A Strange Idea!

2025 Canyons Resort Drive, T-7

Park City, Utah 84098

February 10, 2010

Senator Orrin G. Hatch

104 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510

Dear Senator Hatch.

Thank you so much for your generous response to my recent letter on "emotional fascism". Following is something I wrote about a year ago during early morning musings when unable to sleep because of troubling thoughts. It is based on my engineering schooling, related to one of those laws of thermodynamics that postulates for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. It bothered me that atheistic communism had no restraining god.

Sincerely,

A Strange Idea? (1/08/10)

It occurs to me that the world may have indeed been fortunate that the leaders of the communistic Soviet Union were atheists. This permitted Mutually Assured Destruction to work in preventing atomic destruction. The cold war lasted for 50 years because there was no benefit from mutual destruction.

If Stalin had felt there was a god who would reward him in Paradise for destroying his enemies, he might very well have supported suicide atomic bombing, even with his own demise.

I find it difficult to believe that we can count on finding a way for a similar stalemate with Muslim terrorists. Self destruction (suicide bombing) while killing non-believers (who refuse to be converted) in a religious cause seems to be a positive in their march toward eternity.

cc: 8402 Federal Building

125 South State Street

Salt Lake City, UT 84138

Ted Kennedy funeral

The Kennedy family - August 29, 2009

I have just finished watching the funeral for Ted Kennedy and would like to put down some musings, even though it is not 3:00 AM when such a spirit often moves me.

How the Kennedy family achieved their wealth and prestige through the efforts of Joseph Kennedy has been criticized enough and is probably similar to the wealth accumulations of other prominent families. The succeeding generations seem more often than not to take on eleemosynary work. I don't know if there is an element of guilt involved but if there is I believe it is secondary to a belief that they have been blessed with (?) or at least given the opportunity to make a positive difference in a less-than-perfect world.

It is not surprising to me that the Kennedys will continue in public life supporting the more liberal philosophies of the Democratic party. I have sadly heard their ilk denigratingly described as "elitist or limosine liberals". I have never voted "Democratic" because I believe the first decision should be for the economic philosophy that will guide the government until the next election. Neither side of the aisle has a monopoly on concern for the people. Along with this bent comes the belief that the "Presidency makes the man"! I see this in Obama. It took a strong populist position with anti-war sentiment to get him elected. But now that Obama is our President it does not appear to me that he is totally constricted by the party that got him elected. He has to have a vision of his own that is not totally populist or "party line". I see this in effect now -- in his foreign policy when he did not immediately withdraw our troops (or shut down Gitmo) as apparently the majority of the voting public and the leaders of his party wanted. Fortunately we do not have a pure democracy where all decisions are made by majority vote of the people (a la the French Reign of Terror, as I understand it).

` The major economic decisions under consideration today will be strongly debated and Ted Kennedy's concern for the less-privileged will not be lost! I imagine most everyone heard the respectful praise from his colleagues on the other side of the aisle, for his position that more needs to be done for the less-privileged and some compromise needs to be found that does not emasculate the system that has made our country as great as it is, though not perfect.

I think it is well to keep many things in mind but as just one example of wisdom, I am impressed by the following, ascribed to a Scottish history professor at the University of Edinburgh, who had this to say about the fall of the Athenian Republic some 2,000 years earlier:

>>> "A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government. A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always vote for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse due to loose fiscal policy, which is always followed by a dictatorship.">>>

Why Life Stories? May 2010

I vaguely remember the days before the great depression, having been born in 1925. My dad was manager of a chemical plant in Nashville and while certainly comfortably well off, we were not wealthy. In 1929 we moved into a new house that my parents had built and living the American Dream with my three brothers was a reality.

My memories of the depression years are not vague, however, nor are the stories from my dad about his time in the trenches in France during the First World War. Wouldn't it be wonderful as well as educational to have a DVD in my hands today that might have been recorded before he died in 1942, to see him as well as hear him personally describe his view of life experiences 75 years or more ago?

It is nearly bewildering to think of all that has happened in my lifetime - the last 85 years - electrification everywhere, radio,World War ll, TV, plastics, MAD, pharmaceuticals, abundant agriculture, and of course, the many forms of instant communication. It may seem like ancient history to young people today but there surely must be valuable lessons to be learned from how we adapted, rightly or wrongly, to the opportunity our culture presented to us. Technical developments have surpassed simple amazement. Social changes at the same time have both frightened us and gaven us opportunity to attempt at bettering our own country as well as the world at large about which we truly knew so little but with whom we became interconnected whether we liked it or not. We are no longer physically protected by the two oceans nor can we live our current life style without direct involvement in the world at large.

My parents, and certainly my emigrant grandparents who made their contributions to these developments, could never have dreamed of our lives today, as wonderful but as complicated as they are.

I am not LDS but I have a mission in life. For personal family history and for the possible help it may offer succeeding generations as they face changes we cannot imagine today, my mission is to record Life Stories of people in general. This started about three years ago with stories of fellow veterans who became part of the so-called Greatest Generation. I like to encumber that appellation with the fact that we may be leaving the world soon, leaving it with the ability to self-destruct! The truly greatest generation may be the young people today who will better deserve such accolades. Perhaps my Life Stories will help.

The stories generally begin with the recognition that immigration is of great concern in our country today and that we are all immigrants if we go back far enough. There must be something about an emigrant gene (inherited hopefully!) that led our ancestors to come here and help build this country that is still the great hope for many people around the world. When and whence did they come? Was it for religious reasons, for economic reasons, or perhaps just for possessing a free spirit? For whatever reason they put their roots down and made good of it. I think that gene is alive and doing well.

My Life Stories are not so much about specific accomplishments but more about the experiences of their lives and what made them persevere. I think of them as possibly "Exceptionally Ordinary Passionate People with Imagination Initiative and Perseverance".

These complete, living, life-stories should be recorded now.