If and Then

The if/then construct is a conditional statement used in computer programming. It is very simple to understand. It simply looks like this.

If (set of conditions =true) Then (consequence)

This is a concept that is pretty simple. It merely means that if a set of conditions is true then a certain consequence is also true.

This construct is not limited to computer programming however. This is a law that should be evident in everything in life. Take the following examples.

If I eat a plate of donuts every morning I will get fat.

If I don't show up for work repeatedly I will get fired.

If I do not set my parking break on a big hill my car will crash through the neighbor's house.

The concept is fairly simple. If you do or do not do something then something else will or will not happen. We all live by these rules every day without thinking about it. Some things are just obvious. But sometimes people will use an if and then statement to attempt to make people believe there will be a result that actually is not going to take place. We call this a lie. Lets see if we can digest this next little gem from Comrade Obama's press conference of yesterday.

"It would be nice if we could keep every tax break there is, but we’ve got to make some tough choices here if we want to reduce our deficit. And if we choose to keep those tax breaks for millionaires and billionaires, if we choose to keep a tax break for corporate jet owners, if we choose to keep tax breaks for oil and gas companies that are making hundreds of billions of dollars, then that means we’ve got to cut some kids off from getting a college scholarship. That means we’ve got to stop funding certain grants for medical research. That means that food safety may be compromised. That means that Medicare has to bear a greater part of the burden. Those are the choices we have to make"

WHAT?

So lets take a look at this conditional statement and break it down a little more.

IF
We keep tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires
We Keep tax breaks for corp. Jet owners
We keep tax breaks for Oil and Gas companies (that make billions of dollars)

THEN
We're going to cut kids off from scholarships
Stop funding for medical reseach
Food safety may be compromised.
Medicare has to bear a greater part of the burden.


Again WHAT?

This is an example of an if and then construct that is used to attempt to fool people. It sounds almost believable at first glance, but when you begin to look a little closer it is absolutely insane.

The very idea that if we don't do away with this tax break and that tax break we're going to not have funding for medical research? Come on. Food safety may be compromised? Absurd. Cutting off kids from scholarships. Hmmm not sure that that's devastating. The Constitution doesn't pretent to make the federal government the great educator. I'm not overly worried about the scholarships.

The issue here is that we have a president who more than any other president in HISTORY is willing to demagogue issues and issue absurd statements about things with the simple attempt to divide. He employs repeatedly tactic to divide this country as much as possible. He does this for a simple statistical reason: there are more people who identify themselves as struggling. Logic would follow that if you attempt to show that you are the ally of those who are struggling and the other guy is the ally of those who are doing well and should be sharing more then you would have a very large section of the populous who would automatically generate votes for you.

There are some inherent flaws with this thinking and not the least of those flaws is that the tactic assumes that all the people who identify themselves as struggling attribute that to the evil people who are doing well. It also assumes that they believe it is the governments job to take from the rich and give to the poor.

Comrade Obama, or maybe we should call him Comrade Robin Hood, would have us believe that he is the Robin Hood figure who believes that the rich only get rich by stealing from the poor. He would have you believe that exploitation is the only way one gains wealth. The problem with this is that he and many others who would sell this nonsense are wealthy people. You can not have your cake and eat it too comrade.

I believe that this president is making an error that will likely cost him reelection. He is putting all of his eggs in one basket. The basket he's chosen is the age old basket of class warfare. To a great extent this tactic worked for him the first time around. It was packaged differently last time. (hope and change anyone?) This time he's setting up differently. He's setting up to run a campaign of extreme division. He's going with all out class envy warfare and I do not believe this is going to work.

The president's speeches have become less and less idealistic and polished and become more divisive and agitated. There are some people who will but his arguments that if we don't raise taxes on billionaires we won't have medical research funding. The problem is that that demographic would be voting for him anyway. It's a waste to target them.

What about the free thinkers. What about those of us who will not simply take him at his word. What about those of us who don't just eat what we're fed and clean our plates. I don't think he's going to get us. I think he's going to lose quite a few that he gained last time. After all If you lie Then you will be found out.

Elmo and Ricky Gervais

I found this quite hilarious today.

Jalaina

Just the other night at bible school I saw my youngest son and his best little buddy sitting next to each other. For whatever reason she decided it would be a good idea to begin poking him repeatedly with her finger. This distressed poor Jasper greatly. It also got his friend in a bit of trouble. Later on that night I was talking to jasper and asked him if he was excited to go back to bible school and he said yes. I want to go back to bible school to see Alaina.  Of course he went back to bible school the following night and the first person he wanted to see was Alaina.

I think kids get it right most of the time on relationships. My oldest son Roman will be playing with his friends in the yard and somehow or another he'll get his feelings hurt. Often times he will come inside with his heart broken and he won't want to go play any more for a minute. But as he begins to consider his options he begins to realize that without friends life isn't as fun of a place to play. Soon he's very willing to forget whatever his buddies did to him in lieu of the fun that is to be had.

The same is true for Jasper and his friend Alaina. We have adopted the practice of calling them collectively "Jalaina" because they are always together. They play really hard together and sometimes they argue pretty hard as well. One thing is for sure, however, and that is that when they see each other the always go running to each other and hug and go right to doing whatever it is that jalaina does.

Even I can remember as a boy and teenager fighting with the neighbor kids or rolling around on the ground wrestling with them. We'd get angry at each other but the next day we'd be best friends. Interestingly enough it just seemed natural that even though people would make us angry or hurt us the world is a lot better place with people to share it with. I guess maybe that is why we mended our fences so well.

As we get older our viewpoints seem to change. Somehow we seem to lose sight of the things that made so much sense when we were children. Maybe it's because we begin to feel more "important". Maybe it's because we become more selfish. Whatever the reason we seem less resolved to fix things and move on and more resolved to making sure that other people have learned their lesson or paid their price.

I'm not saying that people shouldn't face consequences for what they do wrong, however, so many times people will fall out and not speak for days, months, or even years over something that could be simply moved past. I'm not now and I have never been an advocate of letting people walk all over you, but I also am not an advocate of harboring resentments as they tend to do me more harm than good. I rather search for ballance as best as I can.

I could get very preachy on this, but the nature of this blog isn't evangelical. If anyone wants to ask me about my extrme right wing judeo christian religious and political beliefs I'm more than accessible for that. I rather aim to use this space to make commentary from a common sense point of view. This is not to say that I will not touch those areas, but rather to say that sometimes Gods greatest messages are the ones that come from common sense.

Common sense is, as they say, not so common anymore. Maybe it's time we as adults learned, yet again, from kids a thing or two about how to treat others. Perhaps more importantly we could learn how to respond to others when they don't treat us properly.

Always and Never.

I had written a post for this, but I deleted it. It's OK I can do that. I rather think a simpler post would do more with much less.

I have read that "Always and never are two word that you should always remember never to use."

I could not agree more with that sentiment. Too many things in life that we always thought would be true end up being false. And too many things we swore would never be end up being. That's life. The story of life would not be complete with out gains and losses.

It's more important that we identify what is important to us and protect those things. Keep them as close as we can and do everything we can to care for them. While it's true there is nothing we can to to assure that we are successful in maintaining the things we hold dear, imagine the pain when we lose those things or when what we swore would never happen comes down the line and we know we never did enough to protect it or prevent it as the case may be.

Know what matters to you and pursue it and protect it. This is a lesson that I'm learning the hard way.

You don't know me!

So if you're one of the lucky ones to be reading this right now I bet you think I'm going somewhere with this post. Prepare to be disappointed. See if you want a blog with a general theme or topic try reading one of the other guys. You don't know me.

The people that do know me who may or may not stumble across this blog know that I am, if anything, unconventional. I don't exactly abide by the same rules as the rest of the sheep in the herd. I'm far from the black sheep, but I'm hardly the whitest sheep in the flock. I tend to make my own way and am prepared to deal with the consequences.

I love to write. I really do. I'm not sure why I haven't done it more. A few times I've started with the wrong idea to begin with. I wrote with the intention for others to read it. Don't get me wrong it's great for others to read it, but it isn't who reads it that makes it worthwhile is it? It's the content. Most don't read the Bible at all this does not however keep it from being special nor does it keep those many people who aren't reading it from claiming that they are. Does it? This time I'm writing for me and you're lucky enough to be allowed to read it if you so chose, which I'm sure you wont. Why would you anyway? You don't know me.

And so you now know that I'm a religious nut-job right? You have no idea. This is your fair warning if you possess a deeply rooted aversion to topics of religion, politics, race, sarcasm, bluntness, potential paranoia, insensitivity, nonsense, or inside jokes of which you may or may not be privy to, please feel free to move along to another blog. It's fine really because you don't know me!

I guess I'm more of a Bennett Brouer type blogger. I'm not "the norm". What you will get if you chose to snoop around here are the real thoughts and feelings and opinions and, quite potentially babbling of a real person. There's no telling what I'll go over on this thing, but I can assure you that it will likely be quite entertaining at least to me. It will no doubt be filled with spelling and grammatical errors. That's OK though I'm not an English major. I'm not even college educated.

Anyway I don't really have much to say for my little introduction. I hope that someone reads this and finds something worthwhile and interesting here. I hope that maybe between some of over thinking and rambling I'll be able to at least help someone or brighten someone's day. If I can do that then that'd be pretty cool. If not hey it doesn't matter. You don't know me anyway.