Simple Utah Mormon Politics

Beginning in late 2008, the RAND corporation began lobbying for war in an effort to jump-start the moribund American economy. In an apparent effort to provide more fodder for that cannon, globalist extraordinaire Newt Gingrich warned recently that our next ticking time bomb scenario is likely to happen very soon. If we don't attack Iran and North Korea soon, Gingrich warns, the American economy will be utterly destroyed by the electromagnetic pulse (EMP) of enemy nuclear weapons. "War is good for the economy." Some of my co-workers agreed with that statement on a recent walk to the local Chevron for a Unfortunately, the likelihood of Americans being suckered into a frenzy by Newt's latest ticking time bomb scenario is immensely greater than the probability that Newt's apocalypse would ever happen anywhere in the universe. soda pop. Rubbish, I said. At best, it only appears to be good for the economy. War, even of a defensive nature, is never good for the econo...

Should judges make law? Do judges make law? Barack Obama's first appointment to the Supreme Court says yes to both. Does that make for an activist judge? It depends on who you ask. It is good that we illustrate the diversity of America by diversely representing ourselves. I am not against having a Hispanic Supreme Court justice, but if Barack Obama wanted a truly deserving first Hispanic Supreme Court justice, he could have done much better than Sonia Sotomayor. If you ask a classical liberal (what we call these days a "conservative"), they will tell you that judicial activism I'm all for creating "a historic day for the Hispanic community". I just think it would be much more historic if a truly deserving Hispanic became a member of the Supreme Court of the United States. involves a judge making or changing the law instead of just interpreting and applying it. If you ask a "new" liberal (what we call a "liberal" these days) the same que...

In just over 100 days, President Barack Obama, once thought by many to be the man to right the wrongs of the Bush Administration, has now out-bushed Bush and out-cheneyed Cheney. In a speech given last Thursday, President Obama unveiled a brand new approach to the war on terrorism, one that the New York Times says "is at the very boundary of American law". It's referred to as "prolonged detention", and it means that you can be kept prisoner without trial for an indefinite period of time, simply because of the crimes that you might have committed if you had been released from prison. Is this where the neocons join hands with Barack Obama? I expected that the Obama Administration would be similar to the Bush Administration, but I am astonished that our new President would go so soon beyond what he regularly and roundly castigated in the 2008 presidential campaign. In a moment of great and much-appreciated clarity, MSNBC talk-show host Rachel Maddow called it some...

Both the U.S. and Japan have gigantic social welfare programs. Japan's program is just about as costly as ours, but it works much better, and Japan's crime rate is much lower than that of the United States. Why has Japan's welfare program has worked so much better than ours? In Japan, the family is considered to be the first line of welfare support. The crass individualism Rather than place welfare requirements upon extended families, the United States government chose to attempt to solve the entire problem--and now we have a mountain of debt and cesspools of social filth to show for it. spawned by gigantic corporations caused a great deal of grief to a lot of American workers in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal social legislation, in trying to solve that admitted problem, created one that was far worse. The New Deal, in trying to rein in the corporation, and the Great Society, in trying to plug the increasingly leaky dike of...

The California Supreme court is scheduled to decide on Tuesday whether the recently approved Proposition 8 was done legally or not. In the run-up to the decision, Prop 8 taunting is in high gear--most of it vilely and hatefully against the new law. In March the California justices intimated that the case against Proposition 8 doesn't have much merit. I hope they don't bow to the pressure of the well-organized taunters from the homosexual lobby. Update 5/26/2009 - Court Upholds Proposition 8 In the Book of Mormon, the prophet Nephi speaks of a "great and spacious" building that would be filled with people who revel in mocking those who disagree with them. 26 And I also cast my eyes round about, and beheld, on the other side of the river of water, a great and spacious building; and it stood as it were in the air, high above the earth. 27 And it was filled with people, both old and young, both male and female; and their manner of dress was exceedingly fine; and they w...

Socialism doesn't work, no matter by whom it is tried. Life would be so much simpler if the rest of the architects of social doom would get this into their thick heads. California is the latest unfortunate example of social experimentation gone awry. It looks, perhaps though, that a majority of Californians are waking up from the social nightmare, and the bellwether state might just be turning a corner. If we can learn from the smaller failure of Californian socialism, then there is still time to turn the American ship of state away from crashing hard upon the rocky shoals of its much larger social venture. Arnold Schwarzenegger is royally ticked off at the citizens of California, because they aren't going to put up with his Republican socialist crap anymore. They should go It would be nice if government could solve all of our problems, but it simply can't. In most cases it merely pushes the problems into the future, where instead of dealing with mosquitoes now, we b...

There is at least one worldwide organization which, although many of its members are also members of the mass media, prohibits discussion in public of anything that goes on inside its closed-door meetings. It meets annually. You've probably never heard of it, but it's important that you know about it. It's called the Bilderberg Group, and its members met last weekend in Greece ostensibly to determine what additional economic and political mayhem they can wreak on the world. The Book of Mormon speaks of a world-wide conspiracy in our day whose plan it is to destroy liberty when ye shall see these things come among you that ye shall awake to a sense of your awful situation, because of this asecret combination which shall be among you; or wo be unto it, because of the blood of them who have been slain; for they cry from the dust for vengeance upon it, and also upon those who built it up. For it cometh to pass that whoso buildeth it up seeketh to overthrow the afreedom of al...

It's been quite a while (a few years, probably) since we have gotten any "tantalizing" credit card offers in the mail. I thought it was just because we had ignored them all, but a friend of mine ignores them all, too, and his family still gets a bunch of them. Do you still get bombarded with credit card offers? Why don't I? If, over the years, my wife and I had "taken advantage" of all the credit card offers we had encountered at our Post Office box, we'd have a credit line approaching a million dollars. Early in our marriage, though, we just got in the habit of tearing them up. In the last few years our supply of credit card toilet paper has dried up, though. I'm not sure what gives. A couple of months ago our LDS Sunday School class talked The credit card industry is a scam that needs to be reigned in. But too many of us have played the all-to-willing part of the victim. about financial health. One of the ingredients discussed was to avoid by-mai...

The recent stress tests conducted on America's largest banks is a brazen attempt to convince us that our economic situation is not nearly as bad as it really is. Of particular note is the fact that the Federal Reserve has not accounted for nine trillion extra dollars that it has created and disbursed in the past eight months. That much funny money added to the system means that hyperinflation is coming. Increases in your salary will not keep pace with the dramatic increase in the cost of just about everything. If you don't have a significant reserve of food on hand, now would be an excellent time to correct that oversight. Yesterday, U.S. Treasury secretary Timothy Geithner tried to instill consumer confidence by claiming that consumer confidence is up. At the same time Geithner was hoisting his pom-poms, the Dow Jones fell nearly 200 You are living through the most extravagant economic scam in the history of the world. Hopefully you've noticed that the fraud has spa...

President Barack Obama's first budget proposal is a travesty. His first deficit is projected to be $1.8 trillion. The numbers could be worse except for potential nickel-and-diming of American servicemen and women. "Option 96" in the current Health Care budget proposal would reduce the cost to government of providing the Tricare for Life (TFL) program, but such a cost reduction would be a sucker punch to American veterans--especially those on fixed incomes. The Constitution of the United States lists only 18 things that the federal government can do. At last count, they were doing about 18 million things, but of the Thousands upon thousands of servicemen and women have answered the call of their country. A significant number of them have answered the call with their lives. You'd think their government would take care of them. original 18 federal responsibilities, several of them refer to defending our country. Such things as declaring war raising and supporting Arm...

"Dad, the more I study American history, I can't figure out why America has not been more isolationist," my daughter, exasperated, exclaimed to me yesterday. She cited as examples of baffling U.S. perfidy the Korean and Vietnam wars. I could only say to her that I wish I had been that intelligent at age 17. The rollout of daily events makes it increasingly more easy to see how America could have dramatically benefited both the world and itself had it been politically and militarily isolationist for the last 100 years. Because we weren't isolationist, much of American patriotism now hinges on the hundreds of thousands of U.S. military servicemen and women who have died for their country. It didn't need to be that way. Real American patriotism should have been the stuff of a shining city on a hill in the attitude of beckoning to all to choose the same liberty that America had come to stand for. Instead, "isolationist" became almost overnight a filthy...

The Taliban is moving gradually, but consistently from Afghanistan into Pakistan. President Obama and the U.S. Defense Department are poised to do something about it. Unfortunately, the United States is already to blame for the Taliban surge. U.S. foreign policy has an uncanny way of backfiring; Pervez Musharraf's strange brew of American-backed Pakistani "democracy" is just the latest instance to prove this fact. With a success equal to that of our achievements in Iraq, the latest installment of Shock and Awe is turning Pakistani hearts and minds against the United States. Barack Obama's plan of withdrawing most U.S. troops from Iraq is The feeling of helplessness and revenge is prevalent among a young generation of Pakistani males who have great difficulty determining why they deserve to be struck regularly by the scorpion-like foreign policy of the United States. on the slow track (284,000 military boots are still on the ground there--142,000 troops). Obama has...

Gold - Not every automaker needs a bailout. Ford is doing just fine without fascism, thank you. Silver - Hopefully you're not discouraged that Swine Flu 2009 didn't live up to its hype. But I'm afraid some people are. Bronze - I am so glad the New York Yankees' new stadium is an albatross. They deserve it. Ford Does Just Fine Without Fascism. While the United States government controls the fates of GM and Chrysler, and while they will almost assuredly make the problem worse in the process, Ford has increased car sales by actually caring about what Americans want to buy rather than what government wants them to build. Ford moved back into the #2 US car seller, while GM continues its decline and Chrysler moves closer to becoming a has-been. While its rivals stay afloat with billions in government aid, Ford grabbed a bigger slice of the American car market in April, with record sales of its fuel-efficient Fusion. Those results pushed it past Toyota to retake its post ...