Rust, Moths & Thieves

How many times have I heard someone say, "If only I could hit the lottery".  That thought always makes me pause and imagine the "what-if" of buying a ticket for a few dollars and realizing several million in return.  If money is simply a means to self ends, then that is an enchanting thought.  However, money is so much more than that, and thanks to nefarious actors in state governments, now it is so much less.

The lottery cash comes from millions of other people who are embracing the "what-if" dream.  For many of them it has grown into a compulsion which will not allow them to not buy a ticket at each and every cycle, for fear that they would miss their day.  Lotteries are a voluntary tax on the poor.  It was sold as a fun and painless way to raise money for sanctimonious causes such as the school system.  "This money would insure that our children have the best and most complete education possible", is a typical politician's quote, as they pushed this legalized gambling down the tax payer's throats.

If you did hit it big, what would you do with the blood, sweat and tears of a million people, which was gathered up into a bundle and dropped into your lap?  Choose wisely, because our good Lord is watching.  You may believe that the money is yours, free and clear, but the truth is, as long as we live, we are never free and clear.  We must always use whatever God gives us, which is exactly everything we get, regardless of the method, for the good of our neighbors.  Would you have the courage and the will to resist the temptation to spend on yourself to the point of losing your soul?  I suspect that the majority of the lottery winners have failed that test.  That is what the value of money really is; it is the potential labors of your fellow humans and any good or pleasure you derive from having so much of it can only come from other people working for you.  That is a big responsibility.

As for the government's high sounding motivations to fund "schools" with their cut of the loot, understand this, the money didn't just go to the schools.  It went into the main pot and the school money came from that.  When they conned our citizens into supporting this "school windfall" what they were really doing was finding a way to harvest more of our money for their everyday, ordinary runaway spending habits, with the benefit of this version of their endless taxes being a voluntary one.  "Buy" a ticket and get an infinitesimally small chance of receiving a windfall and we will keep half for our cut, and our poorest lined up and sent in millions of dollars which they never saw again.

Now we come to this weeks announcement by the Illinois Lottery that they are broke and will not payout any winning amount over $600.00 until the state legislature ends it's budget impasse.  What?!  The lottery needs to get money FROM the state  funds?!  Remember when they sold the lottery to us as a free ride.  People contribute and win some back and the schools get free money.  How can it be that they are short?  It is because they lied.  They put all of the money into the state pot and were using cash flow from the government to make payouts, which they hoped would be rare events.  They failed to reserve the potential winnings.  They spent it all.  What a bunch of crooks, and watch how no one will go to jail for it.

These are the thieves which our Lord warned us about.  Forget about the lottery.  They only promise you the tiniest chance at comfort and ease of mind, at a certain cost and even fail at that.  Our Lord promises infinite graces, love, comfort and peace.  He promises to provide everything you need and all it will cost you is your love and trust.  Just try to out love Him and you will receive far more in return.  As for those leaches in the state house, walk away from their shell game and let their lottery schemes crumble down around their ankles.

It's Real! Don't Miss IT!

It always kills me how the non-believing know-it-alls cite the age of the universe as proof of scripture falsity, yet virtually everyone who has had this sort of experience cites the absence of time in the other world.  Dr. Ben Carson said it best, "He is God.  If He wanted to create a universe, billions of years old, He could do it."

This testimony confirms what we have always known; that our reason to be is to love God with our whole selves and to love each other better than ourselves.  Do that and suddenly your way of thinking changes profoundly and you will know joy, peace and serenity, and the cares of this world turn trivial.

May God bless us all.

Danger! Warning! Poison!

There is a poison in our society which is causing massive destruction to our lives, families, societies, civil order and it targets our spouses and children specifically.

This poison used to be relatively hard to find and was recognized,  for it's danger, sixty years ago.  Anyone caught with it in their possession in those times, and before, were ostracized and shunned.

Today, the availability of this poison has exploded and the vast majority of our people are consuming dangerous amounts, everyday.  In fact, while you read this post, you have it available to you, right now, without even leaving your seat.  Yep, it is in your home and is certainly in your young children's hands right now, in lethal amounts.

The name of this killer is Pornography.  I haven't exaggerated the above statements, in a cheap tabloid technique, simply to grab your attention.  I have told the absolute truth - pornography kills!  It kills the soul.  It erases all sense of decency in men, husbands and fathers.  It creates sexual predators.  Men, and increasingly, women, are becoming instantly addicted to the images which pour into their eyes though the internet, which not only has exponentially multiplied availability, but also weaponized them, by the ease of computer graphics, over the old fashioned need for physical paper or film to be created and transported.

I was confused throughout this year as I heard of several families breaking up.  These were families which had church going fathers and whom I would have bet the farm in confidence of their lasting stability.  Suddenly, one by one, separation, divorce, shack-ups and scandal, boom, boom, boom!  What the hell?  Pornography.

I was confused at the young kids insistence in their "right" to do the grinding dance at school functions.  Don't know about grinding dance?  Look it up, if you want to, but beware, it is obscene (on second thought - Don't).  School officials are rightly canceling these functions in order to prevent this dancing, since a prohibition always fails as the kids invariably revolt and do it anyway - pornography.  Thanks for nothing Miley Cyrus!

I was really confused about the tip over, wherein a small majority of our people supported the same sex marriage ruling.  How does this compute when only about six percent of the population identify as "gay"?  Now I have learned that (how do I say this?) doing it "in the wrong place" has become accepted among a significant number of women, to prevent pregnancies!  Now a much larger percentage of our people are sodomites, even while they identify themselves as straight.  Pornography!

Pornography leads to lust, which leads to infidelity and debauchery, which is empowered by civil acceptance of contraception, extra-marital sex and abortion, which lead to divorces and broken children, which leads to sexual predators and suicides, as well as murder.  Down - down - down - down the hole to hell we go.

I have listened to several recovering pornography addicts as they describe the hell they have been through and the severe damage it has done to them and their families.  It is heart breaking.

BEWARE!  Do not let your kids have the internet, in any form, unsupervised.  Those sex monsters are reaching for them like bad movie body snatching aliens.

Do not tolerate indecent images at anytime.  That includes any R rated movie, put out by Hollywood, with any nudity or sexual scenes.  Wear modest clothing.  Fight back against this killer.  Pray, really, pray!  Pray the rosary everyday with your family; make it a rule.  Wives, do not let your husbands talk you into sexual acts which are intrinsically evil.  If he is weirdly persistent, ask him where he is getting that stuff.  You have to root this rot out as soon as you suspect it.  Learn sexual ethics, the legitimate, fruitful sex that God intended.  Husband and wife only, never divorced, no contraception, no kissing below the belt and genital to genital sex is enough; any more crosses the line.  Husbands, respect your wife's womanly dignity.  She is your help mate and joy, not your sex slave.  And, as always, self control and restraint brings much more true and permanent happiness than reckless abandon.

Oh Mary! Conceived without sin; pray for us who have recourse to thee!
Oh Mary! Conceived without sin; pray for us who have recourse to thee!
Oh Mary! Conceived without sin; pray for us who have recourse to thee!

Frustration!

Arrrgh!  Another mass shooting (October 1st, 2015) which leaves us all in heartbreak and civil turmoil.  The usual questions come up, as they do every time:

Q:  Who was this man and why would he do this horrible thing?

A:  He was a man out of his mind and there is no other reason.

Q:  Why can we not pass laws which would keep guns out of such a person's hands?

A:  Men who are out of their minds do not obey laws and such a law would only disarm the law abiding and the innocent, since we never know who would cross the lines of human decency and must treat everyone as a potential murderer (millions) in the hope of stopping the one.  The law abiding would remain disarmed while the law breaker would find a way to arm himself.  This would also leave us all at the mercy of the everyday, run-of-the-mill thug, who is sane and threatens us with deadly force for personal gain.

Q:  Why do these things keep happening?

A-1:  I truly suspect that we are creating these rage-monsters through a medical system which makes money by prolifically prescribing mind altering drugs.  In the last decade, the rate of prescriptions for ADHD has exploded.  Has the true occurrence of  ADHD and the commiserate need for such prescriptions really multiplied that much or are we seeking and easy way to control children with pills, with disastrous results?  I would love to see a study wherein we see the percentage of these twenty-something male murderers who were under the care of a doctor and were taking these mind altering prescription drugs.  With the huge numbers of these prescriptions being written, and the factor of one in a thousand turning into a monster, we are looking at the potential of thousands of these guys walking in our streets right now.  It is truly amazing that we have as few of these shootings as we do!

A-2:  The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.  I do not know to whom that quote belongs but it perfectly illustrates my real frustration with these recurring mass shootings.  Our men and women in this country need to wake up!  We have been brought up in a civilly induced slumber.  We walk around in the civil arena like it was our living room completely unaware of our vulnerabilities and naively believing that we are perfectly safe.  Worse, we assume no responsibility for our own safety or give the slightest concern for those around us.  We take the authorities word for granted that their rules, against our own self-protection, somehow make us safer.  That is "bull-(redacted)" and deep down, we all know it.

Q:  Upon the realization that the worse was happening, right here, right now, to you...and you were able to make that call to the 911 dispatcher and to make that person aware of the danger you are in, how long would you expect it to take for a very efficient police force to actually arrive and subdue the shooter?  Remember to be fair about this, for that dispatcher would have to get another human on the radio and convey the message, that officer would have to drop everything and race over, stop the car, find the door and find the shooter.  Would two minutes be a good estimate? (I think two minutes would be very optimistic, personally)

There are twenty other victims cowering in the room with you as the active shooter picks you out, one by one...BANG!...BANG!......BANG!...BANG!...BANG!  How           long         would        two      minutes       be?     Too long, by any standard.  And what are you doing?   Fighting or waiting as...BANG!, another innocent person dies, while you cower and pray for help...for yourself?    BANG!

Madness!  I am not anymore angry with the crazy man or the gun than I would be with a rabid dog or a poisonous snake.  I am mad at the men and women who allow this to happen in their midst, who allow politicians to lull them into a false sense of security with insane gun laws and "gun free" zones which only make themselves helpless victims.  Why oh why does anybody live in New Jersey, New York, Maryland, Washington DC, Illinois or California?!  Why have these state's voters not thrown their state legislatures out on their butts?!  It is because they are walking around in a daze with an utterly foolish and false feeling of security.

Let me be fair.  The shootings in Arizona, Colorado, South Carolina, Tennessee, Georgia, Mississippi and Arkansas, to name a few, happened in states where the gun laws are more liberal and people are afforded the ability to carry in public, though not in "gun free" zones.  Unfortunately, the people in these states, like the others, are also asleep and do not always take advantage of their legal right to carry and are caught flat footed when the unthinkable happens.

I can tell you from experience that carrying a handgun everywhere, all the time, is a pain in the butt.  However, that is what men and women of honor do.  We prepare for the worst while expecting the best.  Be ready!  Wake up!  We must protect each other.  Get a handgun, learn to use it, carry it everywhere and learn to love your neighbor so much that you would readily kill anyone who tried to harm them.  Stop expecting the cops to do for you what you are not ready to do for your neighbor or yourself.  If anyone tries to shoot you, SHOOT BACK!

To answer that third question more succinctly, the reason these shootings keep happening is because we the people, allow them to happen.