Counterfeit: Wealth and Money

  The word "wealth" is used so widely that it has largely lost most of its meaning.  But the process of creating wealth is at the very core of our constitutionally guaranteed liberties.  We have all of these images of the "wealthy" cruising around in expensive cars, eating in fancy restaurants, jetting around the world on expensive vacations.  Yet these people do not necessarily have wealth: they just have money.  Where they got it, in many cases, is not easily discovered.
   I had the opportunity to fly into Israel some time ago and when making the approach into the Tel Aviv airport, the border between Israel and the bordering Arab land was starkly visible.  On the Israeli side, the land was green, fish ponds dotted the countryside, orderly homes were built and every inch of land was carefully cultivated.  On the Arab side, the land was barren desert with very few signs of cultivation.  The same land, same weather, same resources.
   Money, then comes from the creation of wealth, but it is not wealth.  Wealth is created when a person takes the raw material of his own life and turns it into something of value to everyone.  Wealth never has finite value: it only becomes finite when it is converted to money.
   Consider the young man who decides to take his small parcel of land and see what he can turn it into.  He takes a shovel and turns the soil, removing rocks brush and weeds.  He finds some manure and spades it into the soil.  He plants squash, turnips, beans, potatoes, tomatoes, corn and whatever other vegetables he can find.  He waters it and waits.  Like a miracle the plants sprout and, in a few weeks, he harvests a bounty of vegetables.  These vegetables have universal value and could quickly be turned into money.  Stored for the winter, however, they sustain his family in good health.  He has created true wealth. 
   Wealth cannot be "re-distributed."  Only money can be re-distributed.  When wealth is converted to money and taken from the person who created it, the whole creative process envisioned by our founding fathers is perverted and both the creator of the wealth and the recipient of the money suffer.  The creator is discouraged from the creation of further wealth and the recipient is relieved of the necessity of creating anything of value for himself.
   How about it, seekers.  Are we going to be bamboozled into agreeing to this whole perversion of our language and the theft of what we create?

Counterfeits: What does it mean to be "educated?"

   As I have pointed out earlier, the word "education" is used to sell a whole mixed soup of government programs designed to usurp your decisions about teaching and raising your kids.  These run the gamut of "teaching" children all about relationships with other children, their parents, their community and the world.  The problem with all of this is that no education takes place at all but rather a carefully constructed world view that effectively robs many of our children of the necessary intellectual tools to be financially successful when they become adults.
   The process starts out with the teacher.  Teacher "qualifications" are carefully designed to require "certifications" by various groups who have, as their main purpose, the promotion of certain philosophical positions.  The teacher must prove that he or she has received a thorough training in areas of "sensitivity."  These run the range of sexual orientation, race, body weight, bullying, dietary issues, outcome based competition exercises. and a host of other sub-corollaries to these areas.  A teacher who can show that he has received all of this training is then said to be "certified" to teach our children.  Proficiency in subject material such as math, reading, history,  writing, geography, etc., etc. is secondary to "sensitivity" training.
   Consider now  the 5 year old child who come to class from a home where there is no father, where English is not spoken, where no home environment exists for the quiet contemplation of ideas, and where he is exposed to neglect and anger.  Can the teacher, with all of her "sensitivity" training do anything for this child?  Probably not.
   There are teachers who mentor their students and make some attempt to give the child the nuturing that he does not get at home.  These teachers are heroes, but they will not be able to overcome the influence of the home in most cases.
   The definition of education as some level of certifiable training, then, falls short of the true meaning of education which has as its core the aquisition of usable skills and knowledge about the world which equips the student to find a useful niche and to grow up with a constructive attitude about his own life.
   Seeker, you must give these things to your children.  If you don't they will never become "educated" and may well wind up on the trash heap of life as adults with no hope and no building blocks to become happy and independent. "Life, liberty, and happiness" are our God-given rights, but they must be carefully taught to our children.  There are no "certificates" for this process.

Counterfeits: Obesity

   Moving along on this series of notes about counterfeit words used in our national discourse, I focus now on the use of the word "obesity."  Now people use this word as if it has the same meaning for everyone.  For example, the dictionary defines obesity as " In humans, an unhealthy condition caused by gross overweight.  Generally any condition where unbridled consumption takes place."
   The counterfeit slides in here when "obese" is used to describe "overweight."  Arbitrary guidlines have been created by interested groups such s life insurance and health insurance groups to define what a person's "normal weight" is.  The fact is, none of these data are statistically connected to whether a person is "healthy."  The counterfeit use of "obese" is used by politicians as reason to intrude into people's lives and attempt to dictate what is a "healthy" condition.  All sorts of tinkering in this area are being attempted by our current spate of political operatives including Michelle Obama.  Some states (like North Carolina) have actually empowered food inspectors in public schools to open children's lunch boxes under the guise of "protecting" them.
   Consider the real meaning of obesity and take a closer look at the practices of our federal government.  If there ever was an example of "unbridled consumption" it is the use of our money by our Federal Governement.  All the while these people rail against obesity in the American population, they pull there swollen bodies up to the public trough day after day and gorge themselves on the lavish luxury afforded to them by our public trust.  They travel on the most expensive airplane in the world, stay in the most expensive facilities, feast on gourmet (and unhealthy) food, hobnob with the most decadent and notorious world figures, steal billions of our dollars to give to favorite causes (like "green" companies.
   How about it, seekers?  Can we put these cows on a diet and put our people back to work?  Incidentally, work is the only real cure for obesity.

What about "Rights?"

   The word "rights" is used everywhere as if everybody knows exactly what it means.  Yet this a very important counterfeit that is used to sell all sorts of programs to an unsuspecting public.
   The founding fathers intended certain entitlements to be intrinsically attached to individuals.  These rights are generally described in the Declaration of Independence as "...life, liberty amd the pursuit of happiness."  They are more specifically defined in the U.S.  Constitution in the Bill or Rights and subsequently expanded or clarified in amendments to the Constitution.
   The counterfeit of this word creeps in when it is applied to groups.  It sounds so reasonable to identify the "rights" of statistical groups based on some common characteristics such as race, ethnic orientation, legal status, sexual orientation, gender, etc., etc.  So we are told, for example, that we are violating the "rights" of a black man if we object to his ideas, or prefer a definition of marriage that does not include members of the same sex.
   "Groups" are said to be "scientific" because researchers identified certain common features of people and gave them a name so that their specific "rights" could be legislated.  What has resulted is a bewildering soup of laws and regulations that, in many cases, violate the true constitutional rights of individuals as defined in the U.S. Constitution.  We are told that 25% of prison inmates are black while black people represent only 12% of the U.S. population.  This large disparity can only be explained by racial discrimination.  Yet if the individual cases are reviewed, there is virtually no evidence to support this conclusion.
   The point is that to attain "equal justice before the law" only the individual may be considered.  Attaching the person to a group pollutes the legal process and either wrongfully exonerates the individual and/or violates the rights of the innocent members of the civil society who have been the victim of some crime.
   How about it, seekers?  Do we have the guts to call this by its real name: a gratuitous counterfeit of what our founding fathers intended for us?

Counterfeits: Competition

   Exploring this area of how we use words, there is a very important counterfeit which equates competition with fighting.  The proponents of this counterfeit, sadly, are in responsible positions in our government and educational institutions.  At some universities, for example, the grading process for assessing academic success has been replaced by a simple pass-fail judgment.  In many of our public schools, athletic activites for children like soccer are no longer scored so that there are no winners or losers.
   But a little closer look at these two words yields a huge disconnect between the two.  Competition is a rational exercise which strives to improve a person's abilities in the desired area.  This could be physical as in swimming, baseball, football, track, volleyball, etc. or it could be mental as in business, math, writing, medicine, and a whole host of intellectual activities.  In any case, contests between individuals or teams that are competitive have no losers.  The team which wins has demonstrated that their preparedness was superior to the other teams.  The team which did not win has learned something very imortant about their own preparedness, and when these teams meet again, the outcome might be different.
   But the salient point here is that none of the people involved in this competition were angry!  They might have been disappointed, but the driving force behind their actions was not anger but a determination to be better.
   Conversely, fighting is encouraged by a futile attempt to short-circuit the process of attainment and violently take the things that the person was not prepared to compete for. 
   Consider the rhetoric of the fighting proponents who rail at the "rich," and talk about taking their money to give to the "poor."  These politicians do "community organizing" to fan this anger and focus it upon forging political power.  Our children, who have been taught by our public shools that they cannot compete for financial success, are fair game for this anger as they grow into adulthood with no marketable skills and find themselves poor and dependent.
   If one wants to find the well-spring of the epidemic of violence that has swept our country, look no further than the three generations of children who have been taught that they cannot compete for jobs and that people who have jobs are somehow to blame for their poverty.  It is therfore justified to rob them. 
   Enter the politician who offers to rob the "rich" on behalf of these "poor" people and you have discovered recipe used by the political left to attain power.
   How about it, seekers?  Can we teach our kids to hone their skills for future success or do we continue to trust the poverty brokers with our kids' - and, ultimately our nations' - future?