God's Agenda

Oftentimes, our agendas run contrary to God's. The discomfort that is visited upon us in this world is of course, not what we would have chosen for ourselves. Neither is an easy path for us chosen by God. He loves us more than we love ourselves. His plan can anger, hurt, disturb and baffle us. His love however isn't manifest in a worldy manner. His love is often reserved for us in Glory, where our loved ones shall share this grand plan of His with us. Our own selfishness and visceral need for comfort and instinct to survive can fog our vision and make it difficult to see which fork in the road to take. Lift us up Lord, that we can see over the fog of this world and the forks in the road and down that path and through the seasons of our lives.
~Capt. Gene D. Tomlinson

Forgiveness

"Forgiveness is deciding to wipe clean our hope for a better past and to accept the role of others in our "not so perfect" lives. It is placing blame only inwardly and never outwardly. It is loving those who would bring us discomfort and visit upon us the harshness of this world, knowing they too are children of God. It is understanding the price paid by our Savior and His Father for our imperfection and placing upon that gift an intrinsic value. It is reconciling ourselves, to ourselves. It is the true transcention from our worldly selves, to what our Lord would have us be. Forgiveness is love, God style."

~Capt. Gene D. Tomlinson

Financial Accountability\Responsibility Tip For Our GovernmentShare

Financial Accountability\Responsibility Tip For Our GovernmentShare

One of the primary reasons that we find ourselves in the financial fix we are in now is due to the irresponsibility of financial institutions owned by corporations, and large corporations who practice such irresponsibility with impunity due to their corporate status which provides us no recourse to hold said corporate entities accountable (short of the board of directors in only the most agregious situations - Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002). Irresonsible lending and mis-managed business were rewarded by "bailing out" these idiots and crooks, further ratifying the recent pernicious trend of lack of accountability. Now we are essentially printing script and throwing it at a problem which begs for some responsible accounting. Once again, I must say, Common sense and logic nearly always conflict with a purely government solution.
Bank local folks. Make sure it's not corporate owned. When you can, shop local. Get out of your company's 401k or insure it (especially if it is a large corporation). Don't let a "fund" manage your finances. Buy gold. Don't use credit cards. Dump your variable rate mortgage. Tighten your belts. Be frugal and pragmatic when you shop. Save gas when you can. And for gosh sakes, stop watching the idiot box! Read with your family, volunteer somewhere, take a class with your kids or spouse in art or something that interest you all, get involved in a cause you believe in and let's get our Republic back.
Your Cynical Servant,
Capt. Gene Tomlinson

Letter to State Representative Susan King in support of (HCR)50 Texas sovereignity under the 10th Amendment

This is a letter I wrote to our local State Representative, Susan King in support of
(HCR)50 Texas sovereignity on February 20th (which just passed at the end of May)

Honorable Representative King,
Greetings. I write today to echo the sympathies of Governor Perry and to voice my support of (HCR) 50. I sincerely hope that you will stay true to the idealism that you have heretofore shown, and to eschew the temptation to be bent and swayed by the strong peer pressure which you are bound to experience. Remember the undiluted storm of idealism of the framers and use that same strong wind which filled their sails to drive you through these choppy waters and use the morality that was their ballast and keel to keep you steadfast in the storm.
We your constituents, trust and rely on you and your peers to keep our State sovereign and efficacious. Support House Concurrent Resolution (HCR) 50 in support of states’ rights under the 10th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which reads as follows-

CONCURRENT RESOLUTION
WHEREAS,
The Tenth Amendment to the Constitution of the
United States reads as follows: "The powers not delegated to the
United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the
States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people";
and
WHEREAS,
The Tenth Amendment defines the total scope of
federal power as being that specifically granted by the
Constitution of the United States and no more; and
WHEREAS,
The scope of power defined by the Tenth Amendment
means that the federal government was created by the states
specifically to be an agent of the states; and
WHEREAS,
Today, in 2009, the states are demonstrably treated
as agents of the federal government; and
WHEREAS,
Many federal laws are directly in violation of the
Tenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States; and
WHEREAS,
The Tenth Amendment assures that we, the people of
the United States of America and each sovereign state in the Union
of States, now have, and have always had, rights the federal
government may not usurp; and
WHEREAS,
Section 4, Article IV, of the Constitution says,
"The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a
Republican Form of Government," and the Ninth Amendment states that
"The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not
be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people";
and
WHEREAS,
The United States Supreme Court has ruled in New
York v. United States, 112 S. Ct. 2408 (1992), that congress may not
simply commandeer the legislative and regulatory processes of the
states; and
WHEREAS,
A number of proposals from previous administrations
and some now pending from the present administration and from
congress may further violate the Constitution of the United States;
now, therefore, be it
RESOLVED,
That the 81st Legislature of the State of Texas
hereby claim sovereignty under the Tenth Amendment to the
Constitution of the United States over all powers not otherwise
enumerated and granted to the federal government by the
Constitution of the United States; and, be it further
RESOLVED,
That this serve as notice and demand to the federal
government, as our agent, to cease and desist, effective
immediately, mandates that are beyond the scope of these
constitutionally delegated powers; and, be it further
RESOLVED,
That all compulsory federal legislation that
directs states to comply under threat of civil or criminal
penalties or sanctions or that requires states to pass legislation
or lose federal funding be prohibited or repealed; and, be it
further
RESOLVED,
That the Texas secretary of state forward official
copies of this resolution to the president of the United States, to
the speaker of the house of representatives and the president of the
senate of the United States Congress, and to all the members of the
Texas delegation to the congress with the request that this
resolution be officially entered in the Congressional Record as a
memorial to the Congress of the United States of America.

I would also ask you take a minute or two to read and/or re-read some of my favorite quotes.

First a few from Andrew Jackson over 150 years ago regarding his attitude toward a government owned bank etc. -

"It is to be regretted that the rich and powerful too often bend the acts of government to their selfish purposes."
~Andrew Jackson

"The bold effort the present (central) bank had made to control the government ... are but premonitions of the fate that await the American people should they be deluded into a perpetuation of this institution or the establishment of another like it." - "Gentlemen, I have had men watching you for a long time and I am convinced that you have used the funds of the bank to speculate in the breadstuffs of the country. When you won, you divided the profits amongst you, and when you lost, you charged it to the bank. You tell me that if I take the deposits from the bank and annul its charter, I shall ruin ten thousand families. That may be true, gentlemen, but that is your sin! Should I let you go on, you will ruin fifty thousand families, and that would be my sin!
~Andrew Jackson

Next, Abraham Lincoln on corporations. -

"I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes
me to tremble for the safety of my country. As a result of the war, corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places
will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong it's reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed. I feel at this moment more anxiety for the safety of my country than ever before, even in the midst of war.
God grant that my suspicions may prove groundless."
~Abraham Lincoln

Next, several by John F. Kennedy -

"Conformity is the jailer of freedom and the enemy of growth."

"The Chinese use two brush strokes to write the word 'crisis'. One brush stroke stands for danger; the other for opportunity. In a crisis, be aware of the danger-but recognize the opportunity."

"A man does what he must.. in spite of personal consequences, in spite of obstacles and dangers, and pressures.. and that is the basis of all human morality."

"As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them."

"Do not pray for easy lives. Pray to be stronger men."

"I look forward to a great future for America - a future in which our country will match its military strength with our moral restraint, its wealth with our wisdom, its power with our purpose."
~John F. Kennedy

And finally, Martin Luther King Jr. -

"In the end we will not remember the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends."
~Martin Luther King Jr.

Thank you for your time Representative and Kindest Regards,
Gene Tomlinson

Joy Ride

Apprehensive, nervous and filled with elation
We crawl behind the wheel, now no trepidation.
Our egos sitting proudly at our side
We begin the embarkation
On our Joy ride.

Sunshowers drenching the day and our lives as we pass those
who’ve chosen to stop and smell a rose,
We hold the wheel of our sturdy steed
Mustang or mayhap a Charger, I suppose
fulfill the need.

Boldly we steer confidently we navigate hazards that appear
Fine tuned machines are we, what? Fear?
A bumpy road here, a spinout there,
We are the sports model dear.
We do not care.

Try this oil.Try this gas.It’ll make you look good as well as go fast.
Wear and tear? What? Ha, we’re made to last!
If not, I’ll get her fixed, I got the warranty.
Plus there is the cash amassed,
Of course you see.

How long will she be in the shop to fix the engine and the brakes?
I don’t remember using them for heaven sakes.
Why is there a balance due on the repairs?
Do you know what might cause aches?
Must be the stares.

Ah, back on the road! Fog, rain, snow the wipers how fast they go!
Why is there ice why sleet and why does the wind strongly blow?
Careful, look out we sure don’t want to wreck!
I’m not a weather man, I don’t know.
Hey! What the heck?!

Man, that sure is a big dent. How do we replace metal with, uh, body fill?
That sure as hell won’t rust! Though it makes a painful bill.
Ah, back on the road. Little vibration now?
In the gas tank, I drop this pill?
That’s better, wow.

Can you see out as good as you need? Come partner, reduce your speed.
This steering wildly, blindly and sowing wild seed,
Is becoming for me increasingly hard.
Besides, there is of a family to feed,
I’m a retard.

Watch, take care, slow down, don’t waste time, make haste wait what? Boy?
When this thing started, I thought it was, all for Joy?
Not tight fist, closed eyes and clenched jaw,
Waiting for the airbag to deploy.
It’s just too raw.

Nice sunset huh? And how the birds sing! See how they quickly take wing?
Come on around young folks. Look already they’ve got a ding!
I don’t blame them though I don’t suppose,
Stop, I hear something, an ice cream bell ring!
Oh look, a rose!

Paul Writes America

I would like to share with you an imaginary letter from the pen of the Apostle Paul I put together several years ago. It is what I imagine the Apostle Paul might have said were he writing a letter to American Christians in 2005 A.D. And here is the letter as I envision what he might have said……. Gene

I, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, to you who are in America, Grace be unto you, and peace from God our Father, through our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

For many years I have longed to be able to come to see you. I have heard so much of you and of what you are doing. I have heard of the fascinating and astounding advances that you have made in the scientific realm. I have heard of your dashing subways and flashing airplanes. Through your scientific genius you have been able to dwarf distance and place time in chains. You have been able to carve highways through the stratosphere. So in your world you have made it possible to eat breakfast in New York City and dinner in Paris, France. I have also heard of your skyscraping buildings with their prodigious towers steeping heavenward. I have heard of your great medical advances, which have resulted in the curing of many dread plagues and diseases, and thereby prolonged your lives and made for greater security and physical well-being. All of that is marvelous. You can do so many things in your day that I could not do in the Greco-Roman world of my day. In your age you can travel distances in one day that took me three months to travel. That is wonderful. You have made tremendous strides in the area of scientific and technological development.

But America, as I look at you from afar, I wonder whether your moral and spiritual progress has been commensurate with your scientific progress. It seems to me that your moral progress lags behind your scientific progress. Your poet Thoreau used to talk about "improved means to an unimproved end." How often this is true. You have allowed the material means by which you live to outdistance the spiritual ends for which you live. You have allowed your mentality to outrun your morality. You have allowed your civilization to outdistance your culture. Through your scientific genius you have made of the world a neighborhood, but through your moral and spiritual genius you have failed to make of it a brotherhood. So America, I would urge you to keep your moral advances abreast with your scientific advances.

I am impelled to write you concerning the responsibilities laid upon you to live as Christians in the midst of an unChristian world. That is what I had to do. That is what every Christian has to do. But I understand that there are many Christians in America who give their ultimate allegiance to man-made systems and customs. They are afraid to be different. Their great concern is to be accepted socially. They live by some such principle as this: "everybody is doing it, so it must be alright." For so many of you Morality is merely group consensus. In your modern sociological lingo, the mores are accepted as the right ways. You have unconsciously come to believe that right is discovered by taking a sort of Gallup poll of the majority opinion. How many are giving their ultimate allegiance to this way.

But American Christians, I must say to you as I said to the Roman Christians years ago, "Be not conformed to this world, but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind." Or, as I said to the Phillipian Christians, "Ye are a colony of heaven." This means that although you live in the colony of time, your ultimate allegiance is to the empire of eternity. You have a dual citizenry. You live both in time and eternity; both in heaven and earth. Therefore, your ultimate allegiance is not to the government, not to the state, not to nation, not to any man-made institution. The Christian owes his ultimate allegiance to God, and if any earthly institution conflicts with God's will it is your Christian duty to take a stand against it. You must never allow the transitory evanescent demands of man-made institutions to take precedence over the eternal demands of the Almighty God.

I understand that you have an economic system in America known as Capitalism. Through this economic system you have been able to do wonders. You have become the richest nation in the world, and you have built up the greatest system of production that history has ever known. All of this is marvelous. But Americans, there is the danger that you will misuse your Capitalism. I still contend that money can be the root of all evil. It can cause one to live a life of gross materialism. I am afraid that many among you are more concerned about making a living than making a life. You are prone to judge the success of your profession by the index of your salary and the size of the wheel base on your automobile, rather than the quality of your service to God.

The misuse of Capitalism can also lead to tragic exploitation. This has so often happened in your nation. They tell me that one tenth of one percent of the population controls more than forty percent of the wealth. You have allowed government programs and handouts take the place of Christian benevolence. It is easy to point a finger at your government and say that it was them who took the responsibility away from the church, but this happened because there were glaring needs which you as Christians left untended. That lack of love of your fellow man allowed secular humanist to make a strong argument.  If you are to be a truly Christian nation you must solve this problem. You cannot solve the problem by turning to communism, for communism is based on an ethical relativism and a metaphysical materialism that no Christian can accept. You can use your powerful economic resources to wipe poverty from the face of the earth. God never intended for one group of people to live in superfluous inordinate wealth, while others live in abject deadening poverty. God intends for all of his children to have the basic necessities of life, and he has left in this universe "enough and to spare" for that purpose.

I would that I could be with you in person, so that I could say to you face to face what I am forced to say to you in writing. Oh, how I long to share your fellowship.
Let me rush on to say something about the church. Americans, I must remind you, as I have said to so many others, that the church is the Body of Christ. So when the church is true to its nature it knows neither division nor disunity. But I am disturbed about what you are doing to the Body of Christ. They tell me that in America you have within Protestantism more than three hundred denominations. The tragedy is not so much that you have such a multiplicity of denominations, but that many of them are warring against each other with a claim to absolute truth. This narrow sectarianism is destroying the unity of the Body of Christ. You must come to see that God is neither a Baptist nor a Methodist; He is neither a Presbyterian nor a Episcopalian. God is bigger than all of our denominations. If you are to be true witnesses for Christ, you must come to see that America. We are one body and are to work in unison. Oh if you were to just spend as many ecclesial calories loving and dispensing God's grace as you did getting it "right"...

But I must not stop with a criticism of Protestantism. I am disturbed about Roman Catholicism. This church stands before the world with its pomp and power, insisting that it possesses the only truth. It incorporates a level of hubris that becomes a dangerous spiritual arrogance. It stands with its noble Pope who somehow rises to the miraculous heights of infallibility when he speaks ex cathedra. But I am disturbed about a person or an institution that claims infallibility in this world. I am disturbed about any church that refuses to cooperate with other churches under the pretense that it is the only true church. I must emphasize the fact that God is not a Roman Catholic, and that the boundless sweep of his revelation cannot be limited to the Vatican. Roman Catholicism must do a great deal to mend its ways.

A great man was in your country just 50 or so years ago. His name was Martin Luther King Jr. He said that “In the end, we will not remember the words of our enemies, rather the silence of our friends.” You must rise up and speak out America if you are to survive as a moral nation. With this attitude you migh be considered a dangerous radical. Sometimes it might mean going to jail. If such is the case you must honorably grace the jail with your presence. It might even mean physical death. But if physical death is the price that some must pay to free your nations’s children from a permanent life of psychological death, then nothing could be more Christian. Don't worry about persecution America; you are going to have that if you stand up for a great principle. I can say this with some authority, because my life was a continual round of persecutions. After my conversion I was rejected by the disciples at Jerusalem. Later I was tried for heresy at Jerusalem. I was jailed at Philippi, beaten at Thessalonica, mobbed at Ephesus, and depressed at Athens. And yet I am still going. I came away from each of these experiences more persuaded than ever before that "neither death nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come . . . shall separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." I still believe that standing up for the truth of God is the greatest thing in the world. This is the end of life. The end of life is not to be happy. The end of life is not to achieve pleasure and avoid pain. The end of life is to do the will of God, come what may.

I must bring my writing to a close now. Timothy is waiting to deliver this letter, and I must take leave for another church. But just before leaving, I must say to you, as I said to the church at Corinth, that I still believe that love is the most durable power in the world. Over the centuries men have sought to discover the highest good. This has been the chief quest of ethical philosophy. This was one of the big questions of Greek philosophy. The Epicurean and the Stoics sought to answer it; Plato and Aristotle sought to answer it. What is the summon bonum of life? I think I have an answer America. I think I have discovered the highest good. It is love. This principle stands at the center of the cosmos. As John says, "God is love." He who loves is a participant in the being of God. He who hates does not know God.
So American Christians, you may master the intricacies of the English language. You may possess all of the eloquence of articulate speech. But even if you "speak with the tongues of man and angels, and have not love, you are become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal."

In Him, Paul

With Love to all who’s eyes this might meet. Capt. Gene D. Tomlinson

Federal Reserve Notes vs. Toilet Paper

The abjectly fictional nature of modern paper currency and fractional-reserve banking encourages the question: why do fiat FRNs continue to circulate, and banks without any real monetary reserves continue to function? Those who accept the theory that "money" is whatever the government decrees would answer that FRNs (or bank-deposits denominated in FRNs) have value as media of exchange in the marketplace because people must acquire them in order to pay their taxes. The obvious fallacy here, though, is that the government accepts payment of taxes in FRNs precisely because those notes have a finite purchasing-power in the market, and therefore are usable as "money" by the government. It is not the present and future taxability of the notes that gives them their market exchange-value, but their residual market exchange-value that renders them viable as a medium of taxation. One must recall that FRNs were originally redeemable, directly or indirectly, in gold coins, silver coins, or both. For that reason, FRNs had a real exchange-value in the market that reflected their underlying redemption-values in gold or silver, and depended not at all on their use as a medium of taxation but indeed made them valuable for that purpose. When FRNs became wholly irredeemable after 1968/1971, they lost any fixed or predictable market exchange-value in terms of real money, and therefore became of increasingly uncertain value as a medium of taxation, too (at least to the extent they continue to depreciate in market exchange-value, as they have, steadily, since then). A more realistic explanation for the continued circulation of FRNs (or bank-deposits denominated in FRNs) as "money" is that the general public is the victim of a confidence-game, in which the government and the banks have foisted off paper liabilities in the place of real monetary assets in an inverted pyramid of monetary fraud. At the tip of this upside-down pyramid are real "dollars": silver and gold coins that are themselves monetary assets and no one's liabilities, and circulate among those knowledgeable about the differences between real money and paper money. Next in amount in circulation - and at the first level of the institutionalized fraud - are the base-metallic token (or "clad") coins of cupro-nickel alloy. These are monetary assets to the extent of their salvageable metallic content - which is worth about 2% or less of their face values - , but otherwise are liabilities of the government which at one time were redeemable in silver, but are today wholly irredeemable. The next largest fraudulent circulating medium consists of actual FRNs, today "redeemable" only in "clad" coins. Finally, the greatest portion of the so-called "money supply" consists of bank demand-deposits, most of which have been loaned at interest to persons other than the depositors. Revealingly, not only are these purported deposits not actually on deposit in the banks at all, but also the deposits are not even formally "redeemable", because the deposits themselves are not the depositors' "money", but the banks'! The deposits are loans of money the depositors (many of them unknowingly) have made to the banks, and which the banks have then further loaned to third parties. But how many people are aware of this situation? Why do the government and the banks not educate those who are unaware of what is really going on - other than because the government and the banks knowingly profit from public ignorance and therefore intentionally promote it? And how long can such a swindle continue? This question highlights the second of the contemporary political-economic conditions that underlie the problem of collapsing domestic banks: namely, the inability of the banks to continue indefinitely to increase the supply of money within the domestic economy, that is (as the saying goes), to "expand credit" (because the supply of new money derives from the extension of bank-credit to borrowers). The answer to the question "How long can this confidence-game last?" is "Not forever!". If, on the one hand, the banks overly expand credit, hyperinflation occurs (that is, the purchasing-power of the monetary unit falls exponentially). If, on the other hand, the banks overly restrict the expansion of credit in order to avoid hyperinflation, recession and then depression occurs (that is, people borrow less, and then existing borrowers in massive numbers default on loans). The bankers' "trick" (and dilemma) is to continue to expand credit within an expanding, and therefore essentially noninflationary, economy. The insoluble problem inherent in credit-expansion through fractional-reserve banking, however, is that expansion of a fiat money supply inevitably misdirects and wastes real economic resources, resulting in an increasingly nonrational economy - that is an economy that does not expand in real terms. In short, credit-expansion by fractional-reserve banking in the long run guarantees economic collapse, with resultant social chaos and political crisis. CONCLUSIONNo crystal ball is necessary to predict that a turning-point in the history of money and banking in the United States is drawing nigh. The burden of governmental debt - much of it made possible only by central-bank "monetization" - has approached levels unsustainable in real terms even with drastically increased confiscation of Americans' earnings through explicit taxation. But Americans seem reluctant to accept more taxation to fund the never-ending follies of a spendthrift welfare state. Thus, repudiation of the debt (in whole or in part) through extreme depreciation of FRNs and bank-deposits denominated therein appears likely, if not certain. For this looming debacle, Americans can thank the FRS, the "experts" who administered it since 1913, the politicians who wed it as a "cover" to finance their own careers, the bankers who profited from their monopoly over the emission of "legal-tender" paper currency, and the "intellectuals" in academia, the press, and the media who (quite unlike their counterparts in the last century) remained strangely silent on the issue of money and banking. That is, Americans can properly thank these people if Americans become aware of what the FRS is, what it does, and why it is responsible for having undermined to the point of collapse the nation's once proudly prosperous economy and staunchly republican political process. Hopefully that day of a new national awareness will soon be at hand.