Archive for October, 2012

My Dear Sally’s Heart

October 29, 2012

My Dear Sally’s Heart

On Friday, 10/26/12, my beloved wife of 49 years was prepped to undergo a very difficult surgery to replace a valve in her heart. She lay, semi-consious, on the operating table as a host of  personnel talked and assembled a forest of medical machinery all around her. Her arm was placed on an extended board so she could finally be “put-under” for her surgery that early morning.  Suddenly a phone rang in the surgical room, the room fell  silent and the medical machines were rolled away. She was informed that a man had suffered a near-fatal heart attach and needed immediate surgery to save his life. Sally’s surgery that day was not nearly so critical and it could wait till the next Monday.

Back in the waiting area for surgery, our let-down was as powerful as was our support of the dying man’s greater need for immediate surgery.

Sally was home that weekend to thrill at Notre Dame’s Victory over the University of Oklahoma. She attended the service to see her 14 year-old Grandson, Kelin, confirmed in the Lutheran Church. She revelled in the confirmation party at our her home for her proud grandson and our loved-ones who attended later that afternoon.

Her surgery happened on the following monday. The surgeon sawed through her breast bone and replaced the a valve in her heart. The surgery went very well and Sally was a very strong and brave patient.

When I first saw her in  intensive recovery care she was asleep and covered with tubes and  numerous other devices. I was stunned as she lay very still and looked to be close to death. The nurse assured me that this was ‘the way they all look when the came back from heart surgery”. When I saw her a few hours later, her breathing tube had been removed and she was awake and in indescribable pain.  I was overwhelmed with feelings of fear and helplessness. Sally was then administered more morpheme and vicodin and she mercifully relaxed and peacefully drifted off to sleep.

I was called to her side several hours later and Sally was awake, relaxed, laughing and teasing with her wonderful attending nurse and I. I  know that my dear Sally will have more painful trials during her extended  rrecuperation, but the prognosis is now very good for her full recovery.

I cannot help but think about our fate were it one-hundred years ago, or even 50 years  ago.

God’s Blessings of medical science and technology, and the people of medicine who saved my dear Sally’s life remain beyond my comprehension.  Her children and other loved ones and I are more grateful than words can express.

VTM, 10/29/12

P.S.  By the way,  the man who nearly died from a heart attack and who bumped Sally from her surgery last Friday, is doing very well at this time.  All will be well that ends well!

Our President: A Master of Deceit!

October 27, 2012

Our President: A Master of Deceit!

Surgery for my dear Sally has been rescheduled to Monday.

Please study the following threat to our Nation.

Wake-Up America!

VTM, 10/27/12

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/reporter-obama-would-not-answer-repeated-questions-on-whether-requests-for-help-in-benghazi-were-denied/

Something Is Terribly Wrong: Obama!

October 25, 2012

Something Is Terribly Wrong: Obama!

We are preparing for heart valve replacement surgery for my dear wife Sally, tomorrow morning.

For the next few days, I will try to highlight something quick and easy -yet worthy of your attention- on daily basis.

Like this!

VTM, 10/25/12

http://www.glennbeck.com/2012/10/24/ed-klein-bill-clinton-encouraged-hillary-to-resign-in-the-wake-of-the-benghazi-scandal/?utm_source=Daily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=2012-10-25_173346&utm_content=5419072&utm_term=_173346_173371

Our Pathological Lier Commander and Chief

October 24, 2012

Our Pathological Liar Commander and Chief

Think I exaggerate? Take a look..Reality will set your free, but first it will make you miserable!

VTM, 10/24/12

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/words-matter-2012-presents-clips-from-obamas-apology-tour/

President and Mrs. Obama’s Stance on Partial Birth Abortions

October 24, 2012

President and Mrs. Obama’s Stance on Partial Birth Abortions

Just plain wrong on so many issues.

VTM, 10/24/12

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/have-you-seen-the-2004-michelle-obama-letter-endorsing-partial-birth-abortion/

Obama Presents New Ideas…Not!

October 23, 2012

Obama Presents New Ideas…Not!

Thanks to Brother Mark for sending this to us all.

Ya just gotta see this one—The mina-bird speaks!

VTM, 10/23/12

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZgQhnNRSuw

The Sliding Scale of Liberty (New Strategies 3)

October 21, 2012

The Sliding Scale of Liberty

I define liberty as the Constitutional right of individuals to make their own choices about their behaviors and life-styles, without interference from the forces of government.

The concept of liberty is one that resides on a “sliding scale”.  If there are no restrictions or mandates from a governmental entity, be it small or large, population behavioral chaos will prevail. On the other hand, if governmental restrictions and mandates are increased to very high levels, or encroach into areas that most people find too restrictive, inconvenient, frustrating or anger-evoking, rioting becomes more likely and population behavioral chaos may again prevail.

Individual’s choices about their behaviors and life-styles can be restricted by family, friends, work settings and churches, or other social organizations they may belong to. However, if such associations become so restrictive as to become largely aversive to them, they can leave them to find others more to their liking.

In America, the escape from excessive governmental restrictions is more easily accomplished at the community, county, and state levels. The great problem occurs when restrictions on individual liberty are imposed by the federal government and therefore becomes the rule for the entire Socioculture. Escape from tyranny then becomes a much more difficult challenge

Unfortunately, the matter of liberty and its ideal location on the liberty sliding scale of liberty is far more complicated than the number of restrictions or mandates imposed upon a population by their chosen associations, or by their government. Debates on issues of liberty rapidly devolve into arguments about exactly which behaviors in a population are to be prohibited or mandated. It is likely that such matters have frustrated intelligent and moral analysis from the very beginnings of human social behavior.

Further complicating matters is a saying that I remember my dear mother repeating from time to time: “Laws are the chains that set men free”. It is true that many restrictions and mandates upon our behavior actually guarantee greater liberty for the vast majority of citizens. Laws and sanctions against murder, rape, robbery, assault, and other felonies and misdemeanors, etc., are examples. Also, governments normally mandate that citizens pay taxes to subsidize a host of actions and outcomes that benefit “the common good”. The common good is often served by infrastructural construction and maintenance as well as care for the unemployed, homeless or disabled, etc.  

There are further restrictions and mandates imposed by our governments and also various professional organizations such as the licensure of important skill sets that benefit the general population (M.D., Psychologists, Lawyers, teachers, etc.). Other examples have to do with driver licensing, food preparation and cleanliness standards, water quality, automobile safety, and much more. After-all, how much liberty do we enjoy when we suffer because of criminal predation or poor performance in these and other important services and actions that impact our lives.

In the final analysis, some restrictions and mandates upon individual choices about behaviors and life-styles generally restrict individual liberty and some generally increase individual liberty.

The difficulty we face is to learn the good restrictions and mandates from the bad ones, and then find humane ways to implement them within a Constitutional Republic such as America.

 

V. Thomas Mawhinney, Ph.D.

10/21/12

Calling All Military Veterans

October 19, 2012

I will admit that I cannot prove the authenticity of this open letter to Veteran’s. However, the following words represent my feelings and judgments very well.

Therefore, as a proud vetran of the U.S. Navy Submarine Service, I could not help but forward this to any who will read my blog.

I thank my dear sub-mate Howard Hawkins for sending this to me.

VTM, 10/19/12

RICK MARTIN, MASTER CHIEF PETTY OFFICER, UNITED STATES NAVY (RETIRED) Ronald B  Williams, Master Chief Petty Officer, United State Navy, Retired Tommy D. Tucker, Sgt, First Class, United States Army, Retired.

Calling All Military Veterans

  An unknown song writer once wrote these words: “A veteran is a
man or woman who at one point in their life wrote a blank check payable up to and including their life.” The check was payable to the people of the United
States of America and to make sure we were not misunderstood we took an oath that said “I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States
against all enemies, foreign and domestic…”

   Now, we have fought our wars against foreign enemies, but we still have that blank check and that oath that we have never given up. I am therefore calling on my comrades in arms and fellow veterans to go into battle again and defend our nation and our Constitution on the political battlefield. There are over 21 million veterans in this country and this election is another fight that we must win if we are to see our nation
survive.

  We have a President of the United States who is openly hostile to
the Constitution. He has stated that if Congress does not pass the legislation
he wants he will do it by issuing executive orders, and he continuously does
just that, despite the fact that it violates the Constitution. He is
destroying the balance of power that is one of the mainstays of our
Constitution.

  When you combine that with the fact that he has appointed
some 45 Czars without the required approval of the Senate, gone to war in Libya without Congressional approval, and signaled that he is planning to sign and implement United Nations treaties without submitting them to the Senate for ratification, it is clear that he is establishing a de facto dictatorship.

  There are many articles detailing the Obama administration’s all-out assault on individual liberties in this county, particularly those enshrined in the Bill of Rights. Whether you look at freedom of speech and religion, the right to keep and bear arms, the right to due process of law, or any of our other basic rights, the President seems intent on restricting them or abolishing them all together.

  In addition, Obama has put us in a position where our nation is
no longer respected around the world. He continues to apologize to our enemies and ignore or insult our friends. He still refuses to acknowledge the dangers of radical Islam and Sharia law and is putting the safety of every American at risk. We all know that the murder of 13 soldiers at Fort Hood was not workplace violence, but an act of terrorism, and the murder of our Ambassador and three other brave Americans in Libya on 9/11 was not a spontaneous reaction to a video on You Tube. It’s time that we let the President know that we are not stupid.

  As veterans, we must also be aware of what is happening to our
military. Obama is cutting the size of our military and stopping the production of the weapons and equipment needed by our personnel to effectively defend us and stay alive while doing so. He is stripping the military of a key component for many of its members, their faith in God. He sees ” political correctness ” as more important than giving our men and women in the service the same freedom of religion that they are fighting to defend. Now, we are learning that under Obamacare the President is mandating that our military members, veterans and their families pay much more for their medical care. However, civilian employees of the Department of  Defense who happen to be union members will not see any increase in their costs for the same benefits.

   As I have watched the progression of the Obama Presidency it has become clear that his agenda is not what I took an oath to protect. I did not take an oath of allegiance to defend socialism, or any other form of dictatorship, and I certainly did not take an oath to take away the Constitutional rights of my fellow Americans. Obama took the same type of oath I did, but he seems to have no problem violating it. I cannot and will not accept that.

  Therefore, I am calling on my fellow veterans to join me in stepping up to the plate once again, and not only voting to retire Obama on November 6, 2012 and to retire members of the House and Senate who do not support the Constitution, but to get other Veterans to do the same. If we lose this time we may never have another chance.

Teach American History and Values!

October 19, 2012

Founder's Quote Daily

“I know no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion by education. This is the true corrective of abuses of constitutional power.” –Thomas Jefferson, letter to William Charles Jarvis, 1820

 

VTM, 10/1912

New Strategies for Cultural Self-Managment (2)

October 17, 2012

New Strategies for Cultural Self-Managment (2)

A dear friend of mine challenged me to provide some specific recommendations to America regarding how to correct our precipitous decline that began sometime around the early 1960’s.

Actually, with the exception of when I published some recommendations in a newspaper article in the late 1980’s, I have long avoided suggesting remedies to our many problems. It has been challenge enough for me to define the classes of our self-defeating collective behaviors. Having done this to a significant degree, my next project was to identify and explain some of the biological, psychological and social principles and mechanisms by which these maladaptive behavior problems were both stimulated and reinforced within our population.

I remain convinced that one cannot identify effective solutions to problems unless they first define the problem in measurable terms and, if possible, identify the probable causes of the problem. Know the probable causes of a particular problem may not always be essential to it’s solution, but it is a distict advantage to the problem solver.

Therefore, the reason that I had stopped focusing upon solutions to America’s behavioral problems is because I thought it premature to present them for consideration. In fact, it may still be premature to do so. However, I have now done the my best to define the problems and identify many of the numerous principles and mechanisms that underlie their proliferation in our Socioculture.

I therefore agree with my friend that it is time to make some practical suggestions as to how to stem the tide of an increasing great many maladaptive and destructive behaviors within our American population.

Unfortunately, any suggested solution to our social/behavioral problems raises a whole new set of problems to be confronted. Presuming such solutions could be deduced, how could they be implemented in a Democratic Republic such as ours? If this were Communist China, or Theocratic Iran, etc., solutions could simply be imposed. But to do this would destroy the fundamental features of America that have propelled its ascendency to greatness in the world.

America was founded upon a fierce quest for liberty and independence from governmental despotism. By liberty and independence, I mean the constitutional right of individual citizens to “make their own choices” about their behaviors and life-styles, without interference from the forces of government.

I differentiate liberty from freedom. The concept of liberty is straight-forward in its meaning, as I use it here. On the other hand, freedom is a more complex idea that can be debated from various philosophical perspectives (I.e., determinism, Indeterminism (free will), metaphysics/ religious issues, etc.). I will leave the “freedom” issue out of my discussion by simply acknowledging that the actions of all humans are heavily influenced by their genetic history, their history of learning , their current biological state, and the state of their current environment. In the animal kingdom, the higher the animal resides on the phylogenetic scale, the more influence its unique history of learning has upon the its actions.  This statement is most true of humans.

Never-the-less,  as marvelously successful as psychological scientists have been in accounting for the causes of our human behavior patterns, there is much yet to be learned.  There still remains a great deal of unpredictability that is unexplained when trying to account for all of the actions of any particular individual. We may take on faith that the unexplained will someday be accounted for by various principles of biology, genetics and learning. For the present, however, this hope remains a matter of philosophy and faith.

The matter of  unpredictable human behavior represents the remaining temple of human “free-will” and I will not enter it here, at this time. I have learned, while practical problem solving, that to do so creates more heat than it does light.  It is not essential that this matter be resolved in order to proceed with sensible plans to generally improve the collective behavior patterns of our population and  the sustainability of our socioculture.

The big question is how can we increase the occurrence of essential good behavior patterns in America and decrease the occurrence of destructive, bad behavior patterns in America? Another equally big question is how can we do this without destroying the economic , political, religious and social liberties of our citizens—-which is the essence of America’s being?

V. Thomas Mawhinney, Ph.D., 10/17/12


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