The Solution The solution to the problem with the RRR doesn't really even involve the RRR because, in the end, the RRR has the right under the First Amendment to freely associate with whom they choose, to preach what they want, to believe what they want and even to try to get the laws passed that they want passed. If we attempt to silence the RRR, then we become like them: seeking to take for ourselves rights that we will not give to everyone else. Technically speaking, the RRR is not the real problem. The RRR has simply exploited existing conditions in order to make their grab for power. Therefore, the existing conditions are the real problem and the solution is to change those existing conditions. The trick is to change them without violating the US Constitution. The real problems are fourfold: Current election laws that prohibit true representation and instead enthrone dynasties of the rich in order to pass laws to make them even richer. Current method use to appoint justices to the federal courts and especially the US Supreme Court. Method of introduction of legislation, particularly amendments added to legislation that is up for a vote. The ignorance, gullibility, arrogance, apathy and fear level of the average American. Election Law Reform I propose the following changes to current election laws in order to make this a government of the people by the people and for the people. Of course, the biggest problem to getting election reform passed is that those who have to approve it are the ones who most benefit from it not changing. (I got wind today of a bill in the US House of Representatives that would repeal most of the laws governing limitations on campaign financing. For more information, check out Public Citizen.) That means we have to get the people to put these kinds of election reform initiatives on the ballot. A national referendum. All funding for national campaigns will be paid by the federal government. All funding for state campaigns will be paid for by the state government. All funding for local campaigns will be paid for by the local government. Each candidate running for office will receive the same amount of money to spend on their campaign depending on what office is being sought. (For example, it takes a lot more money to campaign around the country if you're running for president than it does to campaign in one's own district if you're running for the House of Representatives.) Absolutely NO money or resources from the candidate's personal coffers may be used. Anyone wishing to contribute to a particular candidate may do so but the candidate must turn over any money to a general election fund that will be the source of the funding. Absolutely no soft money, no gifts, no benefits, etc. from PACs or businesses or even individuals will be used. (Current laws will have to be changed so that this prohibition extends to those candidates elected to office as well.) No one can be elected to the US Senate more than twice or to the US House of Representatives more than 5 times. The electoral college will either be disbanded or all electoral votes will be distributed proportionately according to the states popular vote. All electronic voting machines must have a "paper trail" in the event a recount is required for any reason. The paper count will always take precedent over the electronic count. No manufacturer of voting machines— either on their own or through any subsidiary— can supply machines for more than 20% of any one state or 20% of the country as a whole. There will be mandatory random recounts of at least two voting precincts in each congressional district. The precincts will not be selected until after the polls have closed in that state. If irregularities are evident in both, the entire district will be subject to a mandatory recount. If irregularities are evident in 2 or more congressional districts, the entire state will be subjected to a mandatory recount. Campaign ads must mention only the candidate who is paying for the ad and what they will do if elected and/or what their position is on an issue. Candidates may fill out a questionnaire on their positions on issues and make a written statement as to why they feel they should be elected. These position papers will then be made available to the public online and, upon request, a printed copy will be mailed to any registered voter. (Online hosting and printing/postage costs to be paid by the appropriate level of government.) The intent of the above changes are as follows: Limit the ability of special interests groups to pay for their choice of candidate to get elected by funneling large quantities of money into their campaign "war chests". Do away with the incumbents spending countless days attending fundraising events instead of attending to the job they were elected to do: represent their constituents. End political dynasties, especially those that continue due to personal fortunes and connections. Provide the means through which we can have an informed and educated electorate. Minimize voting fraud. End negative campaigning and mud-slinging. Allow the average everyday American to run for office— even to run for President of the United States. Judicial Appointments I propose the following changes to how justices are appointed to federal judgeships. The president will nominate a candidate for a vacant judicial seat subject to the limitations in #5. If the president is a member of a political party that has more than 25 members in the Senate and more than 100 members in the House, If the vacancy is not on the US Supreme Court, the nomination is voted on by all members of Congress NOT of the president's party and only half of the members of Congress who are in the president's party. If the vacancy is on the US Supreme Court, all nominations are voted on only by those members of Congress who are NOT in the president's party. In the event that the president is an independent or the party to which he belongs does not have the minimum required representation in both houses of Congress, If the vacancy is not on the US Supreme Court, the nomination is voted on by all members of Congress in the minority party (or parties) and only half of the members of Congress who are in the majority party. If the vacancy is on the US Supreme Court, all nominations are voted on only by those members of Congress in the minority party (or parties). There will be no more lifetime appointments.1 Federal judges, except in the case of a Supreme Court Justice, will be appointed for ten to seventeen years. The length of the appointment will be determined by the margin of approval.2 Less than 59.99% approval: 10 year term 60-64.99% approval: 11 year term 65-69.99% approval: 12 year term 70-74.99% approval: 13 year term 75-79.99% approval: 14 year term 80-84.99% approval: 15 year term 85-89.99% approval: 16 year term Greater than 90% approval: 17 year term New appointments to the US Supreme Court will be for a period of 18 years and will be appointed as follows: The first justice to be appointed to an 18 year term will be a woman.3 Two years later, a randomly selected justice who is serving a lifetime appointment will be retired and a replacement justice will be appointed to serve an 18 year term. This justice will be a male. Two years later, a randomly selected justice who is serving a lifetime appointment will be retired and a replacement justice will be appointed to serve an 18 year term. This justice will be a female. Two years later, a randomly selected justice who is serving a lifetime appointment will be retired and a replacement justice will be appointed to serve an 18 year term. This justice will be a male. Two years later, a randomly selected justice who is serving a lifetime appointment will be retired and a replacement justice will be appointed to serve an 18 year term. This justice will be a female. Two years later, a randomly selected justice who is serving a lifetime appointment will be retired and a replacement justice will be appointed to serve an 18 year term. This justice will be a male. Two years later, a randomly selected justice who is serving a lifetime appointment will be retired and a replacement justice will be appointed to serve an 18 year term. This justice will be a female. Two years later, a randomly selected justice who is serving a lifetime appointment will be retired and a replacement justice will be appointed to serve an 18 year term. This justice will be a male. Two years later, a randomly selected justice who is serving a lifetime appointment will be retired and a replacement justice will be appointed to serve an 18 year term. This justice will be a female. Two years later, the first woman appointed to an 18 year term will retire and her replacement will be a male. Thereafter, a retiring male justice will be replaced by a female justice and a retiring female justice will be replaced by a male justice. If a justice should retire early or die before s/he retires, the justice that is appointed to replace him/her will be of the same gender and will serve out the remainder of the original term. At no point will any one president appoint more than 20% of the justices during his/her presidency. If the need arises to appoint more justices and the president has filled his/her quota, the senate minority leader will make the nominations for justices and all members of Congress will vote. No judicial appointment will be made by recess appointment unless the vacancy occurs during that recess. The intent of these changes are as follows: By having only the members of Congress not in the president's party voting on the appointments, the justices chosen should be more "middle of the road". By having the justices serve only an 18 year term, it will still preserve a sense of continuity yet will prevent any one president from "stacking the courts" for 40 years or more. It cannot be denied that men and women see things differently and come at problems from different angles. By maintaining a rotating gender balance on the court, these differing approaches will be more fairly represented. 1 In a time when the average life expectency was fifty or sixty years old, appointing someone for life made sense when they didn't even get appointed until they were in their forties. Now, it condemns entire generations if a radical or bad judge is appointed since a judge can serve 30 years or more. 2 Having a variable term of office will virtually guarantee that no day comes when all federal judges change during one president's term. 3 While this may seem controversial due to selecting someone based on gender, no one is being disqualified because of gender. A qualified candidate may have to wait two years until it's his/her gender's turn to be appointed, but as it stands now, all candidates must wait until a current justice retires or dies before they can get on the court— which is much longer than a mere two years. Introduction of Legislation I propose the following changes to how bills are passed, including those that designate benefits for members of Congress. No amendment or rider can be attached to a bill within two weeks of it coming up for a vote. No amendment can be attached to a bill if it is not significantly related to the main subject of the bill. (For example, a bill banning gay adoptions can't be added to a bill dealing with farming subsidies or the budget.) Congress cannot vote themselves a pay raise or added benefits. Every two years, the people will vote on whether to give Congress a pay raise or not. Added benefits will be voted on in the next general election after they are introduced. In lieu of lifelong retirement payments even for those members of Congress who serve only one term of office, retired members of Congress will continue to receive 2/3 of their salary for as many years as they were in office. Increasing Citizen Participation Now, to the hard part: getting John Q. Public more involved in the political process. In order to arrive at a solution, we first have to understand the problem. Why it is a problem. How did it get to be a problem? How was such a small group of people able to gain so much power in a country that was founded on the very principles of personal freedom? How They Wield Control The answer to the last question is the easiest to answer. The RRR has used an age old tactic for control: fear. In this case, fear of the unknown. Fear of the unknown is instinctual. Watch an animal enter a new situation. A wild animal smells an unknown scent and immediately becomes alert to any potential danger. Even domesticated animals retain this instinctual fear. I have one cat that will slink around anything new that's placed on the floor. His approach is cautious, alert and slow, methodically sniffing while inching forward. He'll swat at the new item to see if it moves. This is the fear of the unknown. Fear of the unknown isn't necessarily a negative thing. It is a survival instinct and it works quite well for that purpose. Fear of the unknown has saved the lives of many a wild beast when it was endangered by some unknown foe. It has saved many a human being when faced with threatening situations. We humans, despite our millions of years of evolution, have not lost that instinct. However, because of our domination of the natural, physical world, that instinct has gone to a more mental/emotional level: the subconscious. When an idea is in the subconscious, it's difficult to change because the first step to change is to be aware that it exists. Most people would deny they live in a constant, if subconscious, state of fear. And yet such a state of fear is evident in so many aspects of society, especially since 9/11. We've been taught to live in a state of fear of what might happen in the future. Most of the leaders of the RRR have spent their entire lives using fear to control. Christianity— particularly fundamentalist and evangelical Christianity— is a faith that is, at its root, based in fear. [Please note, I am not attacking Christianity or saying this is wrong— such a belief system is necessary for the level of spiritual maturity of the believer, just as it is necessary for children to fear hot stoves: it keeps them from getting burned. As they mature, they learn how to safely co-exist with a hot stove and that fear disappears. For a better understanding of my view on Christianity in regards to spiritual maturity, please read this article.] In the early days of the Christian church, fear was used to convert pagans to the fledgling faith of the Roman empire. But this fear was more physically based: if you did not profess to believe, you could be killed by the soldiers. Nowadays, Christianity uses this fear on a more mental/emotional level in attempts to convert the non-believer. "If you do not believe, you will be forever separated from God and spend eternity in hell." "You may never again see your loved ones who were saved." "If you do not become saved, your children might not be saved. Do you want them to end up in hell?" Surely, you've either heard or perhaps spoken similar words yourself. Christians don't agree on what it takes to prevent eternal damnation. Some say that once you've accepted Jesus as your Lord and Savior you are forever and irrevocably saved, no matter how far you may stray from the path thereafter. Some say that it is a combination of accepting Jesus and living according to the tenets he provided to the best of one's ability, but that if one strays too far and does not repent before dying, one is no longer saved. Regardless of how one is saved, the mere fact that one MUST be saved is based on the underlying tenet that man is damned to hell from the moment of his conception. Jesus has already paid the price to save them from damnation, but it is up to each of us to accept that gift. I know that there are many Christians who will argue that Christianity is not a fear-based faith. But until someone can find a Christian who does not know about hell, I contend that there is no way to know whether one believes in Jesus as Lord and Savior because one chooses to and/or because one Loves God or if, deep down, one says they believe in order to "hedge their bets" or "cover their bases" so as to not wind up in hell. Even the scripture most often quoted as "proof" of God's love— John 3:16 (surely you've seen the signs): "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life."— reinforces this idea that if we don't do things God's way, we're going to "perish" (which Christians are taught means going to hell and/or be forever blotted out of existence at the final judgement.) The normal presentation of this fear in a religious context is in a hypothetical or conditional statement. If you do not accept Jesus, then you will go to hell. The current leaders of the RRR aren't the first ones to use this same hypothetical fear of the future. When women were seeking the right to vote, the preachers of the day warned that allowing women the right to vote was going against God's will. They suggested that scripture supported man as the head and women as submissive to men's rule. If women were given the vote, then America would go to hell in a hand-basket because God would remove his favor from us. There was never proof that we had his favor, but who needs proof when you have fear? Are you willing to risk having God remove his favor if indeed we already have it by going against his will? Then it was if you give blacks equal votes, then America is going to hell in a hand-basket because God meant for white men to rule the earth. The "mark of Cain" was a sign that the black man was not as good as the white man. Then the litany became if you allow blacks to marry whites, then you are going against God's divine will and America will go to hell in a hand-basket. God put the races on separate continents and meant for them to stay separate. How dare you mess with what God has decreed! Then we got if we allow abortion to be legalized, then God will withdraw his support for this depraved nation. Life begins at conception and only God has the right to give life or take it away. Now it's if we allow gays to marry, then (fill in the blank.) God has called homosexuality an abomination (which isn't want the Bible really says about gays, but for the sake of continuity, let's ignore that "minor" point) and he will withdraw his support for our nation. (Amazing that we still had his support after all the other things that preachers of yesteryear said we'd done to anger God and cause him to withdraw his support.) We're hearing the same old tired arguments over and over, and unfortunately, they're still as powerful as ever. So why didn't the preachers of days gone by have the same power that the leaders of the RRR wield today if they used the same tactics? There's a line in the Andrew Lloyd Weber rock opera "Jesus Christ Superstar" where a despondent Judas answers that question when he sings, "If you'd come today you could have reached a whole nation. Israel in 4 BC had no mass communication." And that came out before the the internet burst onto the scene! The RRR of today has one thing that preachers of old did not have: the technology to cheaply reach millions of people in a matter of seconds. How They Got Control [Note: The following is an oversimplified version of history, I'm well aware, but it gives the general idea of the steps that led up to this point in time.] Before the first televangelists, before radio, preachers held tent revivals to "win souls for Jesus". Preachers traveled around the country, setting up wherever the spirit moved them. They'd preach to the crowd, win some converts, hopefully get some food and maybe a place to spend the night, then pack up their tent and move on to the next town. Then radio became common in the average American home. Preachers began using this new technology to broadcast sermons to large numbers of people— far more than they would ever reach from their pulpit or tent. With a sufficiently high name recognition, they could then travel around from city to city, speaking in large stadiums and arenas. Holding revivals in these larger settings made more sense: you could reach far more people than you could in any tent. Mass-produced automobiles that were becoming more popular and prominent soon made long distance travel much easier and much faster (relatively speaking), enabling those who lived in the country to come to the city to hear the preacher preach. Then television broke onto the scene. Now, preachers didn't even have to leave their own church in order to preach to the entire country. Technology that most of us will probably never understand allowed their words and their image to be broadcast to the hundreds of thousands of people all at the same time. It was easier on the people too: they didn't have to lose work driving all day, they didn't have to worry about the weather or where to stop and eat or how soon they had to leave to get home. It was financially less expensive as well for both the preacher and those to whom s/he was preaching. All these advancements in technology gave man more and more leisure time, which in turn gave him more and more time to listen to the radio or watch the television. It follows then that the underlying message of fear was reinforced many times over, but always in a subtle or subconscious, perhaps even a subliminal way. Radio, then television and now the internet have enabled these fear-mongers to reach an audience that their predecessors never dreamed possible. Today, reaching millions costs a fraction of what it would have cost even just ten years ago. Fundraising is much simpler as well, as is fanning the flames of fear. [Click here to see a wonderful example of this fear-mongering— this example is from the ACLJ (the American Center for Law and Justice— the "legal arm" of the Christian Coalition.)] But being able to speak to millions would do these preachers no good unless those millions not only listened but acted on what they heard in the manner those RRR preachers told them they needed to act. Essentially, what these preachers were asking for was blind obedience. But man now had more leisure time, so there was more time to think. Thinking often leads to questions and questions are something that the RRR doesn't like to deal with. Unfortunately, the same technology that allowed the preacher to preach to so many, the same technology that gave each of us more leisure time, is the same technology that "dumbed down" the American public. After World War II, the nation was rejoicing over our victory in the Pacific and in Europe. Husbands and boyfriends were coming home from war and the baby boom began in earnest. New babies meant new homes, new cars, new clothing, new everything. Including one of those new-fangled gadgets called a television. Thus began anew the race to "keep up with the Joneses". (While this "race" had really begun after the start of the industrial revolution, the new technology brought about by WWII sped up the pace of the race.) Buying all those new things cost money, which meant Dad had to work longer hours and hardly ever got to see the family he was supporting. When he got home, he was so tired he didn't want to talk about anything— he just wanted to sit down and relax. Watch a show on TV or listen to the radio. Network news was now starting to become the main source of one's information about the day's events. Whereas before the war, neighbors had spent nights sitting out on the porch talking about the days events, exchanging news and yes, even some gossip, now they stayed in their homes, watching television. By the mid-sixties, newspapers across the country were losing readership because people didn't have time to read the paper (they were too busy working to pay for all the new stuff they bought) and/or they got their news from the television. In many cities that had offered two or more daily papers, one paper emerged as dominant and the rest folded. We had less and less diversity in our news sources and less and less contact with our neighbors. Today, in many places across the country, our neighbors are strangers to us— and as we all know, strangers are dangerous! (For those who don't know me well, that last bit is dripping with sarcasm.) In those early days, there were very limited choices as to which network you would watch or listen to. So rather than reading the paper or talking about issues and getting many different viewpoints, the source for news was now the anchorman or perhaps a news announcer on a radio station. We saw and heard the news from Korea and it wasn't good. Despite the fact that we had far superior weapons, we couldn't defeat the Chinese and the war ended in a stalemate— America's first taste of "failure". McCarthy was fanning the flames of fear in his hunt for the "red menace" within American society. We were in the midst of the Cold War and that "We won!" feeling brought about by the end of WWII was wearing thin— very thin. In the late 50s, we became entangled in a small country called Viet Nam. No one really paid much attention to it at first because we were more interested in Camelot and when JFK challenged us to land a man on the moon by the end that decade, America said, "Can do!". Then the world came crashing down on Nov. 22, 1963. America cried with John-John as he saluted his father's casket. America cried with the families of those who lost sons (and daughters) in Viet Nam. The paranoia of those "nasty communists" dropping an "atom bomb" on us was offset by a growing movement among the youth who wanted a better place where Love, not fear, ruled the day. The rebellion took the form of challenging "the man" (government) and defying laws that were deemed illegal or unfair. Burning draft cards and burning bras, drug use and open relationships— all of which the religious leaders saw as direct rebellion against God— a return to the days of Sodom and Gomorrah. Our loss in Viet Nam was seen by many preachers as proof that God had withdrawn his blessing from our nation. The more the youth rebelled, the more the preachers preached of God's impending retribution against an increasingly godless society. This was, in my humble opinion, the beginnings of the polarization of the American public. The gap only widened as time went on. Stonewall, Kent State, the beginning of the feminist movement and Roe v Wade began to really challenge the old patriarchal religious hierarchy. Even the Catholic church got in on the act, allowing nuns to shed their full body habits and wear ordinary "street" clothes. Many welcomed the changes that were taking place, and yet the changes were coming faster than many were able to handle. Change induces fear because change turns us in a new direction— the unknown. Normally, change comes slowly and we have time to adjust so that fear does not overwhelm us. But as time went on, the technology we were continually improving upon got faster and faster. Cars drove faster, planes flew faster, news traveled faster, production had to be faster— everything went faster. Changes came faster and faster but we had less and less time to adjust, which increased stress levels as well as fear levels. Soon we didn't have time to listen to the full news anymore: we got our news from soundbites and teasers to stories we no longer had time to watch. It was only a small step then to go from having soundbites tell you what was happening to soundbites telling you what to think and/or believe. Technology and changing times also brought some tough questions on moral issues: euthanasia, abortion, cloning, gay rights, the ecology, feminism, domestic violence, discrimination, gun control, etc. And all the while, in the back of your head, you hear the preachers saying what you've heard them say since you were very young: "If you don't do it God's way, you're going to hell. Let me tell you what God's way is." To insure that you swallowed what they were force-feeding you, the fear-mongering preachers took their lead from advertisers: package whatever they're selling as either "bigger, better, stronger" or "baseball, hot dogs and apple pie American". If you tell people that the law you support passing is based on "traditional family values" that founded our great nation, then those who oppose that legislation are, by default, unAmerican and anti-family. Many Americans didn't question these leaders— after all, they were men and women of God! They wouldn't deceive you or mislead your or outright lie to you! They have no personal agenda— that would be ungodly! By the time every home had a television set and cable TV was available almost everywhere, most families needed two incomes to survive. Those who were pressed for time before really didn't have time now. They were too busy trying to make sure they had the newest, biggest, fastest technology/house/car that was out there or taking their kids to half a dozen extra-curricular activities every day because that's what was expected of someone who had the newest, biggest and fastest (fill in the blank.) Additionally, virtually this entire generation had been raised on television soundbites— or at least that's where they'd been getting their news for the last 20 years. Mixed into all this history, the RRR was quietly buying up the media and the politicians. Pat Robertson bought a small bankrupt TV station in Virginia and launched CBN. As they bought more stations and more politicians, they got those politicians to make laws that made it easier to buy more stations and more politicians. As they bought up more stations, they passed on their fear-mongering tactics. Fear-mongering makes headlines and draws ratings. As ratings climb, advertisers pay more money for commercials. So now the media has discovered that fear-mongering is a money maker. A huge money maker. Keep people afraid and they'll look outside themselves for guidance: they'll look to their elected leaders and to the religious leaders of their communities. And rather than calming these fears, the political leaders and religious leaders fan those flames of fear. Then bring on the mouthpieces to repeat this message of fear over and over and over again. They talk about everyone's agenda but their own. (If you haven't yet watched Michael Moore's "Bowling for Columbine", you really ought to— along with "Farenheit 9/11". Unless of course the truth frightens you.) Now you see how the stage was set for this virtually bloodless coup. But what do we do about it? What can we do about it? How to Take Back Control 1. Educate Yourself There are a lot of links on these pages that document the agenda of the RRR and reveal their tactics as well as their strengths and weaknesses. Each page not only has links to further articles about that pages subject but also links within the text of the page itself. There's a page of nothing but links— more than 300 as of 9/7/05. These link to: articles on the activities of the leaders, politicians, mouthpieces and organizations pushing the RRR agenda articles on the dangerous legislation that has either passed or is being considered. articles on the effects the agenda is having on today's society and the consequences of the laws they have forced through various legislatures. interviews and speeches from those who oppose the RRR agenda and the main force for implementing it: the current misadministration. organizations trying to take back this country for the people alternative news sources Educate not only yourself but your friends, your family members, your partner, your co-workers, your kids....The more people who know what's going on, the more people there are to put a stop to it. Do not rely on only US sources for your information. The press in this country is a for-profit business: their job is to sell papers, get ratings, etc. And guess what does that more than anything: scandal and scaring people. 2. Get Actively Involved Sitting on the sideline saying "This sucks!" won't stop it from happening— and believe me, it will suck even worse if they succeed. (Ironic, huh? I'm asking you to take my "soundbite" as truth.) There are organizations and groups all around the country— both at the national, state and local levels— who would love to have another volunteer. The RRR laid out a strategy many years ago: they were going to start in the towns and get on school boards and town councils and move up the political ladder. And they've succeeded in doing that because those who oppose them don't come to the local meetings and call them to task. When you see something that you know is unjust, speak up! Ask "Why are you doing this and how does it benefit the entire community?" Some other suggestions: Write letters to the editor Call or write to your elected officials Attend public debates, school board meetings, rallies and town hall meetings. Call into radio talk shows and challenge the misinformation and deceitful tactics being used by the RRR. Tell your friends, family and co-workers about this page or any of the many like it so they too can educate themselves. Most importantly, register to vote and then VOTE. If you're already registered, help organize a voter registration drive or help transport people to the polls who would otherwise be unable to vote. Many people feel that they can't have a big impact, so why should they even bother. But I'd like to share this story from my own experience to show you that's not necessarily true. Just this past fall (2004), the stop sign at the end of my street had graffiti painted on it: "fags" was painted under the word "Stop" so it read "Stop fags". I called my local township road supervisor who said he'd get to it. After two days, the sign was still up. So I called again only to be told they had more important things to do. I told him I found the sign personally offensive since I was gay myself and asked how long the sign would have remained up if it had "n****r" sprayed under it instead of "fags". His response was that I was pushing my own agenda since I was gay. Since I personally witnessed a crew of at least 6 people sitting idly on the side of the road for more than 45 minutes less than 1/4 mile from the sign that was defaced, I knew it wasn't because they were too busy. So I placed one more call: to the local television station. They interviewed me and ran the story on the evening and late news that night. Not only was the sign changed the next day, but the interview gave me an opportunity to show people that gays are not the big scary monsters the RRR makes us out to be. Now, I'd be willing to be that if a sign is defaced like that again in my township, the road supervisor won't let it go for more than a day IF someone calls in and reports that it's been defaced. Don't assume that someone's already "taking care of it". Yes, there are millions of people working to stop the RRR. But that doesn't mean we don't need you as well. If I'd assumed someone else saw the sign and reported it, it might still be there. 3. Teach Our Children Critical Thinking Our schools must start teaching children to think for themselves. Critical thinking, even if only in the form of a class on logic, is something American youth sorely lack. Far too often, kids are taught to simply read, memorize and regurgitate rather than reason. My youngest son— a freshman in high school— came home just today and told me that in one of his classes, they were discussing the issue of whether parents had enough control over their kids. He said the class consensus was that they didn't and they blamed it all on rap music because all it talks about is how to get women, drugs, swearing and violence. I asked him how rap music was responsible for parents not having control over their own kids and he couldn't defend his position. I have always challenged my kids to think outside the box. From the moment they could first reason with me, they were told that if they found a disciplinary unfair, it was their job to explain to me why they thought it was unfair and what an appropriate and/or alternative discipline would be. If they had good reasons, I quite often went with their alternative discipline just to reward them for thinking for themselves. But parents can't do it alone. Between school, jobs, extra-curricular activities, etc., kids in today's world often spend more time away from home that at home. There's far too much peer pressure to conform for the average parent of the average child to be able to teach critical thinking without support from the schools. The RRR is vehemently opposed to any program like this because they say it violates their right to instill their moral values in their children. Of course, they ignore the fact that their children can opt out of any class without penalty if it violates their faith. Instead, the RRR attempts to derail the entire program so that no one has the opportunity to learn. Learning how to think for oneself is a bad thing when the RRR relies on people being sheep blindly following the shepherd to slaughter. 4. PAY ATTENTION Sorry to shout at you, but this is vitally important. The minute you start to actually pay attention, you're going to find things are a lot different than you had thought. And that's not a good thing if you value your personal freedom and the liberties that the government is charged with protecting. Pay attention to what's being said, how it's being said, what it's long term consequences might be, how it can be misused or abused. Don't accept anything that someone else says is true simply because they say it's true. That goes for what I'm telling you here too! I have provided links for you to verify what I'm telling you. Follow them. Verify what I'm telling— not because I'm lying to you, but so that you can in turn educate someone else how to help. Don't stop asking questions until you're sure you're at the bottom. Often times it's what isn't said that's more important than what is said. If you were to suspect someone of arson and he said, "I did not start that fire", he might very well be telling the truth. But if you stop there, you might not discover that while he didn't start the fire, he paid the man who did. Don't think only short term— look at the long term consequences as well. "The sins of the father are carried by the sons" is a warning that what we do now will affect generations to come afterwards so we'd better have our ducks in a row. Help Reclaim America! The United States of America is an on-going, long-term experiment in self-determination, launched when our founding fathers penned those famous words in the Declaration of Independence: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. —That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, —That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness." Our government has become "destructive of these ends"— instead of protecting our rights, it is taking them away— all at the urging and with the support of the RRR. We have a duty as citizens to insure our government respects the rights of the people, and enacts legislation for the good of the people and can beheld accountable by the people. And that means taking an active role as a citizen of this great nation to prevent the radical religious right from destroying it in their Armageddon agenda. Are you in? Note: You can now sign up to have notifications sent to you when changes are made to this page. Just click on the "Monitor Changes" button below and it will open a new window where you can enter your email address. You will then be notified whenever changes are made to this page. Please note that it will monitor this page only, not the entire "Exposed!" website. it's private by ChangeDetection Next Page: The Links Previous Page: The Agenda Contact Us Submit a site you want Exposed! Exposed! Home Page All text © 2004-13 Shelly Strauss except where quotes with references are provided. All graphics © 2004-13 Rainbow's End Press Do not copy without written permission. Please tell your friends about this site and feel free to link to us.