Statesmanship: A Standard of Love
November 8, 2008 by Aspen Eggimann · 4 Comments
Rick Hoyt has trekked 3,735 miles across America, competed in marathons and even triathlons. Triathlons include 26.2 miles of running, 112 mile of bicycling, and 2.4 miles of swimming. All this would be a remarkable feat even without adding on that Rick can’t walk or talk.
“It’s been a story of exclusion ever since he was born,” Dick said. “When he was eight months old the doctors told us we should just put him away — he’d be a vegetable all his life, that sort of thing. Well those doctors are not alive any more, but I would like them to be able to see Rick now.”
His father found a way of bridging the gap between what was and what could be.
This is statesmanship. Its not about winning to Rick and Dick, its about running. They are a story of inspiration and a standard of love.
How often do we in our idea of an elusive idea of “statesmanship” pass by the chance of greatness in our everyday actions? Statesmanship is much more then men and women working to restore their government, or change the face of all history with one sweeping action. Quite the contrary. Statesmanship is simply the action of men and women who love, and show that love everyday.
Are you a statesman?
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Copyright © 2008 by The Cause of Liberty. All rights reserved.
Shock: We’re Dying From It
October 27, 2008 by Aspen Eggimann · Leave a Comment
“Shock,” said my instructor, “is what we all die from. No matter what kind of injury, sickness, or stress the body has gone through, in the end the cause of death is shock.”
This was in the middle of a ten-day Wilderness First Responder Course in which we had been learning to splint broken bones with sleeping pads and webbing, how to set a broken arm, stop blood flow, and treat heart attacks. But shock was the one of the most important of things to learn how to cure.
Why? Because once you go into shock your survival rate rapidly plummets, and once it reaches a certain point there is no going back. A broken bone can be set, but there isn’t a way to pull someone out of serious shock.
We have heard of culture shock. It’s when you enter a new country or circumstance and where the social rules have changed to such an extent that you find yourself not knowing how to behave or what is going on. But there is a comfort — uou can go home, back to a place where things are familiar and the shock will leave.
Future Shock
But there is a new kind of shock: future shock. This is when events, terms, technology, and nations are changing at such a rapid rate that we can’t keep up with it. We are left confused and unsure about how to behave.
Alvin Toffler wrote his book Future Shock in 1970. Reading it today he sounds like a prophet. His predictions of what the future would be like for those living in these times, and his concerns for the stability of our nation and communities, are almost dead on.
The term “future shock” was coined by Toffler in an article written for Horizon in 1965. He then spent the next five years studying the idea and came away with “two disturbing convictions”:
First, that “future shock” is a real sickness from which increasingly large numbers are already suffering. This is not just an idea; it is felt by everyone but recognized by few. Children that have grown up in an ever-changing society don’t know a difference and yet still don’t know how to adapt.
Secondly, Toffler was “…appalled by how little is actually known about adaptivity. In the most rapidly changing environment to which man has ever been exposed…we remain pitifully ignorant of how the human animal copes.” We don’t know how to adapt. Technology goes out of date faster then we can keep up. Definitions of education, work, religion, morality, sex, country, and patriotism change. With this continual shift we are left preparing for the future before it comes. The future is crashing upon us before the present is even lived.
“Many of us have a vague ‘feeling’ that things are moving faster. Doctors and executives
alike complain that they cannot keep up with the latest developments in their fields. Hardly a meeting or conference takes place today without some ritualistic oratory about ’the challenge of change.’ Among many there is an uneasy mood — a suspicion that change is out of control. Not everyone, however, shares this anxiety. Millions sleepwalk their way through their lives as if nothing had ever changed, and as if nothing ever will.”
Change is the constant and increasing dilemma in our lives. No matter what direction change is taking us the rate of change itself is astounding. And it is only in our understanding of it and our ability to adapt that will keep us from shock of the future.
We have the ability now to channel change. What we say, think and believe can impact literally thousands within moment, thanks to technology. Days when it took generations or thousands of years for an idea to take hold are gone as information and communications fly through cyberspace.
What does all this change mean for our society as a whole? What about the structure of nations, families, jobs and science? Will we be able to reinvent ourselves for the future, before the futures comes?
In 1970 Alvin Toffler wrote, “In the three short decades between now and the twenty-first century, millions of ordinary, psychologically normal people will face an abrupt collisions with the future. Citizens of the worlds richest and most technologically advanced nations, many of them will find it increasingly painful to keep up with the incessant demand for change that characterizes our time. For them, the future will have arrived too soon.”
That future is here, and it has come to soon. But it need not put us into shock, we can reinvent the way we do things and lead out in the direction change is taking us.
Recovering From Shock: Three Treatment Steps
1. Embrace It.
The first step to adapting to future shock is acknowledging the rapidity of change. Sleepwalking through life will only put us further into shock. Change is exciting, it is an opportunity and it is happening whether we like it or not. Embrace it. Enjoy this age and take full advantage of the opportunities it presents. Enjoy the journey and don’t fall into believing nothing is happening. Instead, believe that anything can happen.
2. Reinvent, Reinvent, Reinvent
We may not be able to control the change that is taking place or the effect it is having on our lives, but we can reinvent the way we do things. Attempts at this have taken place with the ever-increasing fashion of “going green.” Going back isn’t an option; going forward and reinventing is. The way we do things from how we look at money to how we build houses, get an education, vote, and use energy can have astounding impact on the direction the future is taking us.
Taking control over everyday products such as food, energy, entertainment and leisure will have a huge impact on our ability to handle change. We are victims of change when we are reliant upon outside sources that feed, clothe and house us. By using our time and resources to take more control over the future of our lives we will be directing what kind of change impacts us. This isn’t a call to live in the woods unconnected with the rest of the world. It is simply an idea that perhaps we can limit future shock by limiting the outsourcing of our everyday lives.
3. Get Educated.
It has been said that to be educated is not to know everything worth knowing but to be able to find it and sift it out from everything that is not. Educate yourself in technology, current events, and sciences. Educate yourself about the future. But also educate yourself in the past. The understanding of history and philosophy will make the current rapidity of events understandable. Education gives us tools to be able to see patterns in our own day and prepare for it and the understanding of where ideas and thoughts come from and their validity. Education will be one of the greatest tools to avoid future shock.
As Alvin Toffler wrote, “Future shock will not be found in Index Medicus or in any listing of psychological
abnormalities. Yet, unless intelligent steps are taken to combat it, millions of human beings will find themselves increasingly disoriented, and progressively incompetent to deal rationally with their environments.”
Future shock is here. Do you have the treatment?
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Changing the World…
October 17, 2008 by Aspen Eggimann · 6 Comments
…One comic at a time.
Look on the bright side of our economic crash, at least now we can see where we are! What do you see? Maybe it takes a crash to get a better view of the world around us. Now lets climb down and start heading in the right direction.
Attacks always come from where you least expect it. Being big and tough to the rest of the world doesn’t mean we can’t destroy ourselves from the inside.
The reality is that as a nation we are in dire need of change, real change. We are on the fast track to a dangerous and unstable times. If you don’t like the reality of our situation you can always choose not to accept it.
Or, you can help begin a revolution against apathy and ignorance. Don’t be selective about the reality you accept. Accept reality for what it is and allow your action to change it.
Need I say more?
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Copyright © 2008 by The Cause of Liberty. All rights reserved.
Human Action = Economics
October 12, 2008 by Aspen Eggimann · 9 Comments
I was commenting very “warmly” about our economy to my little brother late at night when he turned to me and said, “I just don’t get it. Why does the economy do what it does? How does it work?”
Do you share his confusion? I think we all do at times. Let me share with you what tacked down economics for me just enough to get a grasp on what is going on.
Economics seems to be one of the most mysterious and random parts of our society, because of one thing: humans. The economy is humans acting and how their actions effect others. Sound complicated? It is. But during my readings of economics I found one thing that brought economy into and understandable form. Learning that human action follows laws and patterns to predict how they will behave helps us understand what seems to be confusing behavior.
The following laws are five of fifty laws of human action taught by Ludwig Von Mises, the great Austrian economist. His works are well worth the read, especially for those of us trying to understand our economy’s seemingly erratic behavior.
5 Laws of Human Action
Law #1: Choosing determines all human action.
Simple yet profound. All action is predicated upon a choice, whether from the past or present. When acting you have decided beforehand that you would act. If action is the basis of the economy and choice is the basis of action then the economy is based upon our choices.
Everyday we choose. We look at an array of option and choose between them. We always choose between human values and material service. For instance you may really want and even need the $10 on your friends dresser but your values choose not to take it.
Choice is the greatest power we have as humans and we use it everyday, and everyday it effects unknown amounts of people around us. Your actions are a direct result from your choices.
Law #2: Man is able to act because he can see causality.
Have you ever been unable to make a decision because you couldn’t see the effects that decision would have? The ability for a person to look into the future and see the places his actions will take him is an amazing power. What if we were left to make decision without the slightest clue of the things it would affect? You would be left scared to death to act at all.
Law # 3: Everything human changes over time.
Values, needs, relationships, actions: all of these change. Change is the only constant in our lives. For we are human and as such we are constantly learning, shifting and growing. Therefore anything that is affected by humans changes.
Why then be afraid of change in the market? Really it is just a sign that we are all still human. And that is a comforting thought; it also means that we have the capacity to change it for the better.
The key to change is to embrace it and enjoy it. Enjoy the challenges and opportunities that the currents shifts in our country bring.
Law # 4: Action always involves both taking and renunciation.
When you act you get something, and you give something up.
We are continually arrayed with choices. But by choosing one we automatically give up the option of the others. To be able to recognize what it is we are getting and what we are loosing in our actions is an ability that will help us further our success in so many ways and make wiser decision about what we choose.
In government and the market this is an invaluable basis for action. By being able to act, clearly understanding what you are getting and also what you are loosing, this makes progression possible.
Law # 5: The Incentive that impels a man to act is always some uneasiness; to have incentive a person must have a desire to change, a goal or image of improvement, and the expectation that action can change things.
No man or women would act if they were entirely comfortable and wanted and lacked nothing. Action comes from uneasiness, from a feeling that there is something better waiting for you. But there is also the fear of action, of losing something by taking something else.
There must then be a desire to change that overrides that fear. Something must drive you so much that you will leave the comfort of the known and go beyond seeking greater satisfaction.
There must be a vision, an image of what you desire. To have a picture of where you are headed and to move towards that thing is vital to accomplish action.
There must also be a belief that by acting you can change your state. Many people have a desire and a picture of what needs to happen in this country, few now have the belief that there actions will make a difference. Its time to reawaken that belief in our country. We are not helpless individuals. If we have the desire and the vision along with the belief that we can make a difference then we can change our nation and world.
Use these laws of human action to understand our economy. Economics is nothing but a culmination of human nature and behavior. If we can begin to understand it then we will be on our way to understanding and correcting our economy through the core issue of its failings, the behavior of individuals.
Move the Cause of Liberty by (1) subscribing to the Sentinel, a free weekly newsletter boldly illuminating the principles of freedom in a darkening nation, and (2) pledging your Life, Liberty, and Sacred Honor to the Cause by signing the Declaration of Dependence.
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Copyright © 2008 by The Cause of Liberty. All rights reserved.
I heard it on…Princess Bride?
October 4, 2008 by Aspen Eggimann · 1 Comment
“Do you always begin conversations this way?”
The most humorous conversations are peppered with quotes from the classic movie Princess Bride. If you haven’t seen it, stop reading and go watch it. Like any good classic it gets better and more applicable each time seen.
What can we learn from this classic? Let me point out a few lessons that I think fit perfectly with our times.
1. When I hear our presidential candidates use the word “change” every couple of minutes, unfailingly Indigo’s voice comes into my head saying, “You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.”
Change is not being in Afghanistan versus Iraq, or visa versa. It is getting out of foreign nations we shouldn’t be in.
Change in education is not working on “No Child Left Behind” as was suggested in the VP Debate. Change would be getting the Federal Government out of education and and giving that power back to the parents and states.
2. As for the bailout just passed in Congress;
“Think it will work?”
“It would take a miracle.”
One senator, after changing his vote to yes on the economic bailout, said that the fear on Wall Street was going to affect Main Street.
Maybe it is time that Wall Street be afraid.
As a nation we cannot continue on in our current economic situation. We have become a nation that consumes more than it creates, spends more then it earns, and takes more then it gives.
Wall Street does affect Main Street, so let us start the process of changing our economic strategies as a nation. Having the government there to catch business when it falls only prolongs and extenuates the long range problems we will face.
3. Longfellow said our nation was a “ship of state” and that all humanity hung upon its fate. If that is the case where is the watchmen crying, “Look! The cliffs of insanity!”
4. I always get a funny feeling when I hear someone in government make statements about easing the burdens of the American people, having the government look out for the middle class and defending the common workers of America. For as the Dread Pirate Roberts said, “Life is pain… Anyone who says otherwise is selling something.”
It is human nature to tend to fall into a trap of wanting things to be easier, to not have to think about problems and to let someone else do the dirty work for us. But it is better to do the work then buy up the services of the government and let it run our lives.
In closing, “Let me explain — no there is to much — let me sum up.”
First, understand that the current debates between presidential candidates are not about change in policy; they are about change in approach.
Second, as uncertain as the future of our economy is right now, “bailouts” aren’t going to help. Ronald Reagan once said that you can talk to a child until you’re blue in the face about spending — or you can cut their allowance. Giving more money isn’t going to cure the mismanagement of it. Our $700 billion dollars is only a band aid on a gaping wound.
Third, lets listen to people who are telling us we are headed towards disaster.
Fourth, now is the time to reclaim the responsibility of self-governance and watch over our nation and communities. Lets stop abdicating our responsibility to others in exchange for convenience.
And next time you watch Princess Bride, think about government — I promise you’ll learn a lot.
Move the Cause of Liberty by (1) subscribing to the Sentinel, a free weekly newsletter boldly illuminating the principles of freedom in a darkening nation, and (2) pledging your Life, Liberty, and Sacred Honor to the Cause by signing the Declaration of Dependence.
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Copyright © 2008 by The Cause of Liberty. All rights reserved.
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