Archive for October, 2014

Personally, I don’t think there was ever a deliberate “war” on women but I do think one is now underway. Be prepared. It’s going to be the mantra of the Hillary in 2016 campaign because it’s a model that has proven successful in the past.

Allow me to state the obvious. Our system of governance is not perfect. But this Constitutional Republic has come farther toward that end as any system that preceded it. Even in a perfect system, human error and human nature will always be mitigating factors in seeking perfection.

For some reason I have yet to identify, a significant percentage of the American voting public is susceptible to being manipulated by two words: “prejudice” and “minority.” This, a nation that was founded in search of religious and civil liberties. This, a nation with a justifiable right to be proud of its 238-year-old experiment in unprecedented individual freedoms. This, a nation that has done more than any other society on the planet to afford individuals the opportunity to advance socially and economically. Yet, despite these accomplishments, we harbor some deep seated belief that just because an individual is of a minority segment of the population they deserve some sort of pass or leg up in advancement and recognition.

Therefore, like yelling “fire” in a crowded theater, we respond like Pavlov’s dogs when we hear the words “prejudice” or “minority.” When we hear them together we are exponentially moved to offer up a “get out of jail free card” and present them with not only the $200 for passing “Go” but also “Boardwalk” and “Park Place” at no cost! (Hopefully you’ve played “Monopoly”).

It’s how Barack Obama became President and it’s how Hillary Clinton will ride the same wave towards the same end.

Voters did not care what Obama’s experience, qualifications or political agenda were. He was from a minority segment of the population that had experienced prejudice. We owed him Boardwalk and Park Place for free. We stopped thinking and allowed ourselves to be swept up in an irrational wave of emotional, guilt-ridden manipulation.

Enter Hillary Clinton.

She is from a minority segment of the population (as it pertains to career access and advancement) that has experienced prejudice. So, as with the “first black President” we are being primed to elect the “first woman President” in total disregard for what we do know of her. In Mrs. Clinton’s case, our error will be more egregious because, unlike Barack Obama, we know a great deal about her experience, her accomplishments, her values, her morals, her principles and, most importantly, her failures. Yet, we will turn the same blind eye and deaf ear to award her Boardwalk and Park Place (a/k/a The White House and The Presidency).

The fault lies not in the hubris and ravenous egos of these two individuals but in those of us who remain so easily manipulated by a false narrative. If there is a war on women to be confronted…that “war” is about to be marketed by a woman who would prefer you focus on her gender rather than the truth of who she is and for what she stands.

 

There’s so much fear and negativity concerning Ebola that I think it’s time we identify and seize the good in this turn of events. If there were any remaining doubts that the federal government is corrupted and collapsed, it’s beyond question given its shameful response to handling Ebola in the U.S. Remaining doubts can now be buried once and for all. So where does that leave us and how can there possibly be good in the arrival and potential spreading of a pandemic? It leaves us exactly where we need be to restore this Nation to the greatness that is its potential.

Its leaves us local.

No competent governance or viable solutions can be forthcoming from a corrupted, collapsed and bloated federal system. The federal government’s negligence in its response to Hurricane Katrina was the warning bell that many people heard. Too many, however, missed the calling. It was a regional problem and FEMA’s incompetence and misguidance posed no national threat so many chalked it up to a transient error and moved on. Not so with Ebola and the CDC.

The CDC’s criminal negligence in allowing a nurse who treated the Dallas man who died of the disease, to board a flight knowing she had a fever and thereby put 127 people at risk is inexcusable and actionable. The expenditures by the CDC over the past few years of public funds allocated to the CDC to study and prevent disease have been criminally negligent. Studies of monkey poop, innovative condoms and national bike trails not to mention “mood rooms” and flat screen televisions took fiscal precedent over laboratory needs and pandemic preparedness.

Any and all actions that will begin to turn the country around, provide safety and preserve individual liberties must now come first from ourselves, then from our communities, and finally from the States. This is the good news. Ebola’s arrival, and the subsequent failure of the federal government to act competently or responsibly in response, is like the moment in The Wizard of Oz when Toto pulls back the curtain to reveal the great and powerful Oz as nothing more than the deceptive illusion of mechanical bells and whistles operated by an all too fallible human.

The federal government has been broken for quite some time. Long before Barack Obama took office. He too, has been a gift…for his total inability to lead and govern has made it possible for the curtain to finally reveal the deception and the illusion. He is the Wizard and his Administration’s bells and whistles are out of steam.

So, now it’s up to us…you and me. It’s our turn, and our time, to reject the politics of deception and division and take back personal responsibility for our lives. To gather in our resources at the most local levels and organize realistic, effective and positive solutions to immediate concerns. It’s time to demand of our Governors that they take full responsibility for their state’s well-being by bypassing the constraints, and intimidation, of the federal government and do what is necessary to protect and defend the safety of their citizens.

If we are finally ready to do the heavy lifting, we can turn the fear of Ebola into the blessing of Ebola, and, like Dorothy, leave the illusion behind and go home to all that is good and real…and true.

GOLD POST IT WEEKLY INSPIRATIONAL MESSAGE for 10/13

What happens if you try to play Scrabble with the rule book from Monopoly? Not so much luck, huh?

Well, the game has changed and so have the rules but so many of us are

still trying to play by the old rules…and the results are stagnation and frustration.

You can’t shirk personal responsibility, or force outcomes, or intend to manipulate the facts or the truth for personal gain. You can’t even “work” the way you used to because nothing “works” the same in this new world in which we find ourselves.

Yes. It looks the same, but trust me, it doesn’t operate the same.

Different game board. Different rules. So what are they?

To move around this new board…you need to follow three simple rules.

1, Allow what is brought into your life (and stop trying to make something else happen).

2. Joyfully experience and express gratitude for all that is right in your life.

3. Hold Love in your heart for everyone and everything.

Allowing. Joy. Love. Get those down and watch how effortlessly you zip about this board.

Sign up here for my FREE Gold Post It Weekly Inspirational Message here.

 

I believe that all Americans have a right to be concerned about efforts being made to limit citizen exposure to Ebola.

I believe that our government is taking a passive role, for whatever politically correct reason, in failing to take reasonable and prudent steps to protect our citizens.

I believe we have the power as individuals to unite in a way that sends a message to this Administration that we want definitive and expeditious action taken to close our borders to unnecessary risk.

I believe that this thinking is neither racist nor nationalistic but rather a commonsense response to an unreasonable and deadly risk.

If you too believe that preventing additional potentially infected and sick individuals from entering this country is an obligation of this President and his Administration DRIVE WITH YOUR HEADLIGHTS ON until our numbers are great enough that they have no choice but to stop flights in and out of West Africa and seal off any other known access points for the entry of communicable disease.

There are more of us than there are of them.

On our podcasts all this week, Steve Clark and I have been addressing “authenticity.”  Authenticity is the opposite of political correctness. We have killed authenticity in this country by allowing political correctness to govern how we express ourselves. Political correctness is the muzzle that gags the First Amendment of the United States Constitution’s right to free speech. Nowhere can the chilling and deadly effects of political correctness be more clearly demonstrated than in the past month as it pertains to two diverse issues: the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the spread of Ebola.

Israel probably has the most advanced national security system in place of any country in the world. It has to because its citizens live daily with an imminent threat of death by acts of terror. Consequently, no airline is safer than El Al and no airport safer than Ben Gurion in Tel Aviv. Yet, during the recent conflict, the United States government by way of our State Department, shut down all flights to Israel on the erroneous presumption that a missile from Gaze might take down an incoming aircraft. This despite the fact that, even if this preposterous assumption were true, El Al was totally avoiding Gaza airspace during the conflict by circling incoming and outgoing aircraft to the West rather than the usual eastern flight path. I know this to be true because one month ago, during the war, I flew into and out of Ben Gurion.

But the truth has no place in the world of political correctness.

Now, Ebola, the disease which we were assured could not come to our shores, has arrived in Dallas by way of an infected Liberian traveler visiting family.  Logic and common sense both dictate that all flights in and out of West Africa be suspended until this disease is under control or we have in place functional and effective means of prohibiting infected persons from entering the country.

But logic and common sense have no place in an environment of political correctness.

The same terrorists that commit global acts of jihad, slaughtering and beheading in the name of their God, are free to enter the United States through an open border with Mexico, the same open border that infected persons with tuberculosis and even Ebola are free to enter. Prioritizing safety measures that would secure the border and prevent both terrorists and sickness from entering our country would be the sane thing to do.

But there is no room or call for sanity in a politically correct culture.

It won’t take an EMP or pandemic to annihilate us. All we need do is continue to deny the demands of reality, worry more about not offending Muslims and foreigners than securing our nation, and live in fear of being authentic in expressing truth to power.

It’s that simple.