Book Review: The Mastery of Love

Disclaimer – I doubt I ever would have chosen to read this book without a recommendation from someone else. It was lent to me by a co-worker, and I read it, in part, out of respect for her.

The author: Miguel Ruiz once went to medical school and became a surgeon. Later in life after a traumatic accident he forsook it all to learn the healer’s ways and become an “Eagle-Knight” in the Nagual tradition. He has since studied the “Toltec” people and written about their teachings. He has written a few books now, the most successful being “The Four Agreements.”

The book: I hated the first 3 chapters. The first chapter described the wisdom he had obtained from the Toltec people. He then goes on to tell a “Toltec story” that somehow I already heard in Sunday School as a kid. It made me think – this guy is a hack. He picked some obscure historical group that no one really knows a lot about, and he invented stories about them to sound like it was ancient and mystic…when really the stories were made up by him or taken from other sources. He then proceeds to tell us a real truth:

“To master a relationship is therefore about action. It is not about concepts or attaining knowledge. It is about action. Of course, to have action, we need to have some knowledge or at least a little more awareness of the way humans operate.”

He kind of summed up his book right there. It’s not about knowledge, it’s about action. So stop reading this book and get moving…but of course he wants us to actually keep reading and to buy his book or he wouldn’t make any money or convince anyone to come to his seminars, courses, etc…In cases you hadn’t guessed, at this point I was becoming quite the cynic.

He then discussed mental illness and described it thus:

“We call it schizophrenia, paranoia, psychosis, but these diseases are created when the reasoning mind is so frightened and the wounds so painful, that it becomes better to break contact with the outside world.”

I have to admit there may be some truth in his statement, but it is far too simplistic. He makes it sound as though we make a conscious decision when life is too painful to create our own reality. It’s like people’s minds decide to go crazy, and I’ve seen that it is not so.

He then explains all the things humans naturally understand. Things like right and wrong, fair and unfair, love and hate.

“Each of us creates a personal dream for our own self, but the humans before us created a big outside dream, the dream of the human society. The outside Dream, or the Dream of the Planet, is the collective Dream of billions of dreamers. The Big Dream includes all the rules of society, its laws, its religions, its different cultures and ways to be.”

At this point I realized that he is either an Atheist, or believes in an unformed God that is simply the spirit of life within each of us. He does not believe there is any right or wrong…it is all perception. To me it slapped our Founding Fathers in the face - “We hold these truths to be self evident.” Don Miguel Ruiz would argue that they are only self-evident because we are all in the same dream, they are self-evident because we have convinced ourselves they are true.

"There is no one to blame for this disease; it is not good or bad or right or wrong, it is simply the normal pathology of the disease. No one is guilty for being abusive."

He keeps expounding on this idea that nothing we ever do is bad or wrong, it’s part of humanities disease.

At this point I was about to abandon the book for good because he was just making me mad…then he made some good points.

He gave the parable of the Magical Kitchen. It basically says – Imagine you have a magic kitchen that makes anything and everything you want, whenever you want it. Someone comes to your door and offers you a pizza, but you have to work for him the rest of the day. Of course you would say no, you can have that pizza or better for free, so why get it from someone else who expects something in return? Then imagine you haven’t eaten for days. You have no money and no food, and someone makes you the same offer. You may accept. Each day you are offered pizza if you will do what he says for the rest of the day. Soon you become dependent on the Pizza, you have to keep working for it. You fear the Pizza giver might leave one day, or not return…then you’d starve to death. You become possessive, desperate, and willing to do anything to keep the Pizza giver coming.
This is how we are with Happiness and Love. When we love others completely and absolutely, we are completely full of happiness. No one can offer us more happiness or love…we already have all we need, and we can share with everyone else…forever! We will never run out. But when we feel like we have no love, no happiness, and someone offers us a sliver, we jump at it. We take whatever we can get, no matter the price. We enter into terrible relationships simply because we have no love for others, no love for ourselves, and we need someone else to give it to us. As he states:

“Happiness never comes from outside of us.”

“If happiness can only come from inside of you and is the result of your love; you are responsible for your happiness.”

“When we love, we don’t have expectations, we do it because we want to, and if other people do it or not, it’s because they want to or not and it’s nothing personal.”

“The only way to master love is to practice love. You don’t need to justify your love, you don’t need to explain your love; you just need to practice your love.”

This is when I started to like the book. He was writing truth, and it was truth people need.

The next quotes about relationships and finding “the right one” were quite poignant.

“I can tell you that the right woman for you is the one you love just the way she is, the woman you don’t have the need to change at all…you are lucky if you find the right woman for you, and at the same time you are the right man for her.”

“You know the kind of man or woman that you want? The one that makes your heart sing, the one is aligned with the way you are, the one who loves you just as you are. Why set yourself up for something else? Why not get what you want? Why pretend to make someone fit what she is not?”

“When you buy something you don’t need, it ends up in the garbage. It’s the same in a relationship.”

“If you cannot love your partner the way she is, someone else can love her just as she is. Don’t waste your time, and don’t waste your partner’s time. This is respect.”

“You take care of your half of the relationship. The other half is not your problem.”

Then he made a quote that made me perturbed again.

“We learn to pretend to be what we are not”

We often practice to become something we are not. We want to be an athlete, or a scholar, or religious, or a good dresser. I do see people being false when they are trying to go against their beliefs, who they really are. But I see nothing wrong with learning new things and becoming things we weren’t before. Guess what, I’m a lot of things I wasn’t when I was a child…because I practiced. For example. My sister told me once she needed to stop acting like she was Hispanic, because she’s not. She was dating a guy from Columbia at the time. Well now they are married, and she is working diligently to learn Spanish. She will never be “Hispanic” by blood, but she can learn their language and appreciate their culture, food, and customs. This is not pretending to be something you are not. It is learning, expanding your horizons. So he has a point, but it shouldn’t be portrayed as an entirely negative thing.

"There’s no problem with being gorgeous. If you walk through a crowd of people and they tell you “Oh, you are beautiful.” You can say “Thank you, I know,” and keep going. It doesn’t make any difference to you. But it will make a difference if you don’t believe that you are beautiful and someone tells you that. Then you are going to say “Am I really?” This opinion can impress you, and, of course, that makes you easy prey."

Beauty and perception are one and the same. It can control us, or be our greatest asset.

"You will forgive them not because they deserve to be forgiven, but because you don’t want to suffer and hurt yourself every time you remember what they did to you."

Forgiveness is not for the offender, it is for the offended.

"You have a limit to the amount of abuse you will accept, but no one in the whole world abuses you more than you abuse yourself. The limit of your self abuse is the limit you will tolerate from other people. If someone abuses you more than you abuse yourself, you will walk away, you run, you escape."

This one made me think for a very long time – is that how we determine what abuse we’ll take…how bad we think we are???

"Whatever is not true will not survive skepticism, but the truth will always survive skepticism."

Unfortunately this one was wrong. Like Harry S. Truman said: “You can accomplish anything in life, provided that you do not mind who gets the credit.”

Book Review: The Basic Works of Cicero

I read this book as a sort of homage to John Adams. John Adams loved Cicero, and almost always had one of his books with him. He read Cicero so much that his son also started reading his writings. Later in life John Quincy Adams said:

“To live without having a Cicero and a Tacitus at hand seems to me as if it was aprivation of one of my limbs.”

Cicero was a lawyer by training, a philosopher by theory, a statesman by profession, a republican by heart. He refused to take part in any system or portion of government that threatened the republic. At one point he discovered a plot to overthrow the republic (and assassinate him) by a man named Catiline. He proceeded to give four speeches which drove Catiline and his conspirators from the city. Cicero later had them all executed without trial. He spent many years in exile for executing men without a trial, and spent much of that time writing. Here are quotes I have gleaned from his writing, with my thoughts and impressions on a few.

Quotations from Cicero

The most criminal injustice is that of the hypocrite who hides an act of treachery under the cloak of virtue.

It is always bad when we find out someone has been treacherous; or done something evil and destructive. It is so much worse when they covered it up by making it seem like they did it to be virtuous.

If we harm one man in order to be liberal to another we are quite as unjust as if we were to appropriate our neighbor's goods. Many men, however, especially if they are ambitious of honor and glory, lavish on one the spoils of another, expecting to obtain credit as benefactors, if only they enrich their friends by fair means or by foul. Such conduct is absolutely opposed to duty.

This is basically how I view much of politics today. Those who govern don’t create or earn the wealth they distribute. They tax one group and give it to another, then claim “look how many people I’ve helped, or fed, or housed.” They did nothing. It wasn’t their money. They took from one and gave it to another. It’s worse when they give the money to their friends only, or give it to a group to keep their elected position, or to shore up support.

When good men of like character are joined in friendship, there we find the noblest and the strongest union.

I think this is why John Adams and Thomas Jefferson reformed their friendship after a decade of silence. They were good men of like character working toward something great. And that union could be hindered, but not broken.

Whatever we undertake, the most thorough preparation is necessary.

Like the Boy Scouts say “Be Prepared.” I have found that most great events, speeches, shows, concerts, presentations, meetings, reunions, lectures, interviews etc…Spent 95% of the time in planning and preparation, and 5% in the actual event.

There are actually men who through fear of unpopularity will not dare express their opinions, however excellent.

I think this is the effect of political pundits and minority groups. People are afraid to express their opinions. Whatever they say, someone won’t like it. Someone will be intolerant of it, feel slighted or threatened by it…and there will be a pundit to give them a national voice. The excellent opinion will be overrun be negative media, and the author of the idea will be left in ruin.

There is nothing more deplorable than the passion for popularity and the struggle for office.

Just watch an election cycle. I lived in Iowa during the 2008 election cycle….and all I can say is WOW. I have never seen so much excess and waste. I was especially impressed when a candidate was asked to speak for 1 hour about his health care plan…so he told us how much he hated the last president of the opposing party for 1½ hours.

It is above all in the height of our success that we should consult our friends and bow to their authority. At such a season too it is well to beware of the flatterer and close our ears to his seductive words. We are all so well pleased with ourselves that we accept praise as our due; hence the countless blunders of men who, puffed up with vanity, fall a prey to the greatest delusions and bring upon themselves contempt and ridicule.

There are plenty of people who will tell you what you want to hear once your rich and powerful…listen to the people whose opinion mattered back when you were poor and unknown.

It would be inconsistent to master fear but be mastered by desire, to conquer hardship but be conquered by pleasure.

The distinctive faculty of man is his eager desire to investigate truth. Thus, when free from pressing duties and cares, we are eager to see or hear, or learn something new, and we think our happiness incomplete unless we study the mysteries and the marvels of the universe.

What is true, simple and pure is most in harmony with human nature.

A well constituted character will bow to no authority but that of a master or a just and legitimate ruler who aims at the public good.

Honour I say, though praised by no one, is praiseworthy in itself.

It is chiefly for the purpose of satisfying some desire that men commit an injury; and the commonest motive is the love of money.

In neglecting the duty of defending others, men are influenced by various motives. They are reluctant to make enemies: they grudge the trouble and expense; they are deterred by indifference, indolence, and apathy ; or they are so fettered by their own pursuits and occupations as to abandon those whom it is their duty to protect.

We should carefully weigh the merits of those whom we intend to benefit. Let us look to the character of the recipient, his disposition toward us…

For men are most eager to serve one from whom they expect the greatest reward even though he needs no help.

Physicians, generals, and orators, however proficient in the rules of their art, achieve no great success unless they unite theory with practice.

Fortitude has two characteristics. The first is indifference to outward circumstances. It is founded on the conviction that nothing is worthy of the admiration, the desire, or the effort of man except what is honourable and decorous and that he must surrender neither to his fellow-men, to passion, nor to fortune. The second, the natural outcome of this moral temperament, is the ability to perform actions which are not only great and useful, but arduous, laborious, and fraught with danger to life and all that makes life worth living.

That moral dignity, which we find in a noble and lofty spirit, depends, it is true, on force of mind, not on bodily strength; yet we must so train and school the body that it may obey our judgment and reason.

The government of a country resembles the charge of a minor. It must be conducted for the advantage of the governed, not the governors.

Above all, when we inflict punishment, let us put away anger; he who approaches the task in an angry spirit will never observe the happy mean between excess and defect.

When fortune smiles and everything is going to our heart’s desire, it is our duty to abstain from pride, disdain and arrogance.

As bodily beauty attracts the eye by the symmetry of the limbs and charms us by the graceful harmony of all the parts, so the decorum which shines in our conduct engages the esteem of society by the order, consistency and restraint which it imposes on all our words and deeds.

The soul is swayed by two forces; the one is appetite, called by the Greeks Horme, which hurries us this way and that, the other Reason, which teaches us what to do and what to avoid. It follows that reason must command and appetite obey.

Even in a jest there should be some spark of virtue. Jests are of two kinds: some are low, wanton, wicked obscene; others elegant, polished, graceful.

PLATO - “Knowledge without justice is to be accounted cunning rather than wisdom, and even intrepidity, if prompted by personal ambition, and not by public spirit, does not deserve the name of fortitude : audacity is its name"

Book Review: The Scarlet Letter

By no means, am I a literary scholar…and reading this book reinforced that. I didn’t enjoy reading it. I found it to be boring. It goes on and on about useless details and unimportant narratives (this coming from a guy who loves long-winded Les Miserables)

With that said – there are valuable lessons and intriguing ideas within its pages, if you can take the time to find them. Once I stopped to think about the topics, I had some wonderful insights, and thought it was a pretty good story. But that’s only after I stopped reading it and took time to reflect.

I am coming to find that sometimes that’s what “classic literature” means. There are some great things to be learned, but you have to have the tenacity to get through the boring parts in order to find them. Only those with determination will be granted the reward. Well, in this case, I don’t yet know if the reward was worth the effort, but here are some thoughts.

I do appreciate the fact that the book points out the seriousness of adultery. Our culture today is so flippant and non-chalant about morals, that it is refreshing to see a story which treats it with gravity.

Here are a few quotes and I my insights concerning them:

“There are few things,—whether in the outward world, or, to a certain depth, in the invisible sphere of thought,—few things hidden from the man, who devotes himself earnestly and unreservedly to the solution of a mystery.”

I find this to be very true. When someone dedicates themselves to discovering the answer to a mystery, it is nearly impossible to stop its discovery. In this case, it was to the destruction and ruin of the husband, who could never forgive or forget.

“The spot never grew callous; it seemed, on the contrary, to grow more sensitive with daily torture.”

Time does not erase sin. Sometimes we can stop thinking about it as often, or justify it, but time alone does not heal the wound. There needs to be something more.

“Trusting no man as his friend, he could not recognize his enemy when the latter actually appeared.”

If we don’t have friends, how will we know our enemies? We must know good to recognize evil. It’s like knowing something is counterfeit. The way to know something is a counterfeit is not to study it, but to study the original. If we study the truth, the lies stand out. If we make true friendships, we recognize the false ones.

“They shrink from displaying themselves black and filthy in the view of men; because, thenceforward, no good can be achieved by them; no evil of the past be redeemed by better service. So, to their own unutterable torment, they go about among their fellow-creatures, looking pure as new-fallen snow; while their hearts are all speckled and spotted with iniquity of which they cannot rid themselves.”

Are any of our leaders perfect? Are any of them as good as we hope them to be? I would guess there are very few. Everyone has made mistakes. Everyone is ashamed. Does it mean they can never do good again? I don’t think so. I don’t think errors should be made public knowledge, but neither to I think its fine to hide them away like they didn’t happen. They should be dealt with - apologies made, restitution made, forgiveness granted, and second chances afforded.

“I your pastor, whom you so reverence and trust, am utterly a pollution and a lie!”

The better we get, the worse we realize we were, and the worse we feel for our prior sins and errors.

“She had not known the weight until she felt the freedom.”

Sometimes we don’t know how much the sin has changed us and weighed us down, until we are free of it. Only once we are free do we see the degree of our captivity.

“No man for any considerable period can wear one face to himself and another to the multitude, without finally getting bewildered as to which may be the true.”

“In our nature, however, there is a provision, alike marvelous and merciful, that the sufferer should never know the intensity of what he endures by its present torture, but chiefly by the pang that rankles after it.”

"A bodily disease, which we look upon as whole and entire within itself, may, after all, be but a symptom of some ailment in the spiritual part."

“To say the truth, there was much need of professional assistance, not merely for Hester herself, but still more urgently for the child; who, drawing its sustenance from the maternal bosom, seemed to have drank in with it all the turmoil, the anguish, and despair, which pervaded the mother's system. It now writhed in convulsions of pain, and was a forcible type, in its little frame, of the moral agony which Hester Prynne had borne throughout the day.”

Happy Independence Day

I only wish our congress today could be this bold, this straight forward, and that in unanimous vote they could also pledge to each other "our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor." It seems we are all too busy trying to get ahead, blame the other side, and shore up our position; rather than figure out what's wrong, and in unity correct it.

IN CONGRESS, JULY 4, 1776
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America

When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected, whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to complete the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these united Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States, that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. — And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.

Book Review: Jekyll and Hyde

This was an intriguing book for many reasons. First of all, it is a literary classic. The story has been told and retold in books, movies, comics, plays, musicals, poems, songs, etc…

It begs the question we as humans ask about man’s nature; which Dr. Jekyll answered thus –

“That man is not truly one, but truly two.”

The original story by Stevenson does not have a romantic moment in the entire text. There is no love interest; Jekyll does not have one woman and Hyde another. It is also interesting to note that Hyde is not a large or beastly man. He is smaller than Jekyll, so much smaller that he can’t wear Jekyll’s clothing, and has to have his own wardrobe.

“The evil side of my nature, to which I had now transferred the stamping efficacy, was less robust and less developed than the good which I had just deposed. Again, in the course of my life, which had been, after all, nine tenths a life of effort, virtue and control, it had been much less exercised and much less exhausted. And hence, as I think, it came about that Edward Hyde was so much smaller, slighter and younger than Henry Jekyll.”

Jekyll, like all men, was not perfect, but he tried to be. There was a part of him that was evil, or gave in to evil tendencies, and desires. He lived a generally good and upright life, until he decided that he had to find a way to give into these desires. But he didn’t want to feel the shame, the guilt that goes with living a duplicitous life. So he had to dissociate the two.

"If each, I told myself, could but be housed in separate identities, life would be relieved of all that was unbearable; the unjust might go his way, delivered from the aspirations and remorse of his more upright twin; and the just could walk steadfastly and securely on his upward path, doing the good things in which he found his pleasure, and no longer exposed to disgrace and penitence by the hands of this extraneous evil"

Jekyll thought he had found the perfect out. He could do all his evil deeds and give in to all his desires, and feel no regret because it was Edward Hyde that had done them, and Henry Jekyll could continue as an upstanding member of society.

Too late did he learn that you can’t give yourself over to evil without being changed, and without the evil growing. When he describes his feelings when he transformed and committed murder he states:

“But I had voluntarily stripped myself of all those balancing instincts by which even the worst of us continues to walk with some degree of steadiness among temptations; and in my case, to be tempted, however slightly, was to fall.
Instantly the spirit of hell awoke in me and raged. With a transport of glee, I mauled the unresisting body, tasting delight from every blow.”

The first time Dr. Jekyll was transformed there was immense pain and anguish, but now:

“The pangs of transformation grew daily less marked”

And I think that is the moral of the story – at least it’s what I got out of it. Yes, there is evil in everyone. But it is a small and a weak thing. It is younger and weaker than our good upstanding selves. The guilt we feel for giving in is a good thing, when the guilt is gone is when we REALLY have to worry. The more often we give in, the less it hurts, and the less control we have to be our good selves. Eventually, if we give in enough, we will lose all control, and all that was good in us will be overthrown; because we let it happen…little by little…day by day.

Book Review: The Audacity of Hope

This book was hard for me. I was an avid opponent of Barack Obama during the campaigns. (I was an even bigger opponent of Joe Biden, but I’ll discuss that later.)

As I read his book written when he was a U.S. Senator from Illinois, I couldn’t help but connect with him. The more I read the more I realized why he was so popular. He’s a very likable guy. He is also a wonderful orator (I first listened to the book on CD before reading it). As he discussed the evils of bipartisan politics I totally agreed with him. He mourned the difficulties and hardships his family had to endure during his career. He spoke of the dishonesty in politics and the need for change. One of my favorite quotes was:

“I wish the country had fewer lawyers and more engineers.”

Some things he spoke of I agreed with and found rather humorous, such as:

“When I see Ann Coulter or Sean Hannity baying across the television screen, I find it hard to take them seriously; I assume that they must be saying what they do primarily to boost book sales or ratings, although I do wonder who would spend their precious evenings with such sourpusses.”

Some things were surprising to see admitted by a politician:

“I also think my party can be smug, detached, and dogmatic at times.”

“Politics today is a business and not a mission, and what passes for debate is little more than spectacle.”

It was shocking to see how much money is needed for a successful campaign, even a local or state campaign. It’s simply ridiculous. How I wish it could be like the days of John Adams when he never solicited a single vote, kissed a single baby, or spoke at a single rally. He let his name speak for itself. Those times are gone, but the longing for them is not.

As a conservative, I found myself noting the passages in his book where he was hypocritical. I laughed sometimes at what he wrote and scorned in his book, because he has since become the object of his own scorn.

Example 1:
He discusses the time when the republicans were trying to get appellate court judges appointed, and the democrats in congress were holding them up. The republicans threatened to use a few tactics to which he said:

“Still, I remember muffling a laugh the first time I heard the term ‘nuclear option.”

I find this funny since that’s exactly what happened recently with the democrats in power and their tactics to pass the health care bill.

Example 2:
He mentions his first meeting with Senator Robert Carlyle Byrd, and mentions the great advice he was given:

“He told me I would do well in the Senate but that I shouldn’t be in too much of a rush – so many senators today become fixated on the White House, not understanding that in the constitutional design it was the Senate that was supreme, the heart and soul of the Republic.”

Once again, I find this funny since he spent only ½ of a term in the senate, and resigned in order to run for President.

My end impression is that he has changed with time. He was always liberal, and will likely never change from his core beliefs. Even though I vehemently disagree with his positions, I can respect a decent and honest man fighting for what he believes in.

My question is now – What is he fighting for? Is it what he believes in, or what he’s told to believe in?

I think President Obama is a good loving father and husband. He is religious, he is educated, and he works harder than the average American. He is very engaging, has a sense of humor, and I would love to have dinner with him and chat. It would be a priceless experience.

He mentions in his book how he knows he has changed. The further you get in politics the easier it is to take the private jet, and accept the big check from the interest group. It’s so much easier than going door to door and driving hours in your car to solicit small donations from individual citizens. I understand the reason politicians change, it’s very hard not to. Unfortunately I believe this hard working man of ideals has let himself go to party politics.

I can’t say I wouldn’t do the same thing – but that’s why I’m not a politician.


Here are some of my favorite quotations from his book:

“I exercised and read novels, and came to appreciate how the earth rotated around the sun and the seasons came and went without any particular exertions on my part.”

“Whether people were friendly, indifferent, or occasionally hostile, I tried my best to keep my mouth shut, and hear what they had to say.”

“Whether we’re from red states or blue states, we feel in our gut the lack of honesty, rigor, and common sense in our policy debates, and dislike what appears to be a continuous menu of false or cramped choices.”

“I also think my party can be smug, detached, and dogmatic at times.”

“I wish the country had fewer lawyers and more engineers.”

“When I see Ann Coulter or Sean Hannity baying across the television screen, I find it hard to take them seriously; I assume that they must be saying what they do primarily to boost book sales or ratings, although I do wonder who would spend their precious evenings with such sourpusses.”

“What’s troubling is the gap between the magnitude of our challenges and the smallness of our politics – the ease with which we are distracted by the petty and trivial, our chronic avoidance of tough decisions, our seeming inability to build a working consensus to tackle any big problem.”

“Democrats aren’t happy with the current situation, since for the moment at least they are on the losing side, dominated by republicans who, thanks to winner take all elections, control every branch of government and feel no need to compromise.”

Speaking of political parties –
“Their purpose is not to persuade the other side but to keep their bases agitated and assured of the rightness of their respective causes – and lure just enough new adherents to beat the other side into submission.”

“Politics today is a business and not a mission, and what passes for debate is little more than spectacle.”

Speaking of his college days –
“I stopped thinking and slipped into cant; the point at which denunciation of capitalism and American imperialism came too easily, and the freedom from the constraints of monogamy and religion was proclaimed without fully understanding the value of such constraints, and the role of victim was too readily embraced as a means of shedding responsibility, or asserting entitlement, or claiming moral superiority over those not so victimized.”

“After Reagan the lines between Republican and Democrat, liberal and conservative, would be drawn in more sharp ideological terms.”

“I am convinced that whenever we exaggerate or demonize, oversimplify or overstate our case, we lose.”

“Spend time actually talking to Americans, and you discover that most evangelicals are more tolerant than the media would have us believe, most secularists are more spiritual. Most rich people want the poor to succeed, and most of the poor are both more self-critical and hold higher aspirations than the popular culture allows.”

Speaking of “the values of self-reliance and self-improvement and risk-taking. The values of drive, discipline, temperance, and hard work. The values of thrift and personal responsibility.”
“These values are rooted in a basic optimism about life and a faith in free will – a confidence that through pluck and sweat and smarts, each of us can rise above the circumstances of our birth.”

“I offered the further observation that a popular show targeted at teens, in which young people with no visible means of support spend several months getting drunk and jumping naked into hot tubs with strangers, was not ‘the real world.’”

“We long for that most elusive quality in our leaders – the quality of authenticity, of being who you say you are, of possessing a truthfulness that goes beyond words.”

“No one is exempt from the call to find common ground.”

“For in the end laws are just words on a page – words that are sometimes malleable, opaque, as dependent on context and trust as they are in a story or poem or promise to someone, words whose meaning are subject to erosion, sometimes collapsing in the blink of an eye.”

“Still, I remember muffling a laugh the first time I heard the term ‘nuclear option.”

“I doubted that our use of the filibuster would dispel the image of democrats always being on the defensive – a perception that we used the courts and lawyers and procedural tricks to avoid having to win over popular opinion.”

“What the framework of our Constitution can do is…force us into a conversation, a “deliberative democracy” in which all citizens are required to engage in a process of testing their ideas against an external reality, persuading others to their point of view, and building shifting alliances of consent.”

“Whether we are for or against affirmative action, for or against prayer in schools, we must test out our ideals, vision, and values against the realities of a common life, so that over time they may be refined, discarded, or replaced by new ideals, sharper visions, deeper values. Indeed, it is that process, according to Madison, that brought about the Constitution itself.”

“It is an American tradition to attribute the problems with our politics to the quality of our politicians.”

“What every Senator understands is that while it’s easy to make a vote on a complicated piece of legislation look evil and depraved in a thirty-second television commercial, it’s very hard to explain the wisdom of that same vote in less than twenty minutes.”

SENATOR ROBERT CARLYLE BYRD:
“He told me I would do well in the Senate but that I shouldn’t be in too much of a rush – so many senators today become fixated on the White House, not understanding that in the constitutional design it was the Senate that was supreme, the heart and soul of the Republic.”

SENATOR DANIEL PATRICK MOYNIHAN:
“You are entitled to your own opinion, but you are not entitled to your own facts”

RONALD REAGAN:
Government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.”

MARTIN LUTHER KING JR:
"It may be true that the law cannot make a man love me, but it can keep him from lynching me, and I think that's pretty important."

The Forgotten Amendments

How did our Federal Government get so big? It’s unconstitutional…literally!

The Constitution of the United States – when’s the last time you read it? I admit that until last night, I’m not sure I had ever read the whole thing. I’m sure I read a few little parts in grade school, and I probably read more in High School while taking the class “American Government,” but I’m still not sure I ever read the whole thing.

While reading it last night, I was literally surprised. There were so many things in there I had never known. When I read the 9th amendment, I suddenly had a flashback to my favorite T.V. show.

My favorite show for years has been “The West Wing.” And one of my favorite episodes concerns the Bill of Rights. In this particular episode the white House staffers are trying to determine the best nominee for the Supreme Court. They have one main concern; the current front-runner (Judge Harrison) doesn’t believe in the right to privacy.

The judge states “Judges are bound to interpret the Constitution within the strict parameters of the text itself. The Constitution doesn’t provide for a right of privacy. The right doesn’t exist.”

A white house staffer states that the 3rd, 4th, and 5th amendments all guarantee privacy – soldiers can’t be quartered in private homes, we are free from unreasonable search and seizure, and from self-incrimination. Doesn’t the right to Privacy live in those passages?

The judge replies “the fact that the framers enumerated those specific protections is all the more reason to believe that they had no intention of making privacy a de facto right.”

Then comes my favorite quote from the white house staffer. “In 1787, there was a sizable block of delegates who were initially opposed to the Bill of Rights. One member of the Georgia delegation had to say by way of opposition: “If we list the set of rights, some fools in the future are going to claim that people are entitled only to those rights enumerated”

Well the judge gets mad about being called a fool by the staffer (and by the state of Georgia,) and they end up appointing another judge to the Supreme Court – but my point is that last quote. I thought it was genius. I started searching for this delegate from Georgia who had talked about “some fools in the future.” I searched high and low until I discovered – it never happened. Aaron Sorkin – the creator of “The West Wing” - made it up. I thought to myself; that’s so sad, it was such a great quote. That’s because it was written for Hollywood. It sounds great as a punch line, because that’s what it was written for.

I forgot about it until last night. I was reading the Constitution. To my surprise I came across almost the exact same phrase right there in the constitution itself, without the “fools” part.

It’s called the 9th amendment:

“The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.”

There it is, plain as day. Just because the right isn’t in the constitution, doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. I was even more amazed when I read the 10th amendment:

“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.”

Right there it says (in essence) – If we haven’t given a power to the Federal government, or specifically taken it away from the states – then the power belongs to the states and the people.

HOLY COW! I just read the constitution, and guess what I never found – about 90% of all the things the Federal Government is involved in – aren’t there. They are taking powers that are not given to them, and according to the Constitution – that’s illegal. Most recently I am thinking of the huge health care bill that was passed by the Democrats. Whether you think it’s good or bad – there is nothing in the constitution that gives that right to the federal government. The states should decide! Massachusetts did; and they have mandatory health insurance coverage – they required it by law. Because the STATE has that right, not the federal government. I could sit here and type for weeks about things the federal government is involved in that are not listed in the constitution. The framers said explicitly that if they didn’t list a specific right of the citizens – the right still existed. If they didn’t list a power given to the federal government – it DID NOT exist, and was reserved for the States and the people.

For those of you who think I must be ridiculously bored to read the Constitution, it takes about 1 hour. The document is not very long, and it’s written it fairly plain language. It is beautiful in its simplicity.

If only our citizens ever read it – they would be shocked at how much of it is being ignored every day.