Category Uncategorized

Apr 23 2016

Out Manned, Out Planned, Overmatched

The rumors are true. I have first hand knowledge. The repeated reports nationwide that the Cruz campaign has beaten Donald Trump to every punch in the delegate battle was in full evidence today at the Maine Republican State Convention. I was there to witness how organized and efficient the “Cruz Crew” is and how completely inept the Trump campaign is.

The prelude to the delegate battle was a very strange and awkward claim by Trump surrogate Governor LePage claiming that Cruz had violated some back room deal struck between the Governor and the Cruz national team. This from the Trump campaign which has loudly decried all the supposed back room dealings that Cruz has, as Trump alleges, done to steal delegates. LePage and his team spent the night before and the morning of the delegate vote calling for the convention delegates to reject the Cruz slate of delegates on the basis of this “violation” of a back room deal made previous to the vote on the floor of the convention.

I have to say, on a personal note, that I found it strange that the Cruz campaign which has man handled the Trump campaign in the delegate ground game would even consider cutting a deal for delegates, especially when Cruz had won the State of Maine.  Garrett Mason, Co-chair for the Cruz4Maine group has gone on record flatly denouncing that any back room deal was struck for the delegates. Even had there been deal struck, I doubt that Cruz himself would have gone along with it. His ground game is kicking Trump’s ample behinder parts. Why does he need to cut Donald any slack with a deal?

I was witness to this back parts kicking today. Trump’s ground game was non-existent. What volunteers he had were wandering around the convention floor with some signs with hastily scribbled lists attached. The Cruz Crew, on the other hand, had handouts with the approved delegate slate, an army of volunteers with flourescent green shirts prepared to answer any question, specific volunteers who were walking around the convention with large placards with the delegate list on it in case someone hadn’t picked up a flyer, and other volunteers passing out signs to wave. I know this sounds crazy, and Donald thinks this cheating, but it looked like…dare I say it…a political campaign doing its job…and…shutter to think….doing it well.

The Trump campaign was completely outclassed today. They were over matched. It wasn’t even close.Cruz swept the 14 at large delegates and,  over all, won 19 of 23 delegates Maine is allotted. Be advised that the delegates are bound to vote the way they are proportioned on the first vote.

I watched a man next to me who had intended to vote for Trump grow so frustrated with the confusion on the Trump team, he tossed their list. He went and grabbed a Cruz delegate flyer to fill out his ballot instead. There is something to be said for surrounding yourself with the best people. It was very evident today, Donald has not!

 

Apr 20 2016

My Response To The NFL Attacking Georgia

Because the NFL has interjected themselves into the debate on Religious liberty and furthermore has chosen to persecute and advocate against Christians who stand by their convictions of faith and conscience, no matter how unpopular or out-of-style those convictions are, which is their unalienable Constitutional right, I must exercise my own rights, those selfsame unalienable rights, my birthright as an American citizen, and stand beside my brothers and sisters, my fellow citizens in Georgia whom you, the NFL, through misguided arrogance believing the monumental wealth you have acquired from the marketing of the play of a child’s game, combating over a misshapen leather ball, somehow grants you license to trample the basic aforementioned unalienable rights of the very citizens whose monetary and popular support of your game, your product, has granted you the enormous wealth you enjoy and abuse.

 I will stand with those you persecute in Georgia and I will no longer watch, purchase, or any way support your product, your business. The NFL should be in the business of football, not trying to bully the citizens of the United States into changing the fundamental structure that has produced and supported the very free society that grants the platform on which a colossal entity such as the NFL can be built.
I have been a football fan since I was a little boy so it is with no small regret that I have severed any ties or support to the NFL. I have deleted all my fan accounts and put my memorabilia in a closet hoping my favorite sport will come to their senses and return to being just that, a sport. Until then, please delete my email account from your list.
 We live in a nation where not only are we afforded the right to be controversial and pursue agendas that might make others uncomfortable, but we are also afforded the right to disagree with those agendas and say “no”.  Your disdain for that basic unalienable right is more than troubling and in more plain speech, perhaps you should just stick to your business; that is, playing a game with a little leather ball.
With much regret and frustration,
Andy Torbett
Apr 9 2016

A Conduit Severed and A Pendulum Swung

Part Two-A Pendulum Swung

So similar is the dilemma of the battle of religious liberties against the cry for the equitable treatment of the humanities to the lack of knowledge transference that it begs the question of whether the severing of the conduit of knowledge is directly related to the need for those most tolerant of the humanities to facilitate and necessitate the trampling of the religious liberties of their fellow countrymen to achieve their end. But to what end? And could it be the knowledge of our forefathers, a knowledge not transferred, is the reason we can behave so abominably?

Certainly history bears out the truth of this premise. At the genesis of the revolutions of noted social engineers such as Marx and Lenin, of Democratic socialists and Communists, was the fabric of teachings that the old beliefs and morals of their forefathers were outdated, inhibiting, and not capable of embracing the new ways. Disciples were admonished the reject these old ways and embrace what was new. It was this severing, specifically of moral codes, that allowed these brutal uprisings that that typified social democratic revolutions leaving 100 million slaughtered in its wakes.

So now we see another rise of social engineering. Our moral codes once again are seen as the obstacle to its resurgence. Our religions, Our Constitution all paint a negative pall on what many consider progress.

So we have passed laws to protect the perceived rights of those believed aggrieved. Still, it is not enough to pass laws to protect those rights, citizens who do not agree must be forced to agree or face the wrath of government. It is necessary, again, to force acceptance, and the cries from the ghosts of perils pasts call to warn us.

But the Constitution calls a halt, reminding us that no law can be made that prohibits free speech and the free expression of religion. Still states have passed humanity laws assuring the populace that when the Constitution said “no Law” it didn’t mean this law. The need for tolerance outweighs the need for freedom.

Christianity is the culprit now. It’s tenets, the dos and don’ts, have inhibited the “safe places” of so many, so many who just want to be accepted. And Christians will accept them, even if we must use the bludgeon of government to enforce it. “Its time to swing the pendulum against those have oppressed us for so long,” rail the social engineers, the social democrats, again. “Away with the old ways of right and wrong.”

Ah, but the pendulum always swings back. So, what of that? Christianity is the easy target. With its gospel of dos and don’ts it is also the gospel of peace and love. There’s no fear of retribution. But what of those that do not worship God but worship government?

Our founding fathers wrote that no law should be written to prevent religious freedom because they knew that once one law was written to prevent religion, then another would come and another, all in retribution for the other. On and on the pendulum would swing, only settling after untold damage had been done.

Freedom is freedom whether in the home or the market. Freedom inhibited anywhere is not freedom. Its just that simple. Whether a persons beliefs disrupt your “safe zone” or your feelings is not a warrant that cancels their freedom to do so. You just need a stronger “safe zone” or as they said in “olden times”, thicker skin.

A pendulum swung is an energy time not easily recovers

Each energy rails against the swinging to balance the other

But woe is the battle inertia between them until the pendulum calms

Would to God that pendulum stayed settled and never swung at all

Apr 7 2016

A Conduit Severed and A Pendulum Swung

 

Part One

The hilarity that has ensued surrounding the defense of “safe places” in our colleges over the past weeks has been more a testament to the lack of spinal integrity revealed by these generations, these students, who are entrusted with providing the fundamental sustenance for the future survival of our civilization, rather than fodder for late night comedians. From Halloween costumes to chalk drawings on a sidewalk, with now the latest offense, a fellow student raising her hand to ask a question, no offense is too little in the eyes of cringing tyrants terrified at any hint of a ripple of contrarian emotion in their placid pool of placation causing the young despots to recoil from a repulsive horizon of personal responsibility and run wildly, arms outstretched, for the first entity that will nanny their crippled existence. The idea of secondary education as a preparatory rite, a precursor to adulthood, and necessary to a child’s choice of profession is now laughable at best.

These stagnant pools deemed “safe places” by our colleges and universities are the fruits of a tree long well rooted in our educational system. The tactics and concepts of confrontation, rebuttal, challenge, failure, success, repercussion, absolutes, and responsibility have all but disappeared from modern education leaving us with only affirmation, reward, malleability, and compliance. This list is assuredly incomplete given the many levels of education, but the ideas of handing children the latter list of positive affirmations without them first toiling through the more negative aspects of learning has left us as a nation with increasingly stunted professionals, citizens without knowledge. As a result, the title student and the process of learning has become a study in contradiction.

The caricature of the brutal headmaster, vicious school marm, and overbearing nun each wielding a paddle, switch, or a ruler is what some would like to stereotype as an archaic educational system better remembered than used. As usual, the caricature highlights the extreme to diminish the norm. An in-depth study of these “olden times” would reveal much of these quaint school houses, the headmasters , the marms, the nuns built the foundation of societal juggernaut, a civilization the world had never seen with citizens from factory laborers to Presidents, who were well thought, well spoken, well-mannered, and well prepared to build a society. A recently discovered eight grade final exam (circa. 1895  Salina, Kansas) would put more than a ripple into petulant college brats kiddie pool. I know I couldn’t pass it!

Why so much knowledge stuffed into eighth grade brains? Many children never stayed in school past the eight grade. The demands of family farms pulled some out. Some moved on to apprenticeships. Some moved on to help the family business. Teachers knew they had a limited time, but thankfully this time was the time when young minds were most fertile. So teachers taught, demanded, scolded, exhorted, primed, and pumped while students learned, failed, re-learned again, and learned, and learned at a furious rate because they knew time was “awastin’”.

All the mentors that I have had in my life have invariable at times been harsh. Demands were made, with challenges to meet standards set. The standards were not moved when I failed, instead I was simply informed, “That’s wrong.” Furthermore this small statement, a modern catalyst to dis-functionality, was followed up another equally harrowing statement, “Now try it again and do it the right way this time. The way I taught you.”

I cannot count the times, while learning the construction trade, that I’ve torn out a wall I had just built to re-frame it because the lead carpenter said, “That’s wrong.” Usually the admonishment to “fix it” was laced and purpled with many colorful metaphors. But what if someone just fixed it for me and smoothed my wounded pride? I would never learn the correct way to frame and what “not on my job site”, “not on my watch”, “not when my name’s on the sign” really meant.

The conduit of learning that we as society use to pass knowledge from generation to generation is only one piece of the educational apparatus. It connects the teacher to the student. We have so cluttered it with prerequisites to sanitize the educator that stream of knowledge is all but vanished. The final severing is students who have been so indoctrinated with the belief that knowledge must be presented with a complete affirmation of who they are and where they are that they reject any presentation that challenges their preconceptions.

And this is the severing of knowledge to learning,

When mentoring is pampering

Than all knowledge dies,

For lack of transference and stagnating lies