Mindconnection eNL, 2010-08-01

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Recently, I watched a video documentary called "Voices of Civil Rights." Something that struck me was the persistent use of "states rights" as an excuse to egregiously violate the civil rights of American citizens and to do so on a massive scale. Let's examine that for a moment.

The concept of "states rights" sounds pretty good. The people who originally used this (the Jeffersonians) defended liberty. The Hamiltonians, who wanted strong central control, also used this as in "we don't believe in states rights."

But in the 1950s and 1960s, this phrase was code for "racial hatred," "segregation," and an entire range of unbelievably immoral and stupid behavior. In reality, the rights of states were not involved and were not at issue. Why is this? Well, no state has the "right" to deny any citizen the freedoms spelled out in the US Constitution. Nor does it have the "right" to deny an entire class of citizens their basic human rights. In other words, there is absolutely no relationship between "states rights" and racial discrimination.

Mississippi also had a State Sovereignty Board. This also sounds kind of good, but if you stop think about it the idea is nonsensical. The 50 states are not truly sovereign, they are joined in a federal union.

But by mixing in one concept (states rights) with a second, completely unrelated concept (denying US citizens their Constitutional and human rights) a completely immoral and idiotic pattern of behavior takes on legitimacy and acceptance.

Sure, we can see it today. "What was wrong with those people?" But not so fast. The problem exists today, though the manifestations are different.

Why are so many people fooled by such trickery, even when the reality is so blatantly obvious? Lazy thinking is partly to blame. But researchers have come up with a more significant reason. It's called "cognitive dissonance." When something is strongly out of whack, our minds seek to reconcile it.

So let's say you have people acting like complete savages toward other people, based merely on some meaningless secondary physical characteristics that have nothing to do with the character or quality of the other people. This creates a conflict. How to make sense of it? Oh, it's not an issue of failing to behave in a civilized manner, it's an issue of states rights! Sure, that makes it OK.

We see the same kind of cloaking going on, today, to justify other immoral and stupid behavior. Consider the serial theft of $4 trillion, three times:

• Bill Clinton added $4 trillion to our federal debt during his 8 year reign of error (quadrupling the debt from where he started).
• Bush saddled us with another $4 trillion of debt over 8 years to "fight terrorism" even though that same misadministration actually increased IRS funding! Like fighting fire with gasoline....
• During his first 10 months in office, Obama saddled us with yet another $4 trillion in debt.

$4 trillion in damage, three Presidencies in a row, all "justified" by this same technique of word co-opting. Why weren't these people stopped? Why didn't the new records for layoffs every year, a natural consequence of carrying a growing debt, register with American voters? The plundering continued because these people used word co-opting to "justify" immoral and stupid behavior.

When people start talking about how Democrats are better than Republicans or vice-versa, I insist on seeing the mathematical theorem that shows any number does not have to be equal to itself. Perhaps I just don't understand math and the truth is that 4 does not equal 4. But I need to see the proof, because it sounds like lying to me. People accept this lie every other November, tossing away their vote by choosing between 4 and 4 instead of making an actual choice for something other than 4. Why? Cognitive dissonance, greatly affected by word co-opting.

If you pay close attention, you will begin to see word co-opting just about everywhere. I'm not saying to be cynical, but I am saying that it's important to look at the details and think about what's actually being stated or proposed.

Engaging your brainpower rather than letting other people put your brain on their autopilot via word co-opting will help you stay outside the Matrix. Take the red pill often. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5-odXzS6wTE

• Electrical contractors, whose businesses have tanked due to the AIG-engineered housing fiasco, the Obama-sponsored addition of another $4 trillion of federal debt, and other crimes.
• Consultants, who now can't get gigs because their client base can't get loans.

Also included among the "employed but not making it" are employees of the big retailers such as Wal-Mart and Walgreens. In addition to making a low hourly wage, they've had their hours cut. Wal-Mart, as is documented in "The High Cost of Low Prices," keeps many people maxed out on "part-time" status but not quite qualified for benefits as full-time. Consequently, these people apply for federal assistance (with Wal-Mart actively coaching them to get it, which means when you buy at Wal-Mart you are also paying extra taxes with every purchase to subsidize the Walton Five's unconscionable treatment of their employees).

So the real unemployment rate is far, far higher than the federal government or the mudstream media would have us believe.

What does this have to do with your finances? Quite a bit, if you are on the wrong side of that statistic. So the thing you want to do is to take steps to either getting on or staying on the better side of that statistic.

Many people think layoffs are a crapshoot or that bean counters have the final say. Neither assertion is true.

If you are in business for yourself, you know that how you treat your customers makes a big difference. This is also true if you work for someone else, but in two ways.

1. That company's customers are your customers. The better your company does, the less likely layoffs will be.
2. That company is your customer. How your boss and the managers above your boss perceive the value and experience of buying your services has a huge bearing on whether your name gets put on the layoff list (or removed from if, if a bean counter puts it on there).

What is the single most important thing you can to do protect your source of income? Have passion about what you do. It will show in everything you do, and it will open new opportunities for you.

Nobody likes being around a sourpuss, but simply biting your tongue isn't enough. Decision-makers want to surround themselves with people who truly care about what they do. This doesn't mean you have to act like you're high on something and take on a saccharine attitude. It means you need to treat the job with the importance it deserves. And if you can't do that because you just don't like what you're doing, then you need to find something else to do. Seek it out, before the hammer falls.

What if you really hate what you do and have not yet landed a job (or started a business) doing what you really want to do? This is the case with many people, today. While you may not be able to generate the highest degree of inner passion and zeal, you can still be a long way from having a robotic, defeated attitude.

If you took a job as a floor sweeper, just so you could avoid being tossed out on the street, don't mope about it. Determine you will be the best floor sweeper the company has ever had. Maybe you can't generate true passion for this job, but the right attitude can keep it from being a dead end job. The right attitude opens doors so you can get the work you're truly passionate about.

Having real passion about what we do provides many benefits. People who choose money over passion find they can never make enough money. They also find many doors closing to them, and eventually they find themselves on the outside looking in--and not just jobwise.

Being passionate about what you do won't necessarily ensure your sound financial future. But it is the single most potent tool for doing so. If you're not excited about starting each day, work on that.

I can't get a tan, and do get sunburn after very short exposure. I get sunburn even through clothing. Yet, I hardly use any sunscreen (a small tube will last me multiple years).

Despite hardly using any sunscreen, it's rare that I get an even mild sunburn and that's not from being inside. In fact, I'm outside for a total of maybe 10 hours a week. I do gardening and yard work regularly.

How am I protecting myself? My first line of defense is to avoid being outside between 1000 and 1500 (this is the time of day when pollen is high; it is also a time of day with intense sunlight). When I am outside, I try to be in shade. I also wear a wide-rimmed hat if I expect much "sunlight time."

The wide-rimmed hat isn't "in style" today, ball caps are. But being in style isn't necessarily dressing smart.

About 100 days before age 50

• If you look at footage from the Vietnam War era, you'll notice the Vietnamese are wearing wide-rimmed hats.
• Watch any cowboy movie. Notice something? They are wearing wide-rimmed hats.
• Look at pictures of ancient China, and you'll see the ubiquitous wide-rimmed hat.
• And we all know the Mexican sombrero is a wide-rimmed hat.

There are many good reasons for wearing a wide-rimmed hat. One reason is such a hat shades your face, keeping it younger looking. It also shades your neck, preventing "redneck."

Now, you might feel silly wearing a hat with a really wide rim. Fine. Wear one that's smaller. Experiment and find a look that works for you. Just don't use untested chemicals on your skin when something as simple as a wide-rimmed hat is a solution that has worked for billions of people for thousands of years.

Photo notes

In these photos, I was at 5.1% body fat. I dropped to 5% after the shoot and am still there several weeks later, as I write this. One reason I can be that lean is the way I have these workouts scheduled. This kind of scheduling plays off the cortisol/testosterone responses the body goes through when subjected to the kind of stress that an intense workout puts on it. It may be more accurate to say I schedule my recovery windows so they don't overlap, and thus I maximize the time during which my natural testosterone level is elevated.

Of course, eating six small meals a day and paying attention to what's in those meals is another factor in allowing a 50 year old person to be at 5% bodyfat.

At www.supplecity.com, you'll find plenty of informative, authoritative articles on maintaining a lean, strong physique. It has nothing to do with long workouts or impossible to maintain diets. In fact:

• The best workouts are short and intense.
• A good diet contains far more flavors and satisfaction than the typical American diet.

This security-enhancing shredder from Royal shreds documents into small, unreadable pieces.

It has jam-free rollers and can shred CDs, DVDs, and credit cards. Auto start/stop, reverse, wheels, LCD message display, and other features. It can shred up to 17 sheets of paper in a single pass, and, yes, it accepts staples. It has an amazingly tiny shred size of 0.16 x 1.5 in. And it's on sale now.

Why should you shred anything? See this month's security article, above.

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