. 

When there are only two essential political choices, it is very easy for those choices to be marketed to the people in such a manner so as to sell the illusion that they are often at loggerheads, whereas, more realistically they simply take turns at helming the royal ocean liner that is America to the benefit of those that control or guide these parties and their actual policies behind the scenes..  Today's politicians are very good at promising all sorts of nonsense and coming up with catchy slogans such as: "change we can believe in," or "make America great again," but in actuality nothing ever changes, and nothing great ever comes forth.

The bottom line is that America isn't really a democracy, it isn't even a republic, it is controlled in actuality by privileged people, the military-industrial complex, and mega-corporations that want to maintain their power and riches at the expense of the people.  If this really was a government of the people, by the people, and for the people, than the government wouldn't treat the common man as someone that needs to be controlled, monitored, and sanctioned, but would instead see the common man as the salt of the earth, decent, filled with common sense, and good.

Rights of Englishmen and our Unalienable Rights

America was founded as a colony of Great Britain, to which, Great Britain provided military as well as material aid to the colonies which helped to sustain and strengthen the colonists.  Not too surprisingly, in return for such aid, logistics, troops, and whatnot, Great Britain came to the point in which it demanded the payment of certain specific taxes from the colonists, in which the colonists were resentful of such taxes being imposed upon them, especially in consideration that they had no representation in Parliament.  Neither did the colonists appreciate the Quartering Act, which allowed standing armies to be quartered in barracks or public housing and for the colonists to thereby support by taxation these troops, ostensibly stationed in America, so as to protect and defend its borders.

The colonists considered themselves to be part and parcel of the British empire, and thereby saw themselves as having the "Rights of Englishmen", to which, although, Great Britain has no written Bill of Rights, they have through the Magna Carta and their traditions stretching over centuries established laws that impressed upon British subjects the rights and protections of English citizenship.   It was this belief that permitted the colonists to appeal to both parliament and King George III in regards to their disputes on taxation, representation, and standing armies.

Unfortunately, the colonist's appeals to parliament and especially to King George III were effectively of no avail, forcing the colonists to abandon any hopes that their rights of Englishmen meant effectively anything in regards to them, and thereby setting the stage to make their appeal to a higher power, our Creator Himself.  The colonists, reasoned that by depending upon power that originated in the hands of parliament and of the king, this would always mean, that they would be servants of or subservient to the State, to which, by being so, they would or would not receive in return the liberties that they felt that they were due by their humanity.

Therefore the Declaration of Independence, did two very clever things when it was written by Thomas Jefferson, in which, one of these was to declare that governments are instituted amongst men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, and when such a government becomes destructive of those ends it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and that the facts of such a claim should be declared to the world as proof that such a government has lost its legitimacy and has become in its object, tyrannical.    Additionally, our Declaration, went above the hands of man, went above human laws, by declaring that each one of us is born with unalienable rights endowed by our Creator, amongst which consist of but are not limited to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and in order to secure these unalienable rights governments are instituted amongst men.

The above changed the dynamic of our government into one that believed that the true function of government was to secure these unalienable rights amongst men, and that above all, this was its primary mission.  This meant in effect, that any government destructive of our unalienable rights was by definition, illegitimate, for trying to usurp or to suppress the unalienable rights that each of us has been gifted by our Creator.  These unalienable rights means in effect, that governments and the people that help run or run this government, are subservient themselves to these unalienable rights bestowed upon us by our Creator.

Without France there would be no independent America

The great founding fathers of our nation had the will, vision, and desire to declare their independence from Great Britain, demonstrating that they were courageous, visionary, and bold.  Yet, to declare something, even something of great value is not the same thing as achieving it, something, that when the first shots of our war of Independence were fired, this nation would soon find out.

To fight a war against the greatest military and world power which was Great Britain, would entail not just uncommon valor, but soldiers, personnel, food, equipment, training, logistics, money, and outside aid.    The fact of the matter is that America knew that it needed the assistance and aid from other countries in regards to military equipment, ships, arms, personnel, experience, and diplomatic recognition in order to achieve victory, because without such, they could not successfully defeat the British.  At best, America could take advantage of the fact that its people knew the lay of the land, and thereby would utilize this superior knowledge to hit and run, so as to strategically live to fight another day with the hope that America could wear away the British resolve to fight over an extended period of time and expense.

At the time of our declaration, France was a country that was Great Britain's bitter rival, and would like nothing better than to see Great Britain weakened by the upstart Americans, but for France backing a losing horse was not something that was worth their time or expense.  However, when America demonstrated in the battle of Saratoga of September-October, 1777, that they had the fight in them to take it to the overconfident and reckless British general Burgoyne and thereby defeated and forced his surrender, France, within a couple of months, recognized the United States of America.

It was upon this formal recognition that brought to the United States of America, the French commitment to aid our young nation with military personnel, monetary credit, weapons, ammunition, and the vital French navy.  The critical fact that the French brought their navy to American shores, made it problematic that Great Britain could successfully embargo or blockade our ports so as to successfully affect economic ruin upon America.  So too, this meant that Great Britain would now be fighting a war that had taken on global proportions so as to therefore necessitate Great Britain to defend the English Channel as well as their interests in the West Indies, effectively stretching their resources and personnel worldwide.

Ultimately, it was the French navy led by Admiral De Grasse that blockaded the Chesapeake bay and in conjunction with Washington's land forces essentially trapped General Cornwallis' troops at Yorktown, Virginia, which was the decisive military battle, that led to Great Britain's decision to end the war and to seek a peaceful resolution which resulted in the truly independent United States of America.

In actuality, there was little chance that a young and budding America could actually defeat Great Britain, and it could not have done so without France and to a lesser extent Spain's material assistance.  It was France, above all other nations that provided the funds and its formidable navy that materially assisted in the fruition of this great nation, to their everlasting credit

Frequency of Pay

Back in the day, we were instructed: "You shall give him his wages on his day before the sun sets…" (Deuteronomy 24:15).  Nowadays, only those that are in cash businesses, such as tipped employees in the restaurant business, or laborers in the agricultural fields of America, do these employees typically receive their wages on the day that they perform their work, and everyone else is stuck getting paid per the conditions of their particular employer and although the prevailing government authority is the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), the FLSA provides a few generic rules, with State authorities having the option of imposing their own rules in a given State, so that depending upon the State, pay may be mandated at a minimum of at least two pay periods per month, or in some, as infrequently as once per month.  In addition, to pay periods which are typically going to be weekly, bi-weekly, semi-monthly, or monthly, States have a further requirement of timing in regards to the end of the pay period and the lag time for employees to get paid, in which, this too varies from State-to-State, of which, some have lag times of up to eighteen days, whereas others are only eight days.

In an era in which so many employees struggle paycheck to paycheck, the frequency of pay along with the lag time between pay periods and the actual payment of wages due, should in all fairness, be accommodating to the employees who are performing the work.  The fact that companies in certain States, can pay employees on a frequency basis of just once per month, while also having a lag time of making that payment of up to fifteen days, such as in Idaho, means, in effect, that it's legal for someone who has worked the entire month of March, not to be paid until April 15th, which seems both ridiculous as well as an unnecessary burden upon the employees.

In point of fact, the FLSA should be updated to mandate that at least two paychecks are issued to employees each month, unless a collective bargaining agreement provides otherwise, for two very important reasons, of which one is that the budgeting of money for payment of bills for a significant amount of people is quite problematic with just one pay period per month, as well as the fact that in our capitalistic society, businesses are created and businesses fail each and every day, to which, the employee should not be vulnerable to losing up to six weeks of salary (one month accrued plus two weeks current) when certain businesses close their doors, as the labor portion of any business is almost always a significant expense.

The fairest way to pay employees is actually to pay their wage at the completion of a given day, but for most industries this isn't going to be the norm, anytime soon.  In point of fact, frequency of pay, along with minimum lag times in regards to that pay should be a top consideration for any business, especially businesses in which a significant portion of their employees literally live paycheck to paycheck.   In practicality, grace periods for payment of rent are typically around three calendar days, and most credit card payments offer only a grace period without having to pay monetary interest, only if the balance due is paid no later than by the due date, whereas employers in certain States have grace periods of up to eighteen days, to pay wages that are due and payable to their employees, hardly a fair deal.

Finding Truth

In this fallen world, people like to play all sorts of mind games, such as asking "what is truth?"  The foregoing was rhetorically asked by Pilate to Jesus the Christ, to which Jesus had already stated that he "…came into the world to testify to the truth…."  The fact that Jesus came into this world to testify to the truth, would indicate, that our judicial standard of testimony to which we swear or affirm that what we testify to:  " will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth," confirms the absolute importance of truth in conjunction with justice.  This also makes the important point that there is just one truth, so that therefore truth is objective, not subjective, as truth is forever unchanging and immutable, and that those that testify to truth, that live their lives in truth, are those that have clarity of both mind and spirit, and are the true adherents of good.

However, there are many people that believe that truth depends upon one's perspective or is socially conditioned, or is dependent upon all sorts of factors that differ from person to person, so that truth, in actuality or practicality can be different from person to person, as in the example, of the six blind men and the elephant, to which each person, touches upon the elephant at a different part of the elephant and thereby believes that the elephant to have a particular quality, which while truthful, isn't the entire truth, so that if it ended just there, this would imply that truth is indeed in the eye of the beholder. But remember, each of these men are blind, and further each of these blind men have only touched one particular part of the elephant, so in fact, they haven't had the opportunity to discover the whole truth, and therein lies the rub.

The fact that Jesus proclaimed that He was here to testify to the truth, should be a signal to each of us, that within our mission and purpose of life, we should have foremost in our minds, that we wish to discover the truth about life, about the meaning of life, about how we got here, why we are here, and the purpose of us being here.  If we do not search for those very things, it seems problematic, at best, that we will ever be able to utilize our time and resources in the most correct manner, because without a clear-headed goal, we will be unable to consistently walk forward nor will we ever discover, net alone walk the straight and narrow path.

The truth that we seek, is awaiting our discovery of it, this truth, does not change, and remains the same from age to age, from people to people, from civilization to civilization, because it is universal.  The fact that truth is universal and thereby available to all signifies that we can find truth, from wherever we are currently at, if only we sincerely desire to do so.  Truth is our master, and we are its disciples, and to be a good disciple we need to adhere to the principles of right living, which begins with the knowledge that a wrong cannot be the basis for a right, nor an untruth the basis for truth, but instead that there is One light, that illuminates all, and it is this Light that we must seek and by doing so we will become more loving, as well as kinder, peaceful, joyful, faithful, and yes, truthful.

Dual Incomes and Housing

In 1974 the Equal Credit Opportunity act (ECOA) was signed into law, and while there are many good points to this legislation, it also created a legacy of unintended consequences.  For instance, on the good side it eliminated taking into account your race, religion, national origin, sex, marital status or whether or not you get public assistance in regards to your application for credit.  In addition, the lender could not speculate as to what your plans were in regards to having or raising children, and thereby for dual-income couples had to accept each person's salary as a true reflection of the earnings of that couple, without availing themselves of the option of discounting a woman's salary or speculating that at some point, one or both of them, might be out of work, for some period of time. 

This meant, in practicality, that the housing lender would now take a snapshot of your current combined salary, and from there, would be able to offer a suitable mortgage package and loan for a house.  Not too surprisingly, as this is America, the more money that you made, the more house that you could afford, so that in 1974 as noted by census.gov the average price of a home in America was $38,900, whereas in 2010 it was $272,900, and if we were to re-price the home taking into account the devaluation of the dollar, the average price in 2010 should have been $172,056, while the actual difference between those prices is $100,000, which represents a real increase in 2010 dollars of 58.6%, which is substantial.

In fairness to the builders that sell homes, modern-day homes do have more amenities than homes of 1974, to which, though, the most telling difference between homes of today as compared to 1974, is as noted by aei.org that:  "Over the last 40 years, the average home has increased in size by more than 1,000 square feet," which would certainly account for a lot of the reason why housing pricing has increased so much over the last forty years.  The strange thing is that the overall family size has decreased from about 3 per household back in 1974, to just over 2.5 people per household today, so that the increase in home sizing has little to do with families getting larger, because they haven't.

All of the above, would imply strongly, that the purveyors of housing, saw the fact that since dual income wages were no longer being discounted by the mortgage lenders, that this meant, for a certainty, that they now could sell homes that were bigger, better, and more expensive, since more verifiable income having been approved equated to more house that could be bought.  After all, the home builders have a vested interest in selling bigger homes that retail for more money because these homes are more profitable that your traditional smaller starter homes, often, substantially so.

You know that it is a sad state of affairs, that mathematics are not a particular strong suit of a significant amount of Americans, and therefore thirty years to pay off a loan, allows a lender to take a relatively large number, and break it down into something that looks manageable, and probably is manageable, if you make certain positive assumptions about employment and salary, and don't take into account that most families have family responsibilities and obligations that cost both money as well as time, as well as health issues, and that unanticipated events do happen.

The thing about dual incomes is that if you are already earning at full capacity that means that you do not have any room for error or safety margin, should things not work out as desired.  The purchasing of a house is for virtually everyone, the biggest voluntary debt that they will take on in their entire life, to which, the better part of valor, is to be more practical and budget savvy.

Federally Guaranteed Mortgages encourage an Endless Cycle of Defaults, Cheating, and Scandals

It is the American dream for most families to own a house, to which, the government has clearly put its money where its mouth is, by setting up several agencies that their most notable purpose is to essentially federally guarantee mortgages, with agencies such as Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, the Federal Housing Administration (FHA), and the Veterans’ Administration (VA).  To help define exactly what these agencies do, they essentially buy up mortgages from credit unions, banks, and other financial institutions in bundles of mortgage loans from those entities, in which these bundled loans conform to the rules, goals, and mandates given to these Government Sponsored Enterprises (GSEs) so that if the government desires that Freddie Mac should purchase mortgage loans on behalf of affordable housing requirements as imposed by the Housing and Urban Development (HUD), they will do so.

What this means is that if the government is willing to subsidize housing purchases in which any of the following are permitted as part and parcel of the purchase, such as poor credit history, low down payment, high ratio of mortgage amount vs. percentage of take home pay, than this is what the bundled loans will more frequently consist of, because the nature of loans for any of the various banking institutions, is that the more that you can loan in aggregate, the greater the amount of fees, points, and interest that you will make over the term of the loan, and if the banking institutions, can offload their risk onto governmental or GSEs they will have essentially increased their market share and profitability without infringing upon their own risk.

This signifies that the actual effect of GSEs purchasing bundles of mortgage loans, especially when combined with an overarching desire to see more mortgage loans originating to more people, that the qualification standards of those receiving such loans, will degenerate.  Even more to the point, if banking institutions can offload their risk to GSEs, they have every incentive to issue as many loans as possible that while ostensibly staying within the bounds of governmental policies, are clearly loans in which the default rate will be substantially higher, in fact, so high, that is a certainty that a significant amount of these loans will at some point come into default.

If, this government aids and abets the purchasing of bundles of mortgage loans, to which the qualifications to have such a loan issued, have been reduced significantly this will subsequently increase the risky nature of these loan packages, substantially, so that this government will have far more loans issued of a questionable nature.  This then equates inevitably into a cycle of more mortgage defaults, more liar loans in order to scam the system, and more overall cheating in order for banks to make, maintain, or to increase their profits, to which all of these things are passed off to where the buck does stop, the Federal government and its agencies, but unfortunately, for the American public at large, the blowback is, that the failures of government in keeping its fiscal house in order, mean invariably that the taxpaying citizens of this country have to make good on these loans that should have never been made in the first place, while also compensating banking institutions that "gamed" the system in order to enrich themselves.

Food, Alcohol, and Stadiums

The cost of attending sporting events have skyrocketed over the years, so that for the most part, attending sporting events for those that make a modest income or less, is something that for professional sports has either been eliminated entirely, or curtailed significantly, except if attending as a guest or on those infrequent nights when special pricing is in effect or no-interest has been generated in which case, list ticket prices are discounted significantly.  

One of the peripheral things adding to the expense of seeing live sporting events is that all stadiums with slight variations in their rules, want to be the master of what you eat or drink once you enter within the stadium.  That is to say, extra income is generated for sport franchises, from the buying of food items, refreshments, and alcoholic beverages, and the stadium obviously prefers not to have to compete with outside elements.

In actual fact, although not well advertised because they have no interest in cannibalizing their own sales, most stadiums allow patrons to bring in plastic bottles of water or plastic bottles of non-alcoholic beverages, as well as most stadiums do allow you to bring in outside food, as long as it is contained within a visible plastic bag or a soft-sided bag that conforms to the size limitations of a given stadium.

On the other hand, no stadium legally allows its patrons to bring in alcohol of any type, yet, without exception, all stadiums sell alcoholic beverages as long as you are not obviously intoxicated.  This would indicate a general hypocrisy in the sense that alcohol is permitted within the stadium, as long as you buy the alcohol from stadium vendors, but you cannot bring in from outside your own alcohol, which means, basically, the stadium policy against outside alcohol, is essentially to compel its patrons to buy their alcohol from designated stadium sellers.  I supposed, to a great extent, this makes sense, especially since you are allowed to fill up on your own alcoholic beverages in the parking lot before entering the game, still, for people on a tight budget, this might encourage them to drink more than they would prefer in the parking lot, as opposed to a more consistent and reasonable pace if they were allowed to bring in one or two alcoholic beverages contained within a sealed plastic container.

That said, the biggest boon to stadiums and their concessions has got to be airport security which has pretty much trained people that you can't bring any liquids successfully pass security and that food items are also pretty problematic, even though you are allowed to bring in snack items, or even sandwiches or burgers if they are wrapped in a container or sealed in a clear plastic bag through airport security.

Quite obviously, stadiums don't make it a policy to explicitly advertise or encourage you as to what you can take into a stadium, and pretty much prefer that you assume that the correct answer is no liquids and no food items.  However, to their credit, and especially to their credit on behalf of families, their policies are reasonable and will thereby allow a family of four to attend a sporting event, without having to unnecessarily worry that they must also eat or drink only stadium provided foods, therefore most definitely saving that family some meaningful money, and making it more probable that the tradition of attending sporting events can successfully transition from one generation to the next.

Manufacturing and Banking

Ultimately, the things that we buy on any given day are manufactured, to which, to a large extent, many of the goods that we once purchased in America, were actually primarily made in America, by American workers.  The advantage of using American workers in America to manufacture goods is manifold, to which, the most important advantage is that the money is kept re-cycling in the community at large, which aids and abets employment, and the infrastructure of cities that depend upon its citizens having and maintaining gainful employment. 

In today's global economy, the competition in the manufacturing of goods is intensive, so that, not too surprisingly, when looking to save money, manufacturers of goods gravitate to places in the world in which the labor rates are significantly cheaper than the USA, while also having less onerous laws in regards to work space, work hours, work safety, work pollution and so forth.  This has been translated as reported by cnn.com into the percentage of workers employed in manufacturing in America declining from 24% as of 1960, to the present day total of just 8%, with projections that this decline will continue into the foreseeable future.  While the decline in manufacturing is directly bad for our lower middle class blue collar working force, it at least provides a benefit for other Americans in the sense that because the manufacturing of goods overseas makes for cheaper products, this means that basic items such as textiles, machines, electronic equipment, and vehicles are cheaper to Americans, so that there is a net benefit for Americans not associated with the manufacturing sector. 

While, America's manufacturing sector has been eviscerated, banking, on the other hand, led by the "too big to fail" philosophy of the Federal government, continues to expand, grow, and consolidate in America.  While there are a lot of differences between manufacturing and banking, the primary difference is in the product that they sell, whereas manufacturing actually sells tangible goods, banking basically sells the access to money,  There are a lot of ways that banks make money, but in essence, the formula for banking success, is to loan out money, or invest money, or create money, in which, the cost of that money to the bank is significantly lower than the cost in interest and/or fees to the consumer, or to the industry, or to the government, that borrows it.

Not only does the interest spread of the cost of the loan to the bank as compared to the rate of interest that must be paid by the consumer to the bank, create a nice profit for the bank, but so too, does the banking rules that allow banks to leverage up their loans, so that rather than loaning out money on a 1:1 ratio, in which for every dollar deposited to the bank, only one dollar can be loaned, in actuality, depending upon a few other factors, banks are typically allowed to loan out money at a ratio of 20:1, which translates into for every dollar deposited, that they can loan out twenty dollars, and that increased leverage equates to extra profits for the bank and with a federal policy that some banks are considered to be too big to fail, means that they have implicit carte blanche to do whatever that they desire to increase their profit potential.

So too do banks subdivide how they treat the people and companies that come to them for loans, so that those with the best credit are considered to be prime customers, and those with the worst credit to be subprime, to which the essential difference between these customers being the rate of interest and terms charged.  On the surface, that might seem fair but in actuality its straight exploitation, because the very people, countries, and companies that can least afford to pay higher interest rates are charged higher interest rates and thereby become overly burdened which essentially creates a negative feedback loop in which default is often inevitable, leading to the takeover of companies, sovereign nations, and people by banking interests and their cohorts. 

In essence, those that control the money, control the world, because access to capital is essential for any country, any business, and private individuals, so that, unlike manufacturing, it's a zero-sum game, in which those that win do it on the backs of those that lose, who play in a game in which the odds favor heavily the house, and as Proverbs 22:7 states: "The rich ruleth over the poor, and the borrower is servant to the lender."  

All Human Life has Intrinsic Value

In an era in which so many wonder what can this or that particular person ultimately do for them, to which they therefore believe that this then determines a given person's worth, this ultimately translates into the belief that people only have value from the standpoint of their capacity to do something of value for someone else.  In other words, if you are so old and debilitated so that you apparently cannot do anything constructive, than your life has no purpose.  If you are severely handicap, so that it would appear that for your entire life, you will need constant aid, than your life is not worth helping.  If you become impregnated, the choice as to whether that child is born or aborted, should be the mother's choice alone, because it is her body, and thereby her choice, and therefore that particular child's life has no value. 

The above seem to be the arguments of the present day as to the basic reasoning behind abortion, euthanasia, and the like, to which all of this comes down to the basic premise that if you are a burden or significant inconvenience upon society, that the family or the State should have the right to preclude or to terminate such a life.  This type of mindset, in which certain members of society are considered to be of more value than others, flies in the face, that all are entitled equal protection under man's law, and that all are made in the image of God.

If, it is the principle of any country that members of its society are valued only by virtue of what they can provide to society at large, rather than seeing all of human life as of intrinsic value, made of the same substance by our Creator, with the attendant unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, you have replaced this instead with the viewpoint that not all human life is equal, and once that has been decided and adjudicated, those that make those decisions, are affordeda privileged position in society, giving them the decisive voice as to who shall live and who shall die.

Perhaps a medical doctor can make a compelling case in regards to a particular person that their life has no hope, is painful, and pathetic, and in conclusion that such a life should be discharged from this material world.  The decision to do that means inevitably that the future targets of who shall live and who shall die will migrate very quickly from the weakest and the least powerful, to the systematic killing of those that have no champions to their cause or are an inconvenience to the State.  If,  then, the force of law and the force of the State, work together to effect this change than it will be they, this privileged bureaucracy, that will become the gods of life or death.

In point of fact, once you permit government agents the power of life and death over its citizens, that they profess to serve, than the country no longer has life, liberty, or is it pursuing happiness, rather its citizens have effectively no rights, because if there is no true sanctity of human life than all other rights, no matter how flowerer the prose, are like clay in the hands of absolute tyranny.

The First Amendment precludes a National Religion

At the time of our Declaration of Independence, King George III was not only the King of England but also the Supreme Governor of the Church of England, also known as, the Anglican Church.  At one time, England was indeed a true Catholic nation, subservient to the Pope, but because King Henry VIII was adamant that he would divorce his present wife so as to marry another woman and thereby to have a male heir, he was excommunicated by the Catholic church, and subsequently King George III created the separated Church of England with himself as the head of that church.

As a colony of England, America recognized that any governmental authority in which the head of it, was both the religious as well as the political leader, had both the ultimate authority over secular as well as religious faith, which was in point of fact a clear and present danger to the unalienable rights that each of us has had gifted to us by our Creator.  This meant, that as part of the formation of our Constitution, America, in its First Amendment, made it clear that the Federal Government would not be permitted to establish a national religion, because by so doing this would compel its citizens to worship in a certain, specific way, under Federal aegis and approval, whereas we are created with the unalienable right to worship God in any way that we find pleasing to ourselves and our conscience.

The worship of our Creator, or non-worship, for that matter, is in America an individual choice.  That is why there is no religious test ingrained in our Constitution, because the Founders of this great nation believed that each individual was entitled to their own freedom of conscience, rather than being compelled to believe in only one particular sect or in one particular faith.  This means, in effect, that America is a country founded upon true religious liberty, something almost completely unheard of in the annals of history, and seldom truly practiced or adhered to.

Under our Constitution, ingrained within American law, is our freedom to worship God as we so desire, compelled not by Federal government authority to worship only the favored religion of the State, nor are we precluded from worshiping as per our conscience and our proclivity by Federal laws.  This is the way that it should be, as our God, does not compel anyone to bend their knees to Him, and never will.

Not only do we have true freedom of religious worship and conscience in America, but unlike certain countries, that favor one religion specifically and hold all others as blasphemy or similar, this Federal government cannot favor one religion over all others, instead it is a level playing field, allowing each individual to find God in his own way, on his own terms, without Federal interference.

There are few things as important as our relationship to God as we see Him, and no country should have the implicit right to compel its citizens to respect that only this particular way is the way, instead each of us should be permitted to find our way to He who is the One who has disposed upon us free will and free conscience, in the hope that one day, we will live our lives in a manner that reflects that He is true love, true liberty, and true freedom.

Man's Law v. Impartial Justice

"Obey the law," has got to be one of the sickest mottos of any government, anywhere, because such a motto works under any government, good or bad, any circumstances, good or bad, to which in every case, anyone expressing sympathy with such a viewpoint is either hopelessly ignorant, deliberately obtuse, or well aware that as long as the law doesn't apply to them, that it is wholly unfair.  The thing about laws in the modern age is that they are so many manmade laws that are unequally applied, inherently unjust, and prejudicial against certain people and elements, that obeying the law without questioning the law itself are for most men, mere subservience to the dictates of the unjust State.

There is in this world only one true basic law and that is natural law, which is law that consists of unchanging moral values as revealed to man by our inerrant and immutable God.  In today's world, laws are made all of the time for various reasons, both good and bad, to which one of the most pertinent yet insidious reasons for there being so many laws covering so many things is to enable the ruling class to control and/or to punish the underclass.  The elite of this world, have policing power, monetary power, and the power of the law, so as to suppress the mass of mankind from rising up to challenge their authority, which is why so many governments make laws that effectively control the masses from collectively focusing their voice and their power of numbers to assert themselves against the master class.

You can easily gauge the fairness of any society by the length, depth, and extent of their laws, to which the more laws, the more unfairness; the more laws, the less justice; the more laws, the more law-breakers.  It is ironic that the Declaration of Independence of this great nation was exactly one sheet of paper, and the Constitution which rules this great nation is but four sheets of paper.  Those two documents are the founding documents of this majestic nation, but today's laws, for counties, cities, States, Federal, and so on, contain nothing but endless volumes of laws upon laws. Those laws in effect are not there to support your unalienable rights, but instead to constrict them, to restrain them, and to neutralize them.

What has been forgotten is that impartial justice, is no respecter of your person, no respecter of your social status, no respecter of your money, and no respecter of your political connections, but this type of justice is seldom seen in America, rather instead, because there are so many laws distorted and bent in adherence toour puppeteers, we are left instead with only the hollow words that limply state that justice has been served, when clearly in most cases it hasn't even been acknowledged.

When it comes to man's law, the whole purpose of most of these laws is so that the privileged class can protect its own -- all under the guise of equal protection for all, duly promoted by compliant media outlets.  After all, what is the point of having all of that power, having all of that money; if it isn't effectively utilize to maintain that status for you and yours?  Man's law is law manipulated for the benefit of the few, with eyes wide open to implement this principle, whereas, God's justice or impartial justice, wears a blindfold and carries balanced scales to indicate its impartiality under all circumstances.   There is seldom to be seen true justice in man's law, as it so often tyrannizes, usurps and injures impartial justice with seeming impunity.

You'll Never Walk Alone

Every one of us wants to be loved, whether we express that openly or not.  Not only do we want to be loved, to which most often we seek that from our closest family members such as our spouse or siblings, or our children, but we ideally want that love to be unconditional and to be there for us especially in our darkest and most vulnerable moments.  You are a very fortunate person if you have that type of love from a fellow human being in this world, but for most of us, we know for a certainty that we fall short in our loving of others and not too unexpectedly the unconditional love and warmth that we desire deeply from others, has come up lacking for us at the most inopportune times.

One of the problems with love in this world, is that each one of has responsibilities, but not just responsibilities but multiple responsibilities, so that it just isn't possible to be everywhere at once, as you cannot be at your daughter's school event, at work, getting your oil changed, paying bills, consoling a friend, all at once, no matter how much you fancy yourself as a multi-tasker.  The very fact that you need your own rest, your own time, have obligations and that there is always something coming up that was unanticipated, means that inevitably there are going to be times when even if it is your deepest desire to be there for someone, you can't.  Not only that, there are going to be days when you cannot be the strong one, that it is you that needs love and consolation.  All of this combined means that the human experience to which you desire to be loved and to give love often falls well short of your ideals, even if you are absolutely focused on being the best that you can be.

This means that within all of us, there is a search for He who is always there for us, He who will be by our side 24/7, He who knows us so thoroughly, even better than we know ourselves, that doesn't prejudge us, doesn't smite us, and truly loves us unconditionally.  Not only that, He is our rock, and the very love that we desire to give, the very love that we desire to receive, is absolutely unlimited in Him.  Our relationship with God, is ours alone, and doesn't need to be shared because the complete God is everywhere and anywhere for everyone for all times, and our own access to God can only be disrupted by our own selfishness and non-engagement, and by nothing else. 

The beautiful thing is that with God, you will never truly walk alone, because God is there by your side, picking you up in your lowest moments, carrying you over the threshold as necessary, and never giving up on you, no matter how many times that you may stumble.  God has infinite patience, infinite love, and knows you in a way that He will never hurt you, even if you have railed and cursed at Him in your weakest moments of frustrated madness. Our Creator will never let you down, will never lead you astray, wants the best for you, and will leave the ninety-nine sheep to find that lost one, because God is never complete until all of his children, every single one of them has return to his fold, and thereby into his loving heart.  He will not rest, until that day comes, no matter how long, no matter how distance, because you complete Him, so recognize, no matter your circumstances, you never do walk alone.

The Twin Pillars

George Washington is generally credited with being the Father of this great nation, as he was not only the successful, resilient, crafty, valiant and ultimately the victorious General and Commander-in-Chief of our revolutionary forces, so too he became the president of the Constitutional convention and by his very presence helped to bring divisive factions together so as to create this Republic and our Constitution. Later, Washington was unanimously elected as our first President of the United States, not once but twice was his electoral vote unanimous, to a position that he did not gravitate to, and subsequently walked away from after serving two successful successive terms.  A man like George Washington, seldom graces any land, and America was fortunate to have a man of his character in an era in which most temporal power once achieved, was consolidated and seldom relinquished unless by death, conquest, or revolution. 

In Washington's Farewell Address of 1796, he made many points, of which one of them was:"Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of patriotism, who should labor to subvert these great pillars of human happiness…"  Alas, it is regrettable to say that in this present day, a day in which through the pure hubris of man's belief that he alone is the measure of all things, does something as sensible and as meaningful as Washington's parting words to this nation, a nation that was still in its infancy of its ascent to becoming arguably the greatest nation that the world has ever known are his words set aside by so many of the best and brightest ofhigh political office and influence as the mere chattering of a man who foolishly believed insuperstition and mumbo jumbo, to which today words like Washington's are commonly parroted but are not seriously adhered to by the powers to be.

If we were to be wise, we should take Washington at his word, so that those that are not true believers in the value and disposition of religion and morality signified by Washington's address, are clearly not to be considered to have the attributes of a patriot, which in effect, makes them enemies of this very State, that so many sacrificed so much for.  In point of fact, the warning in Washington's address is that those that labor to subvert these great pillars of human happiness are no patriots, no true Americans, and are in fact, the enemy within.  In its more than two centuries of existence, America has never been conquered, yet, like great empires of the past, the erosion of its principles, its values, its morality, its religion, is the very thing that will ultimately conquer it from within.

There are far too many people of influence, that desire this to be a secular nation, to which, the citizens of such, will no longer have unalienable rights, but instead have rights as issued and adjudicated by the State.  That is the very thing this country successfully rebelled against, for there is a supreme difference between a nation that receives its unalienable rights and natural law by its true Creator as opposed to the arbitrary dictates of a king, or the privileged elite, or the military-industrial complex, or in obeisance to the oligopoly, which regrettably is the path that we now trod upon.

Sunup to Sundown and our lives of Quiet Desperation

One of Thoreau's signature quotes is: "The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation," which was written in 1854.  In the year 1850, for the weekly manufacturing labor hours in America, the Weeks Report estimates that the average weekly hours work was a staggering 65.5 hours, which is confirmed by the Aldrich report which estimates an even higher 69 hours.  Clearly, those days, were days of quiet desperation, because many men had to work literally from sunup to sundown, with perhaps Sunday as the designated day off for religious services.  All these hours worked was necessitated because that was what was required in order for a man to make a living, so that those that are somewhat ignorant of history and consequently believe that the workweek has always been 8 hours a day for 40 hours a week, with appropriate overtime given for additional hours worked are hopelessly oblivious. 

The fact that men had to work those hours back in the 1850s, meant that his leisure time was virtually non-existent, and that his life besides his working hours was consequently filled with chores, upkeep, and the daily drudgery of just getting by, with little or no time for reflection, contemplation, education, or the like.  Anytime, that man is reduced to simply working at a job that he derives no just satisfaction from, his life is hardly one to be envied or desired.  Not too surprisingly, hard work with only enough money to fulfill the most basic of necessities, and with little opportunity to do anything constructive, other than reading, prayer, and family activities, would lead in many instances to a given man consuming alcohol to dull the frustrations of their daily struggle.

Of course, Thoreau added the word quiet, which itself is highly important.  The reason that people don't live lives of loud desperation or riotous desperation, is that the ruling class, will not long allow, the working class to be loud, vocal, and disruptive, so that therefore a man in many instances just quietly accepts his lot in life, adding to his desperation, because he is unable to vocalize his frustration, because the risk of doing so is so great.  That is why, people are so quick to believe the lie that certain workers or slaves back in the day were so happy, while forgetting to recognize, that biting the hand that feeds one, will provide only a momentary respite, before the whip of force comes snapping upon their bent back.

The great thing is that over time, those lives of quiet desperation, turned into a substantial and vibrant middle class in this nation, a middle class that sustained the notion that this is indeed the land of opportunity as well as realistically offering to many people the good opportunity of ownership of their own land and home, a nice car, good healthcare, vacations, sick leave, leisure time, entertainment, and the like.   However, unfortunately, in an era of massive federal deficits, stagnating wages, the destruction of the manufacturing class, the replacement of humans with robots, the off-shoring of jobs in service to large corporate interests, and a service economy that employs many but pays pathetically, we are in the process of re-creating a huge divide between the haves and the have nots, to which the have nots appear to grow daily, sustained only by a government that borrows from tomorrow to pay for today, and subsequently writing the tale that we have seen before, that the mass of mankind does indeed live lives of quiet desperation.

Be just and good

We read in Isaiah 56:1 "Be just and fair to all, the Lord God says…" which is echoed in Psalm 33:5 in reference to God, "He loves whatever is just and good…."  So too in a letter by John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, Adam after having read a copious amount of literature and books states: "for they have made no change in my moral or religious creed, which has, for fifty or sixty years, been contained in four short words, "Be just and good.""  From the above it would appear that the complete extent of the wisdom that we need to comprehend and thereby to implement in our lives is to be just and good to our fellow man; but woe to us that have fallen significantly short of this goal, so too for those that do not even attempt to try, and finally worse of all for all those that actively oppose this sound philosophy.

If, on the other hand, more people spent the time to actually think before they acted, planned before they took action, and took into consideration that the world does not and never has revolved around themselves, than this world and societies in general would be far more tolerable and accommodating.  The least that we have an obligation to attend to is to keep our own house in order, so as to thereby lead by example, rather than rail at others for their faults.  So too, we must keep foremost in our minds, that we must practice what we preach and in order to do so, we must focus in ourselves the very philosophy that we wish to see the world live by.

It is comforting to note, that doing the right thing in life, does not even necessitate a college degree, or a non-dysfunction family background, or a certain religion or complexion, because doing just and doing good is beyond all those things.    The fairness and justice that we like to see applied to us, must as a matter of reciprocity, be equally applied by ourselves to others in our everyday interactions.  However, so often within our minds and by our behaviors, we display an attitude and take actions that belie fairness and justice, by believing or acting as if we are a bit more special than others and thereby deserve the benefits of that privilege, by receiving extra consideration over somebody or someone else.  That is neither fairness nor goodness, but favoritism which is the very thing that we need to relinquish in order to actually be just and fair.

Then again, there are those that make no attempt to be just or good, for whatever reason, never seeming to realize that such a mindset will as its ultimate consequence, result in a boomerang type effect that will set things right.  While it is true that devious and selfish actions can reap material benefits, so too it is true that every would-be Napoleon will inevitably meet its Waterloo, as the Grandmaster of it all is both fair and just, and that is why the gate that all will ultimately seek is found to be so narrow and the pathway so straight.

It is one thing to know what is right and then not to do it, and it is an entirely different thing to know what is right and to then perform that in our everyday actions, both big and small.  We are gifted with free will and free choice, which allows us all sorts of permutations, but in the end, you need only to adhere to being just and being good and all will be well both within and without.

Antebellum Unlawful Assembly

The right of the people to peacefully assemble is ingrained within our First Amendment to our Constitution.  However, when you are an enslaved people, as in the antebellum times, when particular States of the union, permitted and abetted this particular institution, there were laws that defined unlawful assembly in such a manner as to take what would for white people be considered under all circumstances to be a lawful assembly, to be unlawful for slaves.  For instance, in Mississippi its legal code of 1857 stated in regards to an assembly of more than five of slaves, free Negroes, or mulattoes that: " … at any school for the purpose of teaching them reading or writing, either in the daytime or at night, under whatever pretext, shall be deemed an unlawful assembly."   These types of laws in the States that later would make up the Confederacy were similar in nature to one another, all having the same purpose of precluding or making it unlawful to aid and abet the making of a slave literate.

The above law in application against slaves reflects the power of the written word to convey both information and knowledge.  That is to say, if slaves are illiterate than their only ability to communicate is verbal, to which their verbal skills will be minimize to imitating words and their perceived meanings through trial and error. So too without knowledge of reading and writing along with the ability to do the most basic mathematics being stymied, this in essence kept the slaves perpetually in a state of ignorance, and essentially by law meant treating them as if they were beasts of burden.  In addition, those that are not literate are perpetually in the grasp of those that are, so too those that cannot add and subtract are subservient to those that are, and those that cannot use their mind to perform gainful employment, or limited exclusively to their physical skills.

An unlawful assembly law specifically directed against slaves and those that wished or desired to help educate them, was both insidious as well as inhumane.  While the purpose of the law was quite clear, there was though a secondary purpose to the law which was to effectively make it illegitimate for slaves to congregate in groups amongst themselves, except as needed for labor, and for rest.  The desire was to keep one's slaves dependent upon the slave owner for all of their material needs as well as limiting outside influence on their minds.  Additionally, the access to outside contact with other plantations was both well monitored and controlled, which limited the slave's options and kept slaves mired in a world of endless drudgery of unrequited toil.

The laws against unlawful assembly were made specifically because slave owners knew that information is power and that the controlling of information or the providing of misinformation was vital to maintaining their control over their plantation slaves in which on any major plantation, the amount of slaves on that plantation far exceeded the few white plantation owners and their families that lived on it.  These plantation owners had no intention whatsoever of providing the means of uplifting the Negro, because their entire economy, their lifestyle, and their money, was based on extracting the profits from enslaved labor into their own hands, and thereby they knew for a certainty that when such a time came, that the slave would see that the Emperor did indeed not have any clothes, that the slaves would recognize for a certainty the swindle that had been played upon them when they were first stolen from their west African shores.

Buying too much House

According to mansionglobal.com, "the average size of a residence across the country has increased by more than 70% in the past century."  Yet, a century ago, average household size in America was over four people per dwelling and at the present time is around 2.6 people per dwelling, so while our household size has been shrinking, our homes have increased substantially in size.  Perhaps another way of looking more fairly at the increase in size in our homes is that we live in a more modern time, which is far wealthier in aggregate, and more appreciative of the modern day conveniences that we need, so that rather than seeing our homes simply as a place to lay down our head at the end of our working day, it represents a place that will have a family room, a nice big kitchen, plenty of storage space, garage, yard, separate bedrooms and separate bathrooms, guest bedrooms, room for our pets, and so forth, so that all of these extras and accouterments in aggregate just end up needing more space.

While it is one thing entirely to aspire to buying a big house or a house that is nicely sized, the fact of the matter is, bigger houses cost more money to build, and therefore costs more money to buy.  For instance, in America, there is a huge amount of choice in the automobiles that we purchase, to which many auto dealers make it a point of pride to try to get you into "more" car than what you really need by convincing you that you actually deserve it, when the more pertinent issues should be, is this the car that will actually be both within my budget and will provide the basic functionality that I require.  So too, lost in the noise of a bigger house, is the fact that the bigger the house, the bigger the home insurance, the home repair, the furniture required, the utility expenditures, and possibly your commute time.

Again, all of these things are fine to a certain extent, especially if you can realistically afford to buy the subject home, however, often not considered seriously enough is the fact that savings are absolutely correlated with expenditures both mandatory and discretionary, along with your income.  This means that buying more house than you really need will make a material difference in your ability to save the money required for a successful retirement, and while it is probably true that all things being equal a larger house with more bells and whistles will provide a slightly higher degree of happiness, the thing is, all things aren't equal, that is to say, by purchasing that house, you could conceivably be sacrificing thousands upon thousands of dollars of money that could have been set aside for your nest egg, needed for retirement, investment, and emergency situations.

What too many people fail to recognize is the housing size that so many Americans aspire to, is something that has been subtly programmed into their minds over an extended period of time, so that so often they really do believe that they need that large house when they really do have smaller options that could be utilized effectively instead.  The bottom line is that builders of homes need buyers and they wouldn't build what they build if they didn't feel confident that the buyers would come.  However, the main reason that a standard mortgage for a home is thirty years is that the price of the home is so much money, so that therefore the only way to break that down into "reasonable" monthly payments is to extend the life of the loan to 360 long months.  If more people truly understood that thirty years is an incredibly long period of time to commit to in order to actually own their home free and clear, they might be incentivized to take a more practical look at a home size that would fill their needs, cost them significantly less money, and allow them to save more.

The Power of the Prosecutor

We like to think that we live in a free country, and it can feel like a free country to most people, until they come up against the Law, either personally or through someone that they know that has been arrested, to which many that are arrested are routinely found to have enough probable cause to then be prosecuted.  You might think that police officers not being lawyers and not being judges, don't always get it right, after all, there are so many laws, with some laws that even lawyers have a hard time comprehending, as well as the fact that evidence collected by police officers may not be admissible for a variety of reasons, as well as police officers being fallible human beings, that therefore, with all those things considered, that people typically being arrested don't necessarily end up getting prosecuted, yet the way that the wheels of our justice system work, with the police and the prosecutorial elements working closely together, that just isn't the case at all.

Once you are arrested, prosecutors have options as to how to pursue any particular case, to which, you might think, the very first option would be to ascertain as to whether there is real probable cause to bring an actual charge against the arrestee.  While many prosecutors will state that this is exactly what they do, in practicality and in actuality, that often is not the case, as prosecutors are far more likely to press the charge before any real investigation is made, simply on the basis that an arrest in and of itself with the appropriate paperwork filled out is probable cause enough that a crime has been committed.

Anytime that you set up a system to which justice becomes a numbers game in which the higher the percentage of convictions, whether via an actual trial by one's peers, or through the pressure of a plea bargain, and that thereby you have thrown out the window any semblance that the prosecutor should be in the business of pursuing truth and justice, believing instead that the prosecution should as a matter of course assert all the force of government itself, if necessary, to get convictions, no matter what, than you do not have a legitimate justice system whatsoever, but a total bastardization of it.

Far too often in this country, the prosecutorial element in conjunction with our policing forces, asserts incredible pressure against the very people that cannot effectively fight back, which are the poor, the indigent, the illiterate, the helpless, the mentally damaged, the substance abusers, and so forth, to bully them into submission and to incarcerate them so as to effectively make sure that these people will be perpetual wards of the State, without real hope of anything else, until the day that they die.  The prosecutor wins their case again and again, but nowhere at any point has real justice been done, nor is this any credit to the community at large, this country, or to any aspect of true justice.

If the prosecutor's sole job is to just put people behind bars any way and anyhow that they can, they are performing that work exceedingly well, however, if the prosecutor's real job is actually to see that justice shall be done, they are failing their country and failing their profession.  The power of the State to convict poor people on dubious charges is a given, but that is not justice, it is merely the assertion of the might of the State against the defenseless.  Above all, the prosecution has an obligation to bring honor to the justice system, and this honor can only come forth in recognition that the people are to be served and not thereby to be lorded over, that justice without compassion, diligence, and justice unequally applied, is inherently unjust and un-American.

Whatever happened to Virginia?

The most populous and powerful States in our union at the present time are California, Texas, and New York, ranked # 1, #2 and #4,  respectively, in population at the present time, to which each of these States have multiple claims to fame, such as the great public University system and the agricultural might of California, the largest oil producer of all the States and owner of its own power grid in Texas, and New York with its great natural harbor and is well known as the financial capital of the world.  Yet, at the time of the founding of America as we know it, the most populous State of our union was not New York, but Virginia, a crown it would keep until 1810.  In fact, four of our first five Presidents, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Monroe, and James Madison were all native Virginians.  Yet, in the present day, the population of Virginia doesn't even make the top ten, and although it is true that the western portion of Virginia was separated during our civil war and became its own State in 1863, even with West Virginia's population Virginia would barely beat out Georgia in population for 8th place.  And while it is also true that Kentucky was carved out of a portion of Virginia, so too it was true that Tennessee was carved out of North Carolina, as well as other States having some portions of their State separated at some point into new States.

Back in its day Virginia was an economic powerhouse, but highly dependent upon tobacco crops and therefore slavery for its wealth and for its continual growth of the plantation class and gentry, but over time, because of a lack of diversity in economic opportunity, its lack of industrial might, its tired soil, its lack of a natural deep harbor such as New York, Virginia began to lose its power and influence, and instead relied more on its historical significance and failed to recognize that its national influence was being overtaken by New York, Massachusetts, and Pennsylvania.

What probably hurt Virginia more than anything else was that it was a slave-owning State, to which, in any economy whereby a significant portion of the labor and thereby its wealth is generated by those that are enslaved, encourages indolence by the upper class because labor, especially hard labor, is frown upon as being beneath them, and thereby ultimately produces owners of capital and land, that are lacking in the characteristics and the value of hard work, study, and industrious fortitude, replaced instead with the attitude of a slothful leisure class, with the projected image of genteel mannerisms, while lacking in substance and character inside.

A State, or a nation, is only as good as its people as a whole are willing to engage themselves in profitable enterprise, to which, hard work, dedication, effort, courage, and perseverance, are all attributes necessary for positive results to come to fruition.  There was a time when the best and the brightest were indeed in Virginia, rare men of incredible fortitude, insight, and brilliance, but rather than listening to and emulating these great men, Virginia believed wrongly that things would always be as they had been and failed to recognize that ultimately you surely do reap what you have sowed.