Wandering Minds

So my mind has been wandering again as late.  The media is flooding us with stories of healtcare and who's doing this and who's not doing this.  What can be done, what should be done.  But there are a couple of things that have stood out.  No matter what the outcome, who's going to pay for it?  I understand now that an idea is out there to put a tax on Tax on Sugar of all things.  Here's what bothers me.  The nanny state, no I'm sorry the government, has it in their mind that they know whats best for us.  And if we don't agree with it well, Tough titty said the lion to the kitty.

Obama stressed in his campaign that he would NOT raise taxes on the middle class.  Well he's partially correct, he didnt do it outright, but under the guise of 'we know better than you do'.  And heres where congress ended up taxing the PISS out of average people. First off, let me preface this by saying that I don't smoke, I don't drink but I probably still drink too much coffee..  But in January congresse passed a Cigar Tax that put a tax on each and every cigar sold.  Okay at the outset this sounds like another jab at those Rush Limbaugh types.  But think about it. .Who smokes those Swisher Sweets, Hav-a-Tampa Jewels, etc.. You got it, middle to lower class individuals.  So we've added a 53% tax to these 'mass made cigars' and a $1 a cigar tax to the hand made, cigars.  If you consider the cost of many of these handmade cigars, the $1 a cigar tax is a pittance at $5 (20% tax) to upwards of $50 a cigar (2% tax) compared to the 53% tax on a $5 box of Swisher Sweets ($2.65).  So isn't this a middle/lower class tax increase?  Oh wait.. never mind, the tax is supposed to fund.. just what?  A Children's Health Insurance Program?  It's not funding my kids' insurance, is it funding yours?  Lets just ignore the fact that that Tampa Florida just lost a major industry because Hav-A-Tampa had to shut it's doors and moved to Puerto Rico.  I'm not condoning smoking, my dad smoked all my life.  I tried it, and I didn't like it so I stopped.  But like anything else, people make choices and decisions all their lives and they have to live with those choices.

So lets get back to the sugar issue.  The thought thats out there is that if we increase the cost of 'sugar' or sugary soda's obese people will get healthy or skinny.  What a wonderfully Orwellian concept.  While your at it make sure you are practicing Right Think so you will live a healthy and happy life too! as Earl Pitt's says.. Wake Up Umerkah!  Lower income neigherboods have some of the highest obesity rates in the country!  Why, it's not completely the sugar's fault.. It's not the child's fault if the child is obese.  Parents are very culpable for the causes and risk factors when it comes to obesity.  I'm by NO MEANS a skinny man, I never have been and I never will be,  I'm 6'6" 280lbs, but I'm not fat, I could use to be in better shape, but who couldn't? Like many kids my age we grew up on the cusp of what our kids today consider average technology.  But most of MY childhood was spent outdoors.  I did have a Coleco Vision and can remember playing it to the wee hours of the morning on the weekends.  But only after we came in for the night.  I think too many parents today may have (of no fault of their own) been brought up in front of the television and that was their babysitter, and that's what they know.

I dont know about you, but I was never issued an all encompassing instruction manual on parenting when mine were born.  Can someone forward it to me if I missed that day of class?  Instead, I know how my mom and dad were with me.  We didn't have a lot, my dad had prostate cancer from the time I was five or six, so we did as well as we could.  Dad worked hard, and so did Mom.  I still to this day remember going with mom to Matthew's Furniture while she was working and watched Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band Band (the Bee Gee's Version) on Laser Disc in the early/mid 80's. But again, I'm getting side tracked.  What I'm trying to say is that before my kids can even think about getting on our computer or watch a movie, they HAVE to play outside for at least an hour or more.  And they are active they play hard, I am amazed sometimes watching them eat, considering there are times when they eat twice what I do, but in a healthy way.  The do not get soda except on rare occasions when we go out to eat or maybe if they are spending the day with me running errands on the weekends, and then only Sprite or clear sodas.

I think if we can just get back to basics, understand family values and know where our place is in this Government and what their place is, we will not only survive.  But be magnificent.   We have SO much potential in this country that is wasted.  How hard is it to play 'Guitar Hero'?  Okay, well How hard is is to ride a bike?  How many of you parents have kids that have 'Guitar Hero'?  How many of those parents can say that their kids have their own bicycle that has been used in the last week, month, year?  I work on computers 8-10 hours a day, I write software that makes things do what salesmen and users ask it to do.  But, come Saturday and Sunday daytime, I do my damnedest to unplug.  I had a PS3, I had an Xbox, but I sold them.  I felt like I was being drawn into an endless cycle, work/home always plugged in and and never really taking time to enjoy life.   I dont need the government to tell me how I'm supposed to live my life, that's for me to decide.  I dont work for congress or the President, when I was in the navy, never once did I pledge an oath to the senate, or the judiciary. Yes, my oath stated that I would obey the orders of the President and those Officers appointed over me, but always the Constitution first.

We didn't go into the military to get rich, some of us needed to discover ourselves, some wanted a way to pay of for college.  We chose to defend a piece of paper, and that's what it amounts to really.  The most heartfelt and inspired document that the world has ever known.  And this document has been the basis for many many countries when they decided to free themselves of tyranny in one form or another and embrace freedoms and liberty.  Some chose a democratic government, some a true republic and a few like us that chose the best of both worlds, knowing that true democracy is chaos or the 'mob mentality' and a true republic is nothing more than Lord's and Ladies, we chose a democratic republic. One were We the People had say in who represented us and our needs.  But somewhere along the way we forgot that We the People are in charge.  Not those we elect, they are figure heads and mouth-pieces for us.  It is our vote that gives THEM power.  It is our LACK of participation that gives our opposing viewpoints credence.  Somehow over the years silence has become implied consent.  But recently, more often than not if you have an opposing view, all of a sudden your racist or a bigot. So let me let the current administration's Secretary of State say it best (and I cant believe that I am agreeing with Hillary about anything at this point, but here it is).






Believe what you may, Say what you mean.  But always remember this.  If a day goes by where you didnt learn at least one thing new about anything, you wasted your day and should have probably just stayed in bed all day.

Personal Responsibility

Growing up my parents made a point to allow me to make my own choices. For good of for bad and deal with the results (both good and bad) of those decisions. They did a good job teaching me right from wrong and exposed me to many schools of thought. I was introduced to music and theater of all flavors, from jazz to opera, Mozart to Mendelssohn; I even introduced my dad to a few things. And let me tell you the strangest day of my life was coming home finding my dad listening to my Metallica CD (Black Album to be exact) and comparing it to some of his music on Reel to Reel (but that is another story for another time). I've been to and performed in theatrical plays, I've seen the Nutcracker hundreds of times, and I've been to the Opera at least a dozen times in my lifetime. And all through this, and the ventures through the different churches trying to find the one that ‘fit’, I learned one thing that has stuck; Personal Responsibility. Not in all things I’m afraid, but in those that matter for the overall scheme of things.



Like many young men that lose their father and brother in short order, unexpectedly or not, I made some choices that were definitely not in my best interests. But my family never gave up on me and I learned that family is the core of it all. I’m sure I’ve upset every member of my family and they may have wanted to kick me to the curb on one occasion or another. But they didn’t. I joined the US Navy to discover who I was and find the man that my dad knew was there. I joined the Navy so that I wouldn’t become what some people (family and friends alike) were afraid that I would. The Navy gave me something a young man born in the desert would never have had otherwise, a chance to see the world, do something that mattered and learn how to be a better man than the one that entered boot camp in Illinois, that cold day in October.



So fast forward to my last year in the Navy, we’re steaming through the Persian Gulf and we see the images of two planes crash into the towers and another into the Pentagon. This is an especially somber moment because a young Petty Officer named Nehamon Lyons, a man I considered to be a good friend, had just transferred to the Pentagon in the weeks prior to this day. Petty Officer Lyons lost his life that day. The crew of the Gettysburg was a close group, everybody knew each other and I know of nobody that day that didn’t shed a tear.



So we get back from probably the most stressful deployment I’ve ever been on. I bought a Harley and used it as my only means of transportation. Rain, sun, fog, it didn’t matter I rode in it. I probably put 20k miles on the bike the first year alone. Then while working harbor patrol late one January night on a Rigid Hull Inflatable Boat (RHIB) I had an accident that pretty much put me out of commission and caused me to make the decision to go ahead and leave the service. I spent last few month in and out of the hospitals and attempts at rehab. I never gave up though. I never allowed self-pity to rule my thoughts. I just went on.



I met a young woman and we became serious, I ended up marrying her and we had two wonderful children together. But for reasons beyond the scope of this entry, we divorced and I am now a proud single father to a wonderful daughter (Lena, 6) and an awesome son (Eddie, 5). Sure, I could have done what thousands of men do with their children when they divorce and walk away and let my ex-wife raise them and just send in a check each month. But that’s not what they needed. Much of the problems the country faces today are the lack of the father figure in single parent families. My children will be given the same opportunities to learn right from wrong. My children will learn for themselves different viewpoints. My children will be taught what I believe and what I believe in, and what I was taught as a young child. They will be shown how to be charitable to their fellow man as I was. They will be show how to donate their time for causes that are important to them and others. But they will have the ultimate responsibility to take the enormous influences that surround them, good-bad, right-left, you name it and to become the man and woman they are destined to be. They are personally responsible to themselves to take the knowledge they learn in school and at home and use it in such a manner to further their own lives.

If you have children, especially you men out there, you have a moral obligation to your children to do better for them then your father did for you. If your father was absent, then you need to be present. If your father was your hero, then you need to be your child’s hero. If your father was a drunk, you need to be sober. What you do with your children shapes who they are. My son knows that men never touch women in anger. No matter what his sister does to him, no matter how mad he gets he knows that men just don’t hurt women. It’s the little things that shape the man he will be. My daughter knows that what she does she is responsible for. Just the other day she put a bad scratch on the side of my door. But she took responsibility for it and didn’t try to hide it from me. So that tells me that so far, the lessons I’ve learned through my parents have transferred to my children. Teaching those lessons was my personal responsibility being a parent. Now it’s up to them to use those lessons in their own journey. No, my duties are not over, and will never be over when it comes to them in one way or another.



There was a time when I was between jobs and drew unemployment for a short period. I could have very easily gone to the government and asked for Food Stamps, Financial Assistance or welfare and lived off of that while raising these kids. But when I didn’t have the skills necessary to make the kind of money I needed to support my kids, I made the ultimate choice to get the skills. Yes, I sacrificed many hours of work at a low paying job and even more hours in the evening at school. But I did it and, for the most part, I do what I enjoy doing and can support my children without government assistance. Making that sacrifice was not done for me, it was my personal responsibility to my children to become a better father by making the hard choices and doing the work.



Being a Disabled Veteran, I am eligible for the VA health care system which I use on occasion for my knees and back. But I also maintain private health care insurance for myself and children. The VA health care system is okay overall but very overloaded. It takes at least 6 weeks to get an appointment for something as simple as an exam. I choose to only use the VA system when my back is really aggravating. There are thousands of other heroes out there that are in much worse shape than I am that need the limited resources the VA has. And since I am capable, I use my private insurance to handle the vast majority of my health care needs. And despite what some people think, even with my Service Connected status, the VA still charges my private insurance.



So, just what is it I’m trying to say? Everyone out there has a personal responsibity to themselves and their children to do better. Ultimately, you are responsible for caring for your family. It’s up to me to provide shelter, food, care and the love that comes naturally to my children. Part of that care is emotional, physical and of course their health. So if that means that I have to forego some luxuries in life and pay a percentage of my income to the insurance companies for health care, so be it. So it means I don’t have cable television. So it means I don’t have a fancy cell phone with a plan. I don’t need it. I don’t use it enough to justify. If I spend more than $30 in a month on my cell phone I’ve had a busy month. I cannot justify $100 a month for an iPhone. I drive a 1999 Cadillac Escalade, not because it’s a Cadillac, not because it’s an SUV. I drive it because it’s comfortable for me. I had a 2008 Ford Fusion, great on gas, but terrible on my back. I’m 6’6” tall, 270+ lbs a man of my size cannot fit in these little eco-vehicles. I’ll sacrifice a little gas mileage for my health and comfort. Plus my Cadillac is paid off. I have no car payment.



It’s not easy to make it, life is not easy. I don’t ask for assistance because it’s not the government’s role to provide for me. The government’s sole role is to keep the people safe from harm from other governments and entities. Since the Supreme Court ruled in 2005 that the police do not have a constitutional duty to protect a person from harm, I have both a South Carolina and Florida concealed weapons permit and when not at work you will be hard pressed to find a day that it’s not within reach, no matter where I am. I pray to God that I will never be put in a situation where I need to use it. But, with the economy the way it is there are frequently more and more attacks no matter where you live. America is land of opportunities.



Everyone, no matter your race, creed or color has the opportunity to become anything they choose. Some choose to become doctors, lawyers or politicians. Many choose to give of themselves by working in charitable organizations, the military or law enforcement. But some have found that if they ask loud enough, the government will give and give. There are women of all races that have figured out that if they remain unmarried and continue to have children, the government will continue to give her a check and food and in some cases housing for as long as she has the children in the home. There is no incentive to get away from this kind of help, and in fact this help does more harm than good in the overall picture because it teaches those children the same philosophy. ‘I don’t have to work hard and better myself… the government will take care of me’. But then again for many people in government this is exactly what they want, 'Cradle to Grave' "Care" from the government.



I have chosen not to suck off of the government teat and be a drain on society. But I have chosen to be productive and want to succeed and be the best that I can and teach that idea to MY children. To become the best, overcome whatever obstacle is in the way and no matter how many times they fall, to get back up again and try again. It is not up to the masses to mandate how I succeed; it is not up to the masses to mandate how I fail. It is not up to the masses to mandate what eat, drink, sleep and buy. And it is not up to the masses to mandate I participate in an already failed system. The masses have no influence on the decisions I make. The only ones that matter in my decisions are my children and I.





There are many programs out there that the government runs that need reform and

yes, I agree that healthcare needs reform. But, before you can mandate reform and create a huge bureaucracy on top of an already bloated one, fix what we already have. Fix the social security system that I’ve been paying into since I was 15 years old that I will probably never be able to draw a dime out of. Fix the Medicare/Medicaid system that is woefully over budget. Fix and streamline the VA health care system. Fix a tax system that punishes those that succeed. What kind of world do we live in where if you are smart, intelligent and knowledgeable enough to do work that compensates you well, you get taxed into oblivion? Where is the incentive then to succeed? Why would the millions of recipients of welfare and government assistance try to get off of the system when they know so long as they go with the status quo they will get paid to be lazy? Only once the programs that our government uses to keep our poorest citizens in poverty and dependant on the government are reformed and the recipients have a reason to try and succeed will they free themselves from their unfortunate situations.

When immigration is truly reformed and the massive amounts of identity theft by illegal aliens is curbed , Only then you can address the medical costs that are massively inflated because of the millions of undocumented aliens that pull resources out of the system without putting anything into it among the millions of dollars in waste. There are plenty of things that need reform in this country; from entitlement programs to government waste, fraud and abuse. These items all need to be addressed. And then once everything else is handled….



Only then should the country address health care reform.

Regulations and Responsibilities

So I've been sitting back thinking about all of the regulations that have been passed in my lifetime. Kids these days are supposed to wear a helmet if they ride a bicycle. Kids are supposed to ride in a booster seat until they are 4'9" or they turn six years old, or they weigh more than 60 lbs, or their feet can touch the floor of the vehicle with their knees bent and the back against the seat. It's enough to make your head spin. Heck, I know grown women that under those regulations should probably be in a booster seat because they are less than 4'9". Don't forget now, we cannot 'spank' our children anymore because it's cruel, and putting them in the corner is demeaning to their psyche. I've heard of parents that have had their children removed from their home because there was laundry on the floor of the living room, Lets just not mention that it was laundry day and the laundry was being sorted to go in the washer. But it obviously bothered some acquaintance or passer by enough to inform child services and an investigation ensued.

Maybe if you take it to an extreme you could make the case that because of the inherent danger in compacts and sub-compact cars, parents could be guilty of child neglect and child endangerment for putting their kids in one of those vehicles. I know you wont catch my kids in a Smart Car, heck after eyeballing it you could put a Smart Car in the rear of my Escalade and STILL have room for luggage.. You wont catch my family in a Mini Cooper, I will not drive what I consider the ugliest car ever made (Nissan Cube) and I like Nissan's. I will drive what I find comfortable and what I enjoy and if it costs me a little more to drive it because of poorer gas economy, so be it. At least I know my children will be safe and I will have a better chance of surviving an accident if I was unfortunate enough to be in one.

But I digress. I look back at my upbringing and in the times I grew up. I can remember walking home from school when i was in Kindergarten. (I remember this explicitly because my best friends at the time, Mark & Jeff were with me when we found a cat that became mine after Mark's dad told him he couldn't have her) . I can remember being out well past dark on the weekends as a young boy. But my friends and I never got into any trouble. It never crossed our minds. We were too busy having fun and going on adventures, exploring the Gallup New Mexico in the late 70's and early 80's. Our moms and dads didnt worry about us. We didnt have a cell phone (they werent even invented yet), but they raised us to be responsible and we didnt want to disappoint them and lose those freedoms. Our parents didnt have to regulate our lives into a mindless routine. Our parents understood that in order for us to learn, we HAD to explore. Today's world is a little different I'm afraid. For Halloween, parents used to get together with their kids and make goodies for the neighborhood kids for their bags such as homemade popcorn balls or fake chocolate covered ants (really just rice crispies) and give those out to the trick or treaters, Every home did things just a little bit different. Today, you just cant do that, people are too afraid that you're going to poison someone, and believe me there's someone out there just waiting to sue you because one of those Rice Crispies in the Mississippi mud candies looked suspiciously like a real ant.

Today we worry about whether or not our neighbor is a pedophile (registered or not). Some parts of our great land are in a debate now as whether we are going to honor an admitted pedophile with his own day. My opinion of that is that he's already had his 15 minutes of fame and had a movie where he was played by Mr. Jeff Spicoli himself. We are too busy worrying about what everyone else is doing and less about what we are doing as an individual. Our children are taught about the collective and our leaders and there wives are busy telling us it's about the collective and what we can do for our neighbor and how it takes a village to raise a child. I'd like to disagree; It takes two people to raise a child and on rare occasions, one can do it. Lord knows I wouldnt want the village of Drunk Town USA raising my child.

I'd like to propose a different way of looking at our society. If instead of teaching our children collectivism, if we taught them teamwork and (I'll use my favorite term...) personal responsibility they will be successful. And when one individual succeeds, another is inspired to do as well if not better than the previous and so on. But one person can drag a team down. If one person on that team fails to perform, or works for the opposition then the team suffers. Look at the pro golf tour, we celebrate Tiger Woods as a phenomenal player. Not because he's white, or black, or brown. We celebrate and applaud Tiger because he's a hell of a player that has inspired thousands of young men and women to try and do better.

I'd like to address a little hypocrisy. I find it disturbing that we live in a society that places a professional athlete or media/radio personality on a higher pedestal than others. I find it interesting that we believe that it's okay for Tiger Woods to have an estimated net worth of almost $750 million dollars and has made billions of dollars for Nike and his other sponsors.. It's okay for Michael Jordan to be work $525 million dollars and made billions for his sponsors. It's okay for Bill Cosby to be work $450 million dollars. Oprah Winfrey is worth $2.4 billion, and Rush Limbaugh is worth at least $400 million (if you go by his latest contract alone). But if we have an executive that has worked his tail off from the ground floor, received and education and succeeded in business and made billions or millions of dollars for his employers (be it his direct employers or his/her stock holders) and we want to strip this individual who worked hard to get were they are of what they have. It's not about 'doing whats right' it's about those that have and those that have not. In a collective there is only one class of citizen and the successful provide for those that are not. But our country is not a collective (not yet at least).

We've been told that we must feed the poor, save the children, save the mysterious mouse that lives in some obscure field. We've been told to change the gas our cars run on, limit the amount of gasses that exit our vehicles. We've been told that trans-fats are bad, Omega-3 fatty acids are good. We've been told that ozone is bad, ozone is good, our ozone layer is disappearing, we have too much ozone. We've been told that our plants are dying because of too much ozone and not enough carbon dioxide. We've been told that carbon dioxide is bad for us and causes global warming, but as children we were taught that when the planet has more carbon dioxide our plants grow better and make more oxygen.

We've been told a lot of things in our life. But whats stuck with me is this:

Listen to what you are told. Believe what you may, verify what you must. And decide for yourself what course you want to take in your life. Take the responsibility upon your own shoulders. If you choose to be a leader, then lead. If you choose to express yourself, express yourself. Moderation does not just apply to alcohol. Sometimes when you moderate your own mouth and let your brain process a thought before blurting it out is the key. It sure helps to prevent a sad case of cranial rectal inversion. Don't think that I want you to believe what I say with blinders on. If you're reading this you obviously made a choice to continue to this point. I'm not a writer, I did poorly at best at English in school. But what I have is what I believe to be a connection with many people and few at the same time. More than likely you don't know me, or know of me. But I'd like to believe that i can touch at least one or more of you with a though that spawns another.

People, we are too happy to allow too many decisions to be made for us. Not by those that care. Not by those that even know our circumstances. But people who assume that because you live in a certain area you have certain needs. Some of us choose to live below our means. Some of us choose to live above our means. Everyone has their reason. Some better than others. But mine is as simple as this.

Every decision I've made over the past six years has been considering first one, then another child and how I can make their lives better NEXT year. I pray to God that one day I can be independant and be my own boss. But until we get out of a mode that punishes and taxes success and encourages sloth and fraud, we will never again be the Nation that my daddy was so proud of and his daddy was so proud of. I had a glimpse of it once, we had a shining star in the 1980's that brought and end to a cold war. But now, dont be fooled, Our country is much like a patient. Our country is having an identity crisis. And no matter what if ONE side or the other wins, we all are going to lose something.