Quote for the day

“To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket- safe, dark, motionless, airless--it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable.”

- C.S. Lewis

10 easy steps to create an enemy and start a war:
Listen closely because we will all see this weapon used in our lives.
It can be used on a society of the most ignorant to the most highly educated.
We need to see their tactics as a weapon against humanity and not as truth.

First step: create the enemy. Sometimes this will be done for you.

Second step: be sure the enemy you have chosen is nothing like you.
Find obvious differences like race, language, religion, dietary habits
fashion. Emphasize that their soldiers are not doing a job,
they are heartless murderers who enjoy killing!

Third step: Once these differences are established continue to reinforce them
with all disseminated information.

Fourth step: Have the media broadcast only the ruling party's information
this can be done through state run media.
Remember, in times of conflict all for-profit media repeats the ruling party's information.
Therefore all for-profit media becomes state-run.

Fifth step: show this enemy in actions that seem strange, militant, or different.
Always portray the enemy as non-human, evil, a killing machine.

[Chorus:]
THIS IS HOW TO CREATE AN ENEMY. THIS IS HOW TO START A WAR.
THIS IS HOW TO CREATE AN ENEMY.

Sixth step: Eliminate opposition to the ruling party.
Create an "Us versus Them" mentality. Leave no room for opinions in between.
One that does not support all actions of the ruling party should be considered a traitor.

Seventh step: Use nationalistic and/or religious symbols and rhetoric to define all actions.
This can be achieved by slogans such as "freedom loving people versus those who hate freedom."
This can also be achieved by the use of flags.

Eighth step: Align all actions with the dominant deity.
It is very effective to use terms like, "It is god's will" or "god bless our nation."

Ninth step: Design propaganda to show that your soldiers
have feelings, hopes, families, and loved ones.
Make it clear that your soldiers are doing a duty; they do not want or like to kill.

Tenth step: Create and atmosphere of fear, and instability
and then offer the ruling party as the only solutions to comfort the public's fears.
Remembering the fear of the unknown is always the strongest fear.

[Chorus (repeat)]

We are not countries. We are not nations. We are not religions.
We are not gods. We are not weapons. We are not ammunition. We are not killers.
We will NOT be tools.

............
I will not die
I will not kill
I will not be your slave
I will not fight your battle
I will not die on your battlefield
I will not fight for your wealth
I am not a fighter
I am a human being!!!

-Anti-Flag Anatomy of your enemy(slightly edited)

Vote "Doty Bear" or "Doty the Fox"

Quote for the day

"God is cruel. Sometimes he makes you live."
-Stephen King

It's a stingray migration. Isn't that cool?

Chosen silence

Henry David Thoreau once said, which I have always loved,: "The mass of men live lives of quiet desperation." Signifying mankinds dead faith due to their fears. They want better, they dream of better, and yet they don't do better. They fear the better because it is new. Change, in reality, is what they fear. They get comfortable in their current life and circumstances. It has become easy for them. Almost no work is required for them. A step forward would be a step towards change. Circumstances with change, new challenges would arise, unseen consequences would present themselves. "Why deal with such things, when I am so comfortable now?," says they. Who said that comfort was the object of life? And how long will that comfort last when the only consistent thing in this life is change? Those who delay change place themselves behind the rest of the world on the chain of life. And when some small thing happens to our world, it is those who are at the end who receive the hardest shock. Those who quietly and consistently move forward, in the correct direction, are like those in the front of the chain. The whip does not hurt them, they are used to change. They have been working to get to that point, that is where they wanted to be. And thus, living lives of "quiet desperation" is harder than living a hard, challenging life. The only thing harder than quietly living, is when we are called on to be desperate. All with sufficient faith desire to move forward and diligently do. They desperately try to work for and desire the things that the Lord wants for them. They seek after his will and desire to do it. God wants no man to live in fear of the future or that from his past. God wants no man to stop in his progression towards worthy and holy goals. That path, however, is unknown to most of us. Rarely are we given the path to take as much as we are given the assurance to take the next step forward. But when a change comes along in that path, more often than we would probably like, we are called on to stop. We are called on to willingly stop ourselves in our progression. The reason is rarely given. This creates a sense of desperation from our lifeless progression that we once had. It causes us to ask questions. The type of questions we ask determine our character. Those who lack sufficient faith in their God, murmur, and murmur as to why God would take them out of their comfortableness. As Neal A. Maxwell once said, "Like goldfish in a bowl, some are mindless of who changes the water and puts in the pellets, or, like a kindergarten child whose retrieving parent seems a little late, concluding, 'Man is alone in the universe.'" Those of us who weren't that comfortable anyways, welcome the change and understand our feelings of desperation. But, in response, we choose to quietly serve our time in desperation. We do so with the understanding that God loves us and wants us to learn and grow. More often than not, we are stopped because a new path must present itself. We don't choose which path is presented to us, we only choose if we will walk that path or to walk another and think silently back to what "might have been." Often, time is required for the path to be prepared. Sometimes, we might come to find that the new path is the same path as before, that it is not the path that has changed, it is us. We may be more appreciative of the path, or grown in some other way in our silent, but educating down time. Desperation is not an ungodly quality. Think of how many people there are in this world who care not to speak to their loving Heavenly Father, or to do the things that will make them happy. How desperate do you think God is to get His children to walk forward on the paths that he spent so much time preparing for them? How desperate do you think He is to get His children to walk away from their comfort and use the talents that He gave them? How Desperate do you think He is for you to reach that point were he can present change in your life, so that the unavoidable change doesn't give you whiplash at the bottom of the chain. It is not bad to feel desperate, only when it comes in response to the question of "what might have been?" And when we are called upon to be desperate, it is those that are quiet that I admire. They reflect to me better faith and better understanding than anyone who finds there way out of any desperate situation into situations of comfortableness. Henry David Thoreau spent much time out of his comfort zone and what he called an "experiment." He spoke of working towards our dreams. I will add an opinion of what he meant by "dreams." God wants you to be successful, God wants you to make a difference in this world. You were not born to be mediocre. Light does not shine at the bottom of the chain, it shines at the top. Those who make the most difference in this world are those who are the most uncomfortable, and quietly await with the excitement, or perhaps desperation, for their next uncomfortable adventure.

"I learned this, at least, by my experiment; that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours. He will put some things behind, will pass an invisible boundary; new, universal, and more liberal laws will begin to establish themselves around and within him; or the old laws be expanded, and interpreted in his favor in a more liberal sense, and he will live with the license of a higher order of beings. In proportion as he simplifies his life, the laws of the universe will appear less complex, and solitude will not be solitude, nor poverty poverty, nor weakness weakness.
If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them."
-Henry David Thoreau "Walden" chapter 18

"The mass of men live lives of quiet desperation." And of later he said, "and go to the grave with the song still in them."

If we pursue the Lord's will with patience, although there may be times when we were both quiet and desperate, and will probably still go to the grave with a song still in us, we will go having sung many songs in this world. And been desperately trying to perfect this new one.