Mystery Cookie

Self is an ever changing thing. It’s like trying to know a river.

I have friends who I love in retrospect — before their river hit the rapids and turned into a marsh. I remember the river they were and smile.

Sometimes your spirit knows when they will cease to be the friend you knew and become someone else. And yes, occasionally they end up being a better person.

But in this world that’s a very rare thing. I’ve seen it a few times — often with people who are old and wise. And then I’m shocked to learn who they were in their youth.

Why don’t more people become better with time?

It’s a difficult question to answer, but I believe it comes down to who we worship. Most often we choose to worship ourselves. And that is why moral relativism is the dominant religion of our time.

Moral relativism teaches that no universal standards exist apart from our subjective opinions. In other words, there is no right or wrong other than what we decide to do with our lives. Of course, they struggle when they must admit that men like Hitler are then let off the hook since he didn’t believe the Jews were human. The same can be said of southern slave owners who didn’t view their black slaves as fully human.

Sound familiar?

Today we commit the same sin by saying an unborn child with a beating heart and developing brain is not human. We conjure up clever arguments and euphemisms to make ourselves feel better as did the Nazis and southern slave owners before us: mass of cells, etc. I was surprised to learn that nearly every surgical abortion occurs after 3-4 weeks when the heart is beating and the brain is developing.

Eventually these misguided beliefs lead to conflicts.

Wars are fought to determine where our collective river will flow. The Germans wanted to purify the world with their ideals of a “master race” and the southern plantation owners laughed when Abraham Lincoln reminded them that all men are created with an unalienable right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

The Declaration of Independence was written by men who understood that there are universal truths that are self evident. Fortunately, the founding fathers were not moral relativists and that seminal document stood in defiance of slavery despite laws in the south that legalized the enslavement of blacks.

That doesn’t mean the men who wrote the Declaration of Independence were perfect. The message should not be confused with the messenger; history shows us that men who write about truth are not always adherents of it.

It’s easier to know the truth than to follow it.

I’m sure many Germans and southern slave owners truly believed the Jews and blacks were not human. Today many Germans see the error of their ways, but that won’t bring back the families that died in those concentration camps anymore than the Civil War could undue generations of forced labor in cotton fields.

The wars were costly.

Millions of men and women traded their lives for our freedom. And today the world again awaits the arrival of patriots. Though few in number, they are marching.

I can hear the drums of liberty in the distance…

-Mystery Cookie

“It is better to have not known the truth, than to have known the truth and turned away.”

In our world we’re seeing what happens without trust. The stock market has been plagued by companies led by men and women who cook the books and understate the actual risks of their financial endeavors resulting in our tax dollars being spent to save poorly managed companies.

The greedy politicians are often involved in these shenanigans.

A stock market cannot long exist without trust anymore than a relationship can exist without it. The only remedy is a return to the old ways: honesty.

When our word was our bond.

Until then markets will fail and political regimes will crumble. No amount of money will save us from our own deceit and corruption.

Ironically, only the truth can set us free.

-Mystery Cookie

“Without trust there is nothing.” – author unknown

“None of the funds appropriated or otherwise made available in this Act may be used for any casino or other gambling establishment, aquarium, zoo, golf course, or swimming pool.” – Stimulus Package (aka pork).

Sometimes truth is stranger than fiction!

It’s good that they’re clarifying for political con artists where they can appropriately waste nearly a trillion dollars. The criminal minds that were planning on writing a grant request for a new pool or flashy casino will have to wait for the next pork filled legislative act.

If you’re curious who is going to cash in on this latest PR move here is a link to a draft:

http://appropriations.house.gov/pdf/RecoveryBill01-15-09.pdf

I guess they didn’t realize that in the internet age the American people can simply read the legislation and see firsthand the shenanigans of our elected officials? The fact that they must spell out what crimes are “off limits” captures the hilarity of the political mobsters trying to solve a financial crises using the only tool they understand:  spending your money.

The Obama administration tells us that the legislation co-written by his colleagues in Congress will create or “preserve” 4 million jobs.

Where did they get the 4 million figure? Answer: thin air.

Even the CEO of Microsoft got involved, sending a letter to every member of Congress. Now why would the CEO of Microsoft want tax dollars to be wasted? Hmm… so I decided to read what Mr. Ballmer found so intriguing about the latest hijacking of the American taxpayer.

“The agreement also promotes the adoption of information technology to transform health care. We believe information technology can help create a connected health system that delivers predictive, preventive, and personalized care–a system that will improve the health of Americans and help control health care spending. Government support for rapid adoption of information technology is essential and measurable outcomes are needed to help the administration and Congress achieve the goals of increased access, lower health care costs, and improved quality of care.” – Steve Ballmer, CEO Microsoft.

Mr. Ballmer has rarely been so eloquent.

Is Steven Ballmer planning on slicing off a piece of that pork pie for Microsoft? I wouldn’t be a bit surprised to see government checks mailed off to Microsoft headquarters in Redmond so that our private health information can be online. Normally Microsoft would have to create such an elaborate online system on their own dime without a government handout.

It’s good to know that some of the wealthiest people on this planet, Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer, are positioning themselves to get a free government handout. And I thought releasing mosquitoes into a packed auditorium was approaching the limits of their folly.

The more I learn about Ballmer and Gates the more I want to switch to Linux, but that’s another story.

As you read through the Act you get the feeling it was written by recent college graduates. And that’s probably not far from the truth. They are setting up a website entitled “recovery.org” where the various bureaucratic agencies must list where they spent the money and how many jobs they created. Ha!

So career bureaucrats are the solution?

I can just hear the agency directors now, “Hey, mom, I am spending $20 million dollars to create fake government jobs. I was wondering if you knew anybody who needed a temporary job. I need to hire at least 200 people otherwise I risk losing the money.”

Creating fake jobs doesn’t come cheap.

How much is the government wasting simply to administer the program at the highest level? In other words, before the sub-agencies pay their staff how much is coming directly off the top simply to hand out $800 billion dollars.

$25 million!

I think most of us could hand it out far more efficiently for a cool million.

You know, maybe if they built a casino with a really big pool that each of us could visit with $2,000 in comps it would be a better deal? Heck, throw in an aquarium and a nice golf course.

That’s a lot more than most of us will see from this $800 billion dollar scam.

-Mystery Cookie

“We hang the petty thieves and appoint the great ones to public office.” – Aesop

The recent revelation that the daughter of Sarah Palin is pregnant has raised a furor among Democrats who are calling Ms. Palin a hypocrite for encouraging abstinence. This raises the question, “Is there such a thing as safe sex?”

And I’ll be honest, just like the rest of the world I believed the rhetoric of people like Barack Obama who support abortion and partial birth abortion under the guise of wanting to reduce unwanted pregnancy through education about safe sex.

They wouldn’t talk about safe sex unless it existed… right? Fortunately there have been studies outlining the effectiveness of birth control. And here is a link to such a study:

http://www.contraceptivetechnology.com/table.html

To my surprise it turns out that with “perfect use” a condom has a 2% yearly failure rate. It gets worse, with “typical use” a condom has a 15% yearly failure rate!

Under a typical use scenario a teenager that has “safe sex” for three years will have a 39% chance of getting pregnant at least once. At five years the likelihood of pregnancy reaches an astonishing 56%. Are mothers being responsible encouraging their daughters to have as much “safe sex” as they want given the risks involved?

81% of women sexually active at age sixteen and practicing typical “safe sex” will become pregnant before they reach the average marital age of 26. This excludes those who are not practicing safe sex.

The only way to safely avoid pregnancy is abstinence as proven by the statistics. In fact, if everyone practices typical safe sex we still end up with millions of “unintended” pregnancies each year.

These pregnancies cannot honestly be termed “unintended”. It’s like holding a revolver to your head with a bullet in the chamber and then spinning it and pulling the trigger repeatedly and acting shocked when it eventually fires.

This is how sexually transmitted diseases flourish in our society. It’s these systematic birth control failures that we ignore which spread herpes (26% of all females), AIDs, and other STDs. Does anyone want their son or daughter dealing with a lifetime disease like herpes?

So what are Obama and his abortionist following really advocating if safe sex does not exist? The illusion of sex without consequences. But the 1.2 million murdered babies and sexually transmitted diseases stand in stark contrast to their flowery speeches about safe sex.

Sarah Palin was giving her daughter good advice because abstinence is the only effective method that will prevent pregnancy and STDs. Everything else, as the statistics clearly illustrate, is simply Russian roulette.

-Mystery Cookie

When I watch documentaries on WW II and the atrocities I’m always struck by how many citizens simply went along with the flow. In fact, the Nazi’s talk about killing innocent women and children like we talk about sports.

But I’m also encouraged by the stories of the freedom fighters who were greatly outnumbered. They didn’t have it easy living in the woods and fighting tyranny.

I’m sure that those concentration camp survivors looking back find some solace knowing they were not alone in their misery. That others were fighting for their freedom. And that the ideal of tyranny over others would not be handed over without a fight to the death.

But most, the vast majority, did nothing.

And today we live in a society that refuses to accept or acknowledge its crimes against humanity. We live in a world where people don’t feel the grief of having taken the life of another because they don’t recognize it as a life at all.

I’ve heard Nazi’s say that killing for them was easy because they felt the Jews were sub-human and that they were protecting their own self interest and civilization itself by killing the Jews. And that included innocent women and children.

The Germans weren’t born evil. They were seduced into an evil ideology.

Today millions of babies are being put to death by an ideology more sinister than Nazism. It’s a belief system that allows the perpetrator to walk through life with a clean conscience.

They didn’t kill a baby. They killed a mass of cells.

The truth is that nearly all babies that are killed are in the 4th week of development or later. If we held their small bodies in our hands few among us would have the stomach to crush it.

But that’s what doctors do everyday with suction tubes that rip apart their beating hearts and developing brains. Their stories will never be told, except here to remind the world of our great loss.

40 million stories of babies that never grew up. They never went to school and felt homesick for their mother. They never learned how to ride a bike and suffer a few scrapes along the way.

They never had that first crush that they’ll never forget.

But perhaps someday the survivors of this tragedy will look back with some sense of awareness that they were not alone. That there were those among us willing to fight for their freedom.

In the hopes that one day the sun would shine upon their faces and the world would hear their laughter.

-Mystery Cookie

If any of you have had to walk up a flight of stairs with a bunch of groceries you understand the importance of plastic bags. The ability to slide three or four bags over your wrists and forearms eliminates the need to make multiple trips while simultaneously providing an excellent cardiovascular workout.

So what has the LA city council decided to do in their free time? Outlaw plastic bags!

Obviously none of them buy their own groceries. And it’s politicians like these who become so stuck on their “green agenda” that they overlook the scientific data and the effects of their over reaching city ordinances on their constituency such that it forces us to do a straw poll to determine who wants to replace them.

Any takers? BTW, once replaced I’d like no new ordinances. =-)

Do any of you enjoy fast food? Well, they also decided to outlaw new fast food restaurants in parts of LA in their effort to curb obesity. Are they going to criminalize Coke and Pepsi next?

Who are these people?

Actually, I located them. Listed below is a link to the LA City Council website which includes their email addresses:

http://www.lacity.org/council.htm

Even if you don’t live in Los Angeles you should voice your outrage since even tourists will be effected by these green monsters.

-Mystery Cookie

“Many people want the government to protect the consumer. A much more urgent problem is to protect the consumer from the government.” – Milton Friedman

It’s funny sometimes where you find inspiration. As if an entire multi-million dollar production was produced for a five second message just for you. And perhaps the author or the director was completely unaware of what it was they were saying.

Or even why they were saying it.

The important thing is that it was said. Clearly. And it spoke directly to your soul.

This happened to me while watching a really cheesy movie. It was poorly put together and I was thinking about changing the channel when the words slipped from the writer’s pen into the mouth of the actor.

None of us are born great.

But all of us are given the opportunity for greatness. And those opportunities come in strange places and at inconvenient times.

While we’re trying to become rich or perhaps start a family that letter or message arrives in the mailbox or the inbox of life asking for volunteers. And while we’re carrying the groceries into the house or apartment and listening to the messages on our cellphones we hear it.

But who has time?

Someday the question may be asked, “Where were you?”

I was in a comfortable recliner with a channel changer in my hand. I was visiting my family, which is usually the only time I watch television. I wasn’t seeking purpose or meaning in my life.

I’d been writing about it for years. Right?

We spend a lot time trying to define the struggle. As if it’s non-obvious. It’s like painting a mountain next to the Himalayas to illustrate the concept of mountain climbing.

Open your eyes and see.

-Mystery Cookie

“We must not, in trying to think about how we can make a big difference, ignore the small daily differences we can make which, over time, add up to big differences that we often cannot foresee.” – Marian Wright Edelman

Despite the fact that I take issue with the government of China when it comes to the restrictions that are placed on Chinese citizens I separate that from the accomplishments of the Chinese people.

Their international success in business is undisputed. It’s amazing to consider that not that long ago very few of our products came from China.

The clothes I wear and many of the electronic gadgets I use every day bare the moniker, “Made in China.” The Chinese people and their ingenuity have put money in my pocket, because their products are high quality and cost less.

That’s good for everybody. And so we all benefit because of the industrious workers and entrepreneurs in China. And I thank them for that.

China is our friend. Not our enemy.

And so I consider what would help my friends in China who’ve devoted so much of their lives to creating products we all enjoy. I don’t speak the Chinese language so I can’t write them a song or a poem, but I can do one small thing.

I can join with them in the struggle to improve the quality of their life. They deserve to enjoy the same freedoms all of us enjoy. Not because we have a moral high ground, because we do not. But because it will make their lives better.

I want to hear their thoughts without any editing. If they hate me I want to know it. And if they love me I want to know that too. But I do not want any of them silenced for how they feel or what they believe – even if I disagree with it.

The world would be incomplete without China.

I’m glad that we’re finally able to have a dialogue with China because I’ve been looking forward to it for a long time. It’s like seeing someone across a river and waving at them for many years and then finally having a chance to hear their voice.

And a beautiful voice it is…

-Mystery Cookie

I was reading about statistics, which is probably a red flag all by itself. Anyway, they were discussing the mathematical probability of writing Shakespeare. After all, it’s just a collection of words.

The first few words are the easy part.

But as you finish writing a few sentences and work your way into a few paragraphs the odds that you’ll string together words in a fashion that would make Shakespeare jealous start to get pretty long. And by the time you finish the first page you have better odds of winning the lotto.

Which brings us to life.

Each day is like a word. And each week a sentence. Every month a paragraph. And the passing year a page. But the book of your life won’t be compared to Shakespeare or Hemingway.

Because your life is real.

And like a well written poem where every word is important, so too are the ways in which we choose to live each day. And just as a poem that wastes words quickly loses the attention of its reader so too does a life that wastes each day and quickly loses the attention of the person living it.

Until life itself becomes tedious and boring.

So why am I writing this? Well, because it’s the life we choose to live or choose to change that will effect how the story ends. Whether we live a predictable existence or a life that is worth remembering for an eternity.

And perhaps that is why there is some truth to the saying, “Live each day as if it were your last.”

-Mystery Cookie

“The revolution made you free, the document stated that purpose. but if the Constitution, and Legal Codes did not exist, you could not be charged “in violation of the Declaration of Independence” - Finn MacCumhail

The proclamation set us free. The tyrants disagreed and we went to war.

The war was the result of the proclamation that all men are born free. And that liberty (freedom) is an inalienable right. Liberty is binding upon all men not because a group of politicians made it so, since laws can be easily rewritten or abolished, but because God gave to all these non-transferable rights.

But tyrants don’t give up so easily. Liberty starts as a thought and ferments into written words and often ends in a war to make it physical fact.

This was a revolutionary idea because up to that point Britain was Imperialistic. And the founding fathers stood up and said, “Yes you claim that this land is yours and that we’re you’re subjects, but we claim a higher authority. An authority that rises above kings and queens.”

God himself!

Essentially they were stating that men cannot legislate on these issues. By deferring to a Creator our founding fathers were saying that these areas are off limits and the moment any government tries to limit these rights then after all peaceful means have been exhausted you have the right to abolish the government and start over.

That was a new way of thinking. The government is limited?

The redeeming issue of the Civil War was the right of slaves to live free. Unfortunately, the South picked a very bad issue to determine states rights. Because a state simply doesn’t have the authority to enslave others - despite laws in the South that made slavery “legally binding”.

If you read the Lincoln Douglass debates they discuss the very issue we’re confronting with abortion. And the criticism of the Declaration of Independence is hardly a new one.

“This declared indifference, but, as I must think, covert real zeal for the spread of slavery, I cannot but hate. I hate it because of the monstrous injustice of slavery itself. I hate it because it deprives our republican example of its just influence in the world and enables the enemies of free institutions, with plausibility, to taunt us as hypocrites-causes the real friends of freedom to doubt our sincerity, and especially because it forces so many really good men amongst ourselves into an open war with the very fundamental principles of civil liberty-criticizing the Declaration of Independence, and insisting that there is no right principle of action but self-interest.” Abraham Lincoln, transcript of Lincoln Douglass debates, Aug. 21st 1858.

Self interest? Moral relativism? It’s the same devil in a new dress.

The founding fathers realized that government would want to regulate beyond their original intent, including the very rights they would take up arms to defend. And the only way to prevent that would be to assign it to a power above them.

Those fundamental rights were not mere suggestions.

As Abraham Lincoln points out, the fundamental principles of our civil liberties spring from the Declaration of Independence. And therefore, the United States government simply doesn’t have jurisdiction when it comes to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. It didn’t in 1858 when Abraham Lincoln challenged the establishment and called slavery a monstrous injustice, and it doesn’t today as we collectively stand up and proclaim that the murder of our children is equally monstrous and beyond the scope of the government’s powers.

And conscience demands that we follow that proclamation with the courage and bravery required to defend the lives of our children. Peacefully if at all possible, but with the blood of patriots if necessary.

And yes, the defense of life and liberty is not limited to our children. The U.S. federal and state government(s) abridge fundamental rights in many other areas, but if we’re to prioritize where to challenge the tyranny of unjust laws and evil men it must start with the defense of our children.

For if we’re unwilling to defend the lives of our children then perhaps we don’t deserve the fruits of liberty.

-Mystery Cookie

“The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.” - Thomas Jefferson