Strange Day

So I am feeling so strange today. Not necessarily in a bad way, but just weird. Kylee had our THIRD baby yesterday and I just can't think of a name I want him to have. We are thinking about Camden right now but it just doesn't feel right. I don't know why.

Also, I love me new, but difficult, job at Northwestern Mutual. However, they are not giving me a few days to accomplish something that $1500 rides on despite my having had a child that was premature by a month yesterday. Strange. We'll see how that goes.

Life is just weird. I am not morbid usually at all, but I am excited for the next life when we can look back at this life and just so, "Oh yeah, that makes perfect sense now." Here's to hoping that day actually comes!

Making a New Blog

So I have decided that I am going to learn HTML really well and create a new blog. My goal is to have one with subpages that I can use to post posts on. So, for instance, religion would be its own page and I would post religious blog posts there. I would have one for sports, etc.

We will see how it goes. I realized I am quite interested in graphic design/web development/blogging so I figure I will give it a go and see if I can learn how to make a great page. Also, I would love to take my blogging more seriously and really try to post regularly about stuff I care about.

Helping Others - Example of Christ

I just read a blog post on this site:

http://theliberalmormon.blogspot.com/

The conclusion as to why the person became a liberal was because he heard the call of Christ to help your neighbors and love them. Interesting concept.

This is the interesting thing though, I think that any tidbit of information could back up any viewpoint. Where the rubber hits the road is in determining which viewpoints actually net the desired results.

I am a conservative (for many reasons) because I think the conservative approach makes it more likely for people to get the help they need. I think it is more effective and more food will get in the mouths of the most people.

A for instance:

I am emphatically against forced charity. I think it should be voluntary. The "goodness" or "badness" of our society is determined by the intents of our hearts and the love for our neighbor that we have. So if the government taxes us and redistributes the money we are still in the same spot that we were previously in. I don't think God will judge the world by how many mouths were fed, but by if we had a desire (and acted on it) to feed our neighbors. Forced charity is like no charity at all. I believe the words from the scriptures are that if you give a gift grudgingly it would be better if you never gave the gift at all!

I feel that if I redistribute my wealth (and I think almost all U.S. citizens have wealth!) it should go to who I deem is deserving of it. More importantly, the government redistributes wealth inefficiently. If you gave the government 100 dollars a very small portion of that would lead to getting food in someone's mouth. If individuals redistributed the money themselves 100% of the money would get into people's mouths. This is my biggest reason for despising taxes and forced charitable contributions.

Now clearly there are rebuttals to these premises. However, I feel as though overall, the net benefit of personal redistribution is greater than in forced distribution. You may get a little less money, but I think more mouths will be fed, and people will be empowered and have their eyes opened by having had such a personal experience in helping to alleviate the suffering of another. I think more often than not people hear that dems or other groups care about feeding the poor, that concept strikes a cord with them, and they decide they are liberal. I think quite often people hold on to slogans and sound bites which are given by political parties. I think many people wear the badge of a democrat because they feel it is the "nicer" political party. Their sound bites are convincing:

-we let people live how they want to live
-we love people
-we let people chose
-we care about actually helping people

All of these sound bites and slogans justify my position as a conservative. I think a further analysis is always needed to figure out which position really makes the most difference. If someone said they thought the liberal party made the biggest difference in people's lives I would disagree, but I would be fine with their position. But many people have no idea if their position leads to a greater amount of good being done or not -- they just like the way it sounds! They will wear the badges of all the previous slogans, hoping that it establishes their humanity and kindness, all the while not knowing the actual results of their positions. I can be included in this group at times, but I try and inform myself and figure out which position will bring the most net benefit.

How about you? Do you do the same? Or do you succumb to slogans and sound bites? I think the religious sound bites can sometimes be the most detrimental! It is my stance that more Christlike actions are accomplished by a historically more conservative approach. But I welcome dialogue.

Reciprocal Confirmation!

This article demonstrates the only thing that I find to be troubling, religiously. It is the hardest question that is asked as a critique to religious thought! In my humble opinion . . .

http://www.hatrack.com/research/student-papers/literature-and-belief.shtml

The reading is rather dense, but so worth the read. A BYU professor wrote the article. He was an amazing teacher!

Twitter

So I downloaded Twitter today. I don't know why I finally decided to do it, but I did. I think it is things like Twitter that would take away the need to pay the cell phone companies ridiculous prices for texting. Texting is one of the few things in the world that has gone up in price beside the cost of making it happen being almost nil, and beside the technology getting older. I hate paying for texts. They are so useful though.

So Twitter is sweet. It is exactly like "the wall" in facebook except you share your wall with all the people that you "follow." So I get updates from Shaq, Dave Matthews, Major Nelson (XBOX guy), Jonathan Beutler (friend), Josh Knowles, and many others. If everyone had this it would be so nice, because then texting would not be as necessary.

Also, I am going to post another post soon. Probably on my inability to decide what I want to do in life. Law . . . or something else. We shall see. As of right now, I an not entirely sure.

GET A TWITTER ACCOUNT. Kendall Knowles is the one person in the world who I think needs to get it the most. He was born for Twittering!

Anyway, another time. It is 2am and I have pink eye. I think Jonah gave it to me!

Weather

For the past week or so it has been in the low 60s, high 50s.

Today it was 70.

I really like Denver :)

Urban Meyer Forgot the Little Guy

I don't like Utah at all. However, I will refer to them as Co-National Champions for this year. They are deserving of it. While they could have definitely lost to Florida/Texas/USC/Oklahoma in the title game they never got the chance to play for it, therefore you can't say they were not champions.

I think Urban Meyer is the problem. It is people like him that make it so nothing changes. Urban Meyer declared that Utah was the best team when he won the Fiesta Bowl in 2004. He was upset they did not get a chance to play in the title game. So what does he do when he gets an unbelievable chance to change that after the title game now? He says this:

"I'll tell you, we're going to enjoy a big win, we're going to enjoy the national championship, let someone else worry about that. Gators are No. 1"

To me that is despicable. Here is someone who had a perfect chance to declare that he is considering Florida and Utah the co-champs. It is a perfect situation for him. Obviously the official stance is that Florida will be, so it is a win/win for him. He can stay true to his previous comments and positions and stick up for the little guy.

Urban Meyer is the epitome of what is wrong. He is someone in a high position who can make change. Change will only come if people from the top advocate it. He had his chance and he showed his true colors.

The argument could be made that he did not advocate Utah because he was staying true to his team. I don't buy it. His team is clearly going to believe they are #1. The official stance is that they are #1. Meyer's had nothing to loose.

My guess: when people get to the top and don't have to jump over the hurdles anymore they change their tune. Especially in the BCS, because if they advocate a step away from the BCS they actually hurt their chances of going to a title game again, because there will be more competition. So he is like all people who forget the small guy when the ascend into the upper echelons.

I don't like Utah. I would still rather be a Cougar on a 0-12 season than a Ute on a 13-0 season. However, they are national champs this year, just as much as anyone else in this incomplete season. And, I am embarrassed by Urban Meyer.

Way to forget the little guy!

On a side note. This seems so incredibly unjust, this BCS mess. If this was anything other than football the ACLU and all other groups would be up in arms asking how we can so clearly create a segregated situation. This is absolutely segregation. The BCS is saying all the same things that old racists once said, "they just aren't as good as us" "they just can't compete" and many other things. These are the same things people said before, implying that blacks and other minorities were not up to the challenge and could not live "normal" lives like other groups of people (whites). It was a horrible argument then, and it still is today. I am glad Major League Baseball, despite the incredible disparity between haves and have nots, actually have a playoff system. If Major League Baseball had a BCS then Tampa Bay would have found themselves on the outside looking in. The situation is eerily similar to the BCS situation. The Yankees and Red Sox have better athletes, recruiting, facilities, and talent. Good thing the played the game though, because it turned out that Tampa Bay was a better team. As unfair as no salary cap is in MLB at least they have a playoff system.