Preamble to platform

First of all I wish you a very Happy and prosperous new year.

And this goes especially to those in the middle class. Things have not gone well for many of us for four years now and hopefully things will continue to improve. My belief is though there is much to be done to stabilize the future of the middle class both in the near and long term.

And this one of the reasons I am going to write a platform. There is not an immediate fix to make things better for the middle class. There will be work to be done and this work should include building a better future for our children.

To start though we determine what we can do and what we aren't ready to do.

"Render unto Caesar what is Caesar's and render unto God what is God's" And you also have to love the constitutional idea of separation of church and state. Two separate sources of inspiration for my purposes that somewhat come together as we move forward politically.

Too many issues nowadays dominate the political landscape that interfere with trying to put some practical solutions together to help us as a nation. Many of these issues are too polarizing to be dealt with effectively in our current political landscape. And even more important I do not think we are ready as a society to resolve some of these issues. And this is one reason Education is going to be an integral part of the platform. I am talking about Math and Science, but also humanities, social sciences, art, civics, and yes even physical education. There will be more discussed in the platform.

For today I want to identify some of what we cannot achieve with legislative action at this point in time to set the stage for what we can do. And the why we shouldn't be trying at this time. Again education, education and more education is going to be very important.

One example of what we cannot legislate is Greed. Seems out of the blue to pick this topic. It sets the stage for answering some of the question of why I began with the point of God vs Government. Even if you don't believe in God or other religious morality most people will agree greed is not good. ( okay you also have to set aside a phrase from a popular movie). We cannot create laws or rules that actually outlaw greed. We have been outlawing some of the symptoms of greed, such as theft, bureaucratic rules for Wall Street, rules for behavior in organizations or politics etc.. but the actual concept of greed is hard to define in a legislative context. To overcome greed we need to evolve as a society. And this is where education plays an important role in helping us to overcome greed and become a better society. We are going to have to develop new ways to address problems of this type beyond just crime and punishment. This means a whole new way to look at some problems. My point then is that we need to learn more as a society and culture to actually find solutions to the concept of greed and how it affects us negatively.

Next level then is what do we really know about some of our social issues from pro life\abortion to gay marriage to legalization of marijuana and others. If you have feelings on one side or other on these issues you are immediately disagreeing with me that we don't know enough to decide these issues. The fact that people jump onto these issues with such emotion is one example that we should not be trying to legislate answers to these issues. So what do we do for now? And that is a hard question to answer because as part of what Christianity has taught us and our Constitution has tried to put into practice is that we should do what we can to treat others with respect and protect the rights of others. The dignity of all life is paramount, but if you look at many of the social issues there is a conflict of which side expresses the higher level of protecting life. And again more and greater education is needed to help us as a society.

My example on why I feel this way will hopefully show you why I think we need to work on what we can politically and work towards becoming a more educated society before we try to legislate, if ever, to some of our hot button social issues. We may never have to if we reach a point in our culture where have a better understanding of what we truly value.

When I was a teenager I was pretty much an agnostic. I used to make prank calls to late night tele-evangelists. From the little I knew about Christ and Christianity some of what they represented didn't mesh up. I had been to summer bible school and camps and my family had made some half hearted attempts to go to church on occasion. Yet their message seemed to contradict the concept of a loving God and to truly show respect to others. It was always about what they wanted you to do to believe. I moved on though and really didn't pay that much attention to them. It wasn't until I was in college that my thoughts, not because of any religious influence or epiphany, but because of my education changed. It was after taking a few science classes over time that I began to think about life and creation. Slowly I began to realize that everything it took to create life even in the primordial soup that something was behind it. Science became to me what we did to measure and label what was created and once that thought set in, then the idea that there was intentional creation to our universe took shape in my mind. From that series of thoughts I began to understand the idea of the respect of and dignity of life. This began a transformation in the way I looked at life and along with some other events I eventually became what is known in the political world as a pro lifer. Yet I struggle with labeling myself with that term, not because I am afraid to say I believe in the sanctity of life, but because many pro lifers seem to be this for political expediency. If you are going to be a pro lifer you need to believe in the complete concept of dignity of life from conception to grave and that means doing more than railing about how bad are abortions. And yes you can see many people on the pro choice side being that way for political expediency. No one wants to admit their side has faults, but the truth of the matter is both sides make mistakes and aren't always in the fight for the true betterment of us as a society. So education at many levels is needed for us to move forward and yes I am a pro lifer that believes the more we are educated as a society the more my point will be seen and that we will come to respect all life and make the right decisions. Again I stress the importance of better education in our society to help us with many issues that really don't belong in a legislative context.

Another example we need more education to make better decisions is whether marijuana should be legal. We have already been through two constitutional amendments just to get nowhere with deciding how to handle alcohol as a society and we still don't know anymore than we did a hundred years ago. Yes getting drop down drunk is not healthy for you, but is there harm to having friends over for dinner and drinking some wine. On the surface we can say that makes sense or that is okay, but are we sure. Where is the line or is there a line we should mark on accepting mind altering substances? One drink, five, one joint, five, do we know, and yes we can say you are too drunk to drive or you have too much THC in your blood stream to drive, but is one drink okay to drive or function? We are, as a society, trying to make these definitions, however, do we know enough not to put on hold certain decisions. Is this really a personal choice or does getting bent affect others to the point that we shouldn't allow it in society? I have not been an angel throughout my life so does that effect me being able to make a logical or rational decision on this topic.

The above is points of discussion to help understand that whenever we create a political platform or agenda there is a danger to choosing certain topics if we truly want to move us forward or solve our problems. You can say lets prioritize our issues, but more than that we need to determine what we can do practically and work forward from there. So even though I am lumping social issues into an example of separating church and state it is something we need to do to at this time. I am conservative politically, fiscally, and on social issues, yet I understand we need to address problems that benefit the whole as best we can now to set up better solutions for our future and for better decision making capabilities on our current polarizing issues.

So the proposed platform will focus on practical issues that affect most everyone's daily life. Education, taxes, budget, deficit, social security, social services, a bit on the philosophy of what or how much government should be in play, and on the philosophy that our government is here to protect and serve us and not vice versa Some aspects of the idea of respect for the dignity of life will be in the platform, yet will be seen as how I describe practical solutions to certain problems. I will also add some ideas to plan ahead projects that give us a chance to survive as a nation. Oh yeah and a bit more for education.

The strength of a democracy or republic is reflected in the strength of the middle class. Right now we are weak and it is time to start creating solutions that keep us great as a country.


Again I hope you have a great and prosperous New Year and as we move forward into this tumultuous political year hopefully we can elect the people that will put the country first and not their ambitions. Spouting phrases to make one self sound conservative or liberal just to please an audience is doing way too much damage to our country. One must be open to what we need to accomplish and what are the best ideas in deciding who we elect, not voting for those phrases or straight tickets because "by golly" I have always voted that way. ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

And on some side notes:

Jerry Jones still needs to fire his GM. Also how can it take you half a year to figure out you can run the ball then ignore it in the second half of the most important game of the year.

The Rangers have blown it in the last of the season the last two years and the Cowboys for the last three so for now GO MAVS.

And my jury is still out if I am excited about the changes for the Rangers, I have to wait for October, I can't be emotionally involved in another season ending dive again for any team.

Stay warm