Tipping Point

Cleon Skousen made a wise argument years ago.  He said that the big question in the choice of a government system is not between Democrat and Republican, or even Conservative and Liberal - it is the choice between tyranny and liberty.

The source of the following quote is questionable, but I like it anyway - -

"A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the majority discovers it can vote itself largesse out of the public treasury. After that, the majority always votes for the candidate promising the most benefits with the result the democracy collapses because of the loose fiscal policy ensuing, always to be followed by a dictatorship, then a monarchy."

America is at an interesting point in its history.  When you look at the political landscape in America, you quickly discover that the urban, densely populated areas of the country incline towards voting Democratic, while the heartland seems to prefer the Republicans.  Union members typically prefer Democrats, as do blacks, Hispanics, women, college students, illegal immigrants, Hollywood and the vast majority of the mainstream media.

Democrats typically argue for bigger government programs, more government control, more entitlement programs, more "redistribution" of private wealth, more taxation, more regulation of businesses, and more safety net programs for the sick and the poor.

In recent presidential election cycles, the actual popular vote for president has been extremely close, sometimes swinging only one or two percent in either direction.  The electoral college system, however, makes certain states - Florida, Ohio, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Colorado and others - into pivotal swing states.  Win those states and you can be president.

There are reportedly some 12 million illegal aliens in America.  Like black people, these people would likely pick Balack Obama 99 to 1.  Why?  Because Obama wants to give them amnesty and a quickie path to U.S. citizenship.  Why?  Because he knows that if he can get these immigrants the right to vote, they will vote for him - A.) Because he was the one to let them in, and B.) Because he will give them all the free stuff he can possibly give them - free medical care, free food, free housing, free everything.

So, if the voting bloc that prefers to tax the private sector in order to fund public benefits for itself grows by millions, then the liberal Democratic model will take permanent control and never look back.

You may ask why any politician would be so stupid as to desire to take our country in such a direction.  Well, if you are the politician who doles out the free benefits from the public trough, you can control the public resources and control the people who receive them.  So we come back to the liberty:tyranny paradigm.  It is the tension between a local government controlled by the people, and a powerful, centralized government which controls the people.

Don't think that I believe that the Republicans are more righteous than the Democrats.  The tyrannies perpetrated by the Bush administration were breathtaking -  9/11, the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, and the Patriot act.  Corporations bribe politicians and finance their campaigns.

One thing is sure - we are at a tipping point.  We have lost our understanding of the principles of freedom.  We have embraced secular myths such as evolution and atheism.  We have entertained a melting pot of ideas and racial carmelization.  It can no longer be said that our ideals are clear and consistent.  What was a nation of Christians is now a nation of who-knows-what.  The Constitution was voided with the fraudulent passage of the 14th Amendment.  It "hangs by a thread".  Corruption and sin are rampant.  The Gadianton Robbers have confiscated all four corners of the earth.  All men are enslaved. 

We have looked into the heavens and counted some 250 billion suns (solar systems) in our Milky Way galaxy.  So far also, we have counted perhaps 250 billion GALAXIES like ours !!!  I don't believe that any of the life forms here on earth arrived here by any other means than by transplantation. The Gods know what they are doing.  They have been at this terra-forming game for a long time.  I should not be so cynical about the progress and decline of our Father's children on this planet.  He placed us here.  He knew what we would do.  He knows how it will end.  He knows what He will do to wrap things up.  He is doing what He has done on numerous other planets.  If given the chance, we will do the same ourselves one day.

Still, it is bracing to be around at this spectacular tipping point.  Here are some prophetic predictions from Nephi in America 2600 years ago:

 5.   But, said he, notwithstanding our afflictions, we have obtained a ^aland of promise, a land which is ^bchoice above all other lands; a land which the Lord God hath ^ccovenanted with me should be a land for the inheritance of my seed. Yea, the Lord hath ^dcovenanted this land unto me, and to my children forever, and also all those who should be ^eled out of other countries by the hand of the Lord.

 6.   Wherefore, I, Lehi, prophesy according to the workings of the Spirit which is in me, that there shall ^anone come into this land save they shall be brought by the hand of the Lord.

 7.   Wherefore, this ^aland is consecrated unto him whom he shall bring. And if it so be that they shall serve him according to the commandments which he hath given, it shall be a land of ^bliberty unto them; wherefore, they shall never be brought down into captivity; if so, it shall be because of iniquity; for if iniquity shall abound ^ccursed shall be the land for their sakes, but unto the righteous it shall be blessed forever.

8.   And behold, it is wisdom that this land should be ^akept as yet from the knowledge of other ^bnations; for behold, many nations would overrun the land, that there would be no place for an inheritance.

 9.   Wherefore, I, Lehi, have obtained a ^apromise, that ^binasmuch as those whom the Lord God shall bring out of the land of Jerusalem shall keep his commandments, they shall ^cprosper upon the face of this land; and they shall be kept from all other nations, that they may possess this land unto themselves. And if it so be that they shall ^dkeep his commandments they shall be blessed upon the face of this land, and there shall be none to molest them, nor to take away the land of their ^einheritance; and they shall dwell safely forever.

 10.   But behold, when the time cometh that they shall dwindle in ^aunbelief, after they have received so great blessings from the hand of the Lord—having a knowledge of the creation of the earth, and all men, knowing the great and marvelous works of the Lord from the creation of the world; having power given them to do all things by faith; having all the commandments from the beginning, and 

having been brought by his infinite goodness into this precious land of promise—behold, I say, if the day shall come that they will reject the Holy One of Israel, the true ^bMessiah, their Redeemer and their God, behold, the judgments of him that is ^cjust shall rest upon them.

 11.   Yea, he will bring ^aother nations unto them, and he will give unto them power, and he will take away from them the lands of their possessions, and he will cause them to be ^bscattered and smitten. (2 Nephi 1, 1-11)

Existential Questions

As I get older, I am more and more able and willing to explore some of the thorny questions about our existence.  My examination of the arguments concerning evolution has left me utterly convinced that life was transplanted here on earth and did not magically germinate in the primordial ooze.  Everyone grapples with existential questions.  I want to make a list of some of the ones that baffle me.  I trust that after this telestial phase of life is complete, I might have the opportunity to get more answers to questions like - "You can lead a horse to water, but why can you not make him float?" - OR - if Planned Parenthood receives a half a billion dollars in U.S. taxpayer money every year, what part of that money is NOT used for doing abortions?
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

My cat has horrible, disgusting breath - it is somewhere between dead fish and dirty socks.  He licks all of his fur almost every day.  Why does his fur not smell bad?

The human anatomy is incredibly complex.  To most people it can also be extremely appealing.  A friend of mine once commented that she could not imagine any type of improvement that could be made on this already perfect design.  When was this anthropomorphic configuration first conceived?  Were there gods around beforehand, and did they do the original design?  Did they have earlier prototypes that did not work so well and needed to be scrapped? Is there any truth to doctors' assertions that organs like the appendix and tonsils are merely vestigial artifacts of the evolutionary process and that they are pointless and useless?

When the human form was being developed, how did the Creators program in the visual/physical attraction component? Why do different people feel attracted to different sorts of humans?  Do these visual stimuli ("cute butt", "sexy abs") persist in the hereafter?  If our Heavenly Father increases His posterity through sexual reproduction, then surely erotic arousal must be part of the equation, right?

If our Heavenly Father has a significant number of eternal wives, does He have to play tricks with time so that each one doesn't feel like He is always gone from her with someone else?  Is there even such a concept as "time" for the Gods?

If all of the souls on this earth are the spirit children of our Heavenly Father (and His various wives), why did some of them turn out to be such DIRTBAGS !!!!!?  I guess I can only assume that He didn't have control over what He was given to work with.  Is wickedness just an inherent attribute of many of the intelligences in this universe?

If there are other planets like ours (occupied by humans), why were they placed so darn' far away from us?  Would it be bad for us to intermarry?

Why is the universe constantly expanding?  Will this make my daily commute take longer?

If there are more dimensions to our existence than the TIME and SPACE we are all so familiar with, then how can we access those dimensions?  Is the empty, vacuous space between the stars and planets actually a different type of matter?  Is there even such a thing as matter when the atoms are nothing but clusters of energy orbits?

We are taught that all creatures were made spiritually first, so, after this life will I once again meet my pet cocker spaniel and my smelly-breath cat?  Will they be able to talk to me, or will it just be the same "meow" and "woof-woof"?

Do my "guardian angels" watch me when I am in the bathroom?

If Cain and John the Revelator and the Three Nephites are still walking the earth today, where do they live, and why won't they come and visit me?

Do Terrestrial (translated) beings eat farm produce?  Will we need lungs when we are no longer burning oxygen?

Is it more difficult to resurrect people who have been cremated?

If the universe is a finite size, is there a brick wall at the periphery, and, if so, what then is on the other side of that brick wall?

If the universe is unbounded and infinite, how can our God be confident that there aren't some pretty malevolent aliens (Klingons, Romulans, Cardashians etc.) stalking the as-yet-undiscovered galaxies out there (and lying in wait to attack us)?

What the heck is consciousness, and why does it persist beyond death?  Why is my consciousness mine and mine alone (I have tried to get into other people's thoughts but it only made me nauseated)?

Do the Gods have a means of transportation which allows them to travel great distances in very little time? 

Is it possible to say or do anything that is NOT a product of self-interest?

If some people do not become Gods, what do they do, and where do they live for the rest of eternity with their resurrected bodies?

If God knows "all things which are to come" (Words of Mormon v. 9), then does He already know all of the dirty tricks Satan is going to pull?  Does Satan have knowledge of my thoughts and plans?

Is it cruel that God allows His children of only the 20th and 21st centuries to have cool stuff like cars, cell-phones, computers and Thai food restaurants?  How did our ancestors get by without them, I wonder?

There were two permutational possibilities for existence: either - 1.) That there would always have simply ever been nothing; or - 2.) That there has always been stuff, something, mattter, energy, existence, a universe.  Now that you know that you exist, can you even wrap your mind around the hypothetical concept of permanent nothingness?

When an atheist dies, and his consciousness is utterly extinguished, does he wake up unwittingly with the consciousness of a newborn baby somewhere else?

Anteaters and Evolution

Last night I watched a science channel show.  It featured the (Xenarthra) anteaters of Brazil.  The show followed a female anteater and presented amazing film of this weird creature clawing open termite mounds and catching termites with its long, sticky tongue.

Of course, this documentary, like many of its kind, was vigorously preaching the concepts of evolution, even going so far as to say that the Brazilian anteater "co-evolved" with the termites it eats.

The anteater's jaw is fused.  It cannot properly chew.  Its jaw is so long that it acts more like a suction tube.  If it doesn't suck down 30,000 termites a day, it will die of starvation.  The narrator in the documentary explained with great confidence that this creature's ant-eating mechanism evolved over "millions of years" to aid it in eating termites.

My question is this - during the first part of those millions of years, while the mouth and jaw were not yet fully "evolved", how the hell did it eat anything?  Did the termites just run up and climb into its mouth out of compassion for its sorry, underdeveloped snout?  Did the anteater's ancestors sit around thinking - "Let's not eat worms or mice or anything else.  Let's let our jaws fuse together so that we can't chew anything.  Let's patiently wait a couple more million years until our snouts are useless for anything other than suctioning out termites, then we will be able to finally eat."?

????????????