Well,

 I voted and my husband voted, so we can at least feel a part of a system we aren't really a part of.  I've been pondering the whole voting thing.  All throughout my neighborhood are signs to support Prop 2a, (a property tax increase of $200 per house) for public school.  I haven't seen one 'no' to prop 2a sign, yet a lot of people I've spoken with, including myself are voting against it.

There is such a fear out there that being 'politically incorrect' and having a 'anti-children' sign will ruin you.  The worst part is, those that would label one against a tax increase 'anti-children' are your neighbors all around you.  I just don't think the way we vote and the way things are phrased and pushed down our throats is very American.  I'd love to have a "NO to prop 2a" but I worry about all of our neighbors blackballing my children more than they do already.  Speaking of phrasing things... there's another ballot measure that starts with the phrase.  "The state shall not discrimate against any person based on race, gender etc. etc."  Well, my husband immediately assumed, just from that first line that he (being a good republican) should vote against it.  I laughed and told him that what he was actually doing was voting to keep affirmative action initiates where the state discriminates against white males. :)  He sheepishly whited out his vote and tried again.  I wonder how many white men voted against that initiative just because of the language.  How many blacks and women voted for it because it used the catch phrase "shall not discriminate"?

Either way, voting feels really manipulated and I'm sitting here wondering how many of my neighbors actually realize their little Yes on Prop2a will hit them with a huge tax increase that will probably not help the kids in the slightest.

 

Choosing the Lesser of Two Evils:

 

 

The Economic Bailout:

 

This is a rant!  I watched with complete disbelief last night and this morning the news that over one hundred thousand people disobeyed mandatory evacuation orders from Hurricaine Ike and chose to hunker down in their homes instead of filling up their gas tanks with $5 a gallon petrol and empty their wallets out with expensive hotel and motel costs safely inland.  And then these coastal scofflaws actually expect the rest of us to then rescue them from "certain death" by drowning?  They made their poor decision!  Let them go under three times and then die with it!  By what right, say, do workers at McDonald's and dish-washers and Social Security retirees not put a little aside each month as a fund to help them evacuate when killer hurricaines come knocking (as they do sometimes every year)?  Yet these Texas moochers actually expect me (& other good people like me in, say, Colorado) to pay out of our own pockets for their rescue when they chose--mind-you: CHOSE!--to stay behind?  Just like the good Christian Lieutenant Governor of Texas said a few minutes ago on the Weather Channel: we live in a Free Country, which means workers at McDonald's, dish-washers and Social Security retirees, et al, are completely free to die if they can't afford to live!

And this is as it should be in this Great Land of Ours, doncha think?

So my little 7 year old has been the target of some bullying from some mothers in the neighborhood.  His only friends 'were' the boys of these women, so we were worried about how this school year would go.  After things escalated with these moms, I felt it was important to protect my son and pulled him from public school.  The principal actually agreed with me because she had been warned by another principal about how vicious the woman was being about my son.  That said he was supposed to be starting 2nd grade.  The private school tested him and placed him in 3rd and they are using 4th grade books.  This private school is amazing!  They only have 30 students from 3rd to 8th grade.  My son is in a class of three 3rd graders and four 4th graders.  He has periods like in middle school with 6 different teachers.  They are really pushing him and doing activities I could have only dreamed about in public school for second graders.  (welding, knitting, karate, history, latin, spanish, math, language arts, technology, science and current events.)  Just yesterday they looked at their own cheek cells under the microscope and knitted a hat for preemies in the hospital.  The teachers started this school because they hated the public school system and the red tape to learning.  They give him tons of interesting homework and he's learning so much- (for example: he has to write a small report on the life of Buddha for history this weekend.) So I'm kind of thankful those damn women made me look into other options for schooling.

The cost is the hard thing and that's what my rant is about.  Why is it that I have to pay for the local public school when I"m paying $6500 a year for a premium education for my son?  Frankly, if none of us had to pay for public schooling, we could all afford to choose a school for our kids.  I'm all for vouchers and think the idea that I have to subsidize a school that is so lacking bugs me.  If we could make schools a free market, the best would win and cost could be kept reasonable.  So much of our taxes goes to public schools, if they would just allow us to pick public or private - better schools would appear and be successful.  Right now, I'm paying for both public school (taxes and property tax) and private (our of my pocketbook).  The whole thing bugs me.  I understand the argument that all children have a right to an education.  My question is why is it that the goverment should dictate which education comes out of my pocketbook?  Frankly, no child left behind ruins it for gifted kids.  They get 'normalized'.  Too many brilliant kids get lost in the shadows and that just sucks - why should I be forced to support a system that fails children when a better option is out there?

 

In my recent experience, I have witnessed a young man being slandered by women in the neighborhood.  I have watched as this young person has been isolated because of the gossip and slander.  The question becomes: what would be the LDS/Libertarian/Humanitarian way to respond to this kind of slander?  I am incensed at the injustice of it all--and yet I see it all around me.  I remember it happening when I was young, and am ashamed to say that I might have been a part of it myself occasionally...which sincerely pains me now.  What would the Lord have us do in this circumstance.  Any responses?

It's Sunday, the recent posts have been amazing, spiritiual stories...but I got nothing along those lines at the moment.  So instead, I will once again discuss local ordinances and how they intrude on people's lives.

Pet limit laws are very much in vogue.  The various animals rights activist organizations are constantly working to pass more and more restrictive laws detailing what, where, and how you can keep animals on your property.  When these laws and ordinances are brought into law, they pat themselves on the back for "helping animals" and never consider the cost, to the people they are targeting or to the animals themselves.

For example, I have a friend who has many animals.  She's a breeder and is also involved in helping find homes for animals that have been given up by their owners (I hesitate to use the common word "rescue" because most or all are voluntarily given up by their owners and while there might have been ignorance on the part of the owner, there usually isn't active abuse).  She had quite a large number of birds at the time, but 1/3-1/2 of the number were tiny zebra finches kept in large colony cages, given to her as people got tired of them.  It wasn't like she had one hundred ostriches in her garage.  All of her animals are given excellent care.  She chose the city where she lives based on the animal ordinances, which only had limits on cats and dogs, which she kept to scrupulously.  Then there were some problems in the bird club we're in which resulted in someone anonymously calling animal control out of spite (the most likely candidate was actually hospitalized in a mental institution not long afterwards to give you an idea of the fun stuff that was involved).  Generally speaking, when someone complains, animal control investigates, so they came over.

 Now, they didn't have a search warrant and my friend shouldn't have let them in without one, but it's an easy mistake to make when you're taken off guard and frightened.  You don't want to get in trouble, so you want to be cooperative so they'll go easy on you.  Animal control made their inspection and were extremely impressed by her setup.  They said she took far better care of her animals than they did, that their report would note that everything was fine, and they even asked if they could call her for help if any pet birds came into the shelter.  Sounds good, right?

Some months later, the city council somehow heard about the incident.  They didn't look at the conclusion from animal control that everything was well cared for.  They simply looked at the numbers and said, "There should be a law!"  So they changed their pet ordinances to severely restrict the numbers of all animals and did not include a grandfather clause.  When my friend inquired, she was told she would be grandfathered in, but could never get anyone to commit to anything on paper.  As if that wasn't bad enough, when she bought her house, she was unaware that the addition that had been made to it was done without a building license.  It needs some repairs before the house can be sold so that she can move somewhere that can't confiscate her animals on a whim, but because of the lack of that building license by a previous owner, she legally can't make any repairs.  She's stuck between a rock and a hard place when she's done nothing wrong.  Her animals are inside most of the time other than reasonable outdoor time by the cats and dogs.  Things are kept nice and clean, no health hazards are present.  She's really not affecting her neighbors in any way.

 Such laws are very intrusive.  Here is an article about a town where citizens are fighting to keep the right to keep their pets.  There are many good arguments made about how responsible owners should not be punished for the misdeeds of irresponsible ones and how people with problems like hoarding certainly aren't going to be stopped by something like a law.  Additionally, so many animal laws are misguided and just plain wrong.  Until recently, ferrets were banned from my city due to being wild animals.  Nevermind the fact that ferrets have long been domesticated and were used for hunting rodents for centuries.  When ferret lovers finally got the city council to see reality, the law was finally changed...but they slipped in a change that cut down on the number of cats a person could have at the same time, apparently just because they could. 

 California is a common battleground with bizarre legislation coming up all the time.  A couple of years ago, PETA and the like were trying to pass a state law that was brutal in its treatment of breeders of all animals, required numerous types of inspection, and even dictated things such as cage sizes, number of material of perches, toys, and so on and so forth.  If it had passed, it would have required a huge amount of tax-payers' money to fund the inspections.  And of course, it didn't take into account the animals themselves even if that was supposedly who was going to be helped by it.  While the average animal control officer can certainly tell if a dog or cat is being treated well, they don't have a clue when it comes to exotics.  Also, by being so nit-picky, the law would have caused serious problems for animals with disabilities or other special needs, which often require living arrangements that would not have met state guidelines.  Currently PETA is trying to pass legislation in California that requires all animals to be spayed or neutered no matter what.  There's a bill frequently brought up at national levels that would require microchipping and registration with the FDA of every single animal in the country, from chickens to horses to cats and so on and so forth.  It hasn't passed yet, but the animal rights activists keep trying, despite (or rather because of) the negative effects this would have on both individuals and the entire agricultural industry.

Where does this intrusiveness end?  Why can we not be trusted to decide for ourselves whether we can handle x number of pets or what to feed them or how to house them?  If they're receiving proper amounts of food and water, are sheltered, their enclosures kept clean and safe, and they're not creating constant noise pollution, why should the government be able to tell us what we can and can't have?  How is keeping two great danes equivalent to keeping two chihuahuas?  A little yard that wouldn't be good for even one big dog could be great for a number of small dogs, or not matter at all if the only animals on the property are kept indoors.  We need to encourage our elected leaders to change laws to make the care of an animal the important thing, not the type or number.  We also need to support the fight to keep this legislation from passing anywhere, even if it's not local, because once something passes somewhere, there are groups that try to spread it.  This is a huge issue for everyone, whether they're animal lovers, have pets, or even just happen to eat meat.

So I've been pondering what it means to be a Libertarian.   I think Rand was a capitalist more than a libertarian.  She thought the free market would solve everything.  So what is the number one priority for a Libertarian?

Is it the right to own and protect property?  - Intellectual property, physical property? 

Is it the right to follow the dictates of your conscience? - where do you draw the line?  Would polygamy or prostitution be considered a libertarian issue?

What if the two conflicted? In the 1800's who's side would a libertarian be on?  The slave owner or the slave?

With the above two concepts I see rebuttals in them.  1) property (as stated in the land post) is subjective.  Can one really own land?  As a libertarian do I need to support others choice to live how they want?  What if I think it affects society negatively?  Does that make me have a 'socialist' agenda if I care about the society as opposed to the individual?

These thoughts are swimming in my head.  I'd love to read what some of you think about the definition of libertarianism.

I keep trying to come up with a wonderful, thoughtful, relevant first post here on DB that will blow everyone away.  With such high expectations of myself, of course I've been failing miserably.  So instead, I'm going to dip my toes in the water with a rant about something that's closer to petty than deep.

I've seen libertarian philosophy summed up as, "Get off my lawn."  I can't say I'm insulted by this, because darn it, getting people off my lawn is a real problem these days.  City and county officials think they should be able to dictate what I can and can't do with my own property.  This has long annoyed me, but it's really been driven home how intrusive it is since we bought our first house last month.  We live in an old neighborhood, so we're not having to deal with HOA issues as well (we specifically avoided any such neighborhoods for that very reason), but our city dictates what we can do with our yard, from the height of the fence we're allowed to have, to the height of the grass, and to how much grass is in the yard.  Yes, there are zoning laws requiring a large percentage of a yard to consist of grass.

I live in Utah.  In the middle of a desert.

This isn't unique to my city either.  In the Salt Lake metropolitan area, there have been a number of incidences in various cities where people have ripped out their lawns and replaced them with appropriate desert landscaping with plants that require far less water and are more adapted to the summer heat than Kentucky bluegrass.  Consequently, they've been fined and otherwise harassed by city officials until they've had to put grass back in.  This is so ridiculous, especially with how we seem to be in drought conditions more often than not.  In the Southeast, where they've been having a drought for a while, they're not allowed to water their lawns in some places because of how much water it uses.  Yet in Utah, second only to Nevada as far as aridness goes in the U.S., if you let your grass die no matter what the reason, you can get in trouble with the law.

I don't understand why city officials think they have the right to butt in and dictate what my yard looks like.  I should have the right to do whatever I want with it within reason.  If we can't even get people to back off on a local level, do we really have a chance at influencing less intrusive policies at a state or national level?  Despite how important issues like universal healthcare are, perhaps we need to put more focus on changing the little things at home first.

Normally, a post like this contrary to the views of the creators of this site.  That is exactly why I'm posting this for Fidel - a Guest poster.  His opinions will spark a fresh debate about what it means to be libertarian.  Fidel was invited to be a part of this blog because his beliefs are usually so contrary to mine.  I love that we can all offer differing viewpoints without censorship.  This post is Fidel's creation and I'd love to see some responses to it.  - Lisey

MORMON COMMUNISM
But the laborer in Zion shall labor for Zion; for if they labor for money they shall perish.

—2 Nephi, 26:31
The Book of Mormon

What a god-awful hour, Dear Reader, to be gotten up to go to work on a Collective Farm!

Sure, okay, since Brother Bob had first left on his Mission to save the heathens of Denver and Dovecreek, Colorado, I had "helped" on numerous occasions with Mother's private garden plot; and, I confess, during the dreaded Fishing Season, I often roused myself up quite early in the morning when alerted by the bated breath and chatter outside my basement window of the Bird Kids, armed with flashlights and tin cans before dawn, poaching our nightcrawlers as the poor little defenseless things lay flaccid and relaxing unawares on the wet grass, basking in the moonbeams...  I would then leap out of bed and run up the stairs and courageously yell through the backdoor screen: "Leave our worms alone!" and those Early Bird Kids would then be all terrified and surprised, their flashlights running away, bobbing like giant fireflies...

So, I can do a Good Turn, even when it's very early and still dark out (such as rescuing the little worms that would then safely dive back into their darker holes) but please! don't anyone ever ask of me any pre-dawn deeds of Derring-do for the likes of some bristling Sugar Beets!  But Come To Think Of It I hadn't been asked, as I climbed into the backseat of Gene's Plymouth, clutching my Thermos Bottle and the rather Desperate Hope for some Engine Trouble that might in some way spare me from the early morning rigors of working on the Mormon Stake Collective Farm...

The Mormon Work Ethic.  Mormons are fed with it from birth.  They have it droning industriously in their ears like those swarms of frenzy you can hear from the dome-shaped helioports of their mascot Bees, their "Deserets" as they call them.  Howard Hurges and IBM both agree, there is no more loyal and profitable a chattel than a Mormon on the Block of Wage-Slavery—they'll feel positively guilty about whatever pittance they're given, these peculiar adherents to an even more peculiar religion; and they will work all day and all night for their Masters and Miss'ums.

Quickly Gene cast me such a feverish look over his shoulder over the Naugahyde-covered front seat of his Plymouth that I really can't recall anything quite so Obsessed since years before I had watched Father kill the bandy rooster that was also awake at Four A.M. in the Morning.  Father burned the midnight taper at both ends, drank coffee and letched Overtime; but then Gene's present fiendish demeanor could hardly be explained by a mere overdose of caffeine...

Contrasting with Gene's evident fever of excitement to get going and do some hoeing, the Ward Bishop, a staid insurance broker on weekdays and a pastor of the same gullible flock he had fiducialily shorn in the evenings and on weekends, sat quietly in the passenger seat, dressed in faded but impeccably clean overalls, his head nodding down on his barrel chest showing a naked expanse of bulldog neck.  I could tell he was sleeping and didn't feel sorry for him one bit.  In fact, I only wished I was big enough to cuff him.  After all, it was his Big Idea to drag me along in the first place.
Gene leered excessively, turned the key in the ignition and pumped the gas pedal and—choke! alas!—started the engine.  The stiff gears soon had us lurching away from the fire hydrant and simultaneously brought the Bishop's elbows up in a startled hoedown position.  But soon Sleepy was fast at it again, and nodding his head rhythmically against the window while his arms continued involuntarily twitching, as if he was merely rowing a boat up the River Lethe, i.e., the Bishop—of all people—should have sneaked a cup of Caffeine!

"Hey you!  Wake-up!" I refrained from saying, and instead settled back for some despondent observation of the advent of another grim dawn in Mormonland: the moon glow evaporating as quickly as the myriad stars were disappearing, and over the ragged hunchbacks of the easterly mountains, the Sun like a Gladiator was casting rosy, then increasingly fiery darts.
There was hardly any other traffic out until we began to converge on the Collective Farm, which was situated out Riverton way, where my Mother had her "roots", where Sugar beets flourished, and where senile Doc Sorenson had been recently buried by his Buxom Nurse...

Turning off the main highway, the Plymouth bumped a while down a rutted dirt road, catching up with the rearend of a Rancho station wagon, which I immediately recognized by the dents as belonging to Brother and Sister MacDonald.  Soon there appeared on our left a big painted sign before this stark little frame house and a parking lot full of other automobiles. 

The sign read:

Granite Stake Farm: A Project of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.

Groups of earlier arrivals had already disembarked their vehicles and had the farmhouse surrounded like in a movie where the mob wants to burn it.  Most had short-handled hoes in their hands, while others wielded spades and pitchforks.  The Mob raised a throaty cry at our arrival, cheering on the Bishop, who was finally awake now and ready to head his Foraging Congregation.  I climbed out cautiously after Gene and the Bishop.  Smiling, the Bishop then quelled the cheering with a grandiloquent wave of his hand and the admonition: "Let us pray."  And immediately the mob became uniformly quiet and bowed their heads and Gene offered the Benediction, invoking Safety from Snakebites in the ditches, Divine Guidance in our manual labors, Preservation from the Stinging nettle, etc.  Then, in a an outburst of emotional ethusiasm that seemed equally shared by all the petitioners (All Save One) the Bishop added: "God Bless God's Sugar Beets!!!"  With that, the multitude ejaculated: "Amen!", cheered again, then disbanded, rushing for the fields. 

I stood there, A Statue With A Thermos Bottle amongst the tumultuous Scattering, but Sister LeSeur recognized me instantly and stopped to chat, dressed rather too fashionably, I thought, in pink pastel pedal-pushers and pearl button earrings—too fashionable to seriously intend to do much weeding, though she carried a hoe.

"Where's your Mother?" she asked eagerly.

"Oh, she had to take Carol to School," I answered, even somewhat wistfully.  (As a matter-of-fact, Mother that day did indeed need to freight Carol to School, for Carol was giving her first John Phillip Sousa Tuba Recital.  Like my own miseries, you see, her Musical Talents were simply escalating!)

"Too bad," commended Sister LeSeur ruefully, "You Mother was real fast in those Sugar Beets.  Well, why don't you come and help me and Kathy?"

"Kathy's here?" I asked doubtfully, having thought that Kathy, the Brigitte Bardot of the neighborhood, would be safely away at Beautician School.

"She's here somewhere," said Sister LeSeur, clutching her throat, where she had forgotten to wear her necklace, and looking about for her daughter with that nervous insecure glance that a woman often has when she thinks she's misplaced her cultured pearls.  "Oh, there she is!  Come with us!"

And there Kathy was, on the edge of the field, eyeshadow glaring violets in that early sun, a peasant girl's scarf tied over her bleached-blonde tresses, a colorful peasant girl's skirt about her slim hips and summer thongs on her bare feet with the toenails brightly painted a jungle-red.

"Mother," said Kathy, tossing down her hoe, "It's muddy out there!"

"Well, Fidel's here to help us!"

I gave them both an aggrieved look.

Then, we stood there a few minutes like The Three Graces, while all about us, from the field, you could hear happy gospel singing—along with the sucking sound of shoes being pulled out of the irrigation mud and the thud-thud-thudding of the hoes.  The rows of sugar beets needing weeding and thinning were so long from where we stood that it seemed like you could almost see the curvature of the Earth...

In Communist Cuba, I know we are making the bratty sons and daughters of the Bourgeois Classes harvest the Sugar Cane.  And it is the same if you are a Mormon in Utah!

 

 

There is an absolutely FASCINATING blog currently showing on Times & Seasons of the Bloggernacle regarding "Master Status".  I love any blog that makes me think and might open up new doors of understanding, and Craig's blog does just that!

 Master status refers to the ways in which we define ourselves in life--and more importantly, how we interact with others based on their chosen "master statuses". 

 Please take a look and let me know what you think!

http://www.timesandseasons.org/

 

Cyn