Democrat's Crap and Trade is a Symptom, not a Solution

 Governor Inslee, Washington State Democrats and climate alarmists at large have successfully thwarted the will of Washingtonians yet again by implementing their carbon $$$ fleecing system since last February (2023).  Much like the mythical $30 dollar car tabs we instructed our public employees to implement which state Democrats quickly nixed, the recently implemented carbon taxing scheme Democrats was also placed before Washington state voters and firmly rejected.  Yet here we are.

This pattern of self serving legislation state Democrats are on is clearly detrimental to the folks they claim to serve leaving we the people left wondering "Why is this happening?"  I've always said if the given justification doesn't fit the excuse given, look around and see what does fit.  The climate change movement, at least from the political standpoint and their stated reasons for their Draconian energy tyranny simply makes no good sense.  Additionally in today's insane political arena, asking politicians to fix ANYTHING permanently has been shown to be an impossibility, and thus making them the least acceptable candidates to take something like this on even it if were a reality.

In my observation, the idea that best fits the far left's behavior has more to do with control, than saving our planet.  Control of resources, control of people, and control of economy.  Because in the end, the carbon trade scheme and taxation, the push to force people to drive heavily subsidized electric vehicles, coupled with the complete lack of, and investment in necessary infrastructures to support such pronouncements demonstrates a lack of planning even American politics wouldn't overlook.

Lately as if it were the icing on the cake of absurdity, Governor Inslee is making noises he and his ilk are planning on price controls for petroleum.  The high costs Democrats have created don't stop with just fuel in this state, so will they be controlling every aspect of the marketplace?  Or will they be enacting even more Draconian economic shackles on society by after first making the mess, will they then continue  creating an even worse problem by thinking they can control the costs of living by forcing their hand on the markets and merchants?

This runaway autonomy Democrats seem to have promises to end badly.  History tells us when culturally, when the poo hits the fan, the elite's don't suffer with their subjects.  Right now is a pivotal moment between tyranny, and American freedom as usual. If Democrats can continue to evade the crystal clear directive our Constitution dictates, soon they will pack the seats of the Supreme Court of the United States as they have at the state level, and our demise will be seal for a time so long as it takes for a revolution to get fed up people free from this real-time act of treason Democrats have embarked on.

An answer to the Rockefeller scenaro...

 

This is purely my imagination:

What if a particular political movement wanted to overtake and over throw a very strong country, but couldn’t using conventional processes? What if they tried for years to convince enough of the populace that the political party they had overrun was more favorable than to the other that more closely followed the traditional beliefs that the country was founded upon?

Imagine if after an 8 year run of one of their implanted political leaders, somehow, the people of the country voted so overwhelmingly they could not stop them from electing a reform leader to reverse the damage their plant did during the 8 years? Then they mounted a very deeply implanted internal plan to frame the new President of being a Russian operative, and claim that the same Russians had “hacked“ the elections of 2016 to get him into office. That too failed and they were found out early on the “Steele Dossier” was pure fiction from a foreign political agent paid by Democrat's seeking to stain the President-Elect.

Next they planned an attempt to frame the president as having dealt wrongly with the Ukrainian government from a phone call that actually had the intent of asking for help finding out the source of some of the plan to frame him as a Russian spy. Democrats went through an entire proceeding of impeachment, and failed to get their plan to gel again.

Dejected, they enlisted the Chinese government, as they knew the Chinese wanted world domination, and sought to have the them release a virus on the world that had been engineered in a lab complete with antidote that would later be released as a vaccine. Democrats hatched a plan to use their state and local operatives to destroy the economy by hampering commerce at all levels until people began to languish financially. And in that way, they believed they would be more likely to lead them by the noses with a few government checks and they could then re-install one of their own in the White House again.

The Democrats own the media , but knew the will of the American people was strong, so even though the corporate media fed the public lying polls, and ignored the scandalous behavior from their candidate, they needed to make sure the reform President wasn’t re-elected. They again called on the Chinese and a long time enemy of the USA and Western society, named George Soros.

The Democrats had used software to manipulate elections on a local scale for years but knew they couldn’t pull it off in a close national election, but this was different, they HAD to win at all costs. So they had the companies controlled by globalists and manufactured by the Chinese, set algorithms in the counting routines that would not let the odds get into the Republican candidate’s favor.

On election night they found the vote was again to overwhelming for Donald Trump. Something had to be done. Their last-ditch option had to be executed. They had to stop the counting, and insert numbers that would ensure the appearance of a Biden victory. Yes it would be obvious, but they have the press in their pocket and American’s have a very short span of attention, especially when they hurting financially.

They executed their plan to steal the election in broad daylight, or night light, that is, but again they were caught. All they had left was to use cover of the corporate press, and the liberal social media censoring any talk of the overwhelming evidence until they could gain power long enough to pack the supreme court with leftist activists as they knew they could then rule with an iron fist…

More of my scenario to come....

Analyzing America: How did we wind up this way?

In my quest to discern the causation of the relatively recent decline in American unity, and the ruthless division between the citizenry that now identifies each American by political belief, rather than being a fellow comrade of the same country, I believe I am much closer to a definitive answer.

As a Believer in our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, I have read, and been brought up steeped in the Word's of our Creator from the Bible.  I find the Holy Bible to be the most concise work on Earth  describing human behavior, and providing the cure for it's ills, along with instructions how to live it to the fullest as we prepare for the afterlife with The Almighty.  It is there I have found what I believe is the explanation why we are headed south as a country.

In a word, Godlessness.  Allow me to explain.

Try as some may to refute, or revise the notion, we are a Godly nation, or at least have the roots of being one.  The evidences are too overwhelming, and undeniable to those that know, and understand history.  The further we travel back in time historically, the more we find how adherent the populace was to Godly morality, and ethical behavior.

There are many examples, but for the sake of blog size and reader attention, I will stick to one example to bolster my case...

God's Word is replete with commands, and instructions how to live a life pleasing to God.  The ten commandments begin with a statement, and two commands that we are to worship God, and Him alone.  The same list of commands end with the last three commanding us not to "covet".

The beginning and ending of the commandments illustrate how Godly living should start, and the results of a non Godly lifestyle ends, and not to wind up that way.  Covetousness is the result of self worship, or selfishness, being self centered, or putting self ahead of anything else.  You get the picture.  God knows, left to our own means we are creatures of vain glory, or lovers of self.  God began His commandments to the Israelites by stating up front He Was God, and Him only, beside Him, there was no other.  Then He commands us not to have or worship any idols, or graven images.

If we choose to not acknowledge God as number one in our lives we are effectively putting our will above His, and in many cases make us, or our wishes our "idol".  When our every wish becomes our only focus, we seek to do our own bidding always which leads ultimately to greed, or covetousness.  We may protest and say we seek to help others regularly, but as unGodly people, we do so primarily under our terms, at our convenience, and most times to make us feel better about ourselves.

Having said all that, I believe the same quandary belongs to modern day America.  As we as a nation decide to remove God from our governing institutions, and turn our faces from Him as a people, we begin to worship self, and become covetous.  No more glaring example can be seen than by observing the Marxist, or socialist propaganda that seeks to pit American, against American, and begins by separating people into classes of wealth, except (of course) those in government, apparently they get immunity, as they are the arbiters of said collectivism.

Socialism/Communism has always carried the stigma of active anti-God sympathies.  The ideology replaces the wisdom of God, with man's wisdom, and worships it supreme, and ridicules things of God, and His followers.

I know this must sound condescending and smug, but my intention is nothing of the sort, I am simply outlining the human condition, and it left to it's own resources apart from the Almighty.  Believe me when I say, I too am afflicted with the battles of the flesh, the only difference being as a Believer, I am not a slave to them, and more importantly in God's Eyes, I am sanctified, and forgiven, not by my own doing, but by Faith in Christ Jesus.

But I digress, the self centeredness of a life absent of Godly living, and a belief in God produces exactly what I think would describe the problem in our culture today.  Selfishness will not tolerate opinions of others, and believes it's own views are the only relevant beliefs.  Coveting other's wealth, lifestyle, and societal position are symptoms as well.

The blurred lines between the sexes and sexual partnership are a result of open rebellion toward God, the Apostle Paul wrote extensively to the church at Rome in the 1st chapter of the perils of rejecting God, and the resulting sexual deviancy that His "turning them over to their sinful desires" resulted in.

The sexual revolution of the 1960's, and the homosexual revolution of the 1980's, and 90's were precursors to the trans-sexual revolution of the early 21st century, with the acceptance of pedophilia not far behind further prove  Paul's point that rejecting God brings a seared conscious, and a reprobate mind is demonstrated in the sexual deviancy that is so pervasive in our land today.

We Americans have perfected the art of dodging self responsibility while solidifying the ability to carry out sin with no societal impunity.  Sigmund Freud popularized the notion that our bad behavior, and the results we reap are not our fault, but were our parents fault.  Others have built on the idea by including things like alcoholism, obesity, and homosexuality as being a disease, or a matter of genetics.

The Bible is clear the roots sin (disobedience to God) always come from within man, not of external forces. (Mark 7:21-23)  So again, like a book we humans can be read easily by our actions with, or without allegiance to God.

The Godly life marked by selfless attitudes due to a Christ-centered lifestyle, and the Godless life, replacing God Almighty with self as god of our lives, and the resulting selfishness, and anger when we don't get our way.

The answer to return our fair land to it's original healthy state is to turn our face as a nation to God, and return to following our Constitution that was so brilliantly set up to keep our land free, and guarantee us never being subject to tyrannical powers so long as we follow it's laws.

Tell me again why we need more government?

Have you ever considered in Grays harbor County, and more specifically, in the Elma area, the homeowner pays about $13.73 per thousand dollars of their home and all properties value to the state and local government?  Which means if you own a home worth $275,000 dollars, you pay $3,432.50 dollars to the county annually.  Over the course of living at your home for say 20 years that totals $68,650 dollars, which is more than likely more money than your initial investment in the property alone.  The property tax cost per month for a $250,000 dollar home or real estate in Elma is $286 dollars and some change. 

*** On a side note my first home mortgage payment was $300.00 dollars a month.

Also, in Elma we the consumer pay nearly 10% of our money spent on goods and services (8.8%).  That equals out to... let’s say, the average household spends $14,000 dollars on miscellaneous sales taxable stuff per year, we would be paying about another $1200 dollars a year to state and local government.

In our state of Washington, the state and federal government levy a tax of about $.63 cents a gallon of fuel we use in our autos.  IDK what the average Elmanite travels per year, but the feds say the average person racks up about 16,550 miles a year on their rigs, so for a family of 2 my guess is somewhere around 20k miles per household give or take.  So at an average of 20 MPG, that roughs out to 1000 gallons per year which would have us paying $630 dollars per year, per household, on average to the state and feds just to drive on the roads, barring any tolls, or special projects where they add more to our licence tabs and so forth.

Then there are income taxes, the average marginal income tax range is loosely 21.5% in the USA, which I know drastically differs between the levels of income.  For an interesting, and enlightening read go here:
https://taxfoundation.org/how-much-do-people-pay-taxes/

At any rate  if a household of two working members $100K per year with an adjusted gross income of say $80K, which might be too low on average, we pay about $17,200 dollars and some change to the federal government per year.

I was just thinking as I start down the path of building a home on my fresh pristine real estate for myself and my bride of 33 years to sail off into the sunset of our lives, how stinking much money it costs to live, and what we have received in return over the years for out tax investments, and the exponentially multiplied taxation costs the next generation has to look forward to as they embark on a life of home owning.

You all can do the math, and it comes up to a staggering amount of our hard earned dough to live simply paying taxes upon taxes, let alone the costs of goods, services, shelter, travel, medical expenses, and a host of other consequential expenses. 

As I ponder the sheer immensity of the portion of our collective incomes we pay and pay to state, local, and federal government, the thought of those that would pee and moan at the idea of a government leader, or political party that seeks to give we the people relief from the crushing weight of the taxation we are burdened with, I simply do not think they are clear as to whom the source of our loss of prosperity is owed.

The evil rich cannot come into our lives and strip as much income from us as our own governments can, and do.  Nor would there be a problem with the wages we are paid if we were not paying close to half of it to government interests either.  I don’t think those that blame evil corporations for wealth inequality realize, the individuals behind those evil corporations pay another 13% more in personal income taxes than we do on average, and the top 1% of income earners pay nearly half the total yearly income taxes collected.   That means, the top 1% that get blamed for all things evil in our land pay more in taxes than the lower 90% combined!  This is by our own government statistics.

***Another side note:  if those nasty rich receive tax relief through loopholes, you can look no further than the same government we pay, and pay for supplying the loopholes by which the evil rich are able to use.

I have recounted all this simply to ask my left leaning friends why in the name of all things sacred, do they think more government, and more government involvement in our lives is the answer to the ills they perceive to be dogging us in these days?  It would seem to me, if anyone cared to take a deeper look at what makes our lives cost more, the root is the cost of taxation, we all pass on to the next guy, an so on, and so on, until it lands in we the consumer’s laps to pick up the tab.

Do me a favor, and give it a think for even the tiniest of moment’s how the natural progression REALLY is, not what the media, or politicians tell you.  Think for yourself, get informed…

Please.  (With sugar on it…)

A Case for Less government Involvement that Helps Us and Them

There are many reasons for smaller government, the ones I want to touch on are all impediments to property owners and government administrators that places unnecessary financial burden, and wasted time constraints on them.

Doing construction on one's own property is one such concern.  I am not saying it should be a free for all, just remove the redundancy.  As it stands, many activities, and construction must be monetized to state and local governments in the form of permissions.  There are many routine projects that need only 1 organization signing off on it, not several.  And not many permissions, just one.

Take for instance, a homeowner, wanting to put an outbuilding next to his home.  Our county has the prospective builder firstly pay for a C.L.E.A.R. permit which stands for comprehensive land use and environmental review.  This encompasses everything from excavation, wetlands, well use, placement of buildings...you name it.  This is a recently new addition to the permission process and boiled down equates to an early alarm for any governmental agencies that may take issue with anything on your property.  That in and of itself is not my primary point of contention.

I can speak from experience, as I recently went through this process.  The CLEAR review in my case invoked the attention to a culvert that dumped onto my property from the land above me, and deposited a flow of water when it rained profusely, The rest of the time...nothing.  Visa vi the CLEAR review, this occasional posit of water became noted as a "type N non-fish bearing stream".  It had no visible bed, or path, as the grass over grows it's passage during the non down-pouring times, nonetheless, the powers that be only understood from the CLEAR document it was indeed a stream.

Now, in order to put a driveway across what I would call a ditch where the occasional flow of water travels, here are the permissions I had to get:

Grays Harbor County -
Perform work in the county right of way permit,  waiver to perform work in a stream bed (ditch), a driveway permit, and address, and another permit for the fire district to ensure the turn around was properly installed.  Additionally, I hired an environmental biologist to the tune of $1000 dollars to ensure the part time ditch stayed that way and some smart character didn't try to argue it was any more than it's classification from behind a desk. Each of these had a significant fee associated with it.  I do not have the individual figures present at the time of this writing, but suffice it to say, each itemized charge will make you roll your eyes at the very least.

Next, the Department of Fish and Wild life - After all the hoopla with the county, I had yet to acquire permission to place a culvert in the ditch under the proposed driveway.  This was the only one permission from them I needed. Yet had I not fit the criteria of "expedited" due in large part to running out of decent weather, and the threat of creating mud in the ditch, I would've had undergone a SEPA review.  SEPA (State Environmental Protection Review) is similar to CLEAR in that it alerts even more agencies to environmental aspects of your project.  I won't go into the details of it, as I escaped it by the skin of my teeth, but that bad boy packs a 30 day wait and much more cost and detail...(YUCH!).

So I made it through all that to the cost of roughly $750 dollars, not including the grand for the environmental biologist.  All this just to put in a driveway culvert, this is not even beginning to cover the actual cost of the driveway, culvert and equipment to do the job.

The part I was troubled with, beside the cost, was the time and redundancy of it all.  These are pretty routine things and shouldn't take the time and monetary resources of taxpayers and government employees.  The time for government employees could be much better spent on the truly difficult to manage projects out there, rather than these basic ones.  Honestly, the difference of my procedure of installing a driveway and culvert differed in no way from my original plan to the installation after all the government involvement.  It wasted my time, and theirs, only they got paid.

Make no mistake, I have the highest respect for State an local government insofar as managing big projects, but I loathe the idea of being fleeced for something I know full well how to do and I know is not damaging the environment by doing so. I expect by experiencing how far behind the state and county agencies were in their response times, they too are sick of chasing the "small fish".

I spoke with two high ranking officials about the redundancy of the process on small projects and the waste of resources and manpower it invokes, one at the state level, and the other from the county.  Surprisingly, they both agreed, and had ideas formed to combat this very thing, unfortunately implementation is quite another story.  The government entities are addicted to money and are quite unwilling to part with the means of getting it even if the means are inefficient.

This, to me is where small procedural changes here and there could drastically improve our economy, and efficiency, as the administrators could focus on actual problematic projects, rather than the minutia that can for the most part take care of itself with little government intervention, and/or oversight.

Keeping Knowledge Over Emotion, or How We Can Save Our Country In One Easy Step

What is intelligence? In Standard English usage ’intelligence’ is understood as "the ability to learn or understand from experience or to respond successfully to new experiences"

 What is emotion or feeling? In standard usage, the term ’emotion’ is used to designate "a state of consciousness having to do with the arousal of feelings (Webster’s New World Dictionary)." It is "distinguished from other mental states, from cognition, volition, and awareness of physical sensation." Feeling refers to "any of the subjective reactions, pleasant or unpleasant" that one may experience in a situation.

In my 57 years of life on planet Earth, the distinction between the two has become very important in understanding how to deal with life's curve balls it may throw you. In understanding how our Creator interacts with us, and how His laws of nature, and human nature follow very traceable patterns. Our emotions and knowledge play a direct role as to how we cope, and the success we have at dealing with life's problems.

In religious belief, as it is in political belief, the same dynamic applies. If we are led by our emotions, we are only as strong as our emotional state is, but if we remain steadfast in what we know to be true from God's Word, and history, we can be successful in overcoming adversity.

Understanding and acknowledging simple truths are the first step to success. As civilizations go, disunity has always led to a weakened cultural state. Strife has always led to conflict, and conflict to war. The same goes for leadership, corrupt leaders lead to the fall of civilizations, unless they are quickly replaced by honest leaders. To those that believe, and understand God's Word, also note historically that when a nation deliberately departs from the worship and acknowledgement of it's Creator, the result is lost favor, and punishment. The Jewish people are a prime example, although they are God's chosen people, they did not escape His Wrath when they deserted Him.

It is my prayer for this country that we retreat from the emotional pleas of liberalism, and of doing things on the basis of how something feels, and only exhibiting acts of symbolism, that appease our emotion on a short term basis, but never solve problems and instead return to behavior that we know to be true and effective historically.

And if we understand as believer's that we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, and against spiritual wickedness in high places, we know that those same evil powers love to see us at each other's throats.
Discipline is never fun, but it is necessary. Heeding known causes and effects is the beginning of knowledge, that's why older people can be good counsel for us young people, as they have experienced more life than we have.

My Idea and Arguments For the New Elma Stadium

My idea for the Elma Stadium isn’t a new one, but I will share the reasons why I think it is a good choice. I like the $3.4 million idea of building the stadium and field in it’s same footprint using real grass. Here are my reasons:
By building in the same spot it will effectively reduce the cost by half of the original proposal. The previous proposal gave me the impression in addition to the relocation of the stadium to a spot not near the high school, there would be room left in the plan for a track and sports facility for future consideration. To me this would leave an open ended solution that would eventually require more levy’s to be run to add more and more, or at the very least more school district expenditures to build additional facilities that are already present at the High School. If after 3 tries, this is such a hard sell to the public (for whatever reason) then, maybe asking the taxpayers to approve a proposition that will be followed up by possibly additional facilities, new artificial turf every 10 years, and the addition of commuting the kids to and fro to practice and the general separation from the High School grounds, we may be faced with the reality that this just isn’t the time for this plan. Considering the past 10 year economic, and employment history of the Elma area, and the east Grays Harbor County, it might not be wise to burden the tax paying public with a long term payment for a large and separate facility, and expect them to warm up to future levys. As I have said before, using the monies saved from the use of real grass, the monies could go to separate practice fields to alleviate the field from overuse due to practicing on it. The figure of $50,000 per year to maintain real turf has been touted, as you know once a system of maintenance has been established the additional cast would be less to maintain the additional practice fields using the same equipment, and personnel, possibly for almost the same budget. And finally, if we offer the public a proposal that simply replaces the stadium, and field in it’s same location, the likelihood of dissension is far, far less than the public seeing a plan that seeks to re-invent the wheel so to speak, and create a separate facility. The fact that the stadium needs to be rebuilt is indisputable, rebuilding it in it’s same spot as close to it’s original state is a hard proposal to balk at. For this reason I believe this is the best course of action. That is not to say we can’t look at artificial turf and raising the field down the road. I believe this would serve our kids and the taxpayers well, and get us back on track. Thanks for reading this, and be sure to let me know if I have anything wrong.