How do you respond to a crisis?

One random bit I have been thinking about lately is how different people respond to crisis type events. It seems to me there are a few basic responses. From what I have observed in my life, there are some people that respond to a crisis with panic, some instantly seek shelter, some get angry, some stop and think, and some take action. I'm sure there are different reactions, and also there are most defiantly combinations of these reactions. I was thinking about these courses of response in regards to the current crisis in our nation. What first sparked the idea was reading a quote that Glenn Beck (I know some of you just shut off you brains) cited in his book Common Sense, from Samuel Adams. Yes that is a type of beer, no, that is not what I am referring to. Samuel Adams lived in the 1700's (to early 1800's) and is considered one of our country's founding fathers. Loosely quoted He said: For those of you who prefer the "tranquility of servitude" you must be prepared to "lick the hands which feed you." He followed with a statement of well wishing for the traitors saying; "May your chains sit lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen." As you may be able to gather from his words, He was one of the predominate leaders in the movement that became known as the American Revolution. You may be asking yourself what this has to do with how we handle a crisis. Well Samuel Adams made me realize something, there is a large portion of people today, when faced with the crisis of our Nation, who are more than willing to accept the immediate solutions set forth by our officials no matter what the consequence of them may be. Some people are followers and other people are leaders. The followers tend to run to the loudest voice with the most immediate solution that promises comfort and security. There is not a great deal of debate, logic, or thought that goes into this process. Samuel Adams was correct about the danger this causes. We often end up giving away our freedoms in exchange for "security." We will receive life of tranquility so long as our master chooses for it to be that way.

Even the most uneducated people, in regards to our country's history, equate one thing with America: Freedom. So why is it that safety and security cost us freedom? Why can't we be free and secure? Everything in this life has a price. Newton thought he was only speaking of motion when he said "For every action there is a equal and opposite reaction." This third law of motion holds true not only in our physical world, but also in our social world. Our freedom was bought through war and sacrifice. It was not a road of peace, fluffy bunnies, and sing-a-longs. Freedom is a precious thing worthy of being defended to the very apex of what we can give. Individuals through history have sacrificed themselves for the good of their family, and their country. They have gone to war so that we all may live, advance, and prosper under freedom. Adam's understood this sacrifice, he lived and toiled and watched lives extinguished to buy our country, our children their freedom. One cannot blame him for disowning people who chose to turn their backs on this gift. They wanted to take the easy road, but an expensive price had already been paid for their benefit.

The antithesis of freedom is slavery. When one becomes a slave, they have a bed and food provided for them, their basic needs taken care of. Very basic. The master in power determines how good or bad that person's life will be. The master of our country is our government. Yes, I am telling you that wars and revolutions did not only buy our freedom from outside threats, but from our own government. Power will inevitably put shackles on it's followers. Lord Acton was correct when he said, "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men." The more we depend on and, run to the government officials for protection and answers, the more we are relinquishing our power to them. The government was created to be the protector of our rights, but it has all gotten horribly out of control. Our basic rights are being protected at the cost of our freedoms. They tell us if you want this, we must have this, but it's alright! we will not abuse the power we have over you. Can you trust that? Can you trust another person with a bad track record to never abuse their power? Can you hand over everything dear in your life to another person? I don't think people realize anymore how precious and necessary freedom is. Some who have successfully shut off their logic can, when presented with a few temporary comforts, empty promises that cannot possibly be true when they come to fruition. The cost of freedom is struggle, the reward of freedom is life over flowing. The cost of security is slavery, the reward of slavery is a stagnant life.

In a free America many people experienced hardships. People come from all over the world and struggle to make it, struggle to pay their way through colleges, struggle to get their foot in the door, struggle to get their ideas brought to life. When their struggles are over, they all pay off ten fold. It doesn't matter what class you come from, what part of society you were born into, our dearly bought freedom extended to all. Some roads may be long, some may be short, but all have a road to travel. We all are allowed to move forward. We were rewarded for our persistence, for our unique ideas, for solving problems no one else could. As more and more people fall into promises for hand outs, for all our most basic needs being taken on by the government, they are slowly having their freedoms stripped away. What's worse is the very spirit that made America great is being crippled. When you reward people for mediocrity, when you put a cap on how high they can rise, people stop trying. They stop creating new and better ideas. When you take away a person's gains and spread it out across the board, when you say, We will provide all of your basic needs by taking your extravagance, you promote mediocrity and cripple the creative spirit. Motivation is extinguished and complacent people are born. Wait.... isn't that the whole idea? Complacent rats are much easier to rule. I shouldn't need to remind you, but we were not founded to support a big government. We were to have a bare bones government to protect our rights, but not to rule us. We were founded to rule the government.

Van Jones + Al Sharpton = Love and Rev. Wright is performing the wedding.

You've heard enough of it, but here is my take on it anyway. We've all heard by now that Van Jones is in trouble for referring to all conservatives as "a**holes." First off, great come back. I'm glad we have someone of such sharp wit in office as our "Green Job's Adviser." That is quite the display of intellectual prowess. A lot of things ran through my mind while reading this article of quotes from Van Jones, one of the first ones being, we have Al Sharpton #2 on our hands and they some how managed to both get positions in our government on no merit of experience. Correct me if I am wrong but in no way has Al Sharpton ever been associated with having experience in our school systems. The cynical side of me that believes people are innately ignorant and self serving tells me that these two were probably hired on for one reason, and one reason alone. I will let you figure out what reason that is.

Before you get your Hane's in a wad, let me fill you in on exactly what I think about this whole "racism" thing. I believe that all people have the same base value, because we are all creations of the same God, who loves us equally. When you start putting value on people through measurements of "success" and "intelligence" as we see it, is when things become uneven. We are all born on equal footing, with inalienable rights, all of equal value and all deserving of equal respect. To live in equality means that everyone is due these rights, and basic respect for the mere fact they were born into the human race and loved by the same God. If you would like to know what our basic rights and freedoms are, please pull out your constitution and start reading. The thing that is farthest from the meaning of equality is to treat a sect of group of people better, or worse than another. Notice I said better or worse. For some reason we have gotten it drilled into our heads that racism is only classified as treating someone badly, but that is not the truth. To praise and give a group unwarranted gifts, rights, or anything else, is just as much a form of racism as the KKK was. I know the first thing out of some mouths will be: "Well in the case of African Americans they deserve to be treated better than European Americans now, because in the past, they were slave, and master." I am not going to tell you all forms of slavery is right. It isn't. The buying and selling of human beings in any form is morally corrupt. Many young girls in countries all over the world, including our own, are still victim to this sort of slavery. But if you want to start atoning for every wrong that occurred in the world, lets start with the Jews and work our way up the ladder. The Jews have been in and out of slavery all of their lives, and it has not a red cent to do with the color they were born.

On to what began all of this.

"He (Van Jones) also has consistently leaned on racially charged language, pointing the finger at "white polluters and the white environmentalists" for "steering poison" to minority communities, as he makes the case for lifting up low-income and minority communities with better environmental policy."

He is not only pointing fingers at "white" people, but is blaming us for things that would generally require super natural abilities to do. If you honestly think that the white race is setting up huge fans to blow pollution into the Black communities, then you've got a problem. It is general knowledge and a fact that I thought most people aware of, that inner cities consist of largely black communities it seems to be there they choose to live. I'm unsure as to why, but I am also sure that we in no way roped off the inner cities and said hey please move here. Pollution if higher, is naturally going to be high in these more populated, industrial areas. I'm sorry that you are choosing to live there, but I know you will blame that somehow on the white folk and our uncanny ability to make the housing market plummet when we leave and rise where we live. And the Co2 Emissions that concern the government are in no way associated with the ever popular 'caddies' and sweet rimmed SUV's.

"He (Van Jones) also co-founded Color of Change, an advocacy group that focuses on black issues, after Hurricane Katrina in 2005."

That's all good and well, but you know we would be called racist for any white advocacy group created.

"Originally from Tennessee, Jones graduated from Yale Law School in 1993. But his life took a turn after he was swept up in arrests during a rally following the Rodney King verdict. Jones has claimed he was monitoring police activity at the time, but that he met people in jail who changed his thinking. "I met all these young radical people of color -- I mean really radical, communists and anarchists. And it was like, 'This is what I need to be a part of,'" he said in a 2005 interview with the East Bay Express. Jones told the newspaper he stayed in San Francisco, and for the next 10 years worked with a lot of the people he met in jail. Months after the King verdict came down, Jones said, "I was a communist.At the time he became involved with a group called Standing Together to Organize a Revolutionary Movement (STORM), which described itself as committed to Marxist and Leninist ideas. He also started putting pressure on police in San Francisco, monitoring and drawing attention to allegations of police brutality. He was quoted accusing the police department of "killing black people."

Ok, now, this doesn't speak well for him in more ways than one. The fact that the most influential people in your life were people that you met while incarcerated is questionable. The fact that you blatantly and openly admit to being a communist is also not a good thing. Does Obama run any background checks on these people or is he looking specifically for "Racist, communist" on resumes? What goes through his head when appointing these people to office? Al Sharpton made his fame on being a black supremacist. So the only logical thing to do is to appoint this man into a position in our government. He is surely going to make non bias decisions for the good of ALL American's despite their skin color. Van Jones is going to help him with his uncanny wit and amazing charisma. If there was ever a person with amazing charisma that all Americans were sure to love and help, it must be Van Jones. Does anyone think before they act? We don't need black racists in the government to make us a nation of equality. We need people of great integrity, who possess respect and kindness for all human life. We need people who put the good of the many above the good of the few. We need color blind leaders with hearts too big to fill their chests.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/09/03/green-jobs-advisers-past-stir-trouble-white-house-critical-time/

As an aside, criticize me for citing fox if you like, but I am not so naive to think that all news stations broadcast the truth with no slant. I have my own mind about things, but there's only so much arguing you can do about a conservative slant on direct quotes from the man.

As good a time....

As good a time as any to post is during the dead times at work. Though I have to say I suffer from the same problems my mother does (who i seem to have inherited my need to write from). Getting interrupted during the middle of a thought while writing can be a bit on the irritating side.

It has been one of those times in my life, well actually it has been for a long time ever since I started working for my family. I know more people can relate to this than we often think. Just those times where your so absorbed in the daily grind that between fatigue and work you just can't eek out the time to shake the cobwebs out of you head and see things fresh again. Its just kind of like drifting along on a lazy river, too pacified to move, uncomfortable, but not enough to make you start paddling. I'm willing to bet that's the case for most people these days.

I'm in the process of looking for an apartment for myself, and as it turns out, a roommate because apparently you cannot afford anything without splitting it between people, especially when you still have college loans still hanging over your head, and still trying to get the money to have some health insurance for yourself. Apparently living 'comfortably' now requires multiple jobs so that you can pay for all your basic needs/wants. Funny thing about that being, if I picked up a part time job as well as working my full time job I would probably never be at my apartment to enjoy it. Gotta love the way things like that work. I have half a mind to just continue building my debt and get another loan for grad school and live on campus for the next four years. I'm pretty convinced that average American makes more in debt than they do in wages.

Probably not the best time for me to be blogging. I can't seem to get away from all those little things that love to pop their head up though the day that continue to push me to the mood of irritated. Like the fact that I cannot understand even when saving and cutting back we can never seem to make enough money to make orders for our shop. How can you sell a product until your out, make a profit off that product then not be able to turn around and re-order that product. Besides the obvious fact that the government loves to make it damn hard for small business owners to survive. For those of you that think people that own their own business are rich. Chances are no. They are probably more poor than you and would be much better off picking up trash for a garbage co. (I hear that pays well.....)