So I am sitting here working at a job that had been good to me over the last 2.5 years. Nonetheless, it is a job that will be over in about 3 weeks as our parent company has decided to shut down the doors. So I am working with one half of me and trying like heck to network with the other half. In doing so, I have come to the conclusion that we spend way too much time wishing our days away. Simply look at the update posts on Facebook. It seems everyone is on some sort of countdown. Some are counting down to vacation and others are simply working for the weekend. I must admit that I have done that myself, but my current situation along with the gray in my hair has slowly made me realize that every day is a blessing that is not to be taken lightly.
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So the President is going to be on television again tonight. He has been doing a lot of that lately, but it seems that up until now they have been designed to convince us of a need for action. I think President Obama would be well served in this instance to do away with the inspirational speeches and instead shoot the American people straight. What started as a limited (and yet substantial) intervention to save our economy, has quickly turned into a seemingly never-ending permission slip for government intervention in the private sector. We have Congress passing bills and then passing blame on those who seek to implement the points in the legislation. We have Congress seeking to break contractual agreements and saying that such action is vital for the protection of the American tax-payer. We have Congress seeking extended power to seize companies outside of the financial sector in order to protect and sustain the already fragile economy…and yet who plans to balance the power of such a body that was never intended to take such action?
I think the American People can handle the truth. We can handle the fact that we are in a depression and we can handle the fact that we are going to have to sacrifice and deal with hardships and failure in order to eventually recover. What we cannot handle is a government continuing to artificially inflate a bubble that is going to burst if not today…sometime in the future.
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Built in 1970, the Space Needle rises 407 feet and overlooks the town of Gatlinburg, TN.
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It's been 2 years since Belize so well all decided to head for the hills this weekend. Updates to come…
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“You cannot legislate the poor into freedom by legislating the wealthy out of freedom. What one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving. The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else. When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for, that my dear friend, is about the end of any nation. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it.”
~Dr. Adrian Rogers (1931-2005)
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On November 12, 1919, President Woodrow Wilson proclaimed an Armistice Day to remember the ending of hostilities in World War I. In 1938, an act was passed that made November 11th a legal holiday to be dedicated to the cause of World Peace. In 1954, under the Eisenhower administration, Armistice Day was renamed Veterans Day so that it might be a celebration of all veterans of America’s wars both at home and abroad.
As a young boy growing up in East Tennessee, Veterans Day and many others were used as an opportunity to educate me on my family’s history of service for our nation. When I was old enough, my Father explained to me that my Grandfather’s two older brothers had served in World War II. Horace Stephens (the man my Father is named after) was in the heavy artillery. As part of Operation Overlord on the early morning of June 6, 1944, the ship carrying Horace and his fellow soldiers to the beaches of Normandy struck a mine and sunk in the English Channel.
Some hours early, Horace’s brother Charles “Greene” Stephens was being dropped behind enemy lines as a Pathfinder for the 101st Airborne Division. His job was to mark the drop zones for the incoming American and British Paratrooper/Glider forces. Uncle Greene survived D-Day, but became a POW during operation Market Garden. He eventually escaped captivity and survived the war.
Growing up, I savored every moment that I had to talk to my Uncle Greene about his time in Europe. He would tell me about towns and villages and the people he had met along the way. He would speak a word or two in French to show me that they just taught the soldiers enough to get by, and he would laugh when he talked about his buddies. I now know, however, that there were a great many things that he was never able to tell me, and while I wish I knew his full story, I understand why there are some stories that must go untold.
War is Hell, and the men and women who sacrifice for this country so that we might live in freedom deserve the very highest respect from all of us. As we grow as a nation, I pray to God that we do not lose sight of the sacrifice of our veterans and those generations past who were willing to give up so much so that we might be able to live the way we do.
They set the bar very high, and it is up to us to make sure that we do not let them down.
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