Field-book for Our Times - Liberty and The Book of Mormon

In my continuation of verse-by-verse scripture study, I have been reading about the rise of Amalickiah and Captain Moroni's response to it. If these names or things don't mean anything to you, I would suggest that you read a bit of a tome called "The Book of Mormon" (forget the trashy, tawdry, and cynical play by the same name - the book is better) which I have dubbed "the Field-book for Our Times".  Hopefully, after reading this, you will see one reason why I call it so.

Amalickiah wanted to be king of the Nephite nation. The Nephites were founded on this kooky idea that God had granted people their liberty and their government was formed to support this. The Book of Mormon's editor, a man named Mormon (it's his book), goes so far as to reveal Amalickiah's methods.  He promised lower government officials positions of expanded power under his kingship in return for their support. In a word, Amalickiah employed "flattery" to win supporters to his cause. The national church of the Nephites was firmly opposed to having a king and supported personal liberty, so Amalickiah used his flattering words to turn people against the church as well.

This situation caught the attention of a man named Moroni, the chief captain of the Nephite armies and a recent war hero. Moroni had fought to retain Nephite liberty that had recently been threatened by the neighboring kingdom of the Lamanites, who wanted to enslave them.  Moroni was "angry" that these defended liberties of his people were being subverted from the inside by Amalickiah and his conspirators. He chose to tear up his coat, write on it, and use it as a flag to stir the hearts of his countrymen to reject the idea of a king.  The coat-flag said this: "In memory of our God, our religion, and freedom, and our peace, our wives, and our children."  Moroni called it "the Title of Liberty" and spoke on liberty himself, rallying supporters to the cause of religious and personal liberty and the defense of that liberty. He put on his war armor and those who took up his call to arms did the same. Amalickiah took stock of his position, figured he didn't have the needed support, took his most loyal supporters, and ran away.  Although he caused much havoc and pain in the years ahead, that is another part of the Book of Mormon.

A good field-book gives you the tools you need to face certain circumstances.  The Book of Mormon, as the field-book to our times, lets us know what to do about the circumstances that we are in right now.

America has become a strange thing - a country that gives its President near-kingly powers in four-year terms, a mockery of a democratic republic.  Recent presidents have boldly spoken of their power to rule without Congress via executive order and found few willing to really oppose them. Elections have become full-scale ideological gang-wars between conspiratorial parties bent on using "flattery" and fear to galvanize voters against their political enemies and raise up their own flavor of a president-king.

I have not heard our present presidential candidates utter the word "liberty" with any conviction, if they mention it at all. They crow very hard with what they will do with the kingly powers of the American imperial presidency! They echo the fear and hatred of our "easily-flattered" citizens through a bull-horn and win primaries.  The presidential kingship will likely be won by the loudest, nastiest, most "flattering" person on the field, not anyone who would defend our liberty.

What would the Book of Mormon suggest?  Raise the "Title of Liberty" afresh! Raise the call to arms in behalf of religious and family-based liberty!  Captain Moroni would shed light on the evils of kingly people and seek to bring them down.  At this time of Easter, when Jesus liberated us from the consequences of death and sin, we should all read Alma 46 of our field-books again and not be taken in by the "flattering words".

Trump's Next Big Surprise and How the Establishment Can Really Stop Him

As a matter of disclosure, I am not a Republican. Before most of you scamper off in the face of a Limbaugh "program caller", I also have no love for Democratic ideals or either of the potential Dem candidates. Actually, I am not a member of any political party and am a registered "Independent" at the local courthouse. Hopefully, I won't be perceived as some underhanded double-agent of your political enemies trying to snooker you. I truly want to help you, my beleaguered friends of the Republican Establishment!

Okay, you Rep leaders don't like Trump but he is winning in the polls. If you try to undermine him and replace him with someone more to your liking, you likely alienate the disgruntled (at you?) majority that keep pulling the large wins in for the Donald, against your supreme political wisdom. What is a misunderstood, under-appreciated, and apparently ineffectual major party apparatus to do?

Some people say to undermine Trump, quietly help Hill, and let the Dems have the win this election cycle so you can build a winning strategy for 2020. Sadly, there are already an uncomfortable number of Reps that would go with Hill anyway just to defeat Trump and they may just stay away for good if this is the Rep Party of the future. Others suggest some trickery to get the coming convention "brokered" and to fight it out in a concentrated battle on live television.  That would likely fracture the party permanently and leave the Dems as the sole political "superpower" for the foreseeable future. I am sure other procedural maneuvers are in the works, but it will be hard to convince anyone that it isn't just a bunch of old white operatives (who look strangely like you) trying to eliminate a guy who isn't their favorite flavor of old and white.

You must be kicking yourselves right now as the Dems should be suffering just as badly with an avowed Socialist running decently against the anointed Hillary. However, your prime opponents fixed the problem of a disobedient electorate a while back with those Super-delegates. The "powers" don't like Bernie, but the Super-delegates then swing into action to effect their establishment's will for the Hill. Too bad the Reps didn't pick up that little trick in the past as well. I haven't heard much angst from the disenfranchised Dem voters - that's the way their system works (but not yours).

I will tell you in a minute why none of this matters and the Republican Party, as you control it today, may not last into August, much less through the general election.

In the end, the Republican Party can only front one candidate for President and it is going to be Donald Trump, like it or not. The Donald figured out how to game the primaries, he will bully you into nominating him, and he will obnoxiously and inexplicably carry straight through to a general election win, first woman president and her "governing experience" notwithstanding. He knows what it takes to win and he has the desire to do it at any personal cost, which makes him practically unstoppable. Neither you nor I have any serious doubts that this will indeed happen.

Here comes the terrible truth that will destroy the Republican Party if you don't act fast.

You should know that Trump will offer Hillary Clinton the vice-president side of the ticket in the grandest gesture ever to "unite the country" against the evils of "party politics".  They have few authentic political differences to trouble such a partnership. Hill is a political pragmatist - she gave up her bid against Obama in 2008 for the added gravitas of being Secretary of State and a more "experienced" presidential candidate resume in the future. The more you ponder a Trump-Clinton ticket, the more it seems not just "outsider" possible, but nearly inevitable - someone like Donald, the corporate guy who knows the power of merged competitors, would propose it and someone like Hillary, who knows a VP has an easier course to the big chair than anyone else, would take it.  It is a complete political "slam-dunk" for both and final curtains for the old GOP, whom both would like to see disappear.

The final question is this: how badly do you of the fading Republican Establishment want to see a different future?

Straight to it -

You need to embrace the Libertarian Party, the #3 political party that no one takes seriously.  Trump is stealing and redefining your Rep platform, Hill will continue to dominate the Dems (even as Trump's sidekick), and that means you have to find a new ideology to front your need to win (sorry to be so blunt).  As a disaffected yet pitying friend, I suggest you adopt the Libertarian platform. The Republican Establishment has been losing young voters since Reagan, mostly to that detestable Ron Paul and his talk of personal liberty, responsibility, and smaller government.  The young people, who haven't taken Bernie's socialist bait, are very attracted to the elder Paul and liberty.  For a few years, you tried to woo these kids back with Ron's "liberty-lite" son Rand and a basket of undelivered "artificial-liberty-flavored" promises, so it wouldn't be completely out of character for you to ally with the Libertarians and work to actually deliver the real thing. Libertarians actually have your most high-minded ideals without the baggage of having proven to be liars about it once in office.

Libertarians have been hungry for years to be real contenders for major political offices.  They front a presidential candidate every cycle, occasionally a person you may have actually heard of.  They became so desperate once that they nominated Bob Barr, congressman from Georgia, who had a shaky "liberty" record. Sometimes, Libertarians are willing to forgo nominating a "true believer" to get a better chance to win, making them willing to "merge" with a group (like you) who are vaguely like-minded and basically compatible. You should probably consider pulling Ron Paul out of retirement and convincing him to be the Libertarian presidential candidate as part of the deal. You do believe in liberty, right?

The two things the Libertarian Party brings to the table of any candidate are:

1. ballot access in almost every state, which no other "third" party has, 
2. a compelling list of platform issues that appeal to young voters, anti-war liberals, abortionists, Christians, atheists, "Conservatives" who will vote as instructed by you (sorry to be blunt again), and people of every persuasion (political, social, sexual) who currently feel disenfranchised or over-regulated (who doesn't feel like this?).

What the Libertarian party needs most is:

1. a bigger organization, and 
2. a bigger bankroll.  

You wonderful Rep establishment folk have a huge organization and the money that such an organization generates! The Libertarian Party would kill to have your assets and gladly ally with you in exchange for the commitment to actually make good on their principles of smaller government and liberty beyond just "lip service". I know it may pain you to actually come through on some of this (it would be a loss of regulatory power), but you have to remember that Trump is going to destroy your Republican Party come November anyway and then you will have nothing and become nobody.  Is it really worth going down with that ship?

While you still control the Republican Party, re-open the "loopholes" that you closed to kill off Ross Perot and his Reform Party, which also hurt the Libertarians.  The Dems will readily agree to the change as it typically damages Rep candidates more than Dems. The Dems will think you are taking the option to throw the 2016 election in favor of being back in 2020, rather than abandoning the Rep Party for the Libertarians. You are going to need those openings in a few months when the conventions are over.

The Dems will be weak and scrambling to replace Hillary when she teams up with Trump. In desperation, they will probably draft Bernie. The Libertarian Party, strengthened by your money, your machinery, and the sincere Ron Paul, can come into the now-opened debates out of left field, steal away the Trump/Clinton thunder, and take back the votes of those who see and will be shown the trickery and hostage-taking being perpetrated by Donald and Hillary. You, Ron, and the Libertarians will be the "knights in shining armor" shedding light on political calculation and subterfuge while bringing LIBERTY to an electorate begging for real change!  What a winning combination! (You like to win, don't you?)

In the end, when you are up against the ropes like Rocky Balboa was against Clubber Lang in Rocky III, you finally see the truth, you look for your real friends, and you train for a new kind of fight. Trump is stealing the GOP "champion belt" from you of the Republican Establishment right now and laughing in your face (literally). Are you going to find the new friend in the Libertarian Party, combine forces, and gain the ultimate victory against the common foe? For your survival's sake, I hope so.

The Miracle of the Quilt

Every now and again, I write fiction.  Then for some unfathomable reason, I give it away.  Today, you can read my first published short story right here.  If you like it, please pass the link around to others by commenting and "liking" it on Facebook.  If you want to support my writing, you can purchase the Kindle version of "The Miracle of the Quilt" which is the first story in The Joys of Autism and Christian Ethos e-book.

If you like "The Miracle of the Quilt", you will absolutely love my best story ever, Rachel and her Knight in Shining Armor, also available as an e-book.

Without further ado, I hope you enjoy "The Miracle of the Quilt"!

RMS in Houston

So, I am flying through Houston on my way to a training in San Diego and I look up from eating something in a waiting area and I see this guy and say to myself, "That sure looks like Richard Stallman."  I just keep looking and he flips open his laptop (a little Thinkpad, good choice) and there are FSF stickers on it.  "Oh, my," I think, "It IS Richard Stallman!"

Now you probably don't know RMS, but you can look him up on Wikipedia:  Richard M. Stallman. He is a virtual god in the free software movement and was either the original writer or major contributor to a lot of GNU software that I use everyday.  He might even be more famous for being a catalyst behind the GPL: the GNU General Public License that applies to the Linux kernel and the bulk of open-source (don't use that term in front of him) or "free as in freedom" software.

It wasn't enough to just note that I might have sighted him.  I walked up (pretty bold move for me) and said "You are Richard Stallman."  He looks up and nods his head.  Gutsy still, I sit down across from him and say I want to shake his hand and that I have respected him as the premier free software advocate.  He seemed nonpulsed, as he gets this often enough, and says I can help him by going to http://www.fsf.org/help-menu, which is where you can donate to the Free Software Foundation that he was instrumental in starting.  I said that I would visit, so I have.

I was confused because I figured there would be a lot of people around him, but he said that he rarely gets recognized, although he looks exactly as he always does - unkempt. He said he came from Mexico City earlier today and someone recognized him, but to have two people in two airports in one day was really quite rare.  He said he was only famous to a very small group of people, statistically.  I guess I am a pretty rare guy.  Leave it to an MIT hacker to talk statistics.

He was trying to find a cell phone to use because he though someone had screwed up his flights.  I told him that I had a cell phone but I don't have cell service for it and only use it with wifi.  He smiled and congratulated me for doing that, which seems consistent with what I know of his tech view and basic distance from popular culture.

I was sitting there saying that I should get a picture with him, just to show off to other people, but I talked myself out of it.  I think that sort of stuff is pretty corny anyway, so I let it go.

He said to visit the fsf.org site once again and I said again that I would and that it was really cool to meet him.  He ended with "Happy Hacking!" and I replied "You, too, RMS!"

So, I finally meet one of the people I always read about!  Stallman was never on my list of people I wanted to meet one day, but it was very cool nonetheless and put me on cloud nine!  Of course, I didn't tell him that I was more a BSD type of guy, which would have raised his hackles probably, but I do definitely respect highly everything he has done for the universe of free software, even his political stuff!

Long Now Seminars - TED Talks with Brains

When circumstances permit, I often walk to work. I did it as a WIC Nutritionist in Tucumcari (1 mile), a SysAdmin for ENMU in Portales (5 miles) , and a Linux Support person at Dell in Oklahoma City (4 miles). I cannot do it now as I am about 15 miles from work, but I was always looking for good things to listen to as I walk (when I am not recording my scattered, heretical thoughts).

If you like TED talks, you must understand that I think they are a mixed bag of psychobabble with some nice gems.  If you want far more intelligent presentations that are consistently high-quality, I will happily point you to the excellent Long Now Seminars that are sponsored by the Long Now Foundation. As always, there are many times that I disagree with concepts spoken about, but it never fails to get me thinking!

Forward and Upward!

Tailoring to the Listener

The entire 15th chapter of the Book of Luke is a study in the attitude that we should have about "the lost". Each of us as gospel teachers have a duty to seek out these "lost" sons and daughters of God and help them find the joy that the gospel brings.  Sometimes, that person doesn't come to church or may not feel welcome there. You may even find that our "lost" class members are present but, for whatever reason, they are still somewhat lost to the principles that can bless their lives. May I offer a personal experience of reaching out to some "lost" brothers?

In 1999, I was working at a correctional facility in a remote place in New Mexico. One of the men incarcerated there found out I was LDS and asked if I could arrange for an LDS gospel class at the prison much like several other religious groups were providing. I worked with the facility chaplain and arrangements were made for a time and classroom for weekly gospel sessions. As an employee, I already had the required training to have contact with inmates, so I was a logical choice to teach these classes.

There had been a major riot at this prison just a few months before our meetings began. A correctional officer had been killed and a handful of inmates had been identified as the instigators and taken to other facilities. The prison was under severe restrictions as a result and everyone, inmates and staff, were at a heightened state of tension, wondering if there were not still more of the riot leaders inside our prison. Hand-crafted weapons were regularly confiscated, more than usual, indicating that inmates were arming themselves however they could, either to start another riot or to attempt to protect themselves from it.

Under these conditions, it is understandable that the inmates attending LDS gospel classes were distracted. The man that they shared a cell with or the man next to them in Gospel Principles class may very well use our classroom as an opportunity to start another riot. It was nearly impossible to help these men feel the Spirit with such fear and distrust. Lessons on the Word of Wisdom or celestial glory didn't seem to address the immediate needs of these men. I decided that the best I could do was to offer a good benediction to our efforts.

With all eyes somewhat closed, I asked Heavenly Father to bless our prison with peace and calm.  I prayed that the inmates and correctional officers would be inspired to foster this peace and calm so that fear and anger would cease. These sentiments became a regular feature of our prayers in the weeks and months that followed. It was noticed that inmates and correctional officers were becoming less apt to lash out at each other. Over time, it was seen that the prison was more settled and fewer infractions of prison rules were happening, resulting in the eventual lifting of many of the restrictions put in place following the riot.

Some of the LDS inmates spoke later about how skeptical they were early on that prayers for peace and calm would help them. Many of the men felt a great distance from God and that the prayers of prisoners would not be answered. We learned and could bear witness that our appeals to God, from a dark circumstance and dark place, were heard and answered. It was a testimony to us all that Heavenly Father helps his children (even incarcerated ones) that turn to him!

As each of us teach the gospel in our individual classes and settings, we will come upon brothers and sisters who are lost to the joys of the gospel and cannot see how such things can make their lives better. One of our missions as gospel teachers is to help recover the lost sheep, the lost coin, and the prodigal son from Luke's account. I encourage you to identify these "lost" souls, discover what they need most from the Gospel, and help them discover how the Savior can provide for those needs. If a handful of men in a prison can find solace from their troubles through the Gospel, the "lost" souls can do the same with the help of their gospel teacher!

God bless you all in your inspired efforts!

Alma 41:14 - Alma's Advice on a Good Resurrection

Everyone wants advice about how to live their lives, right? What better source than Alma the Younger, former bad boy, Chief  Judge, mega-missionary, and a recipient of the "hey, he got translated" prize?

After clarifying that resurrection is an incorruptible restoration of ourselves, good or bad, Alma give some advice to his wayward son, Coriantion, in Alma 41:14.

• be merciful to others;
• deal justly;
• judge righteously; and
• do good continually. 

He says that if we do these things, we will get them in return in the resurrection.  In his words, they will be "restored unto you again, and you will have good rewarded unto you again."

So, you want a nice afterlife? Alma's advice is to learn to spread niceness around during life and it will come back to you in the hereafter!