Winter in Sedillo

NEARLY WORDLESS WEDNESDAY

Winter pictures to make the fireside feel warm . . .





The just past full blue moon of December sets above the Sandia Mountain Front to the west. The sky is rimmed with the pink of approaching dawn.

A freezing fog has set on the leaves of a Rocky

Mountain Juniper. The air was damp and cold,

signalling an approaching snowstorm.

More freezing fog on the Juniper at the top of South Sedillo Ridge. All around, the air is full of the very cold fog.

Restless clouds in a turning sky,

telling of the heavy weather.

The snow fell from the first storm

of three coming through this week.

Snow from the second storm fell this morning, adding layers to the snow from previous storms.

The third storm is coming Friday. We have had snowcover up here on Sedillo since December 7. It looks like we may have it until the cross-quarter day.




By then, I believe I will be ready for spring!

Boychick On the Hill

NEARLY WORDLESS SPECIAL

I have been very busy with my business this past week, and I have also gotten a cold that turned into pleurisy. I have not posted at all!

But while I was busy last weekend, the Boychick had a trip to Washington, DC with other members of his Confirmation Class, our rabbi, and our religious educator. The nature of this trip was to learn the process of lobbying on issues provided by the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism. Although the RAC tends to view its own progressive political vision as the "Jewish" political viewpoint--remember there is no monolithic Judaism, two Jews three opinions--we decided to send the Boychick because of what he would learn, even though he was--as we told him--going into the Belly of the Beast.

In order to arm him against progressive indoctrination, we made him watch Michael Badnarik's Constitution Course at You Tube, and we asked him to watch The Philosophy of Liberty. We talked to him about possible issues for which the RAC dogma would likely align with a more libertarian and Constitutional political philosophy. As it turned out, on the issue he chose--immigration policy--the libertarian perspective is more radical than the progressive one the RAC promotes.

The Boychick, we are told, did very well and wrote an impressive speech to give to our senators from New Mexico. He loved the trip, and felt it was not only educational, but also that being with Jewish high school students from all over the United States (from 20 different Reform congregations) was very affirming to his Jewish identity, and awakened him to the wide variety of ideas that Jews hold. Sometimes simultaneously!

The trip was money well spent. The pictures below were taken by several different people, and posted at the Facebook site for the RAC. The Boychick does not--he informs me--take pictures.

Congregation Albert Group pose on the Capitol Steps. The Boychick is in the fedora, on the far right front, holding the sign.

















Havdalah--the ritual to end Shabbat--at the Jefferson Memorial on Saturday night, after dinner in Georgetown. The Boychick says it was cold, cold, cold!





















The Boychick, being cool in his new Oakley's purchased in Georgetown, pauses in his work on his speech for the New Mexico Delegation.




















Getting ready to Lobby in the lobby. The students are dressed in suits and skirts, looking very grown up.




















At the Airport on the way home. How do I know it was on the way home? The Oakleys. I never asked what it cost. It was his money.
And he looks cool.
I just hope he doesn't lose them!


And I hope he doesn't lose his perspective.


Jews come with a variety of political viewpoints. No matter how much the Reform Movement tends towards social progressivism. The Libertarian philosopher, Murray Rothbard was a Jew. As is Aaron Zeller, the founder of Jews for the Preservation of Firearm Ownership. Statism is not a religious doctrine.

Clarifying The Non-Initiation Principle

We, the undersigned, renounce and condemn any and all

INITIATION of force and will pursue all lawful and

Constitutional means to fulfill our duty."

--The Articles of Freedom:

the Work of Continental Congress 2009

Twice this week I have heard conservatives object to the Non-initiation of Force Principle (NIP) based on what appears to be a misunderstanding or mishearing of the word INITIATION. This is something that I have begun to notice as my political work takes me among conservatives; that they are generally unaware of the meaning or the basis of the Non-initiation principle that stems from the concept of the Rights of Man.

The non-initiation of force principle is a product of the classical liberal thought of the enlightenment and its modern statement is a product of libertarian philosophy and ethics. Its basis is that each individual has "certain unalienable rights." These rights are not granted by any god or government, rather they have their source in the nature of human beings as moral agents. Because they are unalienable, rights cannot be removed from individuals, nor may a person voluntarily surrender them. They are proper to the nature of the human individual. These rights are defined as the right to Life, Liberty and Property. It is these rights that the Declaration of Independence asserts and that the Constitution* was written to protect.

*The Constitution guarantees US citizens that these rights will be protected by the government it forms, but the Constitution does not "grant" them. If it did so, these would be privileges, not rights. Therefore, the concept "constitutional rights" is a misnomer. Rather, these are rights that are protected by the Constitution.

The first explanation I ever saw of how the initiation of force is a violation of individual rights comes from Ayn Rand's Capitalism: the Unknown Ideal. Rand writes:

"To violate a man's rights means to compel him to act against his own judgement or to expropriate his values. Basically, there is only one way to do it: by the use of physical force. There are two potential violators of man's rights: the criminals and the government. The great achievement of the United States was to draw a distinction between these two--by forbidding to the second the legalized version of the activities of the first." (p. 371)

In sum, it is a violation of an individual's natural rights to initiate force against him. Force can violent, as it is when someone is compelled against her will at the point of a gun or by the threat of torture. But there are also non-violent methods of force, such as fraud, deception and neglect.

Adherence to the Non-Initiation Principle means that one agrees not to use force against an innocent individual who has not first violated or threatened one's own right to Life, Liberty or Property. However, it does not mean that one cannot DEFEND against the violation of one's own rights by the meeting force with force. This is so, because by violating the rights of another, the one who initiates force has forfeited his own rights, and has become a criminal. This is true regardless of whether the initiator is acting alone, or in a group. And the person whose rights have been abrogated is morally obligated to use whatever means possible to defend them and restore them, and he may properly ask others to help him in this defense.

Through our Constitution, we have invested our governments (state and federal) with the power to protect our rights by protecting us from the initiation of force. We have authorized government to use force against those who initiate it against us in order to stop the violation of the rights of innocent citizens. For example, we have given* the government the power try and incarcerate a thief in order to protect us from a violation of our property rights.

*Rights belong to the people, and are individual; whereas the government is granted privileges and duty by the people whose individual rights the government exists to secure.

However, a government that violates the rights of its owners, the citizens, by initiating force against them has become a tyranny. And the citizens has the right to defend their rights against it, and more, they have the duty "to throw off such a government, and provide new guards for their future security." (The Declaration of Independence).

Both of the conservatives I spoke with objected to the Non-initiation Principle because they did not hear and/or understand the difference between initiating force against an innocent person, thus violating his rights, and the use of force to meet and repel the force used in those violations. That is, they did not understand the meaning of the word INITIATION in the context of the principle.

So I will state it plainly: the Non-initiation principle does not preclude the use of force as a RESPONSE to the initiation of force against oneself by criminals, whether they be individuals or groups or even associated with government. That is, it does not preclude the use of fraud, deception, neglect or violence to DEFEND one's Life, Liberty or Property. A free individual has no moral obligation to accept the initiation of force against him; rather he has the moral obligation to defend his rights, and he may morally join with others to defend the rights of another free individual.

If we have been subjected by our own government to " a long train of abuses and usurpations" of our rights--as we have been, and if "our most humble petitions for redress of grievances have been met only with repeated injury", then we have the moral obligation, that is the duty, to defend our rights by any means necessary.

However, we have no moral obligation to act imprudently. Rather, as we go about the defense of our rights, prudence dictates that we consider the consequences of our responses to ourselves and to those around us, using violence only when we have exhausted all other means of meeting force with force. Although there is no guarantee that we will be able to stop those abuses and usurpations of our rights by our servant government short of armed resistance, still it is better to try other means, for if we succeed in them, we save our own blood and treasure from destruction.

For a very brief and shining moment in history, the United States, through the Bill of Rights that forbade the government from initiation of force against innocent citizens, achieved a society in which the use of force in relationships among individuals was forbidden and punished, thus allowing for all relationships to be predicated on the freedom of individuals to associate with one another, and to have the unrestricted freedom of contract. But that moment has been superceded by a government that through the corruption of the values of liberty and individual rights, has usurped the sovereignty of the individual, replacing it with the collectivist concept of "the social good."

Our individual rights are almost gone from want of our strong and consistent defense of them. Rights only exist where free individuals have the will to exercise them, and upon their violation, to defend themselves against the usurpers of rights, whether those usurpers be criminals or government.

Is it time to consider meeting force with force?
I believe it is. And prudence dictates that we begin by demanding of the government their compliance with the limitations placed on them by the Constitution, and by meeting their initiation of force against us with strongly asserted, principled civil disobedience.

If you agree that we have the duty to defend our rights, join with us by signing the Articles of Freedom, and making the commitment to engage with millions of other Americans in the civic actions required to withdraw our support from those who have violated our rights.

Long live the Constitution of the United States!

To One Hundred and Twenty

Yesterday, was my birthday, and it was a significant birthday at that.
When I was young, the age I am now seemed impossibly far away--after marriage, after children (yeah, I didn't realize that there is no 'after children')--and certainly after the 8th grade for heaven's sake!

But somehow, the earth kept orbiting the sun, and the years kept passing--faster and faster, it seems--and now I have reached that age that I had once defined as "old." Others, it seems, define it so as well. AARP recently sent me an offer of membership. But of course, it is unlikely my generation will ever see those social security benefits we've been paying for since we started working. So if I were to get an AARP membership, it would only be to emulate the boomers when they were young, and burn it in a protest march.

So here I am, having reached my childhood goal of being "old", only to think that I am not so old at all! I don't wear purple (at least not often), my trousers are only rolled when I have to wade through the snow (creeks being somewhat scarce here), and I certainly don't drive like an old lady (except on a very blizzardy day in the canyon).

Fortunately, when my beloved Engineering Geek toasted me over the cake, which was presented at a New Mexico Patriot Alliance meeting, he said, "May you live to 120!" This comes from the age at which Moses died, at which time "his eye had not dimmed, nor had his moisture fled." So the blessing implies living to a righteous old age enjoying life of the mind and a little loving now and then.

My fellow patriots presented me with a plaque that honored me as the "mother of the R3volution". And I quipped that I am happy that they didn't say "grandmother of the R3volution". But the EG's toast did give me a wonderful new goal, now that I realize that my current age is not "old." Old is 12o! And now I have a new goal: to live to be 120! Which would take me well into the second half of the current century. A worthy goal.
What miracles and wonders would I see, should I live so long?

And so, given my venerable age and gender, I wish to change my mind. I'll tell my patriot friends that I do want to be "the grandmother of the R3volution." When I am old. When I am closing in on 120!

May we all live "to 120!"

Happy New Year . . . A Little Late!

A snowstorm, a party,

a friend's frozen pipes . . .

a busy weekend at Ragamuffin House.

And yet Ragamuffin House wishes you all

a very Happy New Year!

And may all the sunrises of 2010 be beautiful.

Picture: Sunrise over Via Sedillo on the last day of the year 2009.

Sixteen Candles . . . and One to Grow On!

NEARLY WORDLESS WEDNESDAY

Sixteen years ago, when I was transported to the hospital in labor with the Boychick, Albuquerque was in the middle of a decade-long drought, and there was no snow in sight.

That drought ended, and we moved up to the mountains, the combination of which has meant that we regularly have snow sometime within the week of the Boychick's birthday.

Yesterday, we had snow in morning, and then snow again overnight last night, just a day after we celebrated another trip around the sun for Boychick.


Before the snow, Boychick got his wish and we spent the afternoon of his birthday in town, frequenting a guitar store, and the bookstore. We stopped and got a German Chocolate Cake, candles and T-bone. The Engineering Geek had to shovel the way to the grill, but we had the Boychick's favorite dinner.

Although he's now taller than me, he still wanted a candle "to grow on" so here is the Boychick, ready to blow out 17 candles.

The trip to the guitar shop was fruitful. The Boychick got a small amp for his birthday. Like the RCA puppy before him, Umbrae cocks his head trying to figure out what is making that noise.

The Boychick here practices his acting ability. Frankenstein, about to attack a giant piece of cake,

complete with ice cream.

At least we know the Boychick can use those calories for growning. The Engineering Geek and I have no such excuse! But we had some anyway, just to be companionable.






No, he's not twenty-one. That will happen in another five years.
But that bubbly is sparkling apple cider.
It's sweet, and it's great for a toast.

To the Boychick! Here's to another great trip around the sun!

The evening ended with entertainment provided by the Boychick and the new amp--small, but it has good sound.

Doing the dishes went quickly as we listened.

Sixteen? Soon I am going to have to come up with another nickname for the Boychick. Manchick just doesn't do it for me, somehow.

De Nile Ain't Just A River in Egypt

I just read an excellent blog entry over at Consent of the Governed called 2010: Brace for Impact. In it, blogger Judy Aron discusses the scheme of Quantitative Easing, a way in which federal reserve notes (I refuse to call it 'money') being printed in unprecedented quantity over the coming year in order to keep up with federal spending, will be released onto the marketplace. The Fed is doing this hoping to pump enough money into the banks to get them to lend money instead of buying treasuries. The problem is that by making the prime rate 0 -0.25% (the prime discount rate is the rate at which banks lend to other banks--which they are not doing much of at the moment) the Fed has left itself nowhere to go if Quantitative Easing does not work and flooding the market with dollars cannot be turned on a dime. In this case, the dollar crashes, which means that the currency becomes worthless to those holding dollars, and then as Marketplace.org's Senior Editor Paddy Hirsch explains, it will leave "everybody badly needing a drink."

What is interesting is that, despite the fact that anyone who can do elementary math can see that it remains physically impossible to continue consuming far more than one produces for very long, such magical thinking is still engaged in by everyone from senior Senators in the halls of the Capitol to my neighbors.

The Engineering Geek and I had the pleasure of having dinner with another East Mountain couple recently. We are not well acquainted with them, although they had come to our Passover Seder once or twice. During an excellent dessert with wonderful coffee, the wife asked me about Common Sense, Inc., my consulting business that runs Retake Congress. I began by explaining the four points to the contract that our candidates sign. But I never got to finish, because when I got to the economic point, our hosts began to argue and object to the idea that the United States economy could be badly impacted by the fact that the federal government is spending money like water and then borrowing more to spend just as profligately.

We were told that a currency crash and hyper-inflation simply cannot happen here because:

• the United States is a superpower
• Obama is the messiah (not said in so many words, but implied)
• China will keep lending us money because we'll keep buying their goods
• times have changed and human beings have never before had technology and a worldwide marketplace
• the laws of nature do not apply to economics

Although there was a moment when the Engineering Geek's explanation of the fall of Weimar in Germany due to hyper-inflation began to dawn on the wife, the husband quickly pointed out that Germany was not operating in a world market. (Oy, the abyssimal failure of our public schools to teach history!)

Finally, I attempted to draw an analogy using the energy exchanges in ecosystem ecology. At this point, the husband simply said that he did not believe me because economics is not a natural thing, it is human made and therefore not subject to natural laws. Therefore he said, it is not impossible for people to continue indefinitely consuming more than they produce.

I was absolutely floored at first, not understanding how a smart and successful director of a major Albuquerque employer could possibly not understand this simple concept. (The EG said I was getting frustrated). Then I realized. My neighbors are in denial. They simply cannot imagine that a system that they depend upon, one that allows them to live the rather extravagant lifestyle they enjoy, could possibly fail. Like many of the passengers on the Titanic, they tell themselves the story that the good ship U.S. Economy is unsinkable.

According to researchers who study the psychology of disasters, many people freeze in the first minutes of a disaster because they simply cannot believe that their reality has altered so suddenly. These people are the least likely to take positive action in the first moments of the disaster, and are therefore less likely to survive. (See, for example, The Unthinkable: Who Survives When Disaster Strikes--and Why by Amanda Ripley). Those who survive are often those who have thought about and planned for the unthinkable.

As a child growing up, I spent a lot of time reading science fiction, and a fair number of those short stories and books placed characters in the unthinkable situations of disasters ranging from nuclear war (Alas, Babylon) to an astroid impact (Lucifer's Hammer). Such books do get one thinking about the possibilities of disaster. But the book that made me realize just how quickly a situation can deteriorate from normalcy to surreal horror was John Hersey's The Wall, a novel that portrayed the history of the Warsaw ghetto. In the beginning one of the female characters is returning from the bakery in her Warsaw neighborhood, her basket full of bread. Within the first third of the novel, that same character is hungry and scrambling for food in the ghetto. By the second half of the novel, she is making her way through the sewers filled with barbed-wire in order to escape. The time portrayed in the novel, about six years, is telescoped to the main events, but for an impressionable freshman in high school, the idea that one's world can change dramatically in a short time became real to me with this book because it was about real events.

For some time, as I have watched the country I inhabited before September 2008 change before my very eyes, I have been aware of how fast something wicked this way comes. (Yes, Ray Bradbury borrowed one of his sci-fi fantasy title's from Shakespeare). Not quite believing it could get bad, I nevertheless began thinking about what we would need in case of, say a bank failure, or even civil unrest. That thinking became planning and purchasing as I watched our purported leaders scramble all over each other to deny reality through insinuation and outright lies. The more outrageous their behavior, the more planning and purchasing I did. Now, working with others, we are planning for various contigencies.

I have been called a tin-foil hat conspiracy theorist, a person wedded to doom and gloom, and the other night, unpatriotic. That's okay. Call me all of those things. Because when I get called those names, I remember the Donner Party. They ignored all the signs, did not heed the warnings, took an untried "short cut" that led to a long delay, and ended up in the High Sierra completely unprepared for winter. And most of the members of that group from Illinois came to a horrific end. So call me all the names you want, but also call me "Scout" because my motto is still Be Prepared. In winter, for example, I carry an emergency kit in the car. (Such a kit should at least contain candles, water, high-energy snacks, a sleeping bag, a shovel and kitty litter).

If one is unprepared for even a mild disaster, one's chances of injury and death are increased. In the face of a serious disaster, being able to accept the unthinkable and being prepared for many challenging situations makes one's chances of surviving and even thriving much greater.

The sunshine patriot and the summer soldier will not be prepared to weather hard times. Winter soldiers are prepared for more than one kind of hard time.

Denial of reality can lead to serious consequences. So now, in order to "brace for impact", the Engineering Geek is working with others who think logistically on contingencies for a group of us, so that we can provide ourselves with the mutual aid and comfort of community in the coming hard times. Because hard times are predictable. When enough people in power in a society evade reality, hard times become inevitable as that same reality comes back to bite us in the butt.

Denial. It ain't just a river in Egypt.