Monica's vote

Ok, enough of the serious stuff, let's put a little humor into our lives, huh?

as you look at the button need i say more?

Separation, Church and State, part 4

We were at the dinner table that night just finishing up on one of grandma’ delicious meals and having dessert that she had fixed for the meal when grandpa had this to say on the subject we had been discussing;

"For those who find meaning from the words written in the Constitution another element must be considered before we can call this nation as being a nation under God. We are a nation made up of fifty States and we must see it from that point also.

The best way to see it is by the examination of the Constitutions of the States. In examination of them, we find only W. Virginia as having a Constitution with no mention of God. So, forty-nine States recognizes God in one form or the other in their Constitutions. And in every case the use of the word is singular in form.

And in a great many of them, not only is the word used it is worded in such a manner that declares a belief in His existence. Thus, this places those States under God by the nature of the words used. So, the question becomes how can a nation not be a nation under God if the States that it is made up of declare that they be under God? The last time I heard the whole is always the sum of its parts.

To me, for someone to say otherwise is to place their own ideology above that which they say is the foundation of their ideology. Also, to say that it is unconstitutional to recognize the fact that we are a nation under God then we must say that every State constitution except one is also unconstitutional. Now which is it? Are we a nation under God as determined by the people along with the States, thus should be acknowledged or is it to be questioned and declared otherwise by the determination of only nine people sitting the bench of the United States Supreme Court?"

I just nodded and said "thank you, grandpa." Then I looked at grandma with pleading eyes hoping she would allow me to have some more dessert.

Separation, Church and State, part 3

Kept after school in detention I missed my bus and had to walk home. I knew I’d be in trouble with grandpa for being late in starting my evening chores. Once home I ran down the driveway and straight to the barn for the evening milking. When I got there I saw grandpa and grandma had already started and I grabbed my stool and pail and began milking also. After a few minutes I nervously I asked grandpa what more he had to say about the subject of the country being under God.

Without hesitation or with any sign that he was irritated with me for coming home late he had this to say,

"Now, boy, we get to the core of the argument, which is strictly political. We live in a country where decisions are made by the use of the democratic process. This means that whenever there needs to be a group decision that a vote is taken and the majority vote makes the decision for the entire group even if that were only a majority of one. And we find this to be the case in the Supreme Court most often than not. In other words, majority rules with the consent and support of the minority.

As I said in my previous talks no one could declare that God exists is a fact of life or that anyone could declare that God is monotheistic is a fact. Both are statements of belief. This is what everyone must agree with regardless of the zeal of the faith they have in their own personal belief on the matter. Each will have their own arguments as to why they believe as they do and each will provide the source from which they use to give credibility for their beliefs.

Now, one more thing, most every decision we make in life is a decision that is based on belief. We believe that in making that decision the desired results will occur. We also know that at times that be a false belief because the desired results do not occur. This is true whether it be an individual decision or a group decision.

So, from this we see that just because something is a belief rather than a fact doesn’t negate the validity of making of a decision on a matter. And in a group decision there may be many different beliefs but it doesn’t negate the validity of a decision in support of one of those beliefs. Congress itself in its making of decisions affirms this.

So, from the above we have a basis from which to make the determination of whether or not we are a nation under God or not. If we were to place the question of, "is there a God that exists as far as you personally are concerned?" on a ballot for the people to vote on we know that from the counted votes that the overwhelming number of persons who voted would say yes. A poll taken by Newsweek placed that figure at 90%.

We would also have to admit from this that not everyone who voted yes were in agreement as to the description of the God that they believed existed. The Muslims who voted yes would describe him as a singularity called Allah. The Jews would describe Him as a singularity and maybe call Him Jehovah. Most of the Christian community would describe Him in terms of being a Tri-unity. Those of the Hindu religion would do so in terms of a particular God in their system of beliefs.

So, for those who believe the Constitution is a living document and that it should reflect the will of the people then it must be declared that the people have decided that we are a nation under God. And it can be declared that it was decided without answering the question of whose God are we under also."

In hearing this I knew that there had to be more to grandpa's thoughts because he had already taught me that there was more than one way of seeing the Constitution. So, my thoughts went back to what grandpa would say and do for my being late for chores and I didn't like what my thoughts were telling me. And not paying attention to what I was doing I got a good slap in the face as the tail of the cow that i was milking found its mark.

Separation, Church and State, part 2

Early in the morn I awoke with the crow of the rooster greeting the sun as it peaked over the horizon bringing shadows to all it touched. I quickly dressed and went out to the barn to begin my daily chores by allowing the cows into their milk stalls. Grandpa and grandma soon followed and we each got our stools and milk pail to begin the milking.

As I was milking I had to duck as ol bossy decided to swish her tail at me and I said to grandpa, "grandpa you said I could hear more today as to why we are a nation under God."

These are the words I heard as grandpa spoke,

There are those who target Christianity as the focus of their argument against the inclusion of the words ‘under God’ in the Pledge. But your grandfather attributes this more to the fact that those associated with Christianity are more outspoken in the political arena than those of other religious affiliations. So, they are perceived as attempting to impose religious beliefs into government rather than giving moral guidance. But we need to understand a few things about the word, Christianity.

Now, does Christianity denote a particular religion? The answer again is no. It is a collective word. It no more denotes a particular religion than the word Protestant does. Though I will admit that at one time in history that it did. That was a time when Christianity was united as being a single religion.

But today, both words, Christianity and Protestantism, denote a group of religions that have at least one thing in common but each member of that group is an individual religion with beliefs separate from the rest. Thus, it can be said that we are a Christian nation, which we are, but not a nation of a particular religion. To declare Christianity as a religion is to recognize that if there was a Church/State relationship, that no man wants, it would be likened unto a man who was married to a harem.

History has shown us that religious persecution occurs when a nation is married to a particular religion. History has also shown us that when a nation has married it self to religion it is the religious beliefs of the ruler or rulers of that nation that was imposed upon the people.

History also teaches us that those who cannot participate in government will not be able to defend themselves when government tries to act against their best interests. In recognition of this we can then understand why the first amendment is worded as it is. It is worded as it is for the protection and continued existence of the religious establishment as it be at any time.

The first amendment declares quite clearly the government is not to pass any laws in regards to the religious establishment whether it be of beliefs or practice. In recognition of the role and purpose of government the Constitution is declaring that government cannot interfere, influence, or impose any regulation upon any religion. But if you notice and read it, it says nothing about what the religious establishment cannot do or do in regards to government, does it?

So, where did we get the idea that since government cannot be involved in the affairs of the religious establishment that the opposite is also true? To say that is to say that a very important segment of our society cannot or does not have a right to participate in our government’s affairs. Why is that clause of the Constitution interpreted in such a way as to imply it was written in some way other than what it says?"

With that said he stood up from under his cow and took up the pail of milk that he had just milked and said,

"Enough of this for now, boy, we have chores to finish. We can talk more on this later."

Saying nothing I just continued with the chore of milking knowing I needed to finish my given chores before school started this morn. With the thought of chores on my mind a small smile came across my face. Grandpa never did answer me when I asked if my chores were privileges given to me by him the other day. But then I thought of something else too. I knew I was given a privilege when I was given the both of them as my grandfather and grandmother.

Separation, Church and State

One night as we were listening to commentary on the radio about religion I asked grandpa if we were a nation under God as the Pledge of Allegiance say we be. This is what he said,

" Yes, boy, we be a nation under God. Is the fact we are under God mean that the government supports one religion above the rest? The answer be no. Would the recognition of this by our government mean that there would be no wall of separation of church and state as some like to think? The answer again is no.

For God is the One every religion declares worship to. God is as He is. No religion can declare that their description of God is a fact. The most any one religion can declare is that God, as they see Him, is a belief. Even atheists must accept this description of God even though they have no belief of His existence. For if God does not exist He still is as He is, non-existent.

We must remember, boy, that every belief that exists is really the recognition of two beliefs, one of which is true and one of which is false. Without either of them the other no longer is a belief. So, in the declaration of the one as being the truth we are also acknowledging the possibility of the other being the truth. That is the nature of beliefs regardless of what the believer says. It is the believer, regardless of belief, that declares one to be the probability and the other only a possibility.

The word God does not permit the question of, whose God, when we declare ourselves a nation under God as some have asked. For God belongs to no man or any religion. If anything, man belongs to God for we are his creatures as He created us. And He be the creator of all, not just those who believe he exists but also those that believe He does not exist.

God, by the nature and meaning of the word, denotes a life form of the highest ranking in the hierarchy of life. It does not denote nor can it be used to declare a particular religion or belief. What it does do is validate the existence of the religious establishment within a society that the Constitution protects.

So, in the recognition of this being a nation under God we validate the necessity of governmental protection of the religious establishment from persecution. Under a government that does not recognize itself as being under God there is no validation for protection. The first amendment of the Constitution would not exist under these circumstances.

Now, boy, that is enough for tonight. Off to bed you go. Its late and that ol' man of the morning peaks over the horizon mighty early. We’ll talk more on this tomorrow."

Nodding, I smiled as I reluctently obeyed and went up the stairs to bed, tired yet excited to hear more from grandpa on the morrow.

"Good night, grandpa and grandma. I love you"

Voting, it can be denied us

"Grandpa, I’ve heard you call voting a privilege while I have heard others say that it is a right. What is the difference between the two words?"


Grandpa putting down his paper he was reading and looked at me with a surprised expression. Then he said,


" Tis a very good question, boy, and one that everyone should be able to distinguish between if they are to understand their role in the governmental process. The primary difference between the two is whether you see them from an upper viewpoint or from a lower viewpoint. By upper viewpoint I mean from the viewpoint of what or who can deny it or what or who can take it away from a person. From a lower viewpoint it is meant from a viewpoint of whom or what cannot deny it or taken away from a person. And that can be determined by how we received that right in the first place.


The reason this is necessary is because you can have a right to something but that thing could also be a privilege. Declaring something as a right is viewing it as something that cannot be taken from you. Viewing something as a privilege is from the viewpoint of its capacity to be taken away from a person. This is where power and authority enters the picture.


Now, to understand this even further we must understand that there is a hierarchy of power and authority in our governmental structure. And in recognition of that hierarchy we can ascertain at what point something can be denied us or taken away from us. And this is why the Declaration of Independence and along with the Constitution of the U.S. are so important


This hierarchy of power and authority can be declared in terms of rights given. All rights can be declared as God given rights whether directly or indirectly. This means that only God has the power and authority to deny these rights. But it is to whom God has given certain rights to that are always questioned. And this is where the Constitution comes into play.


It is within the Constitution that we find that certain rights belong to the federal government, certain rights belong to state and local governments and that certain rights were given to the people in that order of hierarchy. Now comes the sticky part of rights as they are bestowed. We are a nation that possesses 51 Constitutions, a federal Constitution along with a Constitution for each State.


Within each Constitution as we read it we will see that it determines the bodies of the government that it is pertinent to. We will also read the powers and authority it gives to each body. But most important is the fact we can read the restrictions placed upon the government that it specifically addresses. In other words the Federal Constitution restricts the federal government to enacting laws in regards to certain and specific issues. The federal government has no right to enact laws outside of these issues.


If the federal government seeks the power and authority to address issues outside of its given constitutional authority it must seek permission from the States not from the people themselves. And it does so through what we call a constitutional amendment.


So, boy, when someone says they have a constitutional right to vote they are saying that it was the Constitution that gives them the power and authority to select their leaders. But also given what I have said we must always remember that this right may also be taken away. And it can be denied us, the people, without any authority from us. It is in remembering this that voting becomes a privilege and not a right. And people should consider it their duty to vote if they wish to hang on to that privilege."


With that grandpa went back to reading his paper. As I was pondering these words I asked grandpa this question,


"grandpa, I know that as a member of this family I have certain duties to perform so are the chores I have to do every day privileges as given to me by you and gandma?"

I heard grandma give a small snicker at my question.

A bit of humor

The following was sent to me by a friend

and I thought I'd share them with all

my friends out there in the land

of blogs

If Wal-Mart is lowering prices every day,

how come nothing is free yet?

A truly happy person is one

who can enjoy the scenery on a detour

Don't cry because it's over;

smile because it happened.

Living on Earth is expensive,

but it does include a free trip

around the sun every year.

How long a minute is depends on

what side of the bathroom door

you're on.

.Happiness comes through doors

you didn't even know you left open.

Some mistakes are too much fun

to only make once.

You may be only one person in the world,

but you may also be the world to one person.

Have an awesome day,

and know that someone who thinks you're great

has thought about you today!..

"And that person was me.".....
The Griper

Voting, a Right or a Privilege?

I could just see the veins on grandpa’s neck bursting out after walking away from a friend while we were in town. His friend had said that he had no intentions of voting this fall in the general elections. As we was walking away grandpa looked down at me and said,

"Boy, there goes a man who thinks that voting is a right and that it can never be taken away from him. It is not. It is a privilege allowed the people and they should make it their duty to vote when given the opportunity. People such as he has not learned anything from history especially of the history of this country we love so much.

There were those in the beginning that wished to make our government a monarchial form of government. If they had been able to convince others that we should have a king what happens to our capacity to vote for our leaders? And even though we ended up as a Constitutional government that Constitution still barred some from the very freedoms and rights that others had. And the authority to vote was one of the things barred. Now, if we as citizens can have the opportunity to participate in the governmental process by Constitution it can also be taken away from us just as it barred some from voting at one time. So, yes, it is a privilege not to be taken lightly.

It should also be seen as a privilege not to be taken for granted for the reason that we are fortunate to be a citizen of a country that permits it. There are far too many countries in this world that do not allow the people this privilege. And far too many governments that would like to take it away from the people. Argentina is but the latest of these countries.

And if we think of Iraq, a good many persons have died not so they may have the privilege of voting for their leaders but so that those they left behind may have that privilege. And many of an American trooper has died so that an Iraqi may come out of the voting booth and get that blue thumb to show they have voted. Do you believe that the Iraqi people think of voting as a right or do you think they consider that they have been given a great privilege?

History will tell us that many a man has died willingly so that we may have this opportunity. To take voting for granted is to take the lives of every one of those soldiers for granted also. To know that voting is a privilege is to see that we are privileged to have such men as these that would die so we may vote. By voting we honor every man who died for this country. By not voting we disgrace their lives. How else can it be seen except as a privilege?

It doesn’t take much to lose that privilege. It can be taken from the people very easily. And that man I was speaking to is a very good example of one way the people can lose the privilege. For he is willing to allow others to determine whom our leaders are to be without participating in that selection as allowed him. Apathy of the voters will guarantee that one day that the little power the voter has will be lost to him. For why should he be allowed to participate when he shows no concern?

Your grandmother and I know it is a privilege and we want everyone to know that we are very concerned as to whom our leaders will be. So, when we walk into that booth we are proud to call it our duty as a citizen but more important we are grateful for the privilege we were given. And because we consider it a privilege we do not take that vote lightly either. We are very careful to mark that vote as it should be so that it will be among those ballots that are counted and that it be counted as we want it to be counted."

I smiled but within me was the yearning to be grown up so that I could participate in voting. I closed my eyes and I could see the three of us walking into our separate booths and voting as a family.

Selecting our Leaders

Grandpa, who are you going to vote for President in the upcoming elections in the fall?"

Grandpa without even looking up at me said, "nobody."

His answer startled me and my only response to it was a grunt of, "Huh, aren’t you going to vote, grandpa?"

With a mischievous twinkle in his eye he looked up and said, "yes, boy, your grandmother and I are going to vote. But as you will learn when you are old enough to vote your grandmother will enter one booth and vote in accordance to her conscious and I will enter another and vote my conscious. And when we come out of that booth nobody will know whom we voted for. Your grandmother will keep her ballot secret and I will also and that means we will keep it a secret from even each other. That is the meaning of casting a secret ballot. Every marriage has secrets and this secret is one that belongs in our marriage.

This does not mean that your grandmother and I avoid talking politics or avoid talking of the candidates that are up for elections. And over the years of our marriage we both have come to the point of being in agreement as to what we need to look for in a man that we feel should be elected. But even with that agreement your grandma may find one candidate meets those criteria better than another does while I may find a different man meeting those criteria.

Now, to answer your question, boy, when I said "nobody" I meant that by the Constitution we do not have the privilege of electing the President of our country. And it is one of the ways that makes our form of government unique. We elect delegates to the Electoral College and it is the people making up that Electoral College that elects our President and Vice-President.

In fact, boy, if you look deeply at our system of selecting our leaders you can see a hint of what our founding fathers were attempting to achieve in our central government. In Congress there are two bodies, the House of Representatives and the Senate. The people select the members of the House of Representative directly. The Senate was selected by the state governments, which are the voices of the states as a whole. A body of people that was to be representative of both, the people and the states selects the President. And the Supreme Court was made up of people as selected by the President along with the advice and consent of the Senate.

Now, if you notice, the house that represents the people have no say in the selection of the Supreme Court. Only the house that represents the states do as well as the man who represents the nation as a whole. And seeing how the other members of our government were selected you will see that the people had very little voice in the selection of our leaders. Now, what does the way our leaders were selected tell you about the intent of the founders for our government and why?"

I just sat there dumbfounded by his question and from the grin on grandpa’s face I knew it showed.

Freedom of Choice

Grandpa was in a talkative mood one day as we were hoeing weeds in the bean field and started talking about freedom as we went down the rows of beans side by side. It was his way of taking the boredom out of the chore. Though it seemed as if he was talking mainly to himself I listened attentively as he spoke.

"Freedom can be seen from two different perspectives. One person will seek the freedom to something while another person will seek the freedom from something. And each of us falls into one of those two categories.

Decisions can be said as the most inner motivator of our actions and behaviors. And it is in the making of decisions that is the determinant of which freedom we seek. Those who seek the freedom to make their own decisions are the ones who also accept full responsibility of those decisions. They recognize that the power and authority to make those decisions come from within themselves.

Those who seek the freedom from their decisions will be those who allow another to make their decisions for them. They also find a way to blame others or something other than themselves for the decisions made. They view power and authority as being the possession of others and view themselves as powerless.

A decision be one of many possibilities of choices of decisions that is available to act on. In the seeking of advice one person hopes to be given a greater number of choices than he already has to choose from. The other person seeks advice for the purpose of hearing the other person’s decision. Seeking answers to a problem is a good illustration of this.

The big problem with all of this is the fact that there are those who think they have the right to make decisions for others. They feel that they have this right because they see the perceived consequences that some suffer as a result of their own choices. And as a result of what they see they think that some people are incapable of making good choices thus need someone to make their decisions for them. The poor are a good example of those perceived as being incapable of making good decisions.

Their righteousness of the need to make decisions for others comes from the excuse that they are helping others and think they have the right to force others to accept this help and force those they see as capable of helping to help also. They will accuse those in disagreement as being cold hearted and without compassion. What they do not see is that forcing others to help nullifies the act as being an act of compassion and reveals their own cold heartedness.

That is the appeal of Socialism. It is an economic system that, in theory, is compassionate towards those that are viewed as incapable of making their own decisions. What these advocates of Socialism do not realize is the fact that they are not making a compassionate decision but a decision to give up their own freedom to make decisions for themselves, the freedom of choice."

When he had finished I noticed that we had just did a whole row and that the sun was straight overhead and I asked " grandpa, think it is time to go in and get some vittles that grandma has ready for us?"