Freedom – DNC-Consulting

Bureaucratic Inertia, Patient Abuse, Fraud, and Waste – A Story about the VA (El Paso Style)

Let’s be clear: I will relate personal experiences with the VA in El Paso. However, this is not limited to the El Paso VA Health clinic. I have had the same problem at the Phoenix VAMC, the Albuquerque VAMC, Wyoming, Montana, Maine, Ohio, and Utah, among several others. One other cogent point is necessary to lay the proper groundwork for this article: as an I/O Psychologist, having studied the VA for over a decade, and having worked for the VA at the Albuquerque VAMC, I know how to fix the problems I am discussing here.

The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) was told (legislatively, signed by the President) to open more community care appointments to speed up veteran care. The VA then wrote policies, designed procedures, and copied processes to comply with the legislated mandate. However, the VA intentionally designed incompetence into these policies, processes, and procedures to comply, but not really.

Consider from the patient’s perspective the following:

Your primary care provider (PCP), as part of a patient-aligned care team (PACT), sends orders to Community Care for the veteran to be seen in the community for XX complaints/issues. The Community Care department then calls the veteran to ask about their provider preferences and contracts with a local provider. The provider accepts the community care request, and records are sent to the community provider for the upcoming appointment. This is how this process is supposed to work.

Except, it does not work this way. The provider does not get the proper records, or no records at all, the patient shows up to an appointment, and the provider is left wondering how to provide care. The patient is then sent to a staff member who requests the records the provider needs, and the patient goes home to wait for the provider to call them for another appointment. However, the provider will get the runaround and call the patient to help clear obstacles to obtaining records. The patient will get the runaround through bureaucratic inertia while trying to get the proper process to get the correct records to the community provider, generally necessitating multiple trips to the local VA clinic/medical center, not obtaining the correct records, requiring a shampoo result (Wash, Rinse, Repeat) ad nauseam ad infinitum. Imagine for a moment the costs this inanity creates for the veteran and the provider, which generally cannot be recouped. Then people wonder why their taxes are so high and medical costs keep skyrocketing.

The flip side of the records debacle is getting the VA to receive and record the treatment notes, medical reports, and imaging and imaging reports, as well as having these records available for the PCP/PACT to use to further the care the veteran is seeking. From 2012 through 2016, Phoenix VAMC community care records were submitted religiously every month, and at every second month’s appointment with the PCP, they said they still had not gotten the records from community care providers. I would go to the Records Release/Submission door to submit the community provider’s records, and they would lose those documents. Community Care representatives report that the PCP should be seeing these documents. Moreover, I have sat with the PCP, using my knowledge of the EHR, and the PCP still cannot access the records where Community Care said they put the records. See the problem: the community care department acts independently of the local hospital/clinic bureaucracy, and the patient experiences nothing but fraud, waste, and abuse.

What does this mean?

This means that the VA intentionally designed policies and procedures to commit fraud, waste, and abuse against the veterans and community providers it contracted. What is the VA doing instead of fixing the problems with its policies and procedures?

The VA improperly awarded $10.8 Million to a contractor to hire executives. They then admitted to the following (more designed incompetence) as stated in the VA-OIG report:

Insufficient transparency from VHA regarding the scope and costs of its CSI plans for VACO senior executives
Excessive deference by VA’s Human Resources and Administration/Operations, Security, and Preparedness leaders to undersecretaries and other senior leaders, despite concerns that they or their staff had about the incentives
Missed opportunities by the Office of General Counsel to detect legal issues with the CSIs before payment
Failure to leverage VA’s existing governance processes to ensure proper risk management of the new CSI authority

What else has the VA done instead of fixing its policy, process, and procedure problems? The Department of Veterans Affairs – Office of Inspector General (VA-OIG) has been busy!

Long has this author reported that the “new and improved” Veterans Benefits Administration (VBA) systems for Compensation and Pension (Comp & Pen) medical decisions were a circus in designed incompetence. The VA-OIG report is much nicer than I am and reports that the VBA needs “Better oversight of accessibility, safety, and cleanliness at contract facilities offering VA disability exams.” I reported that these Comp & Pen contractors are not reporting correctly or forcing providers to lie to the VBA about their diagnoses, having discussed this with multiple providers in the El Paso and Phoenix areas. Meaning that even the supposed controls to obtain data to decide at the VBA on a veteran’s claim are flawed and full of designed incompetence, fraud, waste, and abuse.

In Las Cruces, my first Comp & Pen exam occurred in a filthy and poorly lit medical office, and the provider blamed the problem on the building’s owner. The provider’s desk was a folding card table. The provider had a laptop and a cell phone and tried to convince me they had been practicing medicine for 20+ years. During the first Comp and Pen exam in El Paso, the provider was in the basement of a poorly lit building; the floors permeated the air with a sharp urine smell when the smell of vomit was not overpowering the urine. The building has since undergone a significant remodel, but it has taken two years of comp and pen exams to improve. Nevertheless, the VBA insists that this program of farming out these exams is in the veteran’s best interest and helps speed up the comp and pen decisioning process.

The VBA still cannot use the tools they designed to get work appropriately accomplished, e.g., deciding veteran claims for compensation for service-connected disabilities. The VA-OIG reports, “Delays occurred in some (10,000+) veterans’ benefits claims while awaiting a decision.” Feel free to read the entire linked report; what the VBA is getting away with regarding fraud, waste, and abuse is incredible. Quoted from the report, we find this gem:

“The (VA-OIG Inspector) team identified 10,541 claims aged 365 days or older that, on August 1, 2022, was at the (National Work Queue) NWQ division awaiting decision and were not distributed to a regional office. Most of these claims had been at the NWQ division for at least six months, and over 99 percent required routing to specialized teams that process special mission herbicide-related claims. Office of Field Operations (OFO) leaders limited staffing for these teams to control quality for these complex claims and balance workloads, and they generally expected delays. However, the VA-OIG team reviewed VBA’s oldest pending claims and identified instances in which the NWQ division’s ranking rules unintentionally contributed to delays.”

Did you notice that they are backlogged, they expected delays, and their ranking rules “unintentionally” worsened the problem? Here is the rub: “unintentional” is designed incompetence being hidden by bureaucrats and accepted by the VA-OIG inspection team as valid excuses. Intentionally creating systems, policies, processes, and procedures that worsen problems in completing the task you were hired to accomplish is fraud, waste, and continues to abuse the customer (veterans).

What else is the VA-OIG finding in the community care system intentionally designed to worsen care (abuse) for patients and allow the VBA to commit fraud and waste? The following VA-OIG report exemplifies perfectly what is happening in El Paso but originates with the Martinsburg, VA VAMC:

“The VA-OIG determined that community care scheduling delays occurred because of (1) ineffective processes used to manage community care consults, (2) shortages of specialty care providers, such as in otolaryngology, gastroenterology, radiology, orthopedics, and cardiology, and (3) a lack of controls to ensure manager accountability for consult timeliness.”

Lack of controls, managerial accountability, and timeliness are the central problems in the VA; generally, the VBA represents explicitly some of the most often cited issues by the VA-OIG in their inspections of VA medical centers, VBA regional offices, and every other policy, process, and procedure inside the Department of Veterans Affairs. How many times will these specific issues arise before the US House and Senate demand personal accountability, arm the VA-OIG with the power to FIRE people, and clean the VA house of those who intentionally create problems (abuse) veterans? The Fraud, Waste, and Abuse inside the VA are astounding and only ever worsen; this makes it a leadership failure, and as long as the VA only hires and promotes from within, these problems will only continue to dog and humiliate the VA!

In yet another stunningly bad VA-OIG report on community care problems, the VA-OIG reported the following:

“Despite adequate staffing levels in the community care department, the system did not meet VHA expectations for the timely processing of consults and scheduling appointments for care in the community. While there was an increase in patients receiving primary care in the community and delays in processing and scheduling community care consults, the OIG did not identify patients who experienced poor outcomes.”

Did you catch that last sentence? How hard did the VA-OIG look for patients or providers adversely affected by the incompetence of the community care representatives staffed at the Loma Linda VAMC? Does this mean I am questioning the accuracy and verity of the VA-OIG? The simple answer: YES!

As an employee of the VA at the Raymond G. Murphy VAMC, Albuquerque, NM, I regularly saw patients who reported adverse issues with community care and the VA but would not speak up for fear of retribution by the VA. I was in the ER when an angry family complained that their father (veteran) had been sitting in a treatment room for almost 10 hours; the treatment room was for urgent cases that could be resolved quickly, and this was on top of a four-hour wait in the waiting room. The experienced nurses and physician assistants gossiped loudly during shift change; the patient had not been checked on in six hours, and they were vociferously leaving the ER! As the MSA at the front desk, I was the listening ear for this episode; I reported to the leadership, I encouraged the family to report it to the patient advocate, and the family related that the last time they complained, several appointments mysteriously were canceled and had to be rescheduled for 6-10 months into the future.

Other patients reported similar treatment when they complained, or even if they asked questions about verity in a process, they were being asked to undertake. Other veterans and their families reported abuse at the hands of providers who reported to the hotlines for Fraud, Waste, and Abuse, and then medications did not show up; PCPs were mysteriously and suddenly changed, and clinics were shifted. Time was wasted trying to get new appointments, get providers up to speed, and set new scheduled specialty appointments. Do you remember the wait list scandal in Phoenix, where veterans died on waiting lists for life-saving appointments? Guess who was the first to be “waitlisted,” the veterans asking questions. If you missed an appointment, you were automatically waitlisted, even if your provider canceled the appointment. I lived and was seen in Phoenix during this veteran killing scandal; veterans would whisper about what was happening but were so scared they did not tell anyone else but other veterans.

What else has the VA-OIG found recently that the VA has been doing instead of correcting problems? How about the long-standing issue of reusable medical equipment being improperly cleaned between patients? The VA-OIG report noted, “Deficiencies in documentation of reusable medical device reprocessing and failures in VISN 22 oversight of sterile processing service at the Raymond G. Murphy VAMC in Albuquerque, New Mexico.” Within the last four years, the failures of the VHA to properly clean, document, and process reusable medical equipment have ballooned, putting patients at risk, injuring some, and killing at least two. Why the VA-OIG found, again, is horrifying and similar to what it keeps finding, which means that lack of controls, managerial accountability, and timeliness continue to dog this program and represent fraud, waste, and abuse (including murder) of veterans!

For the record, the Raymond G. Murphy VAMC was inspected and FAILED horribly in 2022 and was reinspected in 2023, finding the same problems as the first inspection. The leaders KNEW what was wrong and did NOTHING to change or correct the issues. Regarding reusable medical equipment, if you cannot prove it was sterilized properly with documentation that forms a chain of evidence, you should NOT be using it in a procedure on a patient. Nevertheless, the Raymond G. Murphy VAMC IS doing precisely this, and the VA-OIG can only issue more recommendations and reinspect in a year.

The Raymond G. Murphy VAMC leaders never hesitate to lie, cheat, steal, and fabricate records to avoid accountability. I have seen this personally happen hundreds of times, and the VA-OIG “inspects,” offers recommendations, tells the victims they could not verify the truth of the report, and the leaders dance away without ever being held accountable. Unfortunately, this is the SAME pattern happening in Phoenix and El Paso, so the problems of these VAMCs are not isolated but endemic to the entire VHA leadership teams in every clinic, hospital, VISN, and Federal leadership level!

Fear of VA retribution is a real and serious issue at the VA, VHA, and VBA. Why do I report these problems with the issue of fear so prevalent at the VA? Because the VA cannot “Skeer” me! Lt. General Nathanial Bedford Forrest (CSA) is quoted as saying, “Get ’em skeered and keep the skeer on ’em.” If you cannot put the “skeer” on someone, you will never keep the“skeer” on them. Does this mean I have escaped VA retribution? NOPE, but the VA cannot “skeer” me or dissuade me from reporting the problems and offering help to fix the issues at the VA!

The Department of Veterans Affairs is abusing its presidential appointment to:

“… Care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and for his orphan.”

They deliberately create policies, processes, and procedures that allow them to escape the consequences of their bad decisions and poor leadership. The VA has created an atmosphere of incompetence and corruption where those who participate are elevated, and those who do not are punished, be they employees, contractors, veterans, widows, or orphans. I am dedicated to seeing this bureaucratic disaster end forthwith. Join me?

© Copyright 2024 – M. Dave Salisbury
The author holds no claims for the art used herein; the pictures were obtained in the public domain, and the intellectual property belongs to those who created the pictures.
All rights reserved. For copies, reprints, or sharing, please contact through LinkedIn:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/davesalisbury/

Basic Generalizations of Government – Quoted from Robert Welch’s 1958 Speech

Over the course of fifteen years, Robert Welch delivered two speeches in Indianapolis, the relevance of which still resonates in today’s political landscape. This article delves into the ten generalizations of government that Mr. Welch articulated in his speeches, providing a concise overview for your perusal.

Government is necessary – Some government is required for a thriving society. The size of the government will always be a challenge as it will always try to grow, and a growing government is anathema to a healthy society.

How big should the government be? This seemingly philosophical question holds significant implications for our society. Some may dismiss it as unimportant, but such a stance overlooks the profound impact of government size on our lives. Let’s explore this crucial question using the American government as a reference point.

The United States of America is a Constitutional Republic (if we can keep it), meaning that the US Constitution is the ultimate governing document for government size. Detractors will then claim that the US Constitution doesn’t cover all the eventualities of modern life. Yet, what if it does? This is a crucial point to remember, as it underscores the importance of individual rights and the role of the Constitution in protecting them.

The IRS had to be determined in a court of law to be “constitutional,” the same for the Department of Education and many other Federal alphabet agencies. In contrast, some federal alphabet agencies were created by executive order. Each of the alphabet agencies has restricted freedom, robbed responsibility from the individual states, replicated itself in the individual states, and increased the taxpayers’ costs for the government robbing, stealing, and returning a small amount as compensation. This should raise concerns about the extent of government interference and its negative impact on individual freedom and societal well-being.

Government is a nonproductive expense – The overhead costs of a society.

Consider this momentarily: what happens to a business when overhead costs exceed what can be charged to customers and still compete in the marketplace? Nothing good! Where the government is concerned, why do we accept expenses that we would not accept for businesses providing similar goods and services?

There is a genius in understanding government costs as the overhead costs for a society. In this light, why should the Federal Government of the USA be the largest employer in the world? We cannot afford these overhead costs, especially when considering the social program costs, the costs of a standing military, and the continuing burden of deficit spending. This inefficiency should be a cause for concern and a motivation to advocate for a more limited government.

Using California and contrasting it with Florida, we see the nonproductive government costs ever more clearly and the lack of trust in government. How many taxpayers in California trust the government to keep crime down, to look after the public health, and to be as unobtrusive as possible in their citizens’ lives? What we see in Florida is the exact opposite of California, and the situation is changing for the better in Florida and the worse in California.

Government is Frequently Evil – A point that cannot be stressed enough!

Consider the case of San Francisco, where the city’s streets have become a symbol of government negligence. The authorities’ failure to address this issue has led to a surge in diseases that were once thought to be eradicated in America. This situation begs the question: are the consequences of government actions always benign?

For example. In the criminal code for the US Criminal Justice System, the crime of murder is pretty severe. The Department of Veterans Affairs is regularly the culpable party in the death of patients. From poor communications to improper care, the federal employees of the VA are killing veterans and doing so with impunity. Is this not a prime example of the evil inherent in government?

The government is an enemy of individual freedom. – This point should be obvious but remains hotly contested by those who want and profit from “biggering” government (apologies to Dr. Seuss)!

The First and Second Amendments to the US Constitution, as amended into the US Bill of Rights, are regular examples of how the government is always trying to destroy individual freedoms. However, while these are important, they are not the most egregious examples of how government is an enemy of individual freedom. The most egregious examples are:

- - Inflation – Where the value of your money earned is constantly devalued.
  - Deficit Spending – Drives inflation up.
  - Taxes – The overhead costs of government that rob you of your fiscal upward mobility.
  - Debt —It is said that when you owe the bank $100, the bank owns you. But when you owe the bank $34 Trillion, you own the bank. This means the government is robbing all the bank’s customers of their fiscal freedoms.

While not all of the most egregious examples of how and why government is always an enemy of individual freedom these are the most important, as many of the powers of government to be an effective enemy stem from these four points. When the government owns the bank, it becomes subservient, as does your money, to the whims of bureaucrats, who then work tirelessly to protect themselves while increasing the theft of individual freedom.

Whatever the government does will cost more than it would cost an individual or a business. – The question is, WHY?

Why does it cost a manufacturer $100 to build a product on an assembly line for sale to other businesses and individuals, but for the government, the cost of producing a product is 15 to 100 times more expensive? Did the government get a better product? The answer is mostly assuredly, no. Did the government receive preferential pricing as they bought a product more regularly and in higher quantities; most assuredly, the answer is no.

When a government contract manager contracts for a road or bridge, why must the government pay premium wages? I was working as an independent contractor for a general contractor. I charged $30 an hour for my time, no benefits, and paid my taxes. When my contract was accepted, the General Contractor said I had to edit my contract and increase my wages to $75 an hour due to government restrictions. Plus, he had to pay me medical, dental, and vision benefits and a host of other costs because it was a government contract.

Why? I never got a suitable answer, but this is why taxes are so incredibly high in cities, counties, and states across America!

Government, by its size, momentum, and authority, will perpetuate its doctrine and policy longer than its acceptance. – This means that what a government deems right will live long after society has forcefully told the government to stop!

Consider with me the recent government flip-flop and the redefinition of marriage. Let’s clarify: The government licenses marriage, and this is done on the local level. SCOTUS has supported the fees and government intrusion in legal marriage. SCOTUS supported laws and individual states’ rights to define marriages acceptable in their states when the government needed it to, then flip-flopped under a different SCOTUS. The states passed laws declaring that marriage is between a man and a woman, legally licensed by the state and approved by the societies in that state.

What happened was that SCOTUS changed, and a Federal Mandate forced states to abandon their laws and constitutional amendments many times over the objections and desires of their citizens. The doctrine of the Federal Government changed to embrace marriage as between a man and a man, a woman and a woman, a man and a woman, a person to themselves, and a host of other redefinitions of the term marriage. Then, employing authority, momentum, a complicit media, and a host of judges forced the doctrine changes upon all of America. Not through the legislative process, which would have made these changes constitutional, but through the abuse of the judicial branch and the pattern described.

As society settles, the drive always begins to have the government become the manager of the social enterprise. – Remember the “Disinformation Governance Board” as a Department of Homeland Security office?

People who considered themselves “more equal,” in terms of “Animal Farm,” thought it would help to have a government agency armed and authorized to govern what is and is not proper, truthful, and appropriate speech even though the US Constitution as amended in the US Bill of Rights holds that the government cannot govern Free Speech.

Here is what the First Amendment says:

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.”

Is the interconnectedness of each point discussed more clear? By violating the First Amendment, the Federal Government wanted to set up a way to protect itself, commit evil acts, use changes in doctrine and momentum, and exceed authority to force social change as it gave itself the power the US Constitution reserved for the people.

As the government increases in power, it will sacrifice the middle class to increase its power. – Killing upward fiscal mobility.

America was built on the principle that you must work hard and play by the rules, and you will achieve. Your children will achieve more through your achievement, which means that Americans practicing upward fiscal reach built the largest middle class of any country in the history of this planet. What was the government’s response to the freedoms expressed by the middle class, to tax them into poverty, create debt slaves, rob them of savings through inflation and the devaluation of the dollar, and every other action they could invent?

They cover fraud waste and abuse in social programs in terms of empathy, sympathy, and feel-good actions that only increase fraud waste and abuse of the taxpayer. Consider the Social Security fund; where did all the money go? Congress raided it multiple times for cash, leaving IOUs, fraud, waste, and abuse claimed a sizable portion. Criminal mismanagement and malfeasance have claimed what was left. Who is hurt the most by the destruction of Social Security: the middle class who expected there to be money in the retirement fund and who have paid for benefits their whole working lives and will never see remuneration.

The form of government is less important than its quality. – Monarchies have historically been truly terrible and phenomenally successful!

Have you heard of Queen Tamar of Georgia? She won accolades and brought her people the greatest prosperity in recorded history. Her government has never been surpassed. Sometimes considered the Lion of the Caucasus, her leadership is barely mentioned in history regardless of the power it held and the good it did.

A constitutional republic is an experiment in global government history. It started with high quality and small quantity but has now reversed itself into low quality and high quantity. Is America honestly better for this change? Of course not, but the people barely understand the role of government, let alone why they are struggling and the government’s hand in their struggles and pain.

Form and quality are less important than government quantity. – When government quantity exceeds citizen control, the citizenry must forcefully reduce the government’s size or make unpunished sacrifices to the government that has grown too big!

Quantity, or the size of government, can be detailed in many ways. Still, it always comes back to the individual freedom to achieve desires, goals, and ambitions. In the early 1900s, welfare was something an individual or a church called helping others. States had some welfare programs, but mostly, it was a city/county action mainly left to individuals, families, extended families, and churches. In comes the Federal Government, tripling in size, all in the name of welfare, and through the baby steps of welfare, socialism became the dominant government system in America. It was suppressing capitalism, overthrowing individual accountability, destroying the family, and ripping the social fabric of America in shreds.

Freedom means individuals act without government thumbs and boots. As discussed in the basic generalizations above, government is the ultimate enemy of the people and must be fought at all times, in all places, and at every opportunity! Freedom is found in an individual’s upward reach to achieve as much as they desire legally. Yet, the government has supplanted the upward reach to the detriment of those who want bigger government and equally to those who want to be left alone.

Every man, woman, and child must work to correct the government and build Americanism! Faith, moral codes, nuclear families, and enthusiasm, which is nothing more than faith in action (Henry Chester), must be the weapons we use to fight government intrusion. Faith is not specific to one religion; morality, integrity, and the purpose of religion are more critical and must be the bedrock of the faith we need in America today. We must be anchored to eternal truths!

The first and most crucial eternal truth is that there is a purpose to men (and women) that cannot be denied or interfered with by the government. Even though communism, socialism, and even republicanism will deny this and beat the person possessing this purpose to death, be reverently bound to save the purpose of man. What is this purpose? As quoted by Harry Kemp in his poem “God the Architect,” “Thou hast put an upward reach in the heart of man.”

God the Architect
By Harry Kemp

Who thou art I know not,
But this much I know:
Thou hast set the Pleiades
In a silver row;

Thou hast sent the trackless winds
Loose upon their way;
Thou hast reared a colored wall
Twixt the night and day;

Thou hast made the flowers to blow,
And the stars to shine;
Hid rare gems of the richest ore
In the tunneled mine —

But, chief of all thy wondrous works,
Supreme of all thy plan,
Thou hast put an upward reach
In the heart of Man.

Demand your rights to reach upward. Protect your rights to reach upward without the boots and thumbs of government interference. The simple truth is that the government of America is several thousand times too big, too expensive, and unwieldy. Until we acknowledge a problem and admit that the problem is the quantity of government from the city/county to the White House, we will not be able to achieve our upward reach!

© 2024 M. Dave Salisbury
All Rights Reserved
The images used herein were obtained in the public domain; this author holds no copyright to the images displayed. Quoted materials remain the property of the original author.

Plastics Words – Modular Language and Tyranny: A Conversation

Uwe Poerksen wrote the book from which this title originates and will weigh heavily in this conversation. If you can find the book, the title is: “Plastic Words: The Tyranny of Modular Language.” It is important to note that when this book was written, it was heavily criticized, castigated, hated, derided, and demeaned. Yet, the truth of this book continues to ring across all nations, and modern society needs to understand tyrants are manipulating them.

The first principle under discussion is abstraction; in Latin, we find “Cui Bono” or “who benefits.” “Abstraction frees us from having to think consequences through to their ends and from having to answer the question: for whom?” Considering the current riots on college campuses, the media claims these are protests; herein lay the first tyrannical use of language. Consider with me the legal definition of these two terms:

Protest – A right covered under the First Amendment to the US Constitution. You’re generally allowed to demonstrate in public spaces—a sidewalk, park, or the grounds of a government building—as long as you don’t block traffic or access to buildings or streets. You are NOT allowed to become violent; your protest must have proper licensure from local authorities and have a defined start and end time. Failure to follow the law automatically moves a protest to a riot, from a right covered under the Constitution to a criminal activity.
Riot – 18 US Code § 2102 – Definitions section lists the following parameters for the legal definition of riots. “the term “riot” means a public disturbance involving (1) an act or acts of violence by one or more persons part of an assemblage of three or more persons, which act or acts shall constitute a clear and present danger of, or shall result in, damage or injury to the property of any other person or the person of any other individual or (2) a threat or threats of the commission of an act or acts of violence by one or more persons part of an assemblage of three or more persons having, individually or collectively, the ability of immediate execution of such threat or threats, where the performance of the threatened act or acts of violence would constitute a clear and present danger of or would result in, damage or injury to the property of any other person or the person of any other individual.”

The media knows the definitions and legal parameters of a riot and a protest but intentionally chooses to call riots “peaceful protests,” mostly peaceful protests,” and more. Looking abstractly, we must ask, “Cui Bono,” who benefits from the tyrannically plasticized term “protest” when riot is more appropriate?

The media reported that media members were involved in the Summer of Rage protests, and several were caught on camera rioting in different locations. Thus, Corporate Media benefits monetarily and criminally. But who sent the media, who gave them their preferred narrative, and why?
There are people in this world who would watch it burn for no greater pleasure exists in their minds than to see chaos erupt. These people are practicing a form of low-intensity conflict (LIC), also known under the guise of guerrilla warfare and terrorism.

Remember, thinking abstractly opens the mind to consider the consequences, but the twisting of language means the subjects, in this case, the rioters, are not encouraged to think; they are encouraged to merely act emotionally. By clouding the mind from thinking, the tyrant can manipulate to achieve personal goals, political power, or even monetary gains. Remember, BLM used emotionally driven rioters to amass a considerable fortune for personal gain.

How do tyrants gain power over a population?

The question has puzzled me for a long time, and Ewe Poerksen answered this while discussing slogans, catchphrases, and clichés. Moreover, these abbreviated empty phrases cloud something important, “Information is far more than a lightweight and short-lived cliché. [Information] is anchored in the structure of our world to be heavyweight, not lightweight.” Yet, what do we see minute-to-minute; we see heavy topics boiled down to 140-character sound bites.

Cui Bono, who benefits when reason and logic must be boiled down to the attention span of a modern “intellect” who will not engage unless nudity, vulgarity, and inanity are mixed in? Those who benefit are those who control the language, passing emotional hyperbole off as pithy statements. Where do we see this exemplified? Look no further than Karine Jean-Pierre (KJP) and every press conference she leads. KJP is known as the worst PR flack to ever stand at the podium for White House press briefings.

Did you catch that “PR Flack?” Public Relations, marketing, social media, and more benefit from pithy catchphrases, sloganeering, and clichés. What does it mean to be called a racist when roads, bridges, taxes, elections, mountains, oceans, food, etc. can all be racist? Therein lay a tool of tyrants; by boiling down everything to a 140-character soundbite, the context, meaning, and purpose of Information is lost, manipulated, and emotionally plasticized into meaning something that cannot possibly exist.

Inanimate objects cannot be racist; Webster proclaims racism is defined as a person, “A PERSON,” who believes a race is superior to others. A road, food, bridges, mountains, etc. are not people. Yet, who benefits from the confusion of calling inanimate objects or foods racist? Race hustlers, racists, and tyrants who moderate language to obtain and keep power through emotionally damaging people.

Have you ever asked yourself why Pelosi and Sharpton (among many others) always boil their topics down to race? They have nothing else to discuss; they gained power by race hustling, and they will not give up the power gained. Meaning they must keep inventing new enemies to be fought against that would represent racism. Their power base comprises those who want to carry on the faux battle through the tyranny of language.

Does this mean there are no real racial problems; of course not. The problem is that in all the confusion thrown up by race-hustling tyrants, the term racism has become twisted and plasticized into meaning something that is not racism but freedom-killing tyranny. We see this same pattern in so many other fields and endeavors. What does wealth inequity mean? Does it mean that when two people are hired, and both make $15.00 an hour, where one invests, and the other is a spendthrift, when the first gains wealth status, that person’s choices now need to be punished? Yet, almost daily, those who are spendthrifts want the investment prosperity of the wealthy, which is not equitable. Jealousy is not equity, and it can never be. Yet, the call has gone out to create equity from wealth inequality.

Who benefits when jealousy is called wealth equity? The same ones have weaponized wealth, choose to tyrannize instead of build, and depend upon chaos to keep the money rolling in. When the surface clichés are peeled back, what do we find? A tyrant who manipulates language for personal benefit, political gain, or merely to watch the world burn.

When discussing clichés, we must also discuss catchphrases, as they always contain action. Historically, “Remember the Maine, To HELL with Spain” was very popular and abbreviated to “Remember the Maine.” It referred to the USS Maine lost in Havana Harbor, possibly “to a spontaneous explosion.” Still, the phrase was catchy, and a war was fought. The Spanish-American war resulted, and “Remember the Maine” was employed to emotionally tie people together with an idea and kill other people. What if the Spanish-American War was a big mistake? Who benefitted?

In the recent plethora of college/university riots, a regular phrase was used, “Free Palestine,” which is two lies in one. Palestine does not and has never existed, and to be free means you cannot terrorize your neighbors. Another slogan was, “From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be free.” What does this mean: the complete, total, and absolute extinction of Israel and all Jewish peoples? The catchphrases want action; they are calling for blood, calling to tie people to a cause, and inciting war using emotions. Who benefits; the tyrants who want to watch the world burn.

Let’s discuss commonplace concepts, words that express an idea, are regularly used in slogans, and have a scientific definition. Consider the term education. Education has a scientific definition, “the science or art of teaching.” Education also means the process or act of imparting or acquiring knowledge. Yet, education has been twisted, plasticized, and morphed into an empty, amorphous, plastic word, valid for useless slogans such as “Educate! Smart is Great!” There are thousands of empty slogans and catchphrases with the modular term education. Every one of them is supposed to get you to take action. But what is meant is to become indoctrinated, not independent, not learned, not to grow into a free-thinking, empowered individual.

Who benefits? Tyrants who do not want people to read, learn, and decide for themselves. John Dewey forced upon America, and then to the world, whole word methodologies for learning to read, forcing out phonics, and we name schools after this tyrant. He, among several others, is most notable in teaching children how not to read. He removed tools like phonics, rhyming, and others, replacing them with whole-word instruction, making reading problematic and deleterious. These principles have morphed into the modern society where there are no attention spans.

Who benefits “Cui Bono?” Tyrants masquerading as politicians, religious leaders bent on demonizing others for personal gain, and wealthy people who fear competition. By controlling language, these tyrants can manipulate emotions, reducing logic and reason to concepts to be hated. They then prey upon fears while stoking other emotions, all to watch the world burn.

How do we fight these tyrants?

Fighting tyranny is a daily, minute-by-minute activity, and the following steps are provided to help you start on the path; they are not complete solutions, as each tyrant fought will be different.

Get to know words and their established meanings. Learn their etymology (history). As you begin, you will be surprised at how many words you “know” but are not familiar with.
Read! Not comic books, unless they are a stepping stone to improving reading skills long rusted. Harlequin romances are not allowed unless they are employed as a starting point. Develop a love and thirst for reading. If you find it difficult, learn from this experience of mine. I am a bibliophile and have been reading books since I was a very young child. I joined the US Navy and didn’t touch a book for the first 18 months on board. When I started reading again, the skill was arduous; I had to relearn how to read, comprehend what was read, and then relearn how to enjoy reading. Find a topic of interest and give yourself the time to learn how to read and comprehend what you read.
Ask questions! Tyrants cannot answer questions reliably. You will observe how they struggle to define and explain their plasticized concepts. Since these concepts are empty, they may choose to use slogans, catchphrases, and clichés instead of logic and reasoning. Keep asking for clarification.
Don’t Stop! Choose to become a lifelong learner, discovering new topics, opening historical books and records, and digging to discover more.
Build a society of learners around you. Skilled, intelligent, and educated people seek out differences of opinion and ask if what you know on a topic is correct or needs adjustment. There is a term you will come across, “Loyal Opposition.” These valuable people provide the necessary resistance to help you seek, learn, and become better.

It will not be easy to take America back and remove the tyrants. Believe it is possible. Hope for a better day. Prepare your minds. Then, stand confident and capable and watch the tyrants run for cover.

© Copyright 2024 – M. Dave Salisbury
The author holds no claims for the art used herein, the pictures were obtained in the public domain, and the intellectual property belongs to those who created the images. Quoted materials remain the property of the original author.

The Identity Backpack

Introduction

“Do you know who you are?” This question was posed to me multiple times growing up. The most memorable among those events was a principal in one school (sixth grade), and my answer was just as memorable. I bluntly told him, “I am the last bastard standing.” For this, I earned a two-week vacation for not being repentant, stubbornly insisting on who I was and why, employing the most atrocious language you can imagine. In Basic Training, my Drill Instructor also asked this question, and the answer began an unraveling process, a learning process, and a glimpse into the topic under consideration: the identity backpack.

Picture with me, a backpack. There is nothing special: canvas, waterproofing materials, two padded shoulder straps, and zippers. Pick your color; mine is always black. Let’s go on a hike. 20-miles. What did you put in your backpack? Water, snack bars, maybe some socks, a whistle, remember what you hike in, must be hiked out. You carefully select items of value you think will be needed on the hike.

At the rally point, as the hike begins, you are informed there will be a 10-minute rest at every ¼ mile. At the first ¼ mile, we stop, and without foreknowledge, at this first stop, you are encouraged to find a rock and put it in your backpack. If your backpack is full, you must decide if you should carry the rock in your hands, pockets, or shoes or find backpack space. You find a rock you like, and the hike continues.

During the hike, at the remaining ¼-mile rests, we find the best-looking rock and place it in the backpack. Regardless of other inputs, we make a decision to select that rock. At the end of our hike, we will have collected 80 rocks. Some people will have chosen the smallest rock possible purposefully, intimating at the first stop that at every subsequent stop, they will be required to find more rocks, measure backpack space, and look for solutions to put that rock somewhere. Others will have selected medium rocks, thinking since they have hiked in less gear, they will have the room to collect more unique but larger rocks. Still, others will have tried to select big rocks. Regardless, we all have 80 rocks in our backpacks at the end of the hike.

Each rock is unique and will be tied to a memory of the trail, a location in time, and emotions and feelings during the hike. What is the value of a rock? Very little. Some rocks contain metals; that metal has value, but the rock itself does not. The only value in a rock is the value we invest in it, as it is tied to emotions and memories of the hike. However, the rock did not increase in value to anyone else. My memories of the hike will necessarily be different than yours. My emotional state will be different, my perception of events will be different, and so forth. That rock is yours and yours alone.

Why did you select that particular rock? You can point to specific colors, shapes, striations, and other elements in the rock to justify that specific rock. However, even if you can define the why, you will be hard-pressed to answer this question. Why? Because you do not know yourself. That rock identifies with you; your identity is embodied in that rock you selected.

The hike was an opportunity to get to know yourself, not the rocks. Any epiphanies along the trail, in ¼-mile increments, will be tied to the rock, not the value of the rock, not the blisters, sore feet, sweat, or anything else along the trail. Pain is temporary and fleeting. The rock is a memento of you and how you changed along the trail, and the value placed on it derives from understanding your changes, different mental states, and efforts invested in harvesting that rock, carrying that rock, and remembering your evolution during the hike.

What is Identity?

Some will, rightfully, claim that identity is recognizable characteristics in someone or something. For example, those 80 rocks in your backpack, each unique and valued only to you, have characteristics you recognized in yourself that are embodied in the rock you selected. The rock is still a rock. It is the conveyance of recognizable characteristics that distinguish that rock from another that was recognized first in you and then embodied in the rock.

Others could remark that identity is an equation satisfied based on the Latin idem et idem, meaning “same and same.” For example, X=X at the end of working the problem, both sides of the equals sign are the same. The identity characteristics of the rock selected identify you equally as the rock.

To some, identity is defined by the group of people they choose to associate with. Sometimes, individuals in that group are cognizant of the consequences and do not care. Regularly identifying with a group of associates finds one unaware of the consequences, as their identifying characteristics mean more when associated with that group than without that group. Hence, identity often requires a society to be understood, and the consequential value is intentionally disregarded.

Consider the boy who joins a gang. He might claim to know he could go to prison or be killed, but he claims, “Look, that guy made it, so can I.” He recognizes some characteristic in himself that is enhanced by gang membership, to the exclusion of family, non-gang friends, associates, or any other variable. He has selected his rock, his identity, and that variant of his identity means more than any other identifying characteristic. It’s like picking up a naturally multi-faceted rock and focusing on a single facet to the exclusion of the entire rock.

Consider the diamond, is the diamond facet, or possessing a single facet cut in the diamond; is that facet increasing or decreasing the value of that diamond? What happens to a diamond with 100 or 1000 different facets? Has the value increased? Can we point to a single facet, eliminate all other facets, and claim that the diamond has more or less value based solely on a single facet in a 100-faceted diamond? Certainly not, but this is exactly what we are doing when we focus on one identifying facet to exclude other identity facets.

Inherent in anything of value is invested interest. Something caught your eye about that particular rock. Your interest was piqued, and this piquing of interest was an impetus to look closer, investing energy to act (picking up the rock for a closer look) and presenting you with a choice to accept or reject that rock. Interest always proceeds value. Both interest and value are a string of choices and sub-choices on a decision tree that led to you keeping that rock at that ¼ mile resting point. Did a flaw cause you to cast off a rock by dropping or throwing it away? Why was it so important to drop or throw the rock? Conversely, did something catch your interest that meant this single item defined you regardless of every other rock, and you could not bear to part with that rock? Interest either developed into value or decreased into a rejection, and a decision was made which had consequences.

Interest also has a social aspect. Consider religion; any religion will do. Suppose you invest your interest in that religious society. In that case, you recognize facets of your identity enhanced by membership in that society. Membership in that society is worth casting off other facets of your identity as sacrifices to integrate more into that society of believers. Recognizing the value of sacrificing your identity in the hopes of improving those qualities you identified in your identity that the religious society appreciates and provides you a return on your investment or return on your sacrifice for membership. Essentially, to belong more fully to that religious society, you will empty your identity backpack and only keep those rocks that the society, or community of believers, also deem worthy.

Interest proceeds belief, and both (interest and belief) enhance value equations to become “same and same.” Recognizing our characteristics requires knowing who we are, what we want, and a bare idea of how to move from who we are to achieving a goal. Thus, we cannot claim that identity is purely selfish, as it is not, and identity characteristics are enhanced only through those we choose to associate with.

However, we also cannot honestly conclude that identity is purely a social construct, as we see in ourselves characteristics that brighten and shine through associations. Nevertheless, identity is a choice, the same choice that drove us to pick up a rock on our hike. We see a characteristic (interest), believe it will be enhanced the more we see it, and then invest value in it, which necessarily and naturally produces consequences. We value those consequences (good/bad, right/wrong, etc.) and then begin the interest/belief/value cycle again. Our identity is built through repetitions of this cycle, lived experience, and natural consequences we can label beneficial/good/bad/etc. Like those ¼ mile rests, one cycle and identity rock at a time.

Who chooses identity?

You! You choose your identity, those valued characteristics, or identifying facets that enhance who you decide to be. Of a truth most certain, some mental illnesses are carefully chosen, delicately nurtured, and eventually bear fruit. The fruit’s type and tastiness stem from choices and consequences, e.g., we placed a value statement on the fruit. How do we know this is a universal truth? We can observe that truth through the replication of the choice cycle.

A childhood friend knew riding on the bumper of a truck, as that truck did doughnuts in a cul-de-sac (bumper-surfing), was dangerous. He had suffered several injuries previously and knew the potential for serious injury was always possible. In his last time “bumper surfing,” he was flung off the bumper and suffered a traumatic brain injury, among other permanent life-changing injuries.

Other replications of this truth that mental illnesses are carefully chosen include the alcoholic who began drinking to enhance his identity and now lives only for his next drink. Alcoholism is a recognized mental illness under addiction. All addiction treatment begins with recognizing characteristics in oneself that are not enhanced by drugs or alcohol, sex or food, or other addictions that possess value. Addiction recovery requires the addict to onboard the identity “Addict,” come to terms with this identity, and then recognize how their other identifying facets (identity rocks) have been twisted, warped, and even destroyed by the addiction.

Ask an addict who is recovering about their identity choices, and the stories are remarkably similar and universally bitter. The alcohol took my family. The drugs took my job. Unprotected sex took my health. On and on, the blame is on the addiction, that facet of an identity enhanced through the interest/belief/value cycle until bitterness results from the valuation and lived consequences. Flaws in decision-making and identity are never recognized as the actual problem.

Rarely are the individual choices recognized as root issues in the bitter results. I chose to drink because my friends thought it was cool. I loved that guy, and unprotected sex was acceptable “just that one time.” I love chocolate, and my diabetes medication will allow me to indulge. The rocks in the backpack, carefully selected, harvested, and carried, have led to suffering. Truly, some mental illnesses are chosen carefully, delicately nurtured, and produce a harvest of bitter fruits, yet we continue to eat those fruits instead of emptying our identity backpacks. Who made these choices? Who enhanced this facet of identity at the sacrifice of other, possibly more valuable facets? Who made the decisions? You did, and the consequences are yours alone.

However, since identity has social implications, your identity decision system has dragged along family, friends, associates, employers, and your community. How much does alcoholism cost a city, county, or state? How many employers lost money in reprimanding, counseling, firing, and rehiring to replace an individual with an addiction that got out of control? How many divorces and broken children are involved in the social implications of making “same and same” in the equation? The equation must balance “same and same,” X=X or chaos ensues, worsening the problems and consequences of balancing the equation.

The fallacy of choosing identity without consequences

Any choice, every choice, comes with consequences. Remember, both sides of the equation must be “same and same.” The choice cannot be separated from the consequences. You cannot drink 18 shots of Vodka without biological results occurring, including drunkenness, dehydration, impaired decision-making, and so forth. You cannot take drugs (legal and illicit) and not have mental, physical, emotional, and spiritual repercussions. You cannot eat a three-layer, 10-inch chocolate cake in a single setting and escape the physical discomfort and other symptoms.

The same is true for the 80 rocks collected on our hike. In collecting them, you had physical problems due to the added weight and reduced stamina. It will take longer to recover, and you must make difficult decisions to carry the rocks on the trail. Suppose each of those rocks was an identifying characteristic (a label, an identity, pronouns, title, etc.) that we placed value in through the interest/belief/value cycle. Why would we want to carry that much weight if we did not have to?

Imagine how you would feel if, at the end of that hike, you were told, “Oh, by the way, you did not have to collect the rocks.” How would you naturally feel? Delighted that you collected rocks? Does it hurt that your efforts are discounted? Cheated that you invested so much and there is no recognizable and immediate benefit? Betrayed because you had placed trust in the tour guide and hoped for something at the end of the hike? More choices with natural consequences, introducing a truth known but rarely accepted, emotions are a cognitive choice. Sometimes, emotions are influenced by society and social queues, but emotions are always judgments based on past experiences and previous consequences.

Identity is like collecting rocks and being betrayed at the end when you discover you did not need to collect, carry, and nurture those identifying facets. You built a life of decisions, actions, suffering, or enjoying consequences, and in the end, you’re still a rock. How traumatic will that realization be? How emotionally draining and mentally exhausting will your sacrifice for “Your Identity” become when you find out you did not have to collect the rocks, that your identity creation was, in fact, a millstone, and that millstone crushed out your potential?

Therein lay the fallacy. I have chosen to minimize my identifying characteristics, titles, honorifics, pronouns, etc., all to keep the weight in my identity backpack light enough to be carried over long hikes, rugged trails, and up and down the mountains of experience we call life. Which is the lesson being passed along. A recent email said, “You are disabled; you cannot do what you propose.” I am not disabled; I do carry injuries suffered from military service, but I refuse to identify as disabled, even though by society’s standards, I qualify for this identifying rock.

Why refuse the identity rock “disabled?” Because I do not like the weight of that rock (identity). The etymology of the word disability is dis– used to show disrespect, often by insult or criticism, and ability– the quality of being able to do something. Hence, the term disability is considered a polite way of telling others they cannot do something in an insulting manner. I refuse the permanence of disability labels and what societies require in accepting those identities. I have observed other’s experiences and the consequences of those identities, and I do not like what I see.

The same can be said of any other identity. All the identity rocks come with consequences. Those consequences can include familial alienation, tribal tensions, social pressures to take precipitous actions, and much more. Moreover, each identity will consist of personal consequences and consequences for the societies a person is and was associated with. Some societies will require identifying characteristics, a tattoo, a body piercing, colored hair, or the unnecessary surgical removal of body parts. These identity rocks reflect to the world admission into that society, and how large are those rocks in your identity backpack? How heavy are these rocks on the hike? Because these are permanent, these identities cannot be easily set down, and the consequences are always bitter.

For example, as a soldier, one of the potential consequences was an early demise. But I valued being part of the society of warriors greater than the potential for early death. However, when I chose to also become a sailor, after being a soldier, the community of sailors did not value my soldierly experiences, and the sailor society and community were closed to me. Even though I did the work of that society, I learned that social language provided value to the society and more. The sailor society could only see I was a soldier. Sailors are not soldiers, and soldiers are not Marines. I am NOT a Marine; thus, I was not to be included in the sailor community. Plus, the soldier community sees me as a deserter from the soldier community because I chose to become a sailor.

Consider the hyphenated American. They proudly proclaim they are not all of one, nor are they all of another. Their choice to hyphenate their identity means they are not the “same and same” across their equation. In not being “same and same,” they do not gain both societies but lose them. A friend proudly proclaims they are “Italian-American.” Yet, in America, they lack social acceptance from Americans, and in Italy, they lack community acceptance in Italian associations.

To bring peace to the family, a family friend, both married partners, hyphenated their last names, for example, Smith-Adams. Instead of being pleased, both families secretly carried grudges and lots of hostility towards this couple, equal to the love they had showered on them as children and single adults. However, if they were unhyphenated, either group would accept them, and in the case of my family friends, both families would have eventually accepted the “married name.” I asked them once what would have happened if, instead of hyphenating, they had selected a random name and changed their names to that last name. They never considered this option. Families are societies as tightly knit as any other, and the rules for acceptance require the sacrifice of identity to remain, with its inherent natural consequences.

As an American, I have genealogical roots in Germany, Norway, Sweden, England, Ireland, and American Indian. But, if I hyphenate my identity, which facet should be hyphenated? However, by not hyphenating, I have American associations and can easily claim those heritages left to me or merely live as an unhyphenated American!

I received a legacy from my Germanic ancestors to work hard and long at tasks. Genetically, I got some cool protection from the sun from my American Indian ancestry. I have Norwegian stoicism and a Swedish love for the sea and hearth mixed in as well. I got my fighting side from Ireland. But the logic I love comes from English ancestry. If I hyphenate, I lose valued facets of the whole. But refusing to hyphenate, I can exist in each of those ancestral heritages without losing or choosing. The genius of America is that I do not have to pick, choose, or collect unnecessary weight in my identity backpack. Indeed, the sum is greater than the individual parts. Hence, the fallacy of choosing identities without consequences is fully understood.

While substitute teaching, the lesson plan included an assignment to express your identity. We were reading the excellent book by Victor Frankl, “Man’s Search for Meaning.” A student wrote a single sentence for their assignment, “I am ME.” His counterpart handed in a 15-page, single-spaced, font-sized ten essay on their identity. The weight of the identity backpack between these two high school students was dramatic and noticeable. The first was easygoing and lighthearted. The second was depressed, openly discussed the medications they consumed, and were anxious about their identity changing. The time and effort the second spent on their identity consumed their life, leaving hardly any time for self-discovery, change, growth, and enjoyment. The first student had many close associates and few friends but enjoyed time for self-discovery, wanted to change and experiment, and enjoyed life.

Interestingly, this same observation is replicated in society. Those who choose to weigh themselves down with identity rocks often find themselves incapable of doing anything but fearing their identity will change, and having to add another rock to their identity backpack is a significant life event that produces anxiety. These people cannot carry all those identities, yet fear releasing those identities for fear of losing who they think they are. Carefully selecting their mental illness, delicately nurturing that illness, and allowing it to bear poisoned fruit, which they consume out of fear and to the horror and pain of their families, friends, and old communities.

Conclusion

Some mental illnesses are carefully selected, delicately nurtured, and produce fruits with the realization of the interest/belief/value cycle. I hope you can confidently move forward by better understanding the weight of identity in your identity backpack. Feel empowered to release the weight of the identity rocks in your identity backpack and free yourself to enjoy life. Identity should be a value-added experience, not a millstone! You can release yourself from the weight of identity rocks in your identity backpack!

© Copyright 2024 – M. Dave Salisbury
The author holds no claims for the art used herein; the pictures were obtained in the public domain, and the intellectual property belongs to those who created the images. Quoted materials remain the property of the original author and are linked to the original source.

Fundamentals of Corporate Training – Learning to Learn Prepares to Teach

Bobblehead Doll Organizational design (OD) hinges upon a caveat posed by Myron Tribus, “what does the business organization [leaders] desire?” Business organizations can be designed in a myriad of way

Organizational design (OD) hinges upon a caveat posed by Myron Tribus, “what does the business organization [leaders] desire?” Business organizations can be designed in a myriad of ways and possess a plethora of leadership styles. Tribus remains correct; the entire design can be simplified into a single decision about the organization’s makeup and summed as the business is either a money tap or a socially involved mechanism trying to improve society and culture. If money taps, there is not much left to say. The organizational design, culture, and climate will reflect the owner’s desire to collect as much money as possible until the tap runs dry and the business is cast off by industry. The decisions are obvious if socially involved, and further delineation is superfluous.

For several years now, I have researched corporate training; from the start of recorded history, corporate training has protected business knowledge as much as it is screening people out for not being the “right fit” for a business and as a means of controlling behavior. Originally, an untrained youth would be indentured to a master, who agreed to work in exchange for knowledge and ultimately be trained to become a journeyman, then master of a trade, craft, or business. Your options were controlled long before your interest was gaged and contracts for services were purchased.

Schools sprang up, and indentured servitude was expected to fall away. Instead, only the indenturing of people went slowly away, but the servitude remains and is as healthy today as it was in the 1600s. Currently, servitude is cloaked as fit in the culture, competitive stance, and corporate knowledge, and the corporate trainer remains the arbiter of entry into a business, trade, craft, etc. The trainer does not impart knowledge but exemplifies behaviors, attitudes, and mannerisms that the business leaders consider tenets of competition, marketing, and business operations.

Finally, let us name the 800# gorilla in the room. Servitude is captivity; captivity is how a person who changes into what the company desires of its long-term employees is described. Thus, the phrase “Captured by the system” indicates this phenomenon. What does it mean to “Play the game?” the same thing: change your attitude, behaviors, and ideals, and become one of us, doing what we tell you to do.

By naming this phenomenon, I am not being cynical. Multiple researchers of peer-reviewed research have discussed this phenomenon in their research and called it crucial to business success, placing the onus on trainers and training to expound and exhort compliance of the human element. Trainers are considered mentors, managers, job coaches, HR representatives, supervisors, etc.; if you fill a leadership position and trust, it is because you exemplify the business’s manners, attitudes, behaviors, and culture. Understand that compliance is neither good nor bad. Non-compliance leads to ostracization and eventual unemployment. However, submission does not guarantee long-term employment either, as those businesses relying most heavily upon human compliance tend to burn out fast and bankrupt themselves.

All operational processes and procedures rely upon changing behaviors, not necessarily upon gaining new knowledge. In making this statement, I am not discounting gaining new knowledge, as new knowledge can arrive in many shapes, sizes, and encounters, but the primary role of a trainer in corporate offices is not new knowledge imparting but behavioral controls. The indentured servant model of a Master training Journeymen and Journeymen training Novices has not changed these centuries and remains firmly set in the “modern” principles of organizational learning.

Why is this important to know?

Not understanding the model and putting into place a person who does not comply is as dangerous to the health of a business as a thief, a liar, or a con man. ENRON did not fail only because of the actions of the leadership team. ENRON failed because the model of behaviors exemplified by the leadership team and taught to employees poisoned the organizational body. Hence, the corporate trainers led to the failure of ENRON, for the corporate training model follows GIGO (Garbage In equals Garbage Out!). Understanding that the trainers were responsible for ENRON’s collapse does not excuse any person’s conduct. Instead, it more fully blames the leadership team, which exemplified behaviors that were anathema to good organizational health.

Take any business, successful or collapsed, military organization, or non-profit; these distinctions do not matter. Review them closely, and you will find Tribus’s choice personified in the employees’ actions, cultures, desired attitudes, behaviors, dress styles, mannerisms, etc. Suppose a learner prepares to train others and does not understand these fundamental aspects of corporate training and organizational design. In that case, that trainer will teach poorly, and those employees will have short careers in the business, as those employees will not be capable of fitting into that society (business).

Hence, the most extraordinary aspect of controlling costs does not occur in cutting people but in training them for compliance, improving the understanding of the role of behavioral adaptation, and improving the incentives to adopt the business culture. A client of mine is facing this exact scenario; the economic downturns have hit them hard. Instead of focusing on improving costs through behavioral adaptation, they have begun cutting people, leaving in place the trainers that are fundamental to the problems the company is facing. Proving the maxim, “You cannot correct the problems with the same thinking that spawned the problems.”

What is needed?

Unfortunately, what is needed is not what is currently wanted, but the path forward will require pieces of the following solution. What is needed is a new model for corporate training, and the model has been historically proven to be successful. Joseph Smith Jr., an early American religious leader, founded several highly successful communities and launched a leadership revolution and a religious organization. His leadership style was based upon the following principle, “Teach them (people) correct principles and let them govern themselves.”

Technology has removed the brick stick to beat compliance into employees. Technology has also leveled many playing fields, putting employees into a position where they must act for themselves, guided more by self-interest and self-preservation than any generation of workers previously. Add in COVID lockdowns that spurred the rise in remote workers, and technology has released many employees to work outside the accepted strictures of an office. The release of employees has done two things: it changed the behavior compliance spectrum and removed the front-line supervisor as a primary trainer in monitoring and controlling cultural acceptance.

Several years ago, a researcher was told by front-line supervisors, job coaches, and mentors of a company that communication and training were not in the specific job roles of these people. Thus, they could not be held accountable for poor team communication. Remote working has eliminated these aspects on the part of the front-line supervisor. Therefore, if the supervisor is not teaching independence, allowing for self-preservation, and promoting the freedom of thought and action in employees, those employees are now acting outside the company culture and operations, and disaster is looming. To their horror, the New York Times just discovered that company-forced cultures are being questioned when employees are not in the office, and demanding employees return hurts the bottom line.

Thus, the front-line supervisors must adapt. Adaptation in managers nullifies a manager’s power and authority, sparking fear of downsizing into these mid-level managers. Fear mixed with self-preservation leads to more problems for a company’s leadership (C-Level Suite) to consider. The self-interested but not free mid-level manager will crave their benefits, perks, and powers, like any drug, and the withdrawal process is never pretty. Again as recently exhibited by the New York Times, their trainers are proving that they do not understand people and technology and do not know the role of the trainer in corporate training.

Since the mid-1990s, technology has risen, coinciding with the need to provide front-line employees more freedom to make decisions and take rapid action. Mostly, this freedom has clashed with “traditional” models of behavior demanded by novice servants. However, technological growth was not considered a fundamental threat to tradition until the COVID-19 lockdowns. Regardless of the politics in the lockdowns, the truth remains: the traditional roles have fundamentally shifted, and the businesses that embrace this new role for the trainer, including a new model for operation, will reap success in the whirlwind.

Hence, while not wanted, the model suggested is what is needed. Employees must be taught correct business principles and fully granted the freedom to govern themselves. Thus, the role of the trainer shifts from behavioral compliance to knowledge instruction and behavioral exemplar. More to the point, all levels of a business need to conduct themselves differently. Relying less upon behavioral and attitude adoption and more upon individuality, expression, and thinking to complete business tasks.

Front-line and mid-level managers are, by necessity, going to have to decrease in the new model. Relying upon layers of managerial oversight is not going to work, and honestly, it has never worked, and the costs of this oversight have proven too expensive. The gap between C-Suite Level decision-makers and the front line has grown too large and too expensive, and until this is acknowledged, the role of the trainer will continue to be hindered by old-model thinking. The 1960s-1980s saw the exponential rise of middle managers, coinciding with significant cost increases and a tripling in government influence, all in the name of controlling behaviors, dictating attitudes and demanding compliance.

The growth of the middle manager was considered “new thinking,” and history has proven this idea is as false as fools’ gold and as worthwhile. Middle management restricted freedoms, and while employment laws have granted, since the 1940s, employers the ability to take these controlling actions, these actions remain fundamentally unfair. The employees have slowly gotten more freedom back from their employers. Each business will find a balance somewhere between the extremes of absolute liberty and the oppressive regime of stolen freedom. The proposed model helps strike a balance as nothing else will, but caution is needed here; this balancing act has no one-size-fits-all solutions.

Since the industrial revolution began, businesses have competed upon their employees’ skills and influence to serve customers, which is the fundamental truth that cannot be ignored any longer. By the C-Level Suite, the employee’s skills, freedoms, liberties, behaviors, attitudes, and investment dictate the company’s ability to compete for market share. While much lip service has been undertaken to this fundamental truth, action has lagged considerably, and this trend can no longer survive in the global markets. The front-line employees must be taught to understand this truth that they currently grasp like a fish in a stream, and they must become empowered more to act in this role. Requiring the trainers to know, prepare, and teach these principles to power action by the front-line employee.

Teaching correct principles and allowing employees to govern themselves is cyclical. The employee will rely more heavily upon trainers to teach the correct principles. Increasing the need for value-added, timely trainers who support individual liberty and freedom in employees to generate customer-centric solutions. These trainers will need to be taught so that they can teach more perfectly, and the cyclical process will continue. Needs for training will drive new training, producing more freedom to act and driving more demand for training.

Returning to the decision posed by Tribus, regardless of whether it is a money tap or a community-building organization, embracing a new model for the role of the trainer will prove beneficial. Reducing mid-level managers will produce direct bottom-line cost reduction. Increasing the freedom of front-line employees while also training them to generate customer-centric solutions will open new lines of business and new opportunities. There are no downside consequences to adopting these changes earlier than your competition and proving the concept. As a business leader, are you brave enough to embrace these truths, or will you watch what you have built be destroyed by those who are? The choice, as always, is yours, and if you would like help, please feel free to reach out.

© Copyright 2023 – M. Dave Salisbury
The author holds no claims for the art used herein; the pictures were obtained in the public domain, and the intellectual property belongs to those who created the images. Quoted materials remain the property of the original author.

s and possess a plethora of leadership styles. Tribus remains correct; the entire design can be simplified into a single decision about the organization’s makeup and summed as the business is either a money tap or a socially involved mechanism trying to improve society and culture. If money taps, there is not much left to say. The organizational design, culture, and climate will reflect the owner’s desire to collect as much money as possible until the tap runs dry and the business is cast off by industry. If socially involved, the decisions are obvious, and further delineation is superfluous.

For several years now, I have researched corporate training; from the start of recorded history, corporate training has protected business knowledge as much as it is screening people out for not being the “right fit” for a business and as a means of controlling behavior. Originally an untrained youth would be indentured to a master, who agreed to do work in exchange for knowledge and ultimately be trained to become a journeyman, then master of a trade, craft, or business. Your options were controlled long before interest was gaged and contracts for services were purchased.

Schools sprang up, and indentured servitude was expected to fall away. Instead, only the indenturing of people went slowly away, but the servitude remains and is as healthy today as it was in the 1600s. Currently, servitude is cloaked in terms of culture, competitive stance, and corporate knowledge, and the corporate trainer remains the arbiter of entry into a business, trade, craft, etc. The trainer does not impart knowledge but exemplifies behaviors, attitudes, and mannerisms that the business leaders consider tenets of competition.

Finally, let’s name the 800# gorilla in the room, servitude is captivity, and captivity is how a person is described who changes into what the company desires of its long-term employees. Thus the phrase “Captured by the system” indicates this phenomenon. What does it mean to “Play the game?” the same thing, change your attitude, behaviors, and ideals, and become one of us, doing what we tell you to do.

By naming this phenomenon, I am not being cynical. Multiple researchers of peer-reviewed research have discussed this phenomenon in their research and called it key to business success, placing the onus onto trainers and training to expound and exhort compliance of the human element. Trainers are considered mentors, managers, job coaches, HR representatives, supervisors, etc.; if you fill a leadership position and trust, it is because you exemplify the business’s manners, attitudes, behaviors, and culture. Understand compliance is neither good nor bad. Non-compliance leads to ostracization and eventual unemployment. However, submission does not guarantee long-term employment either, as those businesses relying most heavily upon human compliance tend to burn out fast and bankrupt themselves.

All operational processes and procedures rely upon changing behaviors, not necessarily upon gaining new knowledge. In making this statement, I am not discounting gaining new knowledge, as new knowledge can arrive in many shapes, sizes, and encounters, but the primary role of a trainer in corporate offices is not new knowledge imparting but behavioral controls. The indentured servant model of a Master training Journeymen and Journeymen training Novices has not changed these many centuries and remains firmly set in the “modern” principles of organizational learning. Question 2

Why is this important to know?

Not understanding the model and putting into place a person who does not comply is as dangerous to the health of a business as a thief, a liar, or a con man. ENRON did not fail only because of the action of the leadership team. ENRON failed because the model of behaviors exemplified by the leadership team and taught to employees poisoned the organizational body. Hence the corporate trainers led the failure of ENRON, for the corporate training model follows GIGO (Garbage In equals Garbage Out!). Understanding that the trainers were responsible for ENRON’s collapse does not excuse any person’s conduct. Instead, it more fully places the blame on the leadership team who exemplified behaviors anathema to good organizational health.

Take any business, successful or collapsed, military organization, or non-profit; these distinctions do not matter. Review them closely, and you will find Tribus’s choice personified in the employees’ actions, cultures, desired attitudes, behaviors, dress styles, mannerisms, etc. Suppose a learner is preparing to train others, and doesn’t understand these fundamental aspects of corporate training and organizational design. In that case, that trainer will teach poorly, and those employees will have short careers in the business.

Hence the most extraordinary aspect of controlling costs does not arrive in cutting people but in training them for compliance, improving the understanding of the role of behavioral adaptation, and improving the incentives to adopt the culture of the business. A client of mine is facing this exact scenario; the economic downturns have hit them hard. Instead of focusing on improving costs through behavioral adaptation, they have begun cutting people, leaving in place the trainers that are fundamental to the problems the company is facing. Proving the maxim, “You cannot correct the problems with the same thinking that spawned the problems.”

What is needed?

Unfortunately, what is needed is not what is currently wanted, but the path forward will require pieces of the following solution. What is needed is a new model for corporate training, and the model has been historically proven to be successful. Joseph Smith Jr., an early American religious leader, founded several highly successful communities and launched a leadership revolution and a religious organization. His leadership style was based upon the following principle, “Teach them (people) correct principles and let them govern themselves.”

Technology has removed the brick stick to beat compliance into employees. Technology has also leveled a lot of playing fields, putting employees into a position where they must act for themselves, guided more by self-interest and self-preservation than any generation of workers previously. Add in COVID lockdowns that spurred the rise in remote workers, and technology has released a lot of employees to work outside the accepted strictures of an office. The release of employees has done two things, changed the behaviors compliance spectrum and removed the front-line supervisor as a primary trainer in monitoring and controlling cultural acceptance.

Several years ago, a researcher was told by front-line supervisors, job coaches, and mentors of a company that communication and training were not in the specific job roles of these people. Thus, they could not be held accountable for poor communication on their teams. Remote working has eliminated these aspects on the part of the front-line supervisor. Therefore, if the supervisor is not teaching independence, allowing for self-preservation, and promoting the freedom of thought and action in employees, those employees are now acting outside the company culture and operations, and disaster is looming. To their horror, the New York Times just discovered that company-forced cultures are being called into question when employees are not in the office, and demanding employees return hurts bottom lines.

Since the mid-1990s, technology has risen, coinciding with the need to provide front-line employees more freedom to make decisions and take rapid action. Mostly, this freedom has clashed with “traditional” models of behavior demanded of by what is considered novice servants. Yet, technological growth was not considered a fundamental threat to tradition until the COVID-lockdowns. Regardless of the politics in the lockdowns, the truth remains, the traditional roles have fundamentally shifted, and the businesses that embrace this new role for the trainer, including a new model for operation, will reap success in the whirlwind.

Front-line and mid-level managers are, by necessity, going to have to decrease in the new model. Relying upon layers of managerial oversight is not going to work, and honestly has never worked, and the costs of this oversight have proven too expensive. The gap between C-Suite Level decision-makers and the front line has grown too large and too expensive, and until this is acknowledged, the role of the trainer will continue to be hindered by old-model thinking. The 1960-1980s saw the exponential rise of middle managers, coinciding with significant cost increases and a tripling in government influence, all in the name of controlling behaviors, dictating attitudes, and demanding compliance.

The growth of the middle manager was considered “new thinking,” and history has proven this idea is as false as fools’ gold and as worthwhile. Middle management restricted freedoms, and while employment laws have granted, since the 1940s, employers the ability to take these controlling actions, these actions remain fundamentally unfair. The employees have slowly gotten more freedom back from their employers. Each business will find a balance between the extremes of absolute liberty and the oppressive regime of stolen freedom. The proposed model helps strike a balance as nothing else will, but caution is needed here; there is no one-size-fits-most solution in this balancing act. Fishbone Diagram

Since the industrial revolution began, businesses have competed upon their employees’ skills and influence to serve customers, which is the fundamental truth that cannot be ignored any longer. By the C-Level Suite, the skills, freedoms, liberties, behaviors, attitudes, and investment of the employee dictates the company’s ability to compete for market share. While much lip service has been undertaken to this fundamental truth, action has lagged considerably, and this trend can no longer survive in the global markets. The front-line employee must be taught to understand this truth that they currently grasp like a fish in a stream, and they must become empowered more to act in this role. Requiring the trainers to know, prepare, and teach these principles to power action by the front-line employee.

Knowledge Check! Returning to the decision posed by Tribus, regardless of whether to be a money tap or a community-building organization, embracing a new model for the role of the trainer will prove beneficial. Reducing mid-level managers will produce direct bottom-line cost reduction. Increasing the freedom of front-line employees while also training them to generate customer-centric solutions will open new lines of business and new opportunities. There are no downside consequences to adopting these changes earlier than your competition and proving the concept. As a business leader, are you brave enough to embrace these truths, or will you watch what you have built be destroyed by those who are? The choice, as always, is yours, and if you would like help, please feel free to reach out.

© Copyright 2023 – M. Dave Salisbury
The author holds no claims for the art used herein, the pictures were obtained in the public domain, and the intellectual property belongs to those who created the images. Quoted materials remain the property of the original author.

Dominion – The Paradox

Dominion, per Webster, has a duality of roles, supremacy, and dependency. Per Genesis 1:26, we find God casting the first commandment upon man:

“…Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.”

A question was posed on social media that keeps me thinking, “What is the difference between puppy abortions and human abortions?” Why does it seem puppy abortions are hated, despised, and earn the public ire, but human abortions do not?

In conversation, it has fascinated me the mental gymnastics people will perform to separate human abortions from animal abortions. Expanding the question further, is there any difference between spade/neutering a pet or spade/neutering a human? China, for several generations, forced a “One Child Policy” that often included sterilization of the female to enforce this policy. Worse, industrialized nations are witnessing a rising generation who have been deluded into thinking they are a different gender than the one they were born into. They are put on puberty blockers, which chemically castrate/neuter permanently, and this is considered socially acceptable. Judges have ordered child molesters to be chemically castrated to “prevent” future abuse of children. Parents have been choosing, through abortion, to either keep a child based on gender characteristics, supposed health, or solely upon the perceived mental potential of a child in utero. Worse, these decisions seem to have become more socially acceptable, removing a perceived stigma, all to improve the genetics in a gene pool.

Thus, we are placing the question firmly into a place where we need to discuss reality. For generations, especially following the ever-popular Bob Barker (The Price is Right host), it has been insisted that pet ownership means spaying and neutering your pets. Have a pet bird, cow, donkey, pig, etc. responsible pet owners make sure they have their shots and that they are properly and permanently controlled in their sexual lives, even if this means aborting a pregnancy.

Why do we do these things?

It is a simple question: why do we do these things to animals but not to humans? The answer depends upon perception, choice, and the duality of the term dominion. As a supreme being to the animals, I can choose when they become pregnant, what bloodlines they carry forth, or the value of a mother in having progeny. As a dependent being with animals, I choose to live in balance with the animals, seeking their best interests and realizing they are as precious in the sight of God as I am. Does the perception, choice, and duality of dominion become clear?

Let us expand this into a modern discussion as an employer with dominion over employees, whose authority was granted through the US government through the IRS, who has provided dominion. I can choose to have supremacy or dependency attitudes where employees are concerned. I can enter into their private social media accounts, judge what is seen, and end their professional relationships with my company. Plenty of case laws support employers in legally punishing ex-employees for their social media posts; according to the government, this is acceptable behavior. Through a supreme attitude, I can force control over behaviors, attitudes, and identities, calling this corporate fit as part of marketing and business operations. Again, plenty of case law supports the employer in their efforts to build a company culture, regulating even constitutional rights and intellectual property of employees, all supported by government mandate. Is not an employer dependent upon an employee to perform work in that employer’s name?

Does the employer have dominion over when an employee has a child; yes, they do. However, this is often discussed as professional timing and incentives for regulating children are witnessed in stress, benefits, promotions, and the operational tempo of employment. Societal pressures regulate childbearing and rearing just as much as the employer. Through devaluing currency, inflation, tax rates, the need to have both people in a relationship working maximum hours, social pressures regulated by the government enforce control on childbearing decisions. Mix in other societal pressures, including social media posts, parents, religion, and more, and people struggle with juggling work, family, and goal attainment.

Surely, if an employer or the government were putting pressure on decision-makers where children are concerned, it would be big news, people would be up in arms, and insistence upon the duality of dominion, the dependency aspect would be emphasized, right? The reverse is more accurate. By seizing the supremacy aspect in dominion, it is presumed the dependency aspect can be ignored, things will continue, and if there are problems, other populations can be injected into the current society to make up the slack, thus opening other questions, such as defensible borders, assimilation of legal immigration into a dominant society, and much more.

Choices

Where the duality of dominion is concerned, a choice is made to believe in the right to control as a supreme authority and exclude the need for dependency upon those controlled. Alternatively, a choice is made to bring supremacy and dependence into harmony and create through options the unifying power where respect, dignity, and freedom can be nurtured, and all bodies in that system can coexist equally. Here is the problem: once you have the power, giving it back to the people you depend on is almost impossible.

Perceptions

Consider the pet. Does being a responsible pet owner mean spade/neutering, causing an abortion of a pregnancy, or worse, ending a pet’s life out of convenience or an unwanted pregnancy from lesser bloodlines? How many stories do we read where unwanted domesticated pets are thrown from car windows or left to die in the wild at the end of a street? How many times is this extended to human children? By perceiving dominion, we are presented with control over another life, which means we can make their choices for them as a supreme power. We perceive we have dominion, and because of this perception, then perceive ourselves as a supreme power, and only we can then take these perceptions and act through choice.

Consequences

What life is more important, a sparrow or a human? According to the New Testament, the sparrow is as important as a human, and when the sparrow falls, the heavens notice. What is the difference between an aborted human baby and an aborted puppy or kitten? The consequences of dominion when imbalanced are that lives are broken, potential is lost, and mental, physical, and spiritual problems arise. Does the person choosing to be supreme in their dominion escape their actions; no, this is an eternal principle; consequences follow choices.

I made a mistake; I wanted to help a fellow employee who had just adopted a couple of kittens whose house suddenly needed repairs and were suffering. I adopted the kittens from my co-worker, thinking this was a good thing. We did the responsible pet thing, got them their shots, had them neutered, and prepared for a long life with them. These kittens were deeply loved. Within six months of our adopting them, I had to order them put down. We had become homeless, moved from Maine to Ohio, and could not afford to keep them. Putting them down was considered “responsible pet ownership.” I was dependent upon those kittens for joy but could not provide for them; no shelter would take them, and in ordering and paying for their demise, I have been utterly tortured mentally, physically, and spiritually.

We cannot escape the consequences of how we choose to use our dominion. As employers/employees or citizens in a constitutional republic, we are constantly faced with perceptions, choices, actions, and the consequences of how we exercise dominion, and it all comes down to how we understand dominion. Do we choose to be supreme authorities, dictating life-altering decisions, or do we choose to understand we are all dependent on each other, and as dependent beings, we feel the consequences of our choices? Are we content to create harm as a supreme being?

I cannot, and will not, tell another person how to choose, for I have no authority and would not want it. Until we better understand the dominion we are commanded to possess and exercise, we will continue to suffer consequences that create pain, animosity, chaos, and, ultimately, destruction. We each have a duty and responsibility and will eventually come into accountability for our exercises of dominion’s powers. I hope we will make better choices, cognizant of our power of dominion, realizing the duality of dominion and tempering supremacy with dependency, for none of us live in a vacuum.

NO MORE Constructive Criticism – Killing the Lie!

Poerksen (2010) provided sage counsel regarding how language plasticity leads to tyranny. Unfortunately, when discussing criticism, the tyranny of “constructive criticism” is displayed, and it is time for this lie to end… permanently! Let me state, for the record, and unequivocally, that criticism never constructs positive behaviors! Criticism does not change simply because an adjective attempts to make criticism less harmful. Anton Ego 4

Criticism

Criticism provides key insight from the common definition, “The expression of disapproval of someone or something based on perceived faults or mistakes.” Disapproving is based upon perception and expressed through words, looks, actions, and behaviors; this is criticism, and the British are the best people in the world to criticize. If I call the British extremely critical and claim that is a compliment to the residents of the British Isles, those in Scotland and Ireland will understand, and no adjective in the world can make this criticism “constructive.” As a point of reference, I draw this conclusion about the British from history, but knowing that does not make the criticism less accurate or painful. On the contrary, I think the British have come a long way in changing their critical behaviors, actions, and manners, and I applaud them for their growth.

The remaining definitions of criticism expand nicely upon the point that criticism and being critical can never be “constructive.” “The analysis and judgment of the merits and faults of work.” “A person who expresses an unfavorable opinion of something.” The etymology of critic, which is the root of criticism, comes to us from Latin criticus, Greek Kritikos, kritēs ‘a judge’, and krinein ‘judge, decide.’ Never forget that criticism, or the act of being critical, originates from personal perception, a choice to be judgmental and critical. The intent is to pass judgment upon something, someone, or someplace with the intent to cause personal harm or sway the opinions of others.

Constructive

Being constructive is “serving a useful purpose, or tending to build up.” As noted above, criticism cannot be constructive because the adjective “constructive” is the polar opposite of criticism, which tends to tear down, demean, and depress. Nevertheless, when business leaders write annual reviews, they are told to constructively criticize their employees, to sandwich criticism between praise to make it less painful, and to construct comments that showcase strengths while not dwelling on the criticism. Why; because this is the “scientifically approved” method for leadership to provide “constructive criticism.” However, criticism is a personal opinion and can never construct anything! Dont Lie

Why are we discussing criticism?

On 09 June 2021, in my company email box, I received an email considered a “Thought of the Day” from no less an auspicious source as the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Department (DEI). If anyone knew the damage of tyrannical language, I would think those in DEI would have a clue. However, by their email, it is clear that DEI continues to drink the Kool-Aid and act like a tyrant concerning language. The email attempts to define destructive and constructive criticism and then provides steps for distinguishing between the two forms of criticism. Completely forgetting that criticism can never be constructive and will always be destructive. From the email, we find these two fallacious concepts:

Destructive criticism: It undermines and can cause harm. There is no upside or way to positively spin what is said/written because the critic does not have your best interest at heart. It is destructive criticism that gives people fear of criticism in general.
Constructive criticism: is designed to be helpful and is based on valid facts/observations. It is meant to help you grow and become stronger. It is not always positive, but it can help you to see things in a new light. The critic almost always gives it based on their experience and genuinely wants to help.

Using the definitions provided, can you see the tyranny? Are the problems with plasticizing criticism behind the adjective “constructive” evident? Do you understand how plasticizing a word can destroy a person? Finally, ask yourself, does the professional critic write to “help the subject” of the criticism out, or do they criticize for another purpose entirely?

In 1960, Doris Day’s movie, “Please Don’t Eat the Daisies,” has a character who moves from an acting professor at a college to a theater critic. The movie is a comedy and delightfully shows the problems with criticism. Better, the film underscores how criticizing never leads to constructing a person, a reputation, or an industry. A more recent example of the problems with criticism is found in the Disney/Pixar animated movie “Ratatouille.” Anton Ego is a critic of restaurants, and his name strikes fear and dread into the hearts of the cooks and chefs in a restaurant. Anton Ego is a tyrant who employs criticism as a tool for his own ends and personal amusement. The final criticism of Chef Gusteau’s Restaurant near the movie’s end is a stunning example of how criticism can never be constructive!

From the DEI email, we find something very interesting in the Constructive vs. Destructive questions: the lack of the term “criticism” in the constructive criticism questions. Instead, criticism has been subtly changed to “feedback” in every place the term criticism should reside. So, for example, the first item under constructive is stated: Feedback and advice from others are essential for growth and success. Look at feedback as a learning opportunity.” Better still, the third item in the constructive list states, “Detach yourself from feedback.”

Your ability to understand and refuse to play word games promotes operational trust in an organization, builds team stability, and establishes your willingness to learn. Learning thwarts tyranny, and the tyrant has to give ground. Never lose the moral high ground!

Head Exploded Fighting tyrannical modular language, or the plastic word games people play to control an audience, I suggest the following:

Question terms used—demand logical answers.
Know words and definitions; if unsure, look the terms up in multiple dictionaries, but do not rely upon one source for an explanation.
When in doubt, practice #2, then #1 until you are less confused. I have found that those working to plasticize words cannot stand scrutiny.
Sunshine disinfectant works when tyranny is found; put the tyrant in the sunshine and watch them emulate a vampire in the sunshine!

Freedom requires a willing mind and a courageous heart; you are never alone when you take a stand against tyranny. So stand and watch the tyranny begin to fall like a rockslide. Be the tiny rock that starts something big!

Reference

Poerksen, U. (2010). Plastic words: The tyranny of a modular language. Penn State Press.

LIC and The Department of Veterans Affairs

What is LIC?

Low-Intensity Conflict (LIC) is the official name for when individuals or governments hire intermediaries to conduct violent operations from a secure position. LIC is a misnomer; those who have become victims of the barbaric cruelty of those practicing LIC find nothing “Low” about the experience. The conflict is intense, the actions brutal, and the practitioners remain cunning adversaries using and employing willing dupes to hide the true depths of moral decay inherent in the societal destructions and depravations the practitioners are enacting. Many confuse LIC in describing the actions of unbridled violence committed by ideologues under the banner of terrorism. The US Military Joint Chiefs of Staff define LIC as:

“A limited political-military struggle to achieve political, social, economic, or psychological objectives. It is often protracted and ranges from diplomatic, economic, and psychological pressures through terrorism and insurgency. Low-intensity conflict is generally confined to a geographic area and is often characterized by constraints on the weaponry, tactics, and levels of violence (Tinder 1990) [emphasis mine].”

Green (1997) adds a key ingredient to the description of LIC from Tinder (1990).

“… Non-international conflict is a refined term for what [was] formerly known as revolutions or civil wars, particularly when these have developed into major operations with the likelihood or reality of atrocities being committed against non-combatants. Whether civilians or those [rendered] hors de combat, a fact that is often more common in non-international … conflicts, especially when ideological, ethnic, or religious differences are in issue. It is for this reason that it must be borne in mind that the term low-intensity [conflict] has no relation to the severity or violence of the conflict” [emphasis mine].

Lt. Colonel Alan J. Tinder wrote a paper for the Air War College in 1990 titled: “Low-Intensity Conflict.” I have learned much from the Colonel and benchmarked this principle to more thoroughly understand LIC, recognize LIC, and detail LIC for others. The other compelling source is L. C. Green’s paper on “Low-Intensity Conflict and the Law.” I aim to synthesize this information into a manageable topic and aid understanding. Let me state emphatically that the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) leadership’s actions are nothing short of LIC where employees and veterans/customers are concerned.

Regularly, the Department of Veterans Affairs – Office of Inspector General (VA-OIG) reports on a comprehensive healthcare inspection of a VHA facility, reports on employee morale in the VBA, or sum analysis of an employee or customer surveys, and include in the report a fairly descriptive, yet starkly utilitarian phrase, “reduce staff feelings of moral distress at work.” Generally, the efforts to reduce “moral distress” is left to an underling, an assistant, or a person for whom this is a secondary or collateral duty and is not considered important or relevant.

Do the actions of a leader represent complicity in creating moral distress fit the general definition of LIC? Absolutely. Consider that the leader sets the culture through actions, words, and behaviors, which originate in the thoughts and feelings of the leader. Correcting moral distress is pawned off on a junior staff member as a collateral duty, another method for displaying disrespect and communicating principles of abuse to employees. But there is no physical violence; how does this apply to LIC? Aren’t dead veterans’ examples enough of violent tendencies to justify the definition of LIC? The VA leader operates from a place of security, exemplifies the culture they deem acceptable, and then works through minions to achieve a “to achieve the political, social, economic, or psychological objective.”

Never forget these two critical points in the description of LIC:

“Often protracted and ranges from diplomatic, economic, and psychological pressures.”

“LIC has no relation to the severity or violence of the conflict.”

At the VA, the leadership calls their example politics; keeping your position or advancing is economical, and the psychological pressure to conform is palpable. All fundamental keys to conducting LIC against veterans, taxpayers, dependents, and non-conforming employees. Multiple times Congress has held hearings and listened to how the VA Leadership exacted revenge and retaliation upon those who reported problems to the VA-OIG, their elected congressional leaders, and other investigative parties. Feel free to peruse some of these hearings; you will hear victims relating physical, economic, and mental abuse, and the VA leadership never takes action. Elected officials never scrutinize and hold accountable those executing LIC, and the victims are victimized a second time.

Want another indicator that LIC is being practiced, the VA-OIG, after learning there are problems with moral distress at work, makes the following to slide the issues under the proverbial rub:

“The OIG’s review of the medical center … did not identify any substantial organizational risk factors.”

Signifying that even though the VA-OIG found moral distress is affecting and influencing employee behavior, the VA considers employee moral distress not an “organizational risk factor.” What does an employee who feels morally distressed do in performing their duties? Delay patients’ appointments, make mistakes on medication shipped, slow walk any responsibility to make things more complicated and take longer than they should. Does any of these actions sound familiar; they should, for this is the standard operating procedure for VA employees.

As reported previously, while I worked at the VA, I had intimate observations of what morally distressed employees do. When I wrote to the VA-OIG, I was informed that since I had my employment terminated, I could not be a whistleblower and get my job back. Plus, what I reported could not be actioned because it did not apply. How’s that for protecting the guilty? The VA Leadership is writing procedures and policies to target anyone and everyone who would report problems and seek help. An employee physically assaulted me; the camera mysteriously broke when I reported it, so no evidence was available. Who was at fault? Me; the assistant director promoted the attacker, and I got ostracized. The attacking employee took moral distress to new heights after this incident, and anyone who reported their behavior felt the wrath of the attacker and the VA leadership at the Albuquerque VAMC.

What is horrendous, this is not an isolated incident. What happened to me frequently repeats daily across every VA office. LIC is the overarching term, LIC is the behaviors named, and LIC is what the taxpayers are forced to pay for, all at the expense of veterans, dependents, and employees who see, know, and can do nothing. Repetitions of moral distress in employees, reported by the VA-OIG, are more than 20 just in 2022. The problem is cultural, and the elected officials desperately need to begin doing their second job, scrutinizing the executive branch and holding people accountable, including canceling the retirement packages of those practicing LIC.

Before someone tries to make this a Republican vs. Democrat issue, it is NOT political. LIC is never political, just as LIC is never religious, never racist, not sexist, or any other distinction. These distinctions are excuses, and the reasons do not justify the means for being violent. The leadership at the VA, and many other government agencies, have found that abusing the taxpayer pays well, provides protection, and allows them to exercise dominion to their heart’s content, all with the power of government to justify their deeds.

Do you realize that the VA-OIG has a metric for measuring moral distress, and the only time the VA-OIG reports moral distress among employees is when the results are higher than national averages? How scary is that to ponder? The problem is so prevalent that it only warrants reporting when it exceeds the norm. Thus, moral distress is declared less frequently when the average worsens. Official protection for LIC is provided by LIC, increasing, and the taxpayer is footing the bill.

I have read reports where the moral distress has worsened from year to year. The same leaders exacerbating the problem of employee moral distress are promoted and moved instead of reprimanded, punished, or fired. One of the VA-OIG reports is particularly heinous in hiding moral distress in employees.

“Selected employee survey responses demonstrated satisfaction with leadership and maintenance of an environment where staff felt respected and discrimination was not tolerated. Patient experience survey data implied general satisfaction with the outpatient care provided; however, leaders had opportunities to improve inpatient care satisfaction [emphasis mine].”

Mark Twain is oft quoted as stating, “There are lies, damn lies, and statistics.” How much more valid are these words when results are “selected,” “cherry-picked,” or allowed to “imply generalities?” Those who engage in LIC are criminals, they are comparable to terrorists, and they have infiltrated the bureaucratic halls of government. Employing government power, they form unholy unions with social media outlets and media companies to further silence and abuse, all while increasing protection.

Where does it end? How do we put paid to the tyranny?

It ends when ordinary people decide they have had enough. Ending the LIC-powered tyranny requires nothing more than elected officials scrutinizing the government and doing the jobs they swore to commit. No violence, problematic or arduous tasks, merely following established law and doing the jobs we elected them to accomplish. LIC is always destroyed when the citizens being oppressed stand up for their rights and demand the bullies, tyrants, and fiends cease and desist!

Thomas Paine, writing in “Common Sense,” discussed simplicity, stating:

“I draw my idea of the form of government from a principle in nature, which no art can overturn, viz. that the more simple anything is, the less liable it is to be disordered; and the easier repaired when disordered.”

The American government was established on simplicity, and the US Constitution is a simple document. Using Thomas Paine’s pattern, the disorder in the government is simple to correct; all we need are people insisting that the infection is terminated. Using the systems established in the US Constitution, the US government can be brought to heel, the rot removed, and justice can be delivered to those tyrants employing LIC for personal gain and political profit. LIC is happening in every government agency, and it is time for change to begin. Where are the politicians willing to do the job we elected them to perform?

Mark Twain provides the final word, “The government of my country snubs honest simplicity but fondles artistic villainy, and I think I might have developed into a very capable pickpocket if I had remained in the public service a year or two.” From artistic villainy to LIC is not an arduous shift, merely the extension of abuse of power to a larger audience. Learn, choose, and then make your voice known through elections and peaceful assembly for redress per the US Constitution and Bill of Rights.

© Copyright 2022 – M. Dave Salisbury
The author holds no claims for the art used herein, the pictures were obtained in the public domain, and the intellectual property belongs to those who created the images. Quoted materials remain the property of the original author.

Legitimacy and Consent – Principles Governing Power

In the book 1634: The Baltic War (Ring of Fire Series Book 3), a point was raised:

“A ruler needs legitimacy before all else, and legitimacy, in the end, must have its base in the consent of the governed.”

Bobblehead Doll In reviewing the US Constitution and Bill of Rights, a person will find the term consent a mainstay of constitutional law, foundational to establishing and solidifying the legitimacy of the citizen in this Constitutional Republic. Let’s be specific here and take a moment to understand the principles of consent. Consent occurs when one person voluntarily agrees to a proposal or desires of another. It is a term of common speech, possessing specific definitions used in law, medicine, research, and sexual relationships, to name but a few.

Consent does not dictate or imply legitimacy; legitimacy is independent of consent, but actions of those in charge must be legitimate, or the governed’s consent makes the government’s actions illegitimate. Hence, the need to understand legitimate activities and how these actions are either legitimate or illegitimate. Legitimacy depends on the root word legitimate; if something is legitimate, it complies with the law, follows established or accepted rules or standards, and must be valid and logically sound.

Using a piece of recent legislation, we can more fully understand the point about something being legitimate and appropriate to the consent of the governed. 40-years ago, the US Congress (The Senate and the House of Representatives) stopped passing budgets to authorize and oversee federal government spending, and the holders of America’s checkbook began using continuing resolutions (CR) instead of appropriating funds as part of a national review of expenditures to a published budget. ?u=http2.bp.blogspot.com-fGEUjJsJ2h4VcJgswaisnIAAAAAAAABcsoFqEewPF_E4s1600quote-if-the-freedom-of-speech-is-taken-away-then-dumb-and-silent-we-may-be-led-like-sheep-to-the-george-washington-193690.jpg&f=1&nofb=1

Consider with me, no CR appropriates money, merely extends a previous CR approved by Congress. 40 years of making the same mistake doesn’t legitimize the actions of Congress not to pass a budget. The original CR was illegitimate and was against the consent of the governed, so every single CR replacing a balanced budget since has been against the consent of the governed as the actions were illegitimate, even if those making the decisions claimed they were needed or legal. Thus, the CR fails the sniff test for government spending. A historically wrong decision does not legitimize the current actions of the elected.

The law clearly states the US House of Representatives must pass an annual budget. Part of that budget process must include evaluating the spending previously and determining if those writing the checks performed their jobs appropriately. This is why independent audits of government agencies, including each of the members of Congress, are desperately needed to maintain the economic health of the United States. For the Department of Veterans Affairs, the Department of Defense, and every other agency to continually fail audits is 100% illegitimate and against the consent of the governed.

Does this make sense? Your personal and family financial fiduciary health requires an end-of-month audit of spending, a balancing of the checkbook, and an evaluation of expenditures to meet budgetary restrictions and fiscal goals and objectives. At the end of the year, you evaluate all the past year’s spending in preparation for the annual tax deadline. Yet, the example of the executive, legislative, and judicial, both at the state and federal levels, is not reflected in the daily struggles of the governed. Making the government’s actions illegitimate and against the consent of the governed. These two principles, legitimacy and consent, reflect a significant portion of the basis of the anger many in America feel but cannot express. Plato 2

Why do we struggle to express this anger? We have not understood the principles of consent and legitimacy. In a constitutional republic, if what those elected are doing hurts one portion of the populace, it hurts the entire population. We do not have a democracy where a mere 51% of the people benefiting can justify destroying the other 49% of the population. Why does the US Constitution require what the media calls a “supermajority” erroneously?” Because in a constitutional republic, the rule of law protects all citizens equally, thus providing legitimacy to follow the law, an impetus to adhere to the law when no legal authorities are directly observing you, and allows for the consent of the governed to be honored and upheld even if a small minority disagrees with a decision by the elected authorities.

Hence the difference between a democracy and a constitutional republic. We are encouraged under the rule of law to disagree, petition the government peacefully, and insist the elected representatives follow and live by the same laws they enact. Nothing in the US Constitution allows for an elected representative to play the stock market for personal gain, to abdicate their duties by voting via proxy, disregarding their legally authorized obligations, or many of the methods for abusing the citizenry that have become “accepted” because a vocal minority pushes an agenda.

Speaker Pelosi cannot claim that something is acceptable merely because she was the house speaker. The president cannot break the law simply because they are the commander in chief of the armed forces. Elected representatives cannot, and should not, be making money trading stocks with insider information. The list of what has become acceptable behaviors of elected officials is long and egregious. Always the same two principles balance as a means to judge those behaviors and actions. Is what they are doing legitimate and consensual to the expressed opinions of the governed? If the answer to one is negative, the elected representatives have no power to govern. Apathy

Consider the crime of rape. If consent is withdrawn, the intercourse is non-consensual and illegitimate, and a legal charge of rape can be investigated for criminal activity. The same is true for speeding; the laws clearly state speed limits are acceptable, breaching the limit in a motorized vehicle is unsafe, and simply because the occupants of the car consent don’t make speeding legitimate. Both consent and legitimacy must be approved to make an action acceptable.

If the driver operating a vehicle demands that speeding is legitimate, will a judge or police officer agree? Does a passenger screaming about the need to go faster legitimize the illegal actions of breaking speed limits? If a passenger suddenly replaces the driver, even though they own the vehicle, is responsibility for actions moved to the new driver or remain with the owner or original driver? These are easily understood questions when consent and legitimacy principles are fully understood in context.

Consider the ramifications of neglecting legitimacy and consent. Does a make-out session between two consenting adults mean the sex was consensual? No, because if one party does not want sex, merely wants to make out, provided both parties have reached the legally determined age of consent, the make-out session is consensual, but not the sex. This is not splitting the proverbial legal hairs. If making out and sexual intercourse are two separate actions, which they are, then the legal need for consent legitimizes sexual intercourse.

Now using this analogy, let’s evaluate the legislation for not passing a budget. Not passing a budget is one action, but not passing a timely budget does not justify a continuing resolution to authorize government spending. Not passing a budget, not conducting audits, and not demanding fiscal responsibility are all separate actions but never legitimize the continuing resolution. The root cause does not justify the stop-gap spending. Just like consensual necking does not legitimize sexual intercourse or speeding on a highway.

The courts have been very clear actions supporting lawbreaking do not imply permission or consent. Consider the laws of drunk driving, the rights of the injured victim, or the families of those killed. Society has allowed, through legislation, the ability to drink alcoholic beverages provided the consumer is over a specific age. Does the legal permission to drink automatically legitimize the consumer to operate any motorized vehicle after drinking; of course not, and laws have shaped and changed drunk driving behaviors since 1910. The consumer is granted consent based on age and legal limitations to drinking alcoholic beverages but is not legitimized to drive, ride a horse, operate a bicycle, boat, etc., while intoxicated. Those injured or killed did not grant consent for the consumer to ruin their lives. Hence the consent of the governed and legitimacy of drunk driving laws are established, and the consumer’s responsibility to drink responsibly is solidified in society. The Duty of Americans

Returning to the continuing resolutions, the fiscal insanity of the government and the bureaucrats’ fiduciary irregularity contradict the governed’s consent. Taxes are paid, but the taxpayers still hold responsibility and accountability for the money they earn to pay those taxes. Through electing representatives to oversee how tax monies are spent, the responsibility to provide an accounting for those funds is exchanged by the citizenry electing to the elected. The citizen cannot be held directly responsible for the actions of the elected representative. Still, through fair, transparent, and legal elections, accountability for the actions of the elected is expressed.

By failing to provide clear and logical, transparent, fiscal accounting to the electorate, the elected representative is discounting the consent of the governed and delegitimizing the concerns and investment of the voters who paid the taxes. Precisely like the consumer who drinks alcoholic beverages and then insists they can drive home safely. Understanding the principles of legitimacy and consent is a prerequisite to clearly identifying the problems in government and then correcting course to right the ship of the state. Patriotism

Does anyone want to return to the legal days when a rape victim is blamed for exciting the mind of the rapist who took sexual advantage and committed an act of violence? Does anyone want to return to 1900, when drunk driving was socially acceptable if you were rich enough? Does anyone want to cancel the speed limits and try to declare the lack of speed limitations makes roads safer? Of course not, so why do we, the electorate continue to allow for fiscal insanity with our tax dollars? Why should we ever accept another continuing resolution? Why should we even pay taxes when those spending the money have so egregiously spent our money until how many umpteenth-great-grandchildren are in debt to their eyeballs?

Please allow me to specify I am not advocating a person stop paying taxes and risk judiciary action! I am advocating understanding consent and legitimacy as keys to government power and how the power being exercised currently needs to be evaluated. You are free to reach opinions different than mine. I implore you to understand how legitimacy and consent of the governed lend the right to rule, in our constitutional republic, to the elected representatives.

Legitimacy and consent must be the number one motivating factor for every decision of those elected. Until we, the electorate, demand they change course, we will be forced to wash, rinse, and repeat until America is left an empty shell, her people driven into captivity by her enemies, and the American Dream is shattered for personal political power by those who we elected.

Detective 4 Returning to where we began, “A ruler needs legitimacy before all else, and legitimacy, in the end, must have its base in the consent of the governed.” Whether a ruler is a hereditary monarch, an elected representative, or a despotic tyrant, legitimacy and consent remain principles upon which power is derived. Absent either legitimacy or consent, the ruler has no power to govern; lacking power, that rule is either quickly deposed or will shortly be destroyed by those being abused in the name of governance. History is replete with examples of citizens who have rejected their consent after actions were taken that delegitimized the ruler’s power.

No, this is NOT a call for violence, merely a plea for understanding consent and legitimacy, evaluating what you see in each branch of government, and then making a personal decision to continue to grant consent or withhold consent from those who claim to “represent” you in the halls of government. How you choose is your choice, and you are free to make that choice. I know my choice and have already withdrawn my consent to be governed by the current elected representatives.

I Have Had ENOUGH! – The Trans/Drag Movement

?u=https3.bp.blogspot.com-fYRTNk48SCwT8ua0IRDWPIAAAAAAAAFZUpexSmJsN2Kos1600overcoming-adversity-help-yourself-believe-cubby-motivational-1289878102.jpg&f=1&nofb=1 Last week, feel free to look it up on YouTube, Officer Tatum was discussing a Drag Queen show where children are present, and the Drag Queen is exposing their underwear regularly to the horror of the children attending. Now, take a minute and put your critical thinking hat on. If a man or woman exposes their drawers to a child anywhere, that person is arrested for exposure and investigated for child endangerment and other potential crimes. Yet, if the person claims to be a cross-dressing member of the LGBTQ+ community, the law somehow doesn’t apply. Tell me why!

Recently, again YouTube has a video, a mother hears about a Drag Queen indecently exposing themselves at her daughter’s school. Indecent exposure, as defined in legal communities, is “the crime of displaying one’s genitalia to one or more people in a public place, usually with the apparent intent to shock the unsuspecting viewer and give the exposer a sexual charge.” It is important to note that in many U.S. jurisdictions, “it is not required that someone observe the act, or see the perpetrator’s private parts, in order for the perpetrator to face criminal charges.” Never forget that those exposing themself in public are at risk of committing more serious sexual crimes and are a danger to society. The mother wears the same outfit to the school board and is considered immodestly dressed for a public forum. News stations blurred the mother’s image to prevent problems with the FCC. Why wasn’t the Drag Queen treated similarly? Why is there a two-tier judicial system in the Republic of the United States of America?

Earlier in 2022, a video is taken of a child slipping cash into the underwear of a Drag Queen. Why haven’t any of these parents been investigated for child endangerment? Children deserve to be raised by parents who are not abusing them by exposing the child to the sexual predilections of a perverted mind. How many more instances of child endangerment are needed before schools, governments, and the judicial system before we as a society take action to stop this chicanery? ?u=http2.bp.blogspot.com-fGEUjJsJ2h4VcJgswaisnIAAAAAAAABcsoFqEewPF_E4s1600quote-if-the-freedom-of-speech-is-taken-away-then-dumb-and-silent-we-may-be-led-like-sheep-to-the-george-washington-193690.jpg&f=1&nofb=1

All are created equally. All are equal under the law. These are not aphorisms or nice thoughts; they are how society works. We must be able to trust the legal system to treat ALL equally under the law. Yet, if you choose to cross-dress, believing you are a soul in the wrong body, somehow you have special treatment under the law and can commit crimes that others would be jailed and rightfully ostracized from society for committing.

Curiosity is no sin, and I have long wondered why we hear stories of men crashing women’s locker rooms but never a woman entering a man’s locker room. A trans boy in Vermont crashes a girl’s locker room, makes snide and disparaging comments, makes the girls feel uncomfortable, and the girls are punished. America has witnessed a star varsity girl be a quarterback on a football team. Yet, she never crashed the boy’s locker room. I have been in school districts where girls have wrestled on the boys’ wrestling team; they never thought to watch the boys change, dress, disparage comments, or make the boys feel uncomfortable. Have you ever wondered why this is always a one-directional story, boys and men against women and girls?

Since SCOTUS ruled in Obergefell v. Hodges, the claim has been made that children would be sacrificed for political correctness. What have we seen happen in America; child molesters are now called “Minor Attracted People,” Drag Queens are paid tax dollars to dance and expose themselves to children in schools, and explicit LGBTQ+ pornography is peddled through school libraries to children who should not be exposed to this garbage. Why? Do not misunderstand; I am thoroughly against heterosexual pornography being peddled to children. We have laws against heterosexual porn marketing and set legal age limits. Why does gay porn not have the same common sense approaches and age restrictions? Lemmings 1

In 2019, I substitute taught at a high school in Albuquerque, NM, for several months. I was horrified at what passed for A.P. English reading materials. Seeing the reading materials that described explicit details of gay sexual activity was sickening. Peddle heterosexual pornography with this explicit amount of detail to minors, and you would be jailed, and rightly so. There are laws restricting this material from minors, but somehow if the materials are gay sexual activity, the rules magically do not apply. Why?

I have seen reading materials pushed by the American Library Association (ALA) that are so obscene I could not finish reading them, and I am not a young mind in K-12. Let me elaborate upon this significance. In Junior High school (1989-1991), I challenged myself to learn about the world. In seventh grade, I was going to read all the books in the Crosby Junior High School library. I was exposed to harlequin romances that were inappropriate for my age, and regret having read them. I read Mein Kampf by Adolf Hitler, the Koran, ideals, and philosophies from all over the world, and I am better for the experience. I wanted an expanded mind; I developed my mind and then felt better about experiencing and experimenting with the world.

NO Fear Generally, I am against banning books, but I am all in for age appropriateness in materials offered for reading. Tell me, should kindergarten-aged children be learning about masturbation? Their young minds and bodies are not developed sufficiently, yet what do we find in kindergarten required reading, how to masturbate? It was inappropriate to have harlequin romances in a junior high school library. What I needed was to learn about love, not sex. Not knowing there was a difference cost me a lot of time and relationships. What is the exposure to gay sexual details doing to the children’s minds right now? Why are these materials not only allowed but promoted to children?

President Thomas Jefferson, when discussing equality in 1776, rightly reminded his countrymen that he never intended to say anything original in the Declaration but only “to place before mankind the common sense of the subject, in terms so plain and firm as to command their assent.” Well, with this missive, my intent is similar; I desire to place before you, dear reader, the common sense of this subject, in plain terms, firmly stated sufficient to command your attention and recognize the evil that has beset this nation.

There is no excuse for the sexual attacks on our children and youth in the name of equality. Equality has become the brick stick to beat populations into submission and chain those minds in captivity. I choose to allow all the freedom to act as they choose, with two provisions:

I am allowed to act as I so choose.
Those who think differently do NOT use the power of governmental force to compel me to give up my liberties encompassed in the first provision.

If you choose to dress as a different sex, gender, or type of person, you are more than free to do so. Make your choices, live your consequences, and leave me alone. However, the LGBTQ+ community is not happy leaving people alone; they insist on stealing rights and liberties through judicial twisting, legislation, and bureaucratic fiat, which is immoral, unethical, and illegal.

Exclamation Mark Where are the rights of parents? On YouTube, a discussion was held that a mother and father had no legal say in what their child was taught in his second-grade classroom. Really, where did the rights of parents go? In 6^th -12^th grade, I freely admit I forged parental signatures on permission forms. Yet, my parents were still afforded their right to say no and tell the school board. More, when my mother became vociferous sufficiently to make a nuisance, she was jailed for contempt regarding teacher overreach in what was being taught to my younger brothers.

The oppression of parental rights is not new, but it has taken a decidedly dangerous turn, and this trend MUST be reversed! The class I hated the most in school sexual education. In the eight different high schools I attended, this class was masked under the guise of reproductivity, family planning, health, and other less obnoxious sounding titles. But always, the class was sexual education, and too often, the course sickened me mentally and physically. Yet, in all eight high schools, the classes were made mandatory, not by parents, but by legislatures who had been hoodwinked by Planned Parenthood and other nefarious political bodies. I learned about women’s periods and cycles in junior high and was physically ill. On my second trip through fourth grade, I saw movies on how children were conceived and more physical nausea.

During those years of government-mandated public education, I learned the words of Jefferson: “Liberty … is unobstructed action according to our will: but rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will, within the limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add ‘within the limits of the law’; because law is often but the tyrant’s will, and always so when it violates the right of an individual.” The limits drawn by tyrants are violating the rights of individuals, and the noose cinching our growth originates in the twisted minds of those claiming equality for sexual perversion and mental illness.

Tell me, have you researched the psychiatric book on mental illness? Several sections are devoted to the mental illnesses of sexual disorders and the mental health of people who create problems because they refuse to be bound by limits in sexual appetites. The consequences of sexual perversion create mental health disorders. Please, do not blindly believe me; look up the DSM 5. The DSM-5 officially is the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 5th edition, text revision (DSM-5-TR) released on March 18, 2022, by the American Psychiatric Association (APA). The DSM is a reference handbook that most U.S. mental health professionals use to reach an accurate diagnosis, and the latest version of the manual is the DSM-5-TR. Plato 2

While there are always discussions on the applicability and use of the DSM, this is the reference for lawyers, mental health professionals, and medical doctors in dealing with mental health cases. The information in the DSM-5-TR remains the standard upon which diagnoses and treatment of mental health patients rest. A basic level of reading comprehension leaves the reader with a firm grasp of the obvious, sexual appetites and passions have consequences, and those consequences lead to poor mental health, including depression, anxiety, suicidal ideation, physical, sexual, and mental abuse of others, and a host of social problems and legal issues.

Yet, instead of addressing the problem and suggesting more control of personal appetites, the reverse is preached by media, politicians, doctors, and other key societal groups. Leading us back to Jefferson’s claim that “law is often the tyrant’s will” as a weapon to violate the rights of individuals. Another glimpse into the mind of President Jefferson shows us the following pattern. “Whereas it appeareth that however certain forms of government are better calculated than others to protect individuals in the free exercise of their natural rights and are at the same time themselves better guarded against degeneracy, yet experience hath [shown], that even under the best forms, those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny . . . [emphasis mine].”

Slow operations are perverting government into tyranny; where have we seen this more apparent than in the bureaucratic nightmare of the federal, state, county, and city/town government on education in publicly funded schools? Under the guise of the twisted and plastic term progress, the ability to read was curtailed by Dewey, and education was bureaucratized slowly into the mess it has become. Math and history are weaponized into topics hated and despised, so the student knows nothing of their country’s rich heritage and history. The popularization of topics has seen the rise of perversion in a bold attempt to groom children for the sexual appetites and passions of adults who deserve public shaming. Instead, those with morals and ethics are denounced and shunned.

Let me be clear and concise, using President Jefferson to help, “Under the law of nature, all men are born free, every one comes into the world with a right to his own person, which includes the liberty of moving and using it at his own will. This is what is called personal liberty, and [personal liberty] is given him by the author of nature because [it is] necessary for his own sustenance.” How you choose is your business, provided it does not infringe upon the rights and liberties of others to pursue life, exercise liberty, and choose happiness. However, what is occurring right now remains in direct violation of personal liberty, and these purveyors of sexual perversion must cease and desist immediately!

You do not have the right to twist the minds of children! You are not the parents, and your job does not give you the authority to interfere in parental rights! The power of government is not an acceptable excuse to steal innocence, groom minds, or pervert those not interested in your lifestyle choices! How you choose to exercise your liberty is between you and the author of that liberty. When you go forth exercising your liberty and try to steal rights and liberties from others, you are the problem. You deserve social castigation, denunciation, and the harshest penalties of the legal system.

Patriotism You have no claims upon my personal liberty, and I want my rights back!

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