Politicians or Businessman?

GeorgeWashingtonOK. After the shenanigans in Iowa, and the politician sounding more like politicians than like real Americans, I am more convinced than ever that we need a businessman at the head of the country, rather than more politicians.

Look at the mess the politicians have gotten us into. They all sound like more of the same. Promises, promises, but when they get into office, it’s just more of the same. Government as usual. Every time!

On the one side we have an avowed socialist who promises everything for free, and he will take the necessary money from the wealthy to give these freebies. Or we have someone who cannot tell the truth, and who promises more of what we have had under Obama, without any respite! She has shown by her actions that she can’t be trusted—especially with government. Guaranteed ruination! read more

Vote Early and Vote Often

constitutionThe current grumbling about the votes or caucuses in Iowa is evidence that the more things change, the more they stay the same. Perhaps some shenanigans were pulled. But then, most of them are politicians—so what do you expect?

How about this: Eugene Debs is the only person to run a presidential campaign while serving time in prison. He ran on the Socialist Party ticket in 1920. (Does that bring to mind someone running today?) Debs got a large number of voters to vote for him, but lost to Warren G. Harding, who received more. Debs was serving a ten-year sentence for publicly criticizing the government’s highly questionable use of the Espionage Act to prosecute citizens. read more

“And to the Republic . . .”

Ben FranklinThe Founding Fathers must have believed a democracy was the way to go, if what they gave us with the United States of America is really a democracy. No on both counts.

We actually live in a Republic. You know: “and to the Republic for which it stands.” Those great minds who gave us the Constitution disagreed on a lot of things, but they stood united on one thing—a democracy was the worst possible form of government.

Even the idea that our nation is built on “majority rules” is not near the truth. Yes, the Founding Fathers knew that a government if it became a democracy would soon lead to mob rule. And they expressed themselves that way. read more

How Much Was the Bill of Rights, and Who Paid for it?

JamesMadison

I still didn’t know, even after my senior year at High School, that the Bill of Rights was what they called the first ten amendments to our U.S. Constitution. I guess it just didn’t appear to me to be that important back then. What do high schoolers think about it today?

Now when I hear a person that doesn’t know that, I shudder. Today many people argue that protecting the freedoms of “religion, speech, assembly, press and petition, were the most important issues to the first Americans and that’s why they’re in the first amendment. read more

Politics and Presidents

Steven Allen 2 on stageAs a member of the National Speakers Association, I was pleased to make a personal acquaintance with Charlie “Tremendous” Jones at one of our meetings. He was a large speaking presence. During his presentation he actually picked on me!

Charlie has written several quote books as he has come up with many of his own pithy sayings. This one about politics made me laugh: “Politics defined: poly is a Greek word meaning ‘many’ and tics are little bloodsuckers.”

Johann Von Goethe, a German writer (I studied him as I majored in German in college) described it thus: “In politics as on the sick bed people toss from one side to the other, thinking they will be more comfortable.” read more

Founding Fathers and Leadership

Speaking-2My wife has been asking me what I want to do now that I’m retired. The other night I woke up at about 2 or 2:30 with a thought on my mind. It seemed important to me at that time in my groggy condition. So what did I do? I got out of bed, went into my office, found a scrap of paper and a pencil and wrote down my thought.

Then, the next day, I couldn’t find the paper on which I had written my thought. Yes, in between I guess I had cleaned off my desk. But that night, I had that same thought again. This time I wrote in down on the white board in my study. That would get misplaced! read more

Abe Lincoln’s Wit

Abraham_Lincoln_2On Watter’s World on Fox news, one college man was asked to name the first President of the United States. The man answered: “Wasn’t that Abraham Lincoln?”

Abe, himself, would have laughed at such foolishness. Abe was a man who enjoyed some humor in his otherwise melancholy life. He was a lawyer after all.

About seven score years ago, two young men were having a quarrel, and there were signs that it would soon become serious. Abraham Lincoln, himself a young lawyer at the time, had an earnest desire for fair play. So he was called upon to decide the dispute. One of the combatants, who by the way, had been defeated by the decision, then boastfully threatened Lincoln, who had issued the decision. read more

Ben Franklin said: “Go Ahead, Do It!”

Founding Fathers coverOne thing about Benjamin Franklin is that he finished much better than he had started out. If you’ve read his Autobiography, which I hope by now you have, you know that Ben left his family, his brother’s printing business, and his city of Boston, at the early age of 17. And that with only a few pennies to his name.

He certainly made something of himself. He built his own business in Philadelphia, made the city better, help others build their own business, performed experiments, taught himself, learned music, wrote the most widely read volume in Europe about electricity, became involved in Philanthropic endeavors, and helped build a new nation. And much more. Whew! read more

Benjamin Franklin and Scruples

Ben FranklinYesterday I advised you not to become a snollygoster. Then I went to my dictionary and defined snollygoster for you. It is a clever unscrupulous person. A person who is smart and clever, but who has no scruples.

Today I thought I’d better be more clear about what scruples are. A scruple is defined in that same Webster’s Encyclopedic Unabridged Dictionary as “a moral or ethical consideration or standard that acts as a restraining force or inhibits certain actions.” So if you have scruples, you have moral values. And those lead you to positive actions! read more

Was Thomas Jefferson a Snollygoster?

whom?Wow. Who has ever used that word in normal conversation?

Snollygoster. Yes, I had to look it up in my Webster’s Encyclopedic Unabridged Dictionary. It was Bill O’Reilly’s word of the day.

For those of you without an Encyclopedic Unabridged Dictionary, it means: “clever unscrupulous person.”

Thomas Jefferson was definitely not a snollygoster, but was a perspicacious, intelligent, polymath. You may have to look some of those words up!

One of Tom’s critics, however, was a snollygoster. James Callender spread vicious rumors about Jefferson, after he became President and refused to make Callender a member of his cabinet. Those rumors led to numerous slanderous stories about Jefferson’s mulatto mistress which are still taught about today as if they were true. read more