The 9/12 Project

I'm going to make my response to Pandora's comments on the 9/12 Project a post of it's own.

While I do agree with a great deal of what you said in that comment, especially regarding the habit of voting bad politicians back in, I also thing change has to start somewhere. Peaceful protest is a viable method. Especially in light of actions taken by our leadership. I'm thinking specifically about Sen. Arlen Specter's sudden switch from the Republican Party to the Democratic Party. What are the people of Pennsylvania, that voted for him, supposed to think? It just seems to me that he sniffed the political wind and made a choice based on his chances for re-election, not ideology. Wouldn't be the first time he made such a switch. He changed from Democrat to Republican in 1965, when he ran successfully on the Republican ticket for district attorney in Philadelphia. It will be interesting to see what his constituents do to him.

What attracted me to the 9/12 Project was the emphasis on returning to a clear set of values and principles. Things most of us believe anyway, but simply don't express. This is the list from the 9/12 site:

“The 9 Principles

1. America Is Good.

2. I believe in God and He is the Center of my Life.
God “The propitious smiles of Heaven can never be expected on a nation that disregards the eternal rules of order and right which Heaven itself has ordained.” from George Washington’s first Inaugural address.

3. I must always try to be a more honest person than I was yesterday.
Honesty “I hope that I shall always possess firmness and virtue enough to maintain what I consider to be the most enviable of all titles, the character of an honest man.” George Washington

4. The family is sacred. My spouse and I are the ultimate authority, not the government.
Marriage/Family “It is in the love of one’s family only that heartfelt happiness is known. By a law of our nature, we cannot be happy without the endearing connections of a family.” Thomas Jefferson

5. If you break the law you pay the penalty. Justice is blind and no one is above it.
Justice “I deem one of the essential principles of our government… equal and exact justice to all men of whatever state or persuasion, religious or political.” Thomas Jefferson

6. I have a right to life, liberty and pursuit of happiness, but there is no guarantee of equal results.
Life, Liberty, & The Pursuit of Happiness “Everyone has a natural right to choose that vocation in life which he thinks most likely to give him comfortable subsistence.” Thomas Jefferson

7. I work hard for what I have and I will share it with who I want to. Government cannot force me to be charitable.
Charity “It is not everyone who asketh that deserveth charity; all however, are worth of the inquiry or the deserving may suffer.” George Washington

8. It is not un-American for me to disagree with authority or to share my personal opinion.
On your right to disagree “In a free and republican government, you cannot restrain the voice of the multitude; every man will speak as he thinks, or more properly without thinking.” George Washington

9. The government works for me. I do not answer to them, they answer to me.
Who works for whom? “I consider the people who constitute a society or a nation as the source of all authority in that nation.” Thomas Jefferson

The 12 Values
* Honesty
* Reverence
* Hope
* Thrift
* Humility
* Charity
* Sincerity
* Moderation
* Hard Work
* Courage
* Personal Responsibility
* Gratitude”

If you can agree with at least 7 of the 9 principles, then you have cause to raise your voice. Yes, absolutely, express yourself at the ballot box. Personally, I think that it is every American's DUTY to vote, not just a right. I've always believed that if you don't vote, shut up. You can't really complain. You wasted your voice. And if you are going to vote, look at the candidates and go with the one that has beliefs that come closest to your own. Politicians will not willingly kill their Golden Calf. That's just the reality of it. An example is that Congress is demanding that senior corporate officers take a voluntary pay cut in the name of financial responsibility. Oddly, it's never been suggested that maybe elected governmental officials take a voluntary pay cut for the same reasons. Just that one act would demonstrate to the American people that our leaders were just as willing to share the sacrifice they were ordering others to make. But it won't happen.

Express with your vote. And if you feel passionately enough, gather, discuss, stage peaceful rallies. It is our country. If we won't fight for it, who will? The 9/12 Project calls us to fight for what we belive in. No more, no less.

The new look

Gentle readers,

For those of you that may be regular visitors, all 1 of you, will notice that there has been some upgrading and revising of the way the Root Cellar looks.

I did this for a couple of reasons:

1) I was never really happy with the way the original root cellar looked. It was ok, but somehow, just not really 'me.' So I went looking at the tools.

2) After finishing the task and standing back to admire and congratulate myself on the spiffy, new look, I realized something. Especially with the new header picture, I had really captured the original idea the root cellar represented to me. Don't even really thing I was aware of what I was trying to say.

What is a root cellar? obviously someplace you store your taters and onions. But it's where you go to be safe from wild, untamed occurances like tornados. If you watch a lot of slasher movies, the root cellar is where you run and hide from the bad guys.

The doorway into the cellar looks out into one direction. A good metaphor for my perspective.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy the new look. I sure do.

Something worth a minute of your time to look into

Hello ya sick, twisted freaks... Ok, I swiped the pick from Glenn Beck's site. I admit it. He's the last conservative talk show I'll listen to. The reason I bring Mr Beck up, is that he started a project called the 9/12 Project (). As it says in the site introduction:

The 9/12 Project is designed to bring us all back to where we were on September 12, 2001. The day after America was attacked, we were not obsessed with Red states, Blue states or political parties. We were united as Americans, standing together to protect the values and principles of the greatest nation ever created.

Somewhere, we've lost something valuable and precious. In her own way, my good friend Pandora has complained about this many times. And she's right. We stand up for what is quick. What is expedient. What is in our personal best interests. No more. The line in the sand must be drawn somewhere.

Newly elected officials tout their victories as mandates from the people. I put to you that 99.99% of elected officials, top to bottom, wouldn't know a true mandate from the people, if it swam up and bit them on the ass. My elected representatives need to be exactly that. Representative. I didn't vote for them to go to Washington DC or to Des Moines and vote THEIR conscience. I want them voting MY conscience. That's what a representative does.

So what does this have to do with the 9/12 Project? America was born of a Revolution. We fought for our freedoms and for what we believe in. Those freedoms are being whittled away. It's been happening for years and we did nothing but stand around the watercooler and bitch about it. Our basic beliefs are becaoming buried in bullshit. Twisted to serve the ends of others.

It is time for another Revolution. Not one involving armies and guns and bloodshed, but a revolution where the American people discover, again, that they are strong. That they have a voice. That the government cannot simply ignore us. Should not the various bailout bills have gone for a vote by we, the people? A shit ton of our money is being spent. My good friend Betony, who is a mathmatician, says that the average human mind cannot comprehend much more than a thousand of anything. And we are talking about spending trillions of dollars. Do you even know what a trillion looks like? it's a million million. $1,000,000,000,000. Pocket calculators don't even go up that high, and we're letting Washington spend a bunch of those trillions of dollars. At my current wage, it would take me, personally, almost 1,000,000 years to pay off one trillion. That scare you? It did me.

The 9/12 Project calls us back to the values of our forefathers. It calls us back to a tiime of personal responsibility, thinking for yourself, and making yourself heard. The tea parties springing up around the country sprang from this site. They represent the opening shots of a new, peaceful revolution. And I hope the powers that be are listening. (Cause I don't wanna work for a million years...)

So check it out. It's worth the look

Pleased with my state

Gay marriage.

We've talked about this before, but it comes back to us with the consideration that gay marriage is now legal in Iowa. Well, I'm not going to give my usual rant about this being the most important thing we have to talk about. It isn't. The economy, the war(s), out of control spending by the government, those are important things to talk about. Gay marriage isn't. Now by that, I don't mean to imply that it isn't a significant issue, but social behavior isn't something you can legislate. It just isn't.

At any rate, the Iowa Supreme Court decided that a ban on same sex marriage was unconstitutional. Therefore, if the ban is illegal, then gay marriage is allowable under Iowa state law. That's an important point to remember. The Supreme Court didn't make a law, as that is out of it's purview. Instead, it found that an existing law went against the Constitution, which is what the Supreme Court does. Mr Limbaugh would have you believe that this is the judiciary making law. Nope, it ain't so. No amount of ditto heading will make it otherwise.

I see the whole question in both a moral and a legal perspective. After the Iowa Court make it's ruling, effectively tossing the ban, there was much wailing, lamentation and gnashing of teeth by right wing conservatives and the bible thumping community. It was announced that if any of the county recorders in Iowa's 99 counties, felt they just couldn't issue a marriage license to a same sex couple, they would be covered by the same basic ruling that doctors have the right to refuse abortions if it goes against their consscience. An Iowa state senator is being investigated, because calls to county recorders were traced back to his office, saying that they didn't have to issue the licenses if they didn't want to, that the Supreme Court ruling was an opinion and not real law. Dirty republican pool. Isn't how you win friends and influence people, guys.

My question is this: why are people so afraid of same sex couples? Most people will answer "We're not afraid of them. After all, we agreed to civil unions." Which brings up three of the vilest words in the english language: "Seperate but equal." It really isn't. Think about this: for all you hetero couples out there, what if a governmental agent came to your door and told you "Opposite sex marriage has been declared unconstitutional and your marriage is now null and void. So sorry for the inconvenience, but we will let you stay together in a civil union. It's kinda like marriage, but without the legal protection." The cries of outrage would be so loud, God himself would be able to hear them.

Watch the news. Read the papers. Listen to the radio. This world seems like it's going to hell in a handbasket. And picking up speed. If two people, be they man and man, man and woman, or woman and woman, find some measure of happiness together, who are we to deny them that? In these days of insta-marriage and even faster insta-divorce, committment is hard to find. So when two people want to commit to each other...LET THEM! It will make the world a better place. (Unless you're a thumper or right wing extremist. And if they are so against gays, why do so many republicans get busted for soliciting for gay sex in some bus station rest room? I'm just sayin'...)