Jim Headrick's Blog

It is unfortunate that the politicians and Judges in power don’t have the intelligence to assess the problems to make proper decisions concerning anything.  In this case I am referring to voting.

 At the present time we have the states making decisions on how to vote in federal elections.  Since all the total population is eligible to vote for all federal policy makers in the legislative branch of government and the president and vice president in the executive branch of government, I believe the federal government should have the right to adjust the voting rights for those elections.

If I am voting for President or Vice President, if anyone anywhere in the United States is disenfranchised from voting my vote is either enhanced or impaired which should not be the case ever.  My vote should be on an equal playing field with all the others voting for candidates for those offices.  If I am voting for a senator or representative to sit in the United States Congress,   if anyone anywhere in my state is disenfranchised from voting my vote is either enhanced or impaired which should not be the case ever. My vote should be on an equal playing field with all the others voting for candidates for those offices. 

In any other scenario of voter control only a few persons are manipulating the system to elect only those they want to be elected.  Therefore this ability of choosing representatives on a national level should be regulated by the Federal Government.  

The states then could set the regulations for state and local representation.  This however in many states would result in two elections and to sets of voting cards.  In many cases it would case two separate elections to be held.  This would be more expensive, but it would be the only thing that would come close to the intentions written in the Constitution. 

If my argument holds then the Federal Government in its elections should make the rules of election uniform throughout the United States so we don’t end up in a situation that allows the Supreme Court to elect the president. 

I checked into American Values First website because I was happy someone was thinking, at least I thought, outside the box to discover they were probably working the same way everyone else is working.  This description refers to individuals and organizations that simply have an idea and sell it.  They are afraid to allow people to give real input to address problems faced.

The present administration is doing the same thing.  They want change, but not from the ground up.  They solicit people that caused the problems to solve the problems without input from the people that are working within the conditions that resulted from the problems caused by the people in power that caused the problems.

I suggest someone read the definition of grass roots and instead of just saying grass roots, follow the definition principles.   

I have been thinking about the Tea Party that has positioned itself within the Republican Party which is the more closely aligned group and easily manipulated.  I have determined that it is officially now a cult. 

A cult is a group that thinks about, talks about and takes on no projects or actions with the exception of those activities which promotes the goals of its members.  Cults have murdered people and/or just taken its members on a ride which has been unhealthy and sometimes dangerous for the community in which they reside or operate.  Normally we think that all the power of the cults is normally directed to the members within its influence, but just think how powerful a cult would be if it could affect change outside its influence.  A cult with power?  What a thought.

Normally we hear a spokesman from a cult and shake our head and wonder what happen in this person’s life to make them think like they do.  When we hear how the individuals inside the cult were manipulated, we feel sorry from those individuals.

Now think about what I have just written and think about the Tea Party.  Their spokesmen make outrageous statement on a constant basis.  We then think politically instead of logically how we could bring them into our fold of negotiations allowing us to get some work done.  Instead we should be thinking of them as a person in a cult that will not think any other way.  They are controlled by some entity, entities, or thoughts that will not allow them to move from their position.  They tell us it is the bible, but those of us who have read the bible know it is not.

Now let’s think about a cult with power.  John Banner is not in the Tea Party, I do not believe. However in his effort to accommodate all the members on the Republican side of the isle, He has caved in to begin pacifying the cult, Tea Party.  This caused things that have damaged the bills that have been passed, and kept bill that should have gone forward to be stopped in its tracks.  This power could keep its reign over Congress until Tea Party Justices could be placed on the Supreme Court. 

This cult could damage the presidency of Obama or even a conservative republican it he were elected.  I am an independent business consultant and former branch manager of a very large company plus many years of sales experience.  I have the ability to sell people things they don’t need, but that isn’t a salesman, that is a con artist.  However during my years of work, I study people, so that helped me write this note.  As a consultant, I am presented with problems.  My job then is not to find a way out of a difficult situation but to find the cause of the problem then find a way out. 

I believe I have found the infection in this government and it is the cult known as the Tea Party.  They will say it is the deficit or this or that.  Those problems can be worked out by normal thinking people.  A cult can never work out solutions.  If something isn’t done about this cult we will be in this fix for decades and maybe never return to normal. 

The solution is to ignore their rhetoric and just consider their goals as a negotiating point they should be considered, if reasonable.  They should be taken out of any powerful position on any committee.  Lastly their private goals should be exposed and they should not have a forum.  Most of the latter has been the fault of the media.  The media covers much of what they say because it is so ridiculous it makes good sound bites.  

If I had my way everyone would be forced to read and study the bible.  However that is not America.  My pray to my God is that we feed the poor, help those that want to change, and expose God and his principles to everyone that will listen.

I am sure that many people don’t know, but he lawyers in congress should know.  They don’t practice what they know.  As with many of us it isn’t that we don’t know what to do; we don’t do what we know.

In the mid 1900’s when I was growing up I knew even then that the statement many fools even in my own family would say, “I don’t argue about the bible or politics.”  Even then I knew that was a stupid statement.  However, I had and still have many arguments about both, but I don’t fuss about either. 

To fuss means we say I’m right and you’re wrong.  An argument says that I believe something and this is why.  In other words we make a point using some degree of logic.  The fussing category is what we hear from Washington and many of my friends.  We need more arguments the campaigns.  We need arguments in Congress.

Constantly we have opinions instead of facts and conclusions, too many times, bases on the wishes of controllers.  If one cannot listen to an opposite view, take a position, and enter facts or suggestions that will bring that opposing view and his own view closer together; one should not be in Congress. 

In the history of democracy we learn that everyone cannot agree on anything no matter what the subject becomes to be.  Our republic has its drawbacks simply because of control of numbers.  If one owns ten percent of the stock of any company and has a reasonable influential position over another forty one percent, one has a better than even chance of controlling the chairman, several board member, and thus the policies and procedures of the company.  As a result the company’s goals become the goals of the one rather than the many.

This is the way of congress now.  The Tea Party fusses about nonsense in order to keep the rest of Congress from debating the issues.  The way this works is Congress over many years has taught the public to listen to phrases and other sound bites instead of doing some research themselves on the issues.  The Team Party uses this fact to keep up the rhetoric which seems to be strong enough to keep the more reasonable members of Congress from fearing the electorate. 

I wanted to find a group of people trying to fight the ridiculous methods and laws produced by Congress, but I find that they are using the same tactics of sound bites they are trying to fight.

I plead with the electorate first to grow your numbers and become involved in the process, but be careful.  Now the organization best to lead this revolution is the White House.  The problem there is that they use the same people who are causing the problems of our country as advisors.  They will not look for people that think outside the box. 

When I say think outside the box, I don’t mean people that have radical ideas.  There are no new ideas.  There are only idea expansions.

The people that run these United States made their money and/or gained their power within a system they refuse to change because it will hit their bottom line.  Of course their bottom line is so large that it doesn’t matter what they give up, so the threat then becomes losing power.

The electorate’s problem then becomes to be to elect and/or direct those in Congress to think of the electorate’s best interest then the interest of the country with emphasis on how the national laws passed effect their particular electorate’s interest and also protect the country’s power to keep the structure created by the founders safe from outside influence.  

I am very concerned about the direction our conversations of government and religion are going.  I will concentrate on this for a time.  Many of my fellow citizens do not seem to follow closely enough the shallow interpretation of the ones with the loudest voices.  At this time the Tea Party says we should always follow the bible teachings in life and force government to place those interpretations on all citizens. 

If we look at the Middle East right now we will see that the approach of a Theocracy government will not work.  If we follow the line thinking presented to us by the Tea Party, we will eventually become governed by the religious right.  It hasn’t worked in the Middle East and it isn’t going to work here.

Jesus never said to anyone you must follow me.  If he has said that to the people that everyone would have followed him, it would not have meant anything to Him or them.  He said you must choose to follow me if you want to go to heaven, but there is not a mandate to go to heaven.  It is a choice.

Mohammad on the other hand conquered his way into power and forced people to live the way he purposed or die.

What we do have in the United States are laws, at least originally, that put forth the values of the Christian religion without the rule that we must submit ourselves to the Lord.  That is what our founding fathers saved us from.  We don’t have to serve the Lord, but we must follow His principles in our society.

There is no statement that says separation of church and state.  The church is all over our constitution with the exception that the state cannot declare that we have to follow one or the other religious paths to heaven.  That is left up to the individual.

Let us suppose that the Christian far right wins, and we become a Theocracy.  Let us also suppose that in the future the Muslim religion becomes dominant in Congress.  Let us then assume that the far right Muslim (Taliban) which would be like our Tea Party interact with our Congress the way the Tea Party is reacting now.  We would not get the reasonable activity of the Muslims in our government now.  It would be a nightmare as compared to the actions of the Tea Party’s escapades. 

This type of government could evolve into a police force enforcing the laws of the land and another police force enforcing the Muslim laws.  Several years ago I was with a Christian businessman in Casablanca, Morocco.  He pointed to the very large Mosque down town and said, “Even though I am a Christian I had to help pay for the building of that Mosque.”

Jesus said feed the poor, but at the same time said, through Paul, those that do not work should not eat.  There is always work that can be done, so work can be mandated unless the people are incapable of working because of physical ailments.  This does not mean children have to work.  They should be feed and schooled properly, learning about the responsibilities they will later face.  Children should not be denied exposure to shelter, food, clothing and education.  We have the money to do that either through the church, where it should be, or the government who was given that responsibility by the church who didn’t want it.

It’s not complicated.  It is simple.  We should use the KISS method of governing.  KISS is an acronym for Keep It Simple Stupid. 

Simple – vote for those people that share your values.

Simple – Prioritize our federal budget to reflect the responsibility of the federal                                        government to the people.

Simple – Throw out those in government that are not doing their job.

Simple – We fire every Congressman every two years.  Think before you vote.

Simple – We fire every Senator every six years.  Think before you vote.

Simple – Love your neighbor

Simple – If you believe, Love your God

Simple – If you don’t have God in your life find him and read his word.    

I was watching a rerun of West Wing where President Bartlett and Sam Seaborne were playing chess.  The President kept saying to Sam, “look at the whole board before you make a mover.”  He said this several times while Sam was guessing what was happening politically in the situation room.

Sam did a good job guessing.  It was written that way, but the phrase I keep remembering is ‘look at the whole board’.  For a chess player this means a lot, but it should mean a lot to the thousands of elected officials in this nation. 

In chess if you play your game without paying attention to the possible strategy of your opponent you will get beaten.  If you make any move without a reason, you will get beaten by your opponent.  In running this great nation of ours we have to do two things well.  We have to make deliberate moves that benefit the nation as a whole, and we should never make stop gap moves that kicks the can down the road.  Sorry for the younger readers.  ‘Kick the can’ is a physical activity game that requires nothing but a can and some kids.  What I mean is we should make things happen to perform a specific purpose.

Our legislators waste a lot of time doing things they need not do.  Let’s suppose they passed a law that say you can’t throw anything out the window of a car.  Wait a minute; they did pass such a law.  It is micromanagement at its finest.  It cannot be enforced to a degree that makes a difference, so we post signs costing into the millions of dollars.  We have few neighborhoods that help, and we send the prisoners out to pick up debris.  We cannot control everyone’s life to that degree.  At some point we have to let people be responsible for themselves.

We used to look at the whole board.  When I was young, if an adult saw me doing wrong, they had no problem telling me so.  I also had no problem obeying.  We lived in communities then, and if I didn’t obey, he or she would tell my father. 

Our legislators should ‘look at the whole board’ and figure out the balance between micromanagement and placing the responsibility on the public to protect ourselves unless it is at a degree that a professional should do it.  See the problem.  Look at the whole board.

Are we looking at the whole board or do we think we are paying someone to do it for us?  Even if that is so, did you vote?

The responsibility is ours not the people we elect and not the bureaucrats working for us in our government.

We go through life as though it was some magical experience.  The real terrorist in this country are those people that have the privilege of voting and don’t vote.  Many of the people that do not vote will say my vote doesn’t count when actually they mean that they are too lazy to keep up with current events and have no idea what is going on.

The people that have been elected to govern us clearly have not been doing their job.  It isn’t their fault that they get re-elected on the grounds that they will stand in the way of government progress.  That is the fault of the voters.  If we are so stupid to believe that we don’t deserve to know the real facts confronting Congress, we deserve what we get.  When Congress holds a hearing confronting any agency for not doing their job properly but could not answer the same questions about their own job, the responsibility is ours.

I watched the hearing wher Lois Lerner, who heads the IRS tax-exempt unit declined to answer questions.  I applaud her for doing so.  Any question she answered would have been wrong.  Once they find something to blame they will quit asking questions and go to the next reaction, but do nothing about the IRS problem. 

Clearly the IRS did something wrong that has come to the surface.  The questions, when they are answered, will stop there.  How many rights has the IRS stepped on for many other people?  I saw my father-in-law and my father (two separate cases) approached by IRS who simply said you owe us X dollars.  Prove you don’t.  Both were exonerated after spending many dollars defending themselves.  I had an IRS lien placed on me at one time that cut off any chance I had of raising money I badly needed.  A small lien tied up thousands of dollars in property value. 

IRS is a badly run department that has hurt many people.  As short term fix will do nothing to help that.  We have an opportunity to set some oversight, not just for the IRS, but for all the agencies.  This is badly needed.  The Congress members will tell you that we can’t afford to do that, but the reality is that we have to do that.  It should not cost us anything to do that.  Too much discretion is given to agencies which allow the wasting of much appropriated funds.  Making people accountable is what business does every day.

We need an oversight agency that is accountable to Congress only.  Within that agency there can be experts in every field needed.  Congress members are making decisions now that they are not capable of making.  They just don’t have the expertise.  Even if they did have the expertise who they have appointed in their staff it might be a relative or someone that helped them in their campaign. 

I know in my simple mind that I can’t have the answer to this dilemma, but there are people in the government that are much smarter that I am, but they need a direction to begin planning.

The present groups that want to have a constitutional convention mostly want a smaller government and not a larger government.  They most probably will never understand that an overview department will save money in the beginning then it should stabilize. 

I end with a question.  What is the definition of insanity?  Most will say it is doing something over and over again expecting a different outcome. 

Many things in the government have to change in order for the government we love to survive.  Let us control the changes without the changes ultimately controlling us.

STAY INVOLVED AND VOTE !!!!

Is it incompetence in government or simple ignorance in judgment that allow the problems in Bengasi, the IRS scandal, Watergate and many other scandals we know about plus, I am sure, thousands of secret questionable situations we do not know about that is causing the problems?  I submit to you that it is neither incompetence or ignorance causing the problems.  It is secrets that cause of the problems.

There are three kinds of secretes in our government today.  The first one is declared secretes.  These are secretes supposedly and sometimes correctly declared for the benefit of the public.  That is someone decides the public should not have a need to know certain subjects of details because the subject matter might be leaked to our enemies and ultimately cause harm to our nation.  This is a legitimate secret, but is too often used to protect someone or something from harm due to mistakes in judgment or wasting money. 

The second is to protect people or procedures in our government that allow certain people to be protected from decisions they might have made or are aware of that were made which was not to the best interest of the public.

The third is the most dangerous of all.  When an employee is hired in any company or government they are given a lecture on ‘the chain of command’ and usually sign a contract agreement to follow ‘the chain of command’.  This is done so the management system works well and is very necessary to support productivity UNLESS someone is keeping a secret or just doing something blatantly wrong.  When what we call ‘a whistle blower’ comes forward and tells their immediate supervisor what is concerning them, and the supervisor says keep that under your hat.  The potential whistle blower then believes the agreement they have with the company or government agency prevents them from alerting people that might need to know that secret.

In my opinion the government, banks, and other corporations constantly have members sign documents that take away your right to be good citizens.  The court cases that confirm we cannot put something against the law in a contract and expect it to hold up, are always after the whistle blower has lost much personal wealth and stability in their lives.

Until there is a law that protects the employee from being asked to sign documents that do not conform to the law.  Lawyers get off scot free by presenting such documents to corporations as legal documents.  People cannot agree to agree later.  A person cannot agree to give up their right to speak on behalf of their own well being.  Nothing is forever and prices can’t change automatically without an index automatically.  The contracts just get worse and worse just like the laws passed by Congress just get more and more ridiculous. 

Where did we lose the value of honor which is written into the Constitution throughout this wonderful document?  We are supposed to have honor in the executive branch of our government.  We are supposed to have honor in the legislative branch of our government.  We are supposed to have honor in the judicial branch of our government

In our judicial department from the counties to the Supreme Court of these United States every judge has his or her own agenda as to what should be done.  There are interpretations that do not come close to following the intent of the first Congress.

As we watch the hearings on the IRS and Bengasi progress watch the agenda change from searching for the truth to partisanship. 

I am constantly hearing some of the members of Congress expound loudly with conviction in their voice that President Obama and others should be impeached from office.  The cause seems to be that they are incompetent and are not doing their job. 

If this is a case that should be considered let’s see what the merits are.  The President and others were involved in the process.  They made decisions they thought were correct at the time and stood by those decisions.  The question of making the right decisions or wrong decisions should never be in question.  The fact is that if they did the right or wrong decision, they did it based on the information they had to rely upon.

Further if doing their job the best they can is a reason for impeachment, then I submit that the majority of member of Congress should be impeached.  The members of Congress have not done their job or voted for any bill I am aware of in the last 30 years that had to do with the welfare of those that sent them to Congress.  It seems from the bills that have been passed that at least 90 percent of the bills that have been passed have to do with the lobbyist that give generous donations to the campaigns of those that support their cause.

I propose the following. Let us put together a hearing in the Senate that investigates each member of the House to see if they are doing their job competently and at the same time put together a hearing in the House to investigate each member of the Senate to determine if they are working competently.

Our Congress spends more time figuring out ways NOT to do their job than they spend doing their job.  Their job is to first and foremost obey and defend the Constitution.  Every time a Senator or Representative does anything in contradiction to the constitution he or she should be impeached.  For instance, if the budget isn’t passed every year the person or persons standing in the way should be impeached and if guilty removed from office with no benefits.  Every time a special interest lobby contributes to a campaign for re-election of a Senator or Representative, and that Senator or Representative votes for something not in the interest of the citizens such as; putting off legislation that would improve fuel mileage mandatory increases (which is possible now), delaying hydrocarbon emissions (which can be done now), cutting the budget of the FDA so that the food we eat in the United States is safe and labeled properly, delaying the infrastructure upkeep for the roads and bridges we travel every day, (one of my favorites) continuing to support the OIL and MEDICAL interest by voting restrictions then giving them an enormous amount of time to comply while continuing to give themselves pay raises; they should be impeached with all benefits being stripped from their package.

Jesus said, before you take the speck out of the eye of your neighbor; first remove the log from your own eye.

I am not saying to ignore transgressions against the citizens of the government of the United States.  What I am saying is that if you spend your time criticizing people in the government trying their best to do your job, you do not have time to do your job, which is why you were supposed to be elected.  If you try to justify your existence in Congress by pushing your personal agenda ahead of those that sent you, you’re a crook.  If you benefit yourselves instead of looking to the needs of the community that sent you, you are a crook.

Most of the people that sent you to Congress work every day at a job that only allows them to earn a meager income compared to yours.  You are now officially a slave of power and mammon.

We have embassies around the world.  In some countries where there is a presence of religious factions that believe that violence is the answer to solving problem in the world, those embassies are in danger constantly.  This isn’t now and then, it is all the time.

In the case of Benghazi the State Department always refrains from calling the kettle black.  The fact is that if we had sent Arial support to the defense of our American Embassy in Benghazi the result would have been that according to the Libyan people it would have been an unprovoked attack on a simple demonstration. 

The State Department, as all departments in the US Government, always makes the same mistake.  They do not tell the citizens of this country the truth.  They seem to believe that we cannot handle the truth.  This puts us in further danger because we cannot properly vote for people that do not give us the truth, but we don’t know that unless we know what is happening. 

The fact is that no matter what the truth is in this case, we cannot win any argument.  It is good to hear what happened for the sake of future situations that might come up so let the hearings go on.  However, if there is an agenda in the hearing room that has nothing to do with finding out what happen so we can do better in the future, it is a useless process.

In absolutely every hearing that I have heard and seen on TV or radio, I have never seen questions that did not have an agenda from some of the Senators or Representatives of the House.  If we do not vote these people out of office we will never get our country back.

I remember several years back, probably when Reagan was shot and/or before, when the NRA’s slogan was “Guns don’t kill people. People kill people.”  I noticed today that I had not heard that slogan for quite some time now.  I became immediately obvious why not.  The background check for gun ownership is now on the minds of the public.  It becomes obvious to me that the gun lobby just wants to sell guns. 

I have had guns in my house since I was born.  My father had guns actually used for hunting and a souvenir he brought back from WWII.  I hunted with my family when I was young.  My cousin used a 17 shot semi automatic and I used a single shot.  My father taught me to aim well, so I only need one shot at a time.  The only reason I would need more is if some several nuts were holding me or other descent people hostage.  Then I would need one shell for each of them.

To keep some nut from killing other people is we need to keep those guns from the nuts that are out there in our midst.  The way we do that is to adopt the NRA’s position several years ago and agree that “Guns don’t kill people.  People kill people.” And do background checks.