The Art of Understanding: 

How embracing a simple concept can bring warring parties closer.

Human beings are programmed to perceive their surroundings; a natural guidance system necessary for operating in an ever-changing environment.  It is what we see, what we observe.  Our ability to perceive is an “a priori” mechanism, an instinct, hard-wired into our brains working hand-in-hand with our senses. 

Because this is a “default setting” in all of us, it is easy to over-value the assuredness of our conclusions based upon it.  Every incident that emanates from our perception is validated for accuracy by observable confirmation.  Repeated confirmations create biases that can erroneously predict outcomes weighted heavily on past experiences and not on the present.

Perception comes from the Latin word, “percepio” meaning receiving, collecting and possessing with the mind/senses.  Most of us mistakenly assign one-hundred-percent assuredness to our perceptions and this can lead to very wrong conclusions.

You’re stopped at a traffic light and the car in front of you isn’t moving although the light is green.  The drivers head is facing down and only after you use your horn does he begin to move.  As you approach the next light, the same thing happens, his head is down and he is not responding to the light turning green.  Again you use the horn, now thoroughly annoyed and sure in your thinking that the guy is texting, drunk or high.

If you had known that this man was just coming from the hospital after his wife had passed away, your perception of the events, although accurate, would have yielded you a very different conclusion.  While your rote observations were correct, your conclusion was based on too little information and too much conformational bias based on past experience and probabilities. 

What was missing here was perspective.

Many people interchange perception and perspective but the two are very different.  When these two concepts are understood and used to compliment one another, we are transformed into powerful observers with the added benefit of insight.

Perspective, in Latin:  “perspectīve ars”, the science of optics, to behold and inspect intensively, carefully.  Perspective is “Big-Picture” thinking from not only our point-of-view, but also from an observable distance.

You’re a movie actor struggling in your first Hollywood role.  The set of the movie is a single room and your role is to argue with your fellow actor.  The set is hot, you’re nervous, the director is a task-master and you get through the day not really feeling like you accomplished much.  You go home discouraged.

When the movie is finally release to the public, it is met with enthusiasm and excitement.  Your role is nominated for Best Actress and you can hardly believe it.  When you see the final product, you can hardly believe your own eyes.

While she was working, our actor’s perception was the accurate reality of hot, repetitive and frustrating work, there was no connection or validation in that moment of a greater creation.  Only after the film was edited, produced, distributed and viewed was the acclaim forthcoming.  In perspective, the whole of the parts come into focus and the earlier perception, although accurate in the moment, was not any indicator of the bigger picture.  Armed only with her perception, our actor might have quit mid-way and never realized her potential.

The tennis players on center-court at the US Open, battling each other for the championship, both super-focused and dialed in, they demonstrate perception personified.  They man in the stands watching them, sipping a beer and cheering on every great shot, he exemplifies perspective.

Adding the element of perspective to our arsenal of understanding encourages more examination, more insights, and more knowledge.  Being able to see not only the bigger picture, but those images as seen by the others involved with whatever it is you are attempting to understand, will allow you access to resources you never knew were available and make you a much more thoughtful and wiser person.  When you learn to observe the plight of others, from their point of view, and then deal with them in consideration of that understanding, you become a much more approachable and seemingly reasonable person, easier to deal with and more comfortable to be around because you took the time to see the whole situation from all perspectives and not just your own. 

You’ll know when you have successfully embraced this way of thinking and reasoning when the moment comes and you have a sudden change of heart about something you thought you knew and understood and yet you have the courage and the insight, to change your mind.

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The Unspeakable Truth

Conservative ask, “What do they, (Liberals) want, what’s the end-game” when attempting to analyze their policies, practices and motives.

It is this.

Control, Revenge, Punishment, Domination.

Today’s liberals deplore personal freedom because it defies the want of their desire for oversight and control.  Preferred is a Master Plan that usurps the individuals for the greater good of the entire group.  Individual freedom is impossible to control and monitor and therefore needs to be suppressed and eliminated.  The basis for this level of control is that the over-Lords believe they are smarter than the hoards.  In their need for self-justification, liberals feel that these great unwashed masses, for their own good, need to be managed by the benevolent intelligentsia they think that they are.

Our founders were rich, white, slave-holding men and therefore have no moral authority.  This allows for the attacks on our Constitution and is essential to justify the dismantling of America.

The USA has been too white, too male, too rich, too fortunate and too dominate.  We stole this land from the Indians, we used slaves to enrich ourselves, we killed millions in Imperialist wars, marginalized women and dropped the atomic bomb on civilians.

Liberals have opened the borders and looked the other way while the gradual browning of America takes place and with it, in theory, millions of new liberal voters.  White men are vilified and systematically replaced with affirmative action candidates that represent a higher degree of importance on checking off boxes than actual competence.

Inflation, purposefully foolish monetary policy, confiscatory tax-policy, manipulated interest rates and energy policies designed to be very costly are all intended to steal our wealth.  “Fair Share” tax schemes fleece the wealthy while the Earned Income Tax Credit pays the poor back much more than they contributed.  We pay people to be lazy while strangling the producers, innovators, entrepreneurs and risk-takers with regulations, prohibitions and artificial barriers.

Once personal transportation ends, and it will if we go 100% electric, with it goes our freedom of movement.  Add to that a digitized currency and all personal freedom is gone.  Anonymity passes into history and everything you do and everywhere you go becomes data.  Once we become a part of a vast database, that data can be parsed, analyzed, manipulated sold and reorganized.

When the people who deplore personal freedom have enough data about you to know everything, you too will be manipulated.  Digital currency divulges your diet, drinking habits, whereabouts, wants and whims.  Your cell phone provides constant location monitoring and your vehicle calculates your speed, accuracy and efforts to thwart the laws of the road.  Privacy dies side-by-side with freedom and the world is a more predictable place for sure, however not a world in which I care to live.

Personal freedom is the bedrock of the fully actualized human experience and we are on a path that exchanges that necessity for the oppressive pit of damnation brought to you courtesy of the liberal notion of perfection by domination.

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Fear as the Default

Our fears are inversely amplified by our lack of faith.  The strength and depth of faith vanquishes our fears as the abundance of both cannot exist in the same thought.  We can be full of fear or full of faith but not at the same time.

Rational fear has its place; it keeps us safe from known dangers and backs us away from the cliffs edge, life’s fires, floods and mayhem and the many ways to get hurt or even killed.  This form of fear saves our lives and avoids injury and it is not to be confused or interchanged with emotional fear.

“Thinking will not overcome fear but action will.” W. Clement Stone

More quotes, books, manuscripts, plays, stories and autobiographies exist on the subject of fear than almost any other topic which demonstrates that we all struggle with conquering it, the great and the ordinary.

“Fear is static that prevents me from hearing myself.” Samuel Butler.

Emerson tells us, “Always do what you are afraid to do.”
 

Dorothy Thomas said, “Only when we are no longer afraid do we begin to live.”

Walking up to, into and through that which you fear turns terror into exhilaration.

“There are very few monsters who warrant the fear we have of them.” Andre Gide.

Truth be told, our own lack of understanding generates our own levels of fear.

“We fear things in proportion to our ignorance of them.” Christian Nestell Bovee.

It is our choice, our luxury, to be embraced in the arms of God.  His only demand is our faith.  Many of life’s toughest lessons are so hard to learn because their solutions are so straight-forward that we reject them as overly simplistic, given our un-success in figuring things out on our own.  Fear is one of those nemeses that we can conquer with the grace of God.

Armed with this knowledge, you can choose to set yourself free or to live in your fear.  Plato’s words should ring in your ears:

“We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light.”

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Guns Pulling Their Own Triggers

Gun-hating Gannett unveiled another series of propaganda articles blaming firearms for the actions of disturbed criminals. Regarding the Super Bowl celebration in Kansas City where gunfire killed one, the USA Today article titled, “Gun danger lurks wherever people gather” suggests that firearms have taken on a life of their own; that guns choose their victims and pull their own triggers.

The articles sub-title; “Prevalence of firearms worsens risk of attacks” seems a cognitive disconnect when in the same breath the author tells us that over 800 police were present at the time. The police are all armed. Did their presence, “worsen the risk” or should we be looking at the behaviors of individuals?

The same old mantra’s spew forth from the same old fear-mongers with solutions to problems we have already addressed, Universal Background Checks, (already in place) a well-worn, buzz-phrase-call-to-action dog whistle to those allergic to reality and addicted to propaganda. Large magazines, firearms cosmetic-appeal and the barriers to lawful firearms ownership are in no way related to or affecting the criminal and evil actions of those outside of normal societal constraints, ie: criminals and the mentally ill.

Immediately adjacent to the Super Bowl article appeared a follow-up story titled, Sellers of crime guns get federal scrutiny” When the gun left the store, did it become a “crime gun” by its very will? The article goes on to tell us that the stores that sold the most firearms ended up with more of those firearms identified as being used in criminal activity. What a revelation. No inquiry about how those firearms changed hands over time. No mention of the fact that the vast majority of crimes with firearms are committed by people illegally possessing that firearm. Clearly this kind of story is meant to cast a pall on the lawful business’s supporting the firearms industry.

Would a story identifying the largest car dealerships in the country as having sold the most vehicles that were involved in DWI stops or were used in the commission of crimes be a news-worthy article? A firearm, like a motor-vehicle, is an object we use; for good or for bad, it is a choice, a human choice. Attacking objects as if they were complicit in behaviors misses the bigger picture in genuinely searching for solutions.

The key components that are central to addressing the issues of civil and societal violence and upheaval rest on these three things:

  •  Criminals in our midst that should be incarcerated
  •  Untreated, undiagnosed and un-cared for mental illnesses
  •  Godlessness

No bail, no jail, no way to fail encourages behavior without consequence; low-risk-high reward criminality. The mentally ill, the addicted find help only after tragedy or death and finally, we reject and deny God, substituting our own values for His, abandoning the pillars of absolute truth in favor of what best fits our pleasures. Faith, belief and redemption, only available through the grace of God is the answer. Deny this and witness a continued rudderless mankind destined for destruction.

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An Open Letter to the Community

In 2006, a groups of local taxpayers-business and property owners were drawn together while attending a rally in protest of high taxes and government over-reach.  The local American legion hall was filled to capacity with angry and vocal taxpayers, eager to grab the microphone and vent their frustrations to the crowd and the three local TV networks crews and cameras that were covering the event.  With minimal marketing but ample word-of-mouth, the event was a true organic, heartfelt reaction from citizens fed-up with their government.

As the event was ending and the camera crews were packing up, a small sub-set of attendees, myself included, looked around and realized there were many familiar faces and common interests.  The genesis of what would become Citizens for a Better Broome began after that meeting and two-years later would result in the formation of a not-for-profit organization dedicated to smaller, affordable, accountable and principled governance.

Our first public event was a taxpayer protest held at Confluence Park in Binghamton on April 15, 2009 which was well attended and attracted local media attention.  We became very active in challenging local school boards to demonstrate more leadership instead of marching lock-step with management.  We were strongly in support of the dissolution of the Village of Johnson City into the Town of Union, an initiative that failed by a handful of votes.  Our group was a strong supporter of merging the neighboring school districts of Chenango Valley and Chenango Forks, a referendum that failed because the process was flawed.  We did score a big win recently in supporting the candidacy of the newly elected Town of Vestal supervisor, ushering in a truly representative style of leadership that was sorely lacking.

Since these projects, we have attempted to fund the revitalization of the Johnson City arch, a process so mired in bureaucratic hold-ups and set-backs we gave up.  We even tried to fund and support churches in maintaining, repairing and ringing their bells again, a lovely tradition that has fallen by the wayside and to that the council of churches wasn’t even interested in helping us.

Social media, word-of-mouth, editorials, even bill boards and a radio show have failed to excite the interest of the public and quite frankly, our small and loyal core group grows tired of trying to help those who don’t seem to want to help themselves or even care.

We pay too much and we get too little.  11 school districts and 24 municipalities in a county of less that 200,000 are 10 districts and 22 municipalities too many, becoming self-serving fiefdoms and mini-kingdoms of their own with zero incentive to change.

We believed our challenges would be in the form of opposition but instead what will end our organization, as well as the world we see rapidly morphing into something unrecognizable is apathy and for that I have no answer and no known cure.

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The Crack of Noon

Five days before the opening day of deer season here in upstate New York, I underwent some surgery that my doctor told me would prevent me from hunting.  Turns out he was mistaken.  That following Saturday, after a big breakfast, I hit the woods at the crack of noon, making my way very slowly up the ragged and rocky logging road that would put me into the small ground-blind my buddy Mark and I had staked out a week earlier.

Much to the chagrin of my hunting partner, who prides himself on being in the woods 45-minutes before dawn, my early-afternoon start time habits don’t sit quite right with his traditional hunting sensibilities.  By the time I had made it up the hill and carefully and quietly approached the small ground-cover in the middle of a nice stand of oak trees sporting a broken carpet of acorns, it was 1PM.

It had rained the night before and the leaves underfoot made it as quiet as a stroll in the park.  Not a breeze in the air, I made my way five or seven steps at a time, pausing for at least 90-seconds each time before proceeding.  I heard snorts to my right, in dense dead-falls, and I froze in place to see if they might come out and into view.  The first buck stuck his lowered head into the logging road, then the second and finally the third, a 4-6-and 8 point trio.  I was stuck in place because I was more or less in the open and any movement would start a stampeding exodus.  Seemingly uninterested and clearly not on high alert, the groups loitered about, me frozen in the open not daring to move.  The 8-point looked up and back down half a dozen times before he finally decided to err on the side of caution and the trio trotted away, tails down but without delay.  At least they hadn’t made me outright, so I figured they would be back and I quickly moved into my little blind just 100-yards ahead.

It was 1:15 as I settled in, scanning the forest in every direction.  Mark and I were texting back and forth and I reminded him that in the event I got lucky, he was on the hook for field-dressing and the heavy lifting, given my post-operative condition and he graciously agreed.

At 3PM, a small doe caught my eye off to my left on the edge of an old quarry, her head down, munching on the occasional acorns littering the ground.  Although I did have a doe tag, she was too far off and in no hurry to go anywhere as she was feeding easily but it was fun to watch her.  Then something caught my eye to my right.  I looked over and there was a large-bodied buck walking directly towards me about 150-yards out.  I immediately turned my attention to him and began to strategically position myself squarely between the two small pine trees that gave me a perfect side-rest for my little single-shot, 20-gauge shotgun.  As the buck continued to come towards me, I was hoping he would turn a bit for a better shot but he was staying true to a line and as he stepped into a spot where I had a clear head-on shot, I took it and he went down in a crash.

After I saw that he was going nowhere, I turned back expecting the doe to be gone but instead she was coming right at me!  I re-positioned my shotgun and as she stepped into a nice clear spot I dropped her in her tracks.

I paced off the buck at 80-yards, the doe at 50 and they were not 100 yards apart!  I texted Mark and he arrived just after dark to help me out.  As we laid both animals out in front of the 4-wheelers headlights, I handed Mark my little Case Peanut folding knife to start the incision.  He had forgotten his knife and he wasn’t crazy about the one I carry, so he ending up field-dressing both of those deer with only that little two and one-half inch Case knife.

Never before have a shot two deer within 2-minutes of each other and for Christmas, Mark is getting a brand-new Case Peanut and my doctor, a bag of back-straps.

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Social Engineers Not Educators

In response to the horrific attack and massacre of innocent Israeli civilians by the terror group Hamas, leadership at SUNY-Broome chose to remain silent.  When given the opportunity to sign an open letter in support of a coalition co-founded by SUNY Chancellor King of over 100 colleges and universities, amongst them some 18 SUNY campuses condemning, “the brutality and inhumanity of Hamas.”, SUNY Broome President Hawkins took a pass.

After multiple efforts to contact Hawkins, he finally responded and excused his inaction by writing his own “official message”, which was frankly political pabulum that said nothing, meant nothing, and condemned nothing.

SUNY Broome Board Chair Connerton was also silent and failed to respond to my request for an explanation of why SUNY Broome made the conscious decision to not sign this statement in support of Israel.

Hawkins and Connerton should follow in the foot-steps of fellow-travelers, former University of Pennsylvania President Magill and former UPenn Board Chair Scott Bok and both resign immediately.

Raising their fingers to the political winds and offering empty and meaningless platitudes indicates a sickening silence of complicity without saying it out loud.  That level of failed moral leadership has no business in shaping students ideologies.

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The Last Word


The Last Word

Honor.  The word is mentioned 147 times in the Bible.  The Medal of Honor is the highest US military award for valor.  The last sentence of the Declaration of Independence says, “… we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor.”  The last word in the last sentence of US Declaration of Independence is honor.  This word was not some esoteric and theoretical exercise in hyperbole but a life-changing, some times life-compromising obligation as well as a sacred expectation.

History tells us that of the 56 signers of that oath, more than half died fighting, or lost their fortunes, or were captured and tortured and lost their families.  Others died bankrupt, fled their homes and families in exile and had their homesteads, farms, fields and lands laid to waste.  To the founders, their honor was real, tangible, brought to bear by their actions, to the point of being more valuable and more important than their very lives.

In the history of the United States, Medal of Honor recipients make up less than one-one-hundredth of one-percent of the entirety of the ranks of the armed-forces.  More than 40-million have served our military and only 3,517 have earned that medal.  Honor, especially when combined with valor is indeed rare.

The Bible instructs us to, “Honor thy mother and thy father”, “Let marriage be held in honor among all”, “Honor the Lord with your wealth and with the first fruits of all your produce” and finally, “Whoever pursues righteousness and kindness will find life, righteousness, and honor.”  Let us not forget, in the Declaration it was their, “…sacred honor…” that they willingly embraced and which related them directly to God.

What about our honor?  What about honor in today’s world?

As recently as 200-years ago, honor was so important to men that duels were fought defending it.  Then sitting US Vice-President Aaron Burr shot and killed Alexander Hamilton in a duel after he had assailed his character.  Modern day dueling would likely make for a more restrained and polite society when “talking smack” might well get you killed.

Socrates tells us, “The greatest way to live with honor in this world is to be what we pretend to be,” an ancient version of fake-it-till-you-make-it, as well as an uncomfortable revealed truth for many.

The fact is honor exists only in the make-believe world of most people.  The rarity of the trait makes those who possess it exceptional.  Somewhere along the line, we have taken what was in the first instance rare, and rendered it into near extinction today.

And so it is that amongst the ranks of the “honorable” we should be selecting and electing our political leaders.  We should expect no less from today’s politicians than we did from our founders, but how does one test for and measure honor?

Ironically, our deceased-duelist, Alexander Hamilton penned the following in Federalist 51.  “If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary.”  Hamilton was obviously lamenting about the shortage of honor amongst men and because of that reality, he helped design a political philosophy and governance blueprint that recognized the issue of men’s propensity towards self-dealing with a series of checks-and-balances to temper against such acts.

Thomas Jefferson wrote those eternal words in the Declaration, not accidentally ending with honor and additionally said the following:” Honor and duty are superior to rights and self-interest.” And finally, ““A wise and frugal Government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, which shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned.”

Where we find ourselves today seems like a bridge-so-far when compared with those great men of our founding.

 Isaac Asimov warned of the following:

“There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life; nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that ‘my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.”

By fostering and nurturing our relationship with God and re-asserting our sacred beliefs and eternal expectations, we can re-gain our collective honor.  If we fail, we cannot prevail in that exquisite model of perfection those wise and exceptional men designed and created for us some 250-years ago.  The concept, so often misunderstood: “American Exceptionalism”, is inextricably linked with our “sacred honor” and with that, undeniably the worship of and glory to God Almighty.  It will be up to the honorable amongst us to insure that continued success of this great nation or if not, we then shall indeed deserve to perish.  In the truest sense of a humble prayer, I ask for God to guide us in our quest for honor.

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Equality

Perhaps the eternally famous phrase, “All Men are created equal…” might have been followed by the quip, “but they don’t stay that way for long.”  Many today confuse the equality of opportunity with the guarantee of an outcome.  In the long run, the equality of outcomes would homogenize everyone into generic and genetic sameness and mankind would mimic a gigantic school of sardines. 

Human differences in intellect, ingenuity, physical attributes such as strength, height, weight, all play a role in determining outcomes.  The intricacies and complexities of physics, astronomy, medicine, chemistry and mathematics to name a few, are beyond the intellectual capabilities of many, but thank God grasped by some amongst us in the interest of advancing all of mankind.  No intelligent person vilifies the physician, astronomer or mathematician because they are smarter.   Regardless of our individual abilities to understand some things, we still benefit by the knowledge.  The science that created the computer I am using to create this article is well beyond my personal ability to completely understand its operation yet I am able to harness that complex compilation of components, hardware and software in a way that makes me productive in my own way.  Because of our individual and internal limitations, the theory of the sameness of outcomes would demand devolution towards the lowest of abilities and outcomes in order to accommodate everyone.

Sameness is nothing to celebrate, it is our differences that add nuance, tone and contrast to our lives experience.  Those who seek equality of outcomes are also likely in my observations to be those who seek to control climate, control speech, control firearms and affirm an invented “right” to abortions.  “Control” in general is antithetical to the American version of freedom and the sameness of outcomes is a direct goal of communism.  The further we stray from the Word of God the more we believe in our realm of control.

All Men are created equal and thank the Lord they don’t stay that way for long.

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GI Joe/Skipper, Meet Ken & Barbie

Earlier this week on a local radio interview, Broome County Sheriff Fred Akshar lashed out at Endicott Mayor Linda Jackson, repeatedly accusing her of “living under a rock” regarding conflicting reports of whether or not officials were properly informed of the sheriff departments activities within the village.

Akshar’s conduct was not becoming of a high-ranking public official but unfortunately, predictable from a power-hungry-bully.

M.K. Davis reminds us, “You can tell a bully from a leader by how they treat people who disagree with them.” 

Akshar demonstrated all of the tendencies of a typical bully.  There was no need to attack the mayor that harshly and with that degree of venom.  Only a coward would accost a weaker person in that way.  He could have handled the situation professionally but instead he demonstrated to the community exactly why we shouldn’t want a man like this anywhere near the levers of power yet here we are with a sheriff that essentially won a beauty contest in becoming Broome County’s living-breathing version of GI Joe.

Akshar’s personal life illustrates the same troubling tendencies; control, bully and dominate.  First a inappropriate tryst with a subordinate at the sheriff’s department, then jeopardizing a murder case by having sex with the mother of one of the victims during the trial, and finally, converting a secretary in his then senate office from low-paid part-timer to a really well-paid girlfriend and eventually wife, all examples of manipulating power for his own pleasures and benefits.

Here’s the game plan if you haven’t already figured it out.  Akshar cultivates and burnishes his image and authority by “assisting” local police agencies with all kinds of policing initiatives, painting the picture of why it makes so much sense to unify the policing county-wide into a single agency that, of course, he will head.  With his hand-picked District Attorney in waiting, team Akshar/Battisti will control the entirety of Broome County law enforcement and adjudication.  Voters have to also shoulder the blame for electing pretty-boy Battisti in another beauty contest that wrongly elevated our local Ken-doll over experienced and proven professionalism.

Team GI Joe/Ken have a track record of ignoring the boundaries of law enforcement.  In 2014, Battisti called his buddy Akshar, then a Captain in the sheriff’s department, in order to have his estranged wife arrested in the parking lot of Dicks’ Sporting Goods in Binghamton.  Ignoring jurisdictional boundaries that made it clear that the Binghamton police should have handled this call, Akshar not only approved dispatching a deputy instead of calling Binghamton PD, he sent his younger brother, a sheriff’s deputy at the time, to Dick’s and guess what?  He arrested the ex-wife and of course, all charges were eventually dropped because the whole thing stunk to high heaven of the abuse of power.

God-forbid team GI Joe/Ken take over the entire county.  The bar for integrity cannot be set too high and these guys will lower it until even snakes can slither over it.

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