Tag Archives: magic

Biden, Climate, Crime, Culture, Economics, Education, Foreign Policy, Immigration, Transportation

BEING A LONG SHORTLY – 2

Leave a comment

America is mired in at least 39 or 390 serious problems, but we’ve dealt with only 4 of those we’ve Prudently identified.  Time is short.  We must continue.

NUCLEAR POWER

Those who have submitted, mentally and emotionally, to the “green” cult, are uniformly opposed to so-called fossil fuels on the premise that carbon-dioxide is going to ruin Earth’s climate and cause the demise of civilization and of life, itself.  That CO2 is the prime “green” component of the solar-driven oxygen cycle upon which all life depends, seems not to affect their thinking.  Those same are virulently opposed to nuclear energy, the cleanest, least damaging source of electrical energy currently available.  Something doesn’t make sense.

Green leftists always reference “Chernobyl” as the end of the argument against nuclear; if that fails, “Three-Mile Island” is expected to shut-up any pro-nuclear stragglers.  Both of those supposed examples of what’s wrong with nuclear power plants, are non-sequiturs.  Chernobyl, in particular, is an example, but it’s an example of how NOT to build a nuclear pile and of how NOT to run and maintain it.  Rather than condemn the natural process of nuclear fission, opponents should correct their opposition to the technological stupidity the Soviet Union rewarded.  Chernobyl would have been a big nothing had it been designed and built like, well, Three-Mile Island, actually.

Chernobyl was, technically, not in a containment structure as nearly all nuclear plants outside of the USSR were.  That is to say, the weaknesses of the design and overall misunderstanding of the processes at various states of operation of their graphite pile reactors, make the Chernobyl-design power plants risky for mistakes and accidents under the best of circumstances.  A long list of nuclear accidents at those plants was finally made public after the investigation into “Chernobyl” was completed.  Some engineering traditions should not be permitted to operate or build nuclear plants.

Still, nuclear power plants have so many inherent advantages that it is foolishness to avoid making use of the continuously-improving technology that goes into their design and construction.  The largest deterrent to nuclear power is fear, often fed by reference to bad technology, like that employed in Chernobyl-design plants and methods.  New series III and IV plants are smaller, modular and 5 to 10 times safer than Three-Mile Island era plants, including passive safety systems.  They’re also much less expensive to build and license.  And, they are clean in both product and operating lifetimes up to 60 years and in eventual decommissioning costs and impacts.  There is no “all-electric” future without massive, weatherproof generating capacity like what nuclear can provide.

TRANSPORTATION

Ours is a highly specialized and competitive global economy.  Both commodities and finished products must move from points of origin to points of consumption; this is not going to change no matter how many “community gardens” are created, and it won’t change despite all efforts to go “carbon neutral,” either.  Some tasks must be performed.  Daily there are millions of them.  Reducing the efficiency of completing those millions of tasks places huge burdens on society, the economy and on freedom.  Forcing wholesale changes on how transport is performed… without a more efficient way to do it, is risky at best and foolish by definition.

We are in the midst of a green revolution, and we have been for over 100 years.  From time to time wisdom has been applied through government regulation that has sped up the process of becoming more efficient and therefore cleaner in our consumption of energy to get materials and people moved from place to place.  Increased mileage standards is one example, and automobiles are far cleaner and more efficient than ever, today.  On the other hand, there are far more cars on the road than ever – in virtually every country – causing ever more gasoline, diesel and lubricating oil to be consumed while propelling substantially more “transport” per gallon or quart, and overall.  For green evangelists there has been no progress at all – things are oh, so terribly worse because people insist on private, self-directed transport, and reject, for the most part, “public” transportation: too many cars, too many people driving cars.

Bad government, bending to the political pressure of “green” acolytes, responds by forcing people to pay for and to switch to public conveyance, and then fails to render it clean, comfortable or safe.  Worse, public transit doesn’t go to every place where people need to go, and it never will.  Government then considers how to force people to go to where public transit does go, imagining “model” communities that may never exist.  There are clean, electric alternatives, but so much money and political force has been committed to “public transit” that alternatives are now less likely to be considered than if government went back to being wise, again.  [See: https://www.prudenceleadbetter.com/2017/07/20/a-home-on-the-beach/; or https://www.prudenceleadbetter.com/2016/07/10/automotive-economics-and-freedom/.]

Battery magic seems to many, especially to “green” proselytes, to be cleaner than those awful carbon-based fuels; we should all shuck our internal combustion engines and switch to battery-powered vehicles.  Bad government is listening to them and is virtually forcing car manufacturers to make more magic cars and fewer reliable ones.  The ads are impressive.  Batteries, themselves, are dirty products to make, both physically and politically.  A person changing from gasoline or diesel to battery power has to drive upwards of 60,000 miles before the ecological cleanliness of an “electric” car starts to improve upon that of an internal combustion model.  The only advantage of lithium-ion battery-powered cars is that the filth of mining and tailings, processing and effluents, unsafe mining (including child labor) and ecological disruption and pollution… well, it all happens in other places, out of sight of “green” Americans and others.  Right in our neighborhoods things are pollution free!  Forcing indigenous people off of their ancestral lands in South America is meaningless to us: they’re not OUR indigenous people about whom we care very deeply… very, very deeply.  Improvements to Communist China’s manufacturing base and our long-term dependence on it for parts and replacement batteries, should keep China from ever damaging relations with the United States… so that’s good, too.

No matter how much cleaner internal combustion engines become, it is – and will never be – clean enough; only perfection is barely adequate in the business of planet-saving.  So, in partnership with an entirely anti-American regime, the “green” (actually Red) movement has twisted our economy to the point of throwing away phenomenal manufacturing and servicing skills and technology, as well as discarding remarkably and increasingly efficient electric generation in favor of windmills and Chinese solar panels.  Soon, there will be millions of used cars rusting away as planet-saviors force the end of internal-combustion cars and trucks and the adoption of battery-powered replacements, while limiting the number of “licenses” to sell gasoline… or refine it… or transport it, making continued use of gas or diesel power a little more awkward and unreliable than even severely limited-range electrics are and will continue to be.

Ultimately, (see “only perfection” in the preceding paragraph) owning and driving personal vehicles will become so troublesome that only grossly expensive “public” transportation will be able to provide a modicum of mobility.  Personal freedom and sovereignty that Americans have invented the technological means to enjoy, will be lost forever.  After that there will be millions of battery vehicles that no one wants or can sell, and will find difficult to recycle.  Everything will be approaching perfection.

IMMIGRATION

For many nearly forgotten reasons the United States of America has for over 230 years been the most attractive nation and place for people from every nation to emigrate to.  Americans, themselves, no longer understand (or are taught) why this could possibly be.  Today education appears to include – is compelled to include – every tawdry mistake anyone in our history ever made.  Worse, to complete a communistic circle, the effect of those mistakes is to absorb and render null and void, every great idea and action of those same people.  The net effect of this twisted lens of American history is to grow up blaming your country for every problem in the world, rendering the existence and founding of it indefensible.  As a result, fewer and fewer people do defend it… at least from inside the country… even as more and more people flee their home countries and sneak into, well, HERE.

Actual sovereign nations, however, have laws to govern and, basically, restrict entry to their jurisdictions.  Nations are defined by their borders.  The United States is defined by both borders and ideas of freedom and individuality – not by groups or identities, but by individuals, individual responsibility and equality under the law for – every – individual.  For the past 65 years or so, we have turned our backs on our unique and majestic ideas, and dispersed the gold of citizenship as millions of people who don’t want to become Americans flooded to the insides of our borders.  

Barack Obama was the first president who actively modified immigration practices if not policies, to try to change the demographics of the United States.  Democrats had been dreaming of pushing white America into the minority category since Teddy Kennedy, an avowed socialist (and idiot).  They couldn’t get it rolling any faster during the Clinton administration, but things started moving under Obama.  He was probably the first president who seriously does not like the United States or its Constitution.  Trump, obviously, was an unexpected speed bump in the race to change races.  Biden, on the other hand, knows only two speeds in that race: “flat-out” and “stupid.”  Some FIVE MILLION illegal aliens from over 100 countries have walked in to the U.S. since the 2020 votes were “certified.”  About a million of those never even checked in with the Border Patrol, preferring to sneak in with various subterfuges planned, including serious drug-dealing and, for some hundreds or thousands, terrorist crimes.

Biden is hard to pigeon-hole.  A patriotic observer is hard-pressed to declare him merely sloppy or foolish, when the very next day he might be presented with greater evidence of Biden’s treason toward his own nation.  Breaking, or failing purposefully to enforce U. S. laws, which enables the entry of enemies to our nation, is exactly what President Biden has been doing since taking office… and it’s treasonous.  That treason has come in many flavors, primarily these two: entry of those seeking to execute criminal activities including terrorist acts, and entry of those transporting deadly narcotics with intent to distribute.  That fentanyl kills 10’s of thousands of Americans – mostly young men, but certainly not exclusively – one would think might wake up Americans to the crime of making its importation easier!

The importation of people is also a crime.  Mexican cartels, who control drugs across Mexico and across the U. S., have found a new billion-dollar industry in the trafficking of people into the U. S., especially, by a factor of 10, since the Biden administration took office.  For all of the cooperative police work – DEA work – between Mexico and the past 5 administrations, the flow of drugs, now including abundant fentanyl, has not slowed.  Where there once were 5 or 6 cartels there may be 15 operating in every Mexican state and every U. S. state, as well.  They’ve become more violent in Mexico, causing record levels of homicides, destroyed families and widespread official corruption.  At the same time, with the cooperation of Chinese chemical suppliers, they are partners in at least 100,000 deaths in the U. S. from fentanyl overdoses.

President Biden commits treason against his own country in other ways, often by providing “aid and comfort” to our enemies.  It’s subtle, but definite… well, subtle except for scuttling Afghanistan.  According to sworn congressional testimony, Biden demanded immediate withdrawal despite the advice of military advisors, including the abandonment of Baghram Airbase and more than $7 BILLION in weapons, ammunition, aircraft, including some high-tech personal and tactical hardware.  The Taliban, of course, has never been an ally of ours or friendly toward America or Americans in any way.  They’re enemies, Joe, you dope.  And we armed them to the teeth, abandoned real allies to danger and death at the hands of the Taliban.  We could have retained Baghram and much of our equipment, and we logically should have regardless of costs.  So, militarily, why did we do things the way we did?  What on Earth was the headlong, damned stupid rush?

It seems Prudent to realize that we abandoned all of our work because China wanted us to.  China didn’t want us to maintain a base so close to their border.  China is happy to see us shoot ourselves in the foot – it saves them the trouble.  They have invested many millions into the Biden family; our retreat was a return on investment by a factor of a thousand percent.  When we look at all the players and pressures involved in 20 years of U.S. actions in Afghanistan, only the U.S. acted like an idiot, against its own interests.  Treason, thy name is Biden.

When China is invited to “help” the United States eliminate drug abuse, and elections are “temporarily” suspended to get a handle on “crime,” it will be too late to rid ourselves of the gaggle of assholes from the Obama and Biden regimes.

So many words and only 3 more issues discussed.  Prudence says stop here, wait for the next.

Biden, Crime, Economics, Governance, Immigration, Obama, Politics 2022

WELCOME MAT, DOORMAT

Leave a comment
AP

WELCOME MAT, DOORMAT

Following the assassination of John Kennedy, numerous bad, poorly thought-out ideas became legislation and law, not least of which was “The Great Society.”  Among them was the Immigration and Nationality Act.  Promoted by avowed socialist, Edward “Ted” Kennedy, the “Hart-Celler” act opened immigration to all nations somewhat equally, no longer favoring European nations, and gave preference to those who claimed relatives already resident in the U. S.  The wording of the bill included preference for skilled persons, but the new relative-based “Chain” migration superseded that.

Immigration increased and shifted dramatically in nationalities represented, but it took a while for Democrats, fairly solidly in power in the congress for 40 years, to grasp the possibility of using immigration to increase the population of Democrat voters.  In 1986, during the Reagan administration, the first codification of a premise called “amnesty,” the Simpson-Mazzoli Act, was sold to the President as a means to control illegals’ taking of jobs in the private economy, while strengthening the Border Patrol.  Rather than a “solution” it created a platform for increasing problems, the worst of which, in a legal sense, is the concept of “amnesty,” which is a pleasant-sounding term for “helping” the downtrodden.  Amnesty does, in fact, help the poor unfortunates who “risk everything” to escape less-pleasant circumstances to sneak into the U. S., which is not to say that such “helping” is the business of the U. S. or of those American citizens elected to administer the government of the United States.

That is, “our” representatives, the crux of our democratic Republic, have NO BUSINESS giving away the birthright or adopted, legal citizen-rights of U. S. citizens.  Prudence hopes that statement is not confusing to her readers.

Between these two nation-weakening steps the political left in the U. S. learned the power of guilt as a means of twisting national direction.  Hillary Clinton and many others thought her husband’s presidency was finally the time to take over health care, a cornerstone of the Communist Manifesto.  While the timing was off, and Bill Clinton’s mendacity led to his moving rightward to win re-election, the pattern was set.  Along with “de-education” by their friends in the education unions, left-facing Democrats could shift America to a one-party state with sufficient guilt (over racism), the unseating of Christianity, and control of the Supreme Court – courts, generally, being merely another political tool to use when Americans proved too dense to agree with global socialism.  Hatred became the political engine to keep the shift moving.

Hatred was firmly applied in the George W. Bush administration.  Hardly a day passed that he wasn’t vilified, yet he still managed to defeat Kerry to earn a second term.  The election of Barack Obama established non-compromise as a policy.  Not only with “Obamacare,” but with numerous issues, compromise with Republicans became the very last, possible resort to get things done.  No longer were Republicans brought in to help shape solutions; Obama’s goals were all transformative, anti-Constitutional, and, largely, party-line.  “Elections have consequences.”

A fairly porous southern border became, under Obama, fairly open.  For the first time “caravans” of illegal immigrants formed up at the southern Mexico border, or in Guatemala, and moved north with substantial help from human traffickers – cartels that found they could charge many thousands of dollars for individuals and whole families to get to the U. S. border.  They even taught the interlopers what to say to guarantee a hearing on refugee or asylee status.  Illegal entrants, always a problem, nearly untouched by “amnesty,” became a flood.  Obama and his corrupt AG, Eric Holder, had no interest in stemming the flow.  Despite higher “deportation” numbers than previous administrations, Obama changed the immigration landscape with selective enforcements and easier entry for children.  Cartels took advantage of changes and began teaching people to say the right things to create potential asylum, and to have children with them at the border, even if only “rented” for the purpose.  “Immigration” became one of the potent issues that propelled Donald Trump into the White House.

Obama, extra-legally, also invented “DACA,” Delayed Action for Childhood Arrivals.  By executive order the President changed the status of those who were brought into the U. S. illegally before they turned 18, making them magically less illegal than their parents.  It covered some 750,000 child arrivals.  That group also were given renewable work permits.  Since they had “grown up” in the U. S., everyone felt sorry for them and that it would be cruel to force them back to their own countries.  More magic.

At the time of the 1986 Amnesty bill / farce, illegals were estimated to number about 7 million.  As the next few years passed under Clinton, that estimate slid up to “12 million,” and no matter how illegal they might be, surely it was not possible to “arrest 12 million people” and deport them!  The groundwork for lawlessness being rewarded was being put into place.

The Obama administration saw an explosion of “sanctuaries” for illegals: first towns and cities, and later whole states, declared themselves “sanctuary” jurisdictions where local and state police would be directed to not cooperate with federal C.I.S. and I.C.E. agents as they attempted to apprehend known criminals who were illegal entrants.  I.C.E., standardly, would file a detain and hold notice in a local jurisdiction or with a court magistrate whenever local police or sheriffs had arrested a fugitive illegal.  Local authorities, even judges, would facilitate the escape of the fugitive, even sentencing them to a number of days that meant they were free to go following their court appearance.   Then an employee or even a court officer would help the criminal out a back door so as to avoid federal I.C.E. agents attempting to serve an arrest warrant.  Criminal magic.

Is this “nullification?”  Not quite, but it certainly skirts the law.  Federal jurisdiction clearly extends to our borders and immigration, customs, contraband interdiction and arrest and deportation of illegal aliens.  In effect, our borders extend to any physical location of an illegal entrant.  “Sanctuary” status, self-declared by local authorities, attempts to establish local jurisdiction over illegal entrants where none exists, and in contravention of federal jurisdiction, that does exist, in law.  When President Trump attempted to withhold federal aid to police agencies that refused to cooperate with federal warrants, he was rebuffed by judges on the basis that there were no provisions for singling out departments or agencies for such withholding unless they had broken certain laws including misuse of funds.  Since police power is the jurisdiction of respective states, the President’s instincts couldn’t apply.  This is not to say that “Sanctuary” status is recognized in law or precedent; it is tolerated for lack of sanctions and lack of will to legislate them by Congress.

For the most crass and cynical reasons of political advantage, protecting illegal aliens became widespread: for Democrats, the eventual amnesty they pushed for might create millions of democrat voters; for Republicans, being accused of being anti-immigrant, or anti-Hispanic or, worse, racist, was too hurtful or too much trouble to refute.  Both parties’ supporters are happy to have cheap labor.  Neither party has made much sense in immigration over the past 40 years.

Trump, at least, attempted to gain control of our geographically and topographically open border with Mexico.  Democrats fought him at every step, particularly in terms of building a wall that would force potential entrants to specific points of entry where administrative procedures could be followed, including adjudication of refugee or asylee claims, most of which are legally denied.  Ultimately he had to divert dollars from military budgets to pay for about 500 miles of fencing.  One of the first steps President Biden took was to stop construction, putting all those expenditures and materials yet to be installed, to waste.  Elections have consequences.

Biden brought in Alejandro Mayorkas as Secretary of Homeland Security.  Mayorkas is an accomplished and committed liar.  To place him in the Cabinet is an affront to American citizens and to all those who have served in presidential administrations.  To place him over “DHS” is a lie in its own right.  There is no reason to trust that the Homeland is Secure.  There’s no such thing as compartmentalization of national security – it functions as a whole.  One cannot administer 1800 miles of wide-open border while claiming that, 1) the border is closed and secure; and, 2) we are secure at all of our ports, airports, imports and immigration procedures.  One can try, however, as Mayorkas has, including serial perjury before Congress.  Perhaps he’ll take the fall for the Biden administration when the rule of law returns to Capitol Hill.

Since Biden took office and started signing Executive Orders he may not have even read, more than 3 MILLION illegal entrants, claiming asylum, have been processed by the Border Patrol / DHS.  They include large numbers of Central and South American migrants, family units and children and hundreds of unaccompanied “minors.”  As they are “processed” they receive free cell-phones, clothing, back-packs and other niceties like “EBT” cards or meal chits, and bus or plane rides to their preferred location.  What a country!

Over the same period, however, illegal entrants from over 100 other countries – people whose claims to asylum require suspension of disbelief, as they have traveled many thousands of miles to get into Central America for the walk to el Norte.  There doesn’t seem to be any maximum number the administration is hoping to reach for migrants streaming across our “closed” and “secure” border.

Worse, some 900,000 “got-aways” have entered, too.  Now we’re talking.  No country has survived for long, nor any culture, nor any “people,” has or will survive for long if left undefended.  The Biden presidency is best defined as being anti-American, best-exemplified by failure to defend the nation. Unbridled and un-vetted immigration, free from the constraints of economic merit and/or freedom from disease, is a classic form of national dissolution… as though anyone would aspire to such a level of stupidity or incompetence.  One must stretch his or her incredulity to accept that Joe Biden actually received more votes for president than any other candidate ever has.  None of us should overlook the leftward collapse of Biden and, essentially, everyone he works with… or for. 

Mr. Biden has not only failed to comprehend the consequences of bad policies and incompetent appointees, he appears to actively pursue them.  What on Earth for?  More money?  More recognition or fame?  Help his depraved son, Hunter?  Maybe he doesn’t recognize depravity when he sees it in his own family.  Or, if his daughter’s diary can be believed, may… and it seems possible… maybe he doesn’t KNOW what is depraved and what is not – doesn’t know that Hunter’s incest with his older brother’s widow was depraved – or that hiring hookers to have sexual orgies laced with crack cocaine is depraved – or, as most ethical people would agree, doing the exact opposite of what he had sworn to do before God and country during inauguration, is also depraved.

Indeed, doing the exact opposite of what he has stood for during his political career is also a little depraved, when you think about it.

Education, Family, Responsibility

LETTER TO A GRADUATE

Leave a comment

Dear Jon,

Congratulations are truly in order.  This is a milestone.  You have a diploma, but what does it mean?

That is, what does it mean to those who do not know you?   The LACK of a High School diploma would mean a lot to people who knew only that much about you, but the fact that you have a diploma simply places you in a group of hundreds of thousands of young people who got one.  Now what?

Some kids are lucky.  They have a strong direction and interest by the time they finish highschool and they go right off to college to learn more about what interests them and some of them even wind up working at what interested them when they began college.

Many don’t.  They go to college, spend tons of money to get a degree and eventually wind up doing something entirely different.  However, the fact that they have that COLLEGE diploma, means a great deal to potential employers and colleagues.  That’s because there is no law that says a person has to attend college.

Gaining a college diploma means that an individual had enough drive and self-management to complete a course of study, and almost regardless of what the course of study was, that diploma marks the person as a good do-er – someone who could get his or her homework done even when parents weren’t there to nag and remind.  So, maybe that person can be trusted to do valuable work in exchange for money.

Some kids are even luckier.  They have a drive to learn and excel in a particular field and then go on to master that field and strive to “make a difference” in the “world.”

For many, the easiest way, or, at least, most certain way to make that difference is by becoming a teacher, and there is some truth to that.  As a teacher one is able to affect the minds and beliefs of dozens and hundreds of children – affects that will be part of them for the rest of their lives.  So teaching is pretty significant… but it’s not the path for everyone.

Sometimes the best difference that a person may make in the world derives from what he or she teaches just one or two other people – maybe children or grandchildren.  You never know.

The world, however, is still there, ready for all those “differences” to be made in it.  All those differences are not made only by high-minded diploma-holders:  the greatest ideas will evaporate if some do-er doesn’t make them real.  Often, the thinker and the do-er is the same person, and we celebrate those people.  Andrew Carnegie, Henry Ford, Eli Whitney, Edwin Land, Thomas Edison, Clara Barton, Marie Curie, and a host of other industrial, military and political leaders are among that group.

Then there are those who are famous for having done what others dreamed up: people like Neil Armstrong.  He didn’t conceive of the machinery that took him to the moon,

but he had an ability of courage and good thinking, combined, to execute the great ideas and engineering of others.

Most of us are not like that.  Most of us are pretty-well occupied dealing with “life” as it comes along, earning a living and meeting our responsibilities.  Eventually, in the course of doing what’s best for ourselves and our families, many of us also give to others in time or money or otherwise, and make our own little, un-heralded “differences” in the “world.”  This applies to most, and is the greatest, cumulative force for good in the “world.”  Some turn criminal for whatever reasons, but most are good and civilization and society move haltingly, unevenly, even stumblingly toward an average better life for all people.  You can see there is a long way to go.

Which means there is plenty of room for you to make your own difference as you make your own way, your own life, your own living.  Eventually you will do your own good.  But, how?  Ay!  There’s the rub.

I know you didn’t have the most happy, care-free experience through school.  Neither did I.  But that’s done, now.  Now – right this instant – you are alive, healthy and strong, smart and good-looking and existing at the time of greatest opportunity ever!  Right now is when you can’t shuck your responsibility to yourself because you “deserve” a vacation or a little “rest” after your twelve grueling years slaving over textbooks.

Right now is when you have to make a map, of sorts.  It’s not a map that shows roads, trails, paths and correct turns at every intersection.  It’s a map of decision, though – definitely of decision.  You are very fortunate – lucky, even – that you are where you are with the people in your life who are here.  You have a smart brain.  And, it’s time to make a decision about making decisions.  Life on this planet is based on assumptions, beliefs and decisions.  And love.  It’s also based on love.

First, let’s examine what love has to do with it.  You are a product of love, for example.  Your mom and dad loved enough to go to the trouble of creating you, but not simply as a gift to YOU, but as a gift to each other, and with some expectation – an assumption, if you will, that whoever you were would give love back in return.  That is the real circle of life.

Love is not infinite.  It’s huge, but it has limits.  People who never return love that you send their way, can literally suck all the love out of you, leaving emptiness.  By returning love, you can multiply it, and the person to whom you returned that love not only has as much love as he or she originally had for you, but more than that.  Multiplication.  It’s a really cool phenomenon.  We don’t always call it love. 

Oftentimes the energy or effect that we might call love, is called and expressed as trust.  When you are trustworthy, when you keep your word, when you keep a secret, when you deliver on a promise, when you meet right expectations… you are expressing the force we call love.  People who learn to trust you develop an assumption about you that is called trust, but is a form of love.  Like love, trust given in return tends to

multiply trust between people.  There are very few “good” accomplishments that do not include a lot of trust between people.  It is the unwritten contract of honesty that enables most of the commerce of life, both monetary and personal.  Honesty, trust, love.  Obviously it’s important and you know you have already learned to trust quite a few people in your first eighteen years on Earth.  Have they all learned to trust you back?  That’s the first decision on your decision map: am I willing to do what it takes to be a person of trust?  Am I willing to sacrifice, sometimes, to maintain that trust?  Am I willing to do what it takes to deliver on promises I have made?  Will people who know me always know that I may be trusted to keep my word?  That’s the first decision, Jon.

People who live in accordance with that decision generally GIVE as much as they RECEIVE.  Like emotional love, people who accept the trust of others and don’t return it by action and discipline, will soon suck all the trust out of a relationship, leaving emptiness.  I hope you decide to be a trust generator.

You are bound to encounter people who are not worthy of your trust and you must be wise and careful of where you place YOUR trust.  You know someone like Frank Allen, for example, can always be trusted, but there are those who will lie to you, take advantage of your trust, even steal from you, and you must recognize when trust is the wrong thing to do with that person.  Trust is big but not infinite, and it’s extremely fragile.   A solid trust relationship is worth more than gold, and you are obligated to protect and nurture it.  It’s everything from doing what you said to saving the life of the soldier next you in battle – or him saving you.

We all live on a path built out of assumptions… assumptions that are part of our personal belief structure.  For example, we assume that the sun is coming up on time each morning; we assume that when we put our foot down on the floor that it will be firm and able to support us – same thing with the ground.  We expect – or assume – that tap water is safe to drink.  There are thousands and hundreds of thousands of assumptions that we have learned to depend upon.  Most accidents, surprises, shocks, injuries… the list is long, that happen, are when something we assumed to be true or real, is not.  Or it’s when something that we are in the habit of assuming, but which can actually vary, has varied and we fail to observe it – we fail to adjust our assumptions.

For example, a driver may assume that the person in the intersection who appears to be signaling for a turn is actually going to make that turn.  We have experienced enough instances when a turn is signaled and then actually made, that we “let down our defenses” and assume that the turn will be made this fine morning, too.  Unfortunately, sometimes the signaler is not aware he or she is signaling and instead drives right into you, or, worse, you drive right into him or her.

Assumptions can let you down.  Assumptions are created out of one-way trust.  Since the ground has always been solid, you can assume it will be today, also, but you can’t “trust” that the ground will be solid, can you?  The ground has no heart.  It can’t love you, it can’t “return” your trust.  You must recognize that making assumptions is strictly

a one-sided activity.  Make a decision, please, to never assume too much.  Maintain conscious awareness… and a sense of skepticism.  It is an old saying, but totally true: “Things are not always what they appear to be.”

The greatest pain and emotional injuries occur where someone has assumed a certain relationship exists – perhaps one of trust, or even love – when it does not, or that it is of a particular nature when it is something quite different.  The assuming party then acts or trusts in a certain way and is thunderstruck when what he or she expected would happen is completely different from what actually does happen – like assuming the other driver were going to turn – and great pain is the result.

From that might spring great anger or hatred, two things you want to avoid with as much power as you can muster, for they are corrosive, like a strong acid, eating away at your abilities to love and trust.  Don’t assume too much.

You know something about the “scientific method,” I’m sure.  An observer takes note of a phenomenon – maybe as simple as a pin dropping to the floor.  He or she measures how long it takes for the pin to reach the floor and creates an experiment where the same pin can be measured falling to the floor, again.  After two or three repetitions, the observer, armed with the recorded observations, may make a statement that gravity has a “rate” of attraction.  In other words, a weight equal to the weight of the pin will fall the observed distance in so many thousandths of a second, every time.  Others won’t even try the same experiment – they begin to assume the truth of the observer’s statement about falling pins.  Can you already see how many mistakes the others are making?  Let’s list a few:

  1. Does a square chip of metal the weight of that pin fall at the same rate?
  2. Does the pin dropped head down fall differently than point down?
  3. What if the pin is dropped sideways instead of head or point down?
  4. Is it different in a vacuum than in the air?
  5. What about if it were dropped in humid air, or bone-dry air?
  6. What if it were dropped in a freezer at 32 degrees below zero?
  7. If you climbed a mountain and dropped the pin the same height at an altitude of 10,000 feet above sea level, would it fall at exactly the same rate?
  8. What about if you went to the shores of the Dead Sea and dropped it there?
  9. What if you went to another place on Earth at exactly the same conditions, would it fall at exactly the same rate?

Wow.  Such a simple experiment with so many variables!   Who knew?  The point is, just like relationships in life, work, families and friendships, a single observation can’t be the basis of trust or love.  You must decide that you will test for some variables before you start assuming that something is true, real or honest – ie. trustworthy – between yourself and new acquaintances.  This also means that you can’t assume that you have the trust of other people, or that you have the right to be combative or quick to anger with others.  You have to find a pattern of truth from multiple observations.  When you have a basis for trust, your relationship with others will be the best it can be.  If you assume a level of trust and it proves to not be real, you will be hurt and so will the other person, and so will some around you.  Please, make a decision that you will be a wise observer: ready to trust, but only when it’s proper and good.

Of course, a lot of these decisions and observations and even skepticism, apply to you, yourself, as well.  Do you keep promises to yourself?  Do you trust yourself?  What if you said to yourself that you were going to become an expert at… gaming software, for example.  Are you willing to do what it takes to become that expert, to gain that expertise?  Will you keep your word to yourself?

Or, if you find that it is hard work to keep that promise, will you talk yourself out of caring about that promise?

Or, are you willing to find out what the steps will be to gain that expertise, so that you can then plan to achieve it?  In other words, are you going to become a great    do-er or simply dream about becoming one?

Maybe simpler terms are easier.  If you lived in an apartment and there was no food in the cupboards or the refrigerator, would you be willing to do what it takes to buy some food?  Or would you go to a soup-kitchen and beg for a meal?

Those are promises you make to yourself.  Everyone has relationships with others where he or she keeps a high trust level, protecting confidences, keeping promises, stuff like that, yet fails to keep a promise to him- or herself.  You are the only person who can make that trust decision; you are the only person who has the ability to observe whether you have proven to be trustworthy to yourself.

It is that tiny, tiny sliver of distance between trusting yourself or not, that determines how we live our lives.  “This above all, to thine own self be true; And it must follow, as the night the day, thou canst not be false to any man.”

So, you must decide, and now is when you must.  How will I live?  And you can’t leap, in one step, one experiment, one observation, from where you are to some ultimate dream or goal.  You need a number of observations.  You can try college or junior college and find it a perfect fit for your “map.”   You might observe that it is not.

You could “apprentice” yourself in a field you are interested in, and work for a while before going to college.  You’ll have a lot of observations on which to base your self-trust.

You could take a minimum-wage job and master it.  You will be amazed to see how many doors open up as a result.  It doesn’t matter what it is.  It is YOUR decision to be a drudge or a dynamo.  You took that job with Frank at the Elks and became a dynamo, gaining an excellent reputation, there, while helping a lot of people you don’t even know.  You TOOK the $25.00 but you GAVE much more.  It’s a formula for a good life.  You also gained many observations about cause and effect, work and rest, starting and finishing, cooperation and independence, expertise and apprenticeship.

You can do hard jobs.  You may not always like what has to be done, but you can do hard work.  That’s pretty important.  The greatest successes in America are based on starting at the “bottom” and working your way up.  Every famous general started at the “bottom.”

Finally, you must never stop learning, reading or teaching.  Learn things so that you can teach others about them.  I hope you make this decision / promise to yourself.  None of us knows enough.  The mind is always at a new level, having accumulated the education of yesterday.  Now, it’s today.  You can’t stay here, for tomorrow is coming.  You can try, but you’ll fail in everything if you think today is your forever.

Today is the only day in which you can prepare for tomorrow.  Whether you intend to (which I hope) or not, you ARE preparing for tomorrow.  It’s almost like magic.  No matter WHAT you do today, it is preparation for tomorrow.

The magic is in your soul.   It’s you.