I know a lot of people sincerely hope for things to change. My concern is that people are not seriously considering the impact of the change Obama advocates.

The only way he (or ‘we’ if you prefer) can accomplish those things on his agenda is by adopting more socialist, nanny-state policies:

• “progressive” taxes that punish success
• “redistributive change” that rewards people for another’s effort
• More entitlements that destroy individual responsibility and initiative
• In general, bigger government and more dependence on it.

That is exactly the wrong direction we need to change. Americans need
to wake up and own their own success. Government needs to get out of
the way. The role of government should be to ensure the promise of the
Declaration of Independence: that all citizens have the same right to
life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Government has no
business trying ensure anyone actually has happiness. The attempt can
only result in making everyone equally miserable.

Unfortunately, no major candidate is running on a message of personal
responsibility and smaller government. By and large, people don’t
respond well to being told well that no one else is going to solve their
problems. Obama’s message is primarily one of class envy and
victimhood. McCain’s approach isn’t much better. Sarah Palin’s (brief)
history makes me think she gets it, but her message is muddied by the
association with McCain.

I served there from 1993-1995. The slideshow brought back many great memories.

Another former missionary recently set up a group at Yahoo for those who served in this mission: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/GermanyDresdenLDSMission/. It’s been fun to reconnect and reminisce.

I have seen several elitist people on the talking-head channels make the statement lately that people making over $250,000 per year have a “moral imperative” to pay more in taxes to take care of the country’s problems. This is not only infuriating—it is economically, spiritually, and morally crazy!

Where in the world do these twits get off saying that Henry should be punished for his diligence? If you are John, where do you get off trying to take Henry’s hard-earned money away from him in the name of your misguided “fairness”? If you want to sit on the lake, drink beer, scratch your butt, and bass fish, that is perfectly fine with me. I am not against any of those activities and have engaged in some of them myself at one time or another. But you HAVE NO RIGHT to talk about “moral imperatives” about what other people have earned due to their diligence. That money is not yours! You want some money? Go earn some! Get up, leave the cave, kill something, and drag it home.

We are in a dangerous place in our country today. A segment of our population has decided that it is the government’s job to provide all of their protection, provision, and prosperity. This segment has figured out that government doesn’t have the money to give them everything they want, so somebody else has to pay for it. That is how the “politics of envy” was born. “Tax the rich” has become the mantra of the left, and this political season it has been falsely dubbed a “moral imperative.”

I highly recommend the the full article.

Seen here

A couple comments on the yard: we just had the old patio torn out and a new stamped-concrete patio poured. Next comes the deck where the old patio was, then hopefully a sprinkler system so we can finally grow grass consistently. It’s going to be a busy summer

That thought was also expressed by Elder Enrique R. Falabella of the Seventy:

The Church of Jesus Christ is a church of priests, “a royal priesthood, an holy nation” (1 Peter 2:9).

The restored Church gives to each home a priesthood holder with the power of God to bless. How many times I have been able to hear the soft, sweet voice of a little child at home say, “Daddy, could you give me a blessing?” and put my hands upon his or her head in moments of pain and difficulty and pronounce blessings of comfort and healing and see the power of the priesthood exercise its influence and the next day hear that little voice say, “Thanks, Daddy, I slept just fine last night.” We don’t need to go out looking for someone having that power—it is among us! What a blessing to be able to teach this principle to our children! This is the only church upon the earth which offers such a blessing to families.

On fairness:

Well, I am here to advocate for unfairness. I’ve got a 10-year-old at home. She’s always saying, “That’s not fair.” When she says this, I say, “Honey, you’re cute. That’s not fair. Your family is pretty well off. That’s not fair. You were born in America. That’s not fair. Darling, you had better pray to God that things don’t start getting fair for you.” What we need is more income, even if it means a bigger income disparity gap.

On idealism:

Don’t chain yourself to a redwood tree. Instead, be a corporate lawyer and make $500,000 a year. No matter how much you cheat the IRS, you’ll still end up paying $100,000 in property, sales and excise taxes. That’s $100,000 to schools, sewers, roads, firefighters and police. You’ll be doing good for society. Does chaining yourself to a redwood tree do society $100,000 worth of good? Idealists are also bullies. The idealist says, “I care more about the redwood trees than you do. I care so much I can’t eat. I can’t sleep. It broke up my marriage. And because I care more than you do, I’m a better person. And because I’m the better person, I have the right to boss you around.”

What it really comes down to is this: go out and do something, make something, create value. That’s where real power and influence come from. If you want the people with power and influence to be aligned with the values you support, then make yourself one of those people.

For Easter we had a lot of fun decorating and hiding/finding eggs, as usual…

I made the mistake at one point of tossing one of Mark’s eggs into his basket. He immediately decided that throwing the eggs looked like much more fun than picking them up.

This past week we started the spring soccer season, with Caleb, Trent and Alec all playing again. Kim and I are team-coaching Alec’s team, which should be fun. We didn’t really account for Mark in planning how to run practices, however, so that will be an interesting challenge as always.

More photos from the last few months here: