Simple Utah Mormon Politics

It's official. The "legacy" of no-fault divorce is ugly. What started out as a bold and confident experiment has left a wake of despondency and destruction. As I read to you some statistics and anecdotes from Judith Wallerstein's book, The Unexpected Legacy of Divorce , I want you to stop me if it seems like you've heard this before... Doctor Wallerstein and her colleagues Despite what was hoped then, there is now little question that no-fault divorce was and is a social maelstrom, an evil genie whose lamp we can no longer even find. Knowing what you now know about this disastrous experiment, do you really want to attempt a similar one? studied the effects of divorce on children for a 25-year period--children who, by the end of the study, had advanced well into their adulthoods. These case studies indicate that, decades later, sons and daughters of divorce still have trouble building healthy and trusting relationships, and that their offspring are much more lik...

Wealth redistribution is--to some people anyway--way cool in concept. But it takes them by surprise when it happens to them in real life. Wealth redistribution, whenever it is conducted or influenced by government, makes the rich richer at the expense of the poor. Here are two examples of why you should beware of an Obama in sheep's clothing. Story #1--I Guess I Don't Like Wealth Redistribution After All Recently, a radio talk show host ( Alan Watt ?) was walking toward a restaurant when he saw a homeless man holding a sign that said "Vote for Obama...I need the money." He smiled, and walked into the restaurant. After being seated, he was greeted by a very cheerful waiter, who, as fate would have it, was wearing an "Obama 2008" tie. In no case has socialism closed the gap between rich and poor. The difference between the top 1% of Soviet wealth holders and the rest of society was far more vast than exists in America today, but through socialism, that di...

Just as with abortion, nuances exist with regard to homosexual rights. The Supreme Court's blanket decision in Roe v Wade, however, took away most of those distinctions with regard to abortion, saying that abortion is in nearly all cases simply another choice. These same subtleties are just as obviously missing in the debate about "homosexual marriage" in California. In all of the discussion of "homosexual rights", the most important of the missing nuances--"what's best for the child?"--has been all but discarded by the so-called "rights" advocates. In his book, The Future of Marriage , David Blankenhorn notes that beginning in the 1970's, "free-love" advocates claimed that marriage didn't matter. Blankenhorn goes Admittedly, a great deal of discrimination still needs to be cleaned up. Homosexuals still don't have all the rights of heterosexuals, even though they should. Yet, when all of these rights are abstract...

There is a huge difference between "voter registration fraud" and "voter fraud". Based on this difference, does that mean, then, that the ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now) voter registration fraud is not a big deal? Republicans say absolutely it's a big deal, but Democrats state that the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) is much worse. I think that both institutions are very ugly. Each is committing or facilitating the commission of voting fraud, primarily in the name of raising the "entertainment factor" so that hardly anyone will notice that neither of the mainstream presidential candidate bozos are worth voting for. Can you believe how much time we're spending in this election talking about ethics as opposed to the core issues? I guess Both of these kinds of shenanigans are immoral and illegal. Not just one. Not just the other. Both have to stop. But how can they stop when we keep limiting ourselves to the two wrong ch...

When I first read about the accusations against Utah State Republican Representative Greg Hughes, my first reaction was to ignore the fact that the allegations were brought up right before an election, and to think he was guilty. Since Hughes has been cleared of all allegations by a bi-partisan committee, it appears that I should have not ignored that timing. Hughes, after nearly three weeks of negative press, was cleared of all charges. Phil Riesen, Democrat Utah State Representative, was the one who made the allegations public. Riesen, rightly, will now be the next legislator to have a personal political proctology exam. For the last few years, I have thought of former news anchor and current stage legislator Phil Riesen as a man of great Hughes can be a bully, according to a former Republican legislator. But what Riesen did is much worse. integrity. No longer. The latest failed ploy against a Republican legislator proves that the Utah Democrats are at least as unethical as t...

There is no doubt that a lot of greed is going on in America. Most people's greed rises or falls in relation to what is available to them. To illustrate this concept, let me use a food example. Assuming that I love salt and vinegar potato chips (I do), when am I the most greedy--when they're put away on the shelf, or when they're sitting in front of me? As a lead up to the current credit crisis, the Federal Reserve has been the banking industry's bag of salt and vinegar chips. Hardly anyone is talking about this. Business Week has talked about it, as recently as March of this year . One measure of the size of monetary stimulus is the expansion of M3, a broad measure of the money supply that includes institutional money funds. Capital Economics calculates that M3 is up 15% from a year ago, the biggest increase in 37 years. All I've heard recently, however, is about the greedy banks who offered subprime salt and vinegar chips to If you love potato chips, when are ...

The number of phone calls from snake-oil salesmen to my home telephone makes me want to put myself on the Do-Not-Call list. I probably should, because I'm getting to the point where I don't even want to answer the darn thing. E-mail spam is easy (although I'll admit that so far my phone spam is not nearly so illicit). You get to your spam box when you get to it, and if a message makes it through the spam filters into your inbox, you just delete it with the click of a button. It's not so easy with the telephone, though. There's always that long pause, right before you hear something like: Hello, did you know that you can consolidate all of your credit cards onto just one credit card and reduce your monthly payment if you act now? Stay on the line, and an agent will be with you shortly to give you the shaft! I don't think the product they're selling would be good for anyone. Especially someone like me who has no credit card debt. Hi, this is Lisa, and did...

It seems that the fight against man-made global warming is not really so much about global warming--at least in the United States. It's more about perceptions and authoritarian control. Ford has a new vehicle that gets 65 miles per gallon, but Ford can afford to sell the car only in Europe, mostly because the United States is worried about being seen as environmentally conscious rather than actually being environmentally conscious. We always hear from the environmental wacko lobby (there are some liberal environmentalists that aren't wacko) that Europe signed the Kyoto Protocol, but the US didn't. Here's something else that Europe's At current gasoline prices, that would save me about 5 bucks a day--$12 if I compare it to driving my SUV battle tank. doing that we aren't: buying a car that gets 65 miles per gallon. Part of the issue for Ford is cost. But even if Ford overcame those barriers, it is still not likely that it could pass those costs onto American...

I'll bet you didn't want Congress to vote for the recent $700 billion bailout bill? Yet the two Establishment candidates--the ones you are asked to choose between--voted for it. The other four candidates in the presidential race (you thought there were only two, didn't you?) vehemently opposed the bailout. And you're voting for whom for president? With at least 3 far better choices, why are you limiting yourself to voting for dumb vs. dumber? It is refreshing that someone from the national media is noticing the ridiculous political straits that we have I won't be needing to watch the next debate. It would be a waste of time. The one I watched already made me embarrassed enough for my country. gotten locked into. With American confidence in the economy at its lowest point since the 1930's, and with our confidence in Congress at an all-time low, does anyone besides me and Kenric Ward find it ironic that the only two choices for president being served up b...

As I write, the Dow Jones has dropped over 1,500 points in the last 3 days. Almost exactly a year ago, the dow was 5,000 points higher than now. But no one is talking about the financial real elephant in the room. The Federal Reserve is that elephant. The Fed has incited most of the economic problems that we're now facing, and they don't show any signs of stopping their bullish rush into oblivion. Meanwhile the world is crying uncle. Banks are failing. States are seeking bailouts. Whole countries are on the verge of bankruptcy. Is the Amero just around the corner? Or will we have a global currency because of the so-called "failure of the free market"? The Plunge Protection Team is powerless in the face of the market. The global money changers are washed up. Someone needs to throw them out of the temple. The Fed Ventures into the Commercial Paper "Market" For the first time ever , the Federal Reserve will issue commercial paper . The Economist rep...

Congressional representatives, whether they are for or against socialist wealth redistribution, if they had any integrity, voted against the recent bailout plan. --Conservatives, because they don't believe in wealth redistribution. --Liberals, because they don't believe that redistribution of the wealth of the poor to the already wealthy makes any sense. Those who voted for the bailout plan either didn't understand it, in which case they shouldn't be in Congress, or are shills for the Establishment. I look forward with relish to perhaps hundreds of such representatives being handed their walking papers in the elections next month. We all are doing our worst and making the [people] pay. We forget that we all are the people; that while each of us in his group can shove off on the rest the bill of today, the debt is only postponed; ...We have to pay in the end, every one of us. And in the end the sum total of the debt will be our liberty. Samuel McClure , January 1903 I...

Instances have occurred in American history where socialists and atheists cared for their neighbors in a much better way than many Christians ever thought of doing. Too often we think that gain is godliness, forgetting that in a Zion society there are no differences in economic equality. In October 2008 LDS General Conference, Elder D. Todd Christofferson made this concept clear to people like me who have spent so much time thinking that if people are poor it is their own fault. I was wrong. But it took the backdrop of a national economic collapse for me to notice it. A profound change in my thinking occurred several years ago when, on a Brigham Young University-produced video, The Education of Zion , Chauncey Riddle stated that the socialist Karl Marx had correctly assessed various economic problems in the world, which occurred then and still are in existence today. That perked my ears up, because I couldn't understand why someone would agree with Karl Marx. It made more sens...

The Senate bailout plan--and any bailout plan for that matter--should be opposed on the basis of just one issue: the integrity of the people who are voting on the plan. But wait 'til you hear what's in the plan that will allegedly prevent the US economy from falling off a cliff--but only if we act immediately!!! John McCain voted for this plan. So did Barack Obama. Utahns should know that Orrin Hatch voted for it as well. And one of the most conflicted financial profiteers in the Now, if you speak too loudly, and if the IRS "coincidentally" finds something in your IRS records that just might indicate "evidence of a violation of any Federal criminal law", you are fair game. Here it is in the...ahem..."bailout" bill. Senate--Robert Bennett voted for it too. But who's surprised? Most of these guys voted to allow the government greater alacrity in spying on you a couple months ago. The bill, known as the Emergency Economic Stabilization ...

The House bailout plan failed a couple of days ago, but now the Senate is weighing in on the thing. Not that they've ever cared much in the last few years/decades, but I'm thinking that the Senate has no authority under the Constitution to even propose a legislative plan for a bailout. Here's why... Article I section 7 of the Constitution says: All bills for raising Revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives; but the Senate may propose or concur with Amendments as on other Bills. The House bailout plan has already failed, but now the Senate has its own plan. Is the Senate bailout plan a bill for raising revenue? I think it is. It's "debtified" revenue, but it nonetheless fits the definition. From dictionary.com, revenue is the income of a government from taxation, excise duties, customs, or other sources, appropriated to the payment of the public expenses. This is definitely being touted as a public expense, and the government will eventuall...