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They Key to Believingchapter 11
The EssaySaturday night in New York: everyone else would speculate that by staying home he was waiting for a woman. In a way he was, but he did not expect her to come through the door right then and there. He had to take what little tidbits of her he could. It had been hard, all this time, waiting for her to call him, the way she had done in the past years since college, waiting for every chance he had to see her. He knew he had to wait until she was ready for him; he had to know that she wanted to be with him as much as he had wanted to be with her all of this time with her. In the meantime, all he had was her essay to read before she would see him in Ohio. Carter sat on his couch in his living room, trying to find a comfortable place to read. He knew that trying to be comfortable would be pointless, because even if he hated her essay, he would be reading her words, and they would give him a key to unlocking her mystery. Carter got up and walked toward the dining room table. There was nothing on it, so there would be nothing there to distract him from reading. He turned on the light over the table and sat in the closest dining room chair; he even noted that the iron back of the chairs would make it more rigid and more difficult for him to lean back to relax. He actually thought for a moment that if he had people over for dinner, they probably wouldn’t like sitting on his chairs, because the chairs may make them always feel tense. “It’s a good thing I don’t have people over all the time,” Carter thought, realizing that he wouldn’t want people over to his place anyway. He sat down with a red pen for changes and started reading her work, though he had to stop after reading the first page, with a hand-written note from her.
C - I hope you don’t mind my sending you this. I know I should have more detail in these, but I don’t think I have enough personal stories to tell. I am sure my grammar is poor in this and I’m sure I overlooked details in these essays. All the first essays were just old essays I had written, but I thought they might somehow relate. (The gas bill story was even a true story from when I first moved away and had a roommate!) But I respect your opinion and I really appreciate the read. Thanks. - S p.s.: I will save the big THANK YOU for when I see you in Ohio!
“This isn’t fair,” was all Carter could think. He tried to concentrate somehow. He’d keep this letter near his bed that night, the way she kept his books near her bed. “Would she would ever get to the same point I have been,” he wondered, “and would she have the patience that he has had in waiting?” “What kind of signal is she giving me?” he thought as he wondered what kind of “thank you” he would receive in Ohio. “And why she had to use all capital letters when she said ’thank you’?” he wondered. Though he couldn’t imagine it, a part of him thought that maybe she did buy some lingerie from the catalog he teased her about. Then he stopped himself immediately. “There you go again, Carter, stop thinking that way. She didn’t mean anything by it, and she couldn’t even buy lingerie for herself. Even from a catalog... Just read.” He knew he would still bring the note to his room when he went to sleep that night, but he turned the paper over and read her essay.
a collection of essaysGovernment Inefficiency Our gas was shut off today. The gas company had a problem with our bill and shut off our gas without letting us know, while my roommate and I were out. We were not notified that there was a problem with our bill or that anyone was considering shutting off our gas. So my roommate straightened everything out with the gas company, and they told us that they would be at the apartment sometime between two in the afternoon and eight in the evening. Now, I won’t go into the fact that when someone you are paying for a service gives you a time estimate for a house visit, they are late over ninety-nine percent of the time. I won’t complain about that because it didn’t actually happen this time -- someone arrived at around three thirty in the afternoon. (Besides, everyone already knows how awful it is to be held hostage in your own house waiting for people who never show up.) The man came by and turned on the gas, and asked to check the burners on the stove. So he did, and then he asked if the water heater was electric. It was in the basement behind a locked door, and the super was out of town for the weekend. So the guy said he’d have to turn off the gas until I could get the door unlocked to the water heater, to make sure. He said they had people working until midnight and all day tomorrow, so I should call back so someone else could get out here to turn on the gas again. I waited for my roommate to come home, and we unscrewed a panel from the basement so we could get to the water cooler before the super got back. When I called the gas company back, I was only on hold for a few minutes (another pleasant surprise). Then when I explained the problem, the man told me that I had the wrong number, that this was an emergency line. Apparently not having gas is not an emergency for the gas company, so he gave me the other number. I was on hold for at least another ten minutes (no, make it more like fifteen), before a lady got on the line and asked me my problem. I explained what had happened, and she said she couldn’t get anyone out there for another week. They were booked tomorrow and couldn’t schedule me in. So, from what I had gathered from the situation thus far, our gas was shut off due to a misunderstanding, the person who came to turn on our gas wanted to check something we’d never had to have checked before and wouldn’t keep our gas on, and then they couldn’t get someone out there to turn on the gas for another week. Did I mention that it was Fourth of July weekend and we needed to cook? Oh yes, and bathe. I suppose we could bathe in cold water. So then my roommate called back and tried to see if there was anything else he could do. When that didn’t work, we asked if there was any competition, or if we had to get our gas from them and we had no choice but to wait a week for gas. I already knew the answer, but I hoped it wasn’t true, for one brief moment. When my roommate got off the phone, I started thinking about some of the problems we have because of monopolies. Yeah, it’s not something I’d have a problem with, normally I wouldn’t be complaining about monopolies, but the only place in this country where monopolies exist are in businesses where the government runs or subsidizes the business. The Post Office. Utility companies. The commuter rail system. Great. People complain about monopolies all the time -- in our phone companies, with computer giants like Bill Gates -- even though there is nothing close to a monopoly in these industries today. Of course there isn’t. The government steps in before competition gets a chance to provide a better product. But that’s a different rant. Back to the gas company. The government doesn’t let private businesses get too close to a monopoly. But when it comes to the government stepping in and running businesses, the last thing the government would want is something competing with them. Especially when any other private business would probably run any operation more effectively than the government. They’d have to; they’d have to make a profit and wouldn’t have the chance to get as much money as they wanted by taking it from people. Oh, the government calls it a tax. My mistake. How many times have you heard people complain -- for that matter, how many times have you complained -- about the long lines and the slow service at your local Post Office? How many times have you tried to take a train across the country rather than fly? Why are the costs of taking a train comparable to flying when airplanes are faster and more expensive to build and maintain, especially when rail companies get government subsidies in order to stay afloat and take at least four times as long? What do you do when your electricity goes out and they say they’ll come out between ten in the morning and two in the afternoon, so they make you stay home from work, and then, of course, they don’t even show up... What do you do -- call another electric company for immediate service? What do you do when the gas company cuts off your gas and says they can’t turn it back on for another week? Am I making my point here? I was working one day, waiting for these city employees to come to our job site and do their job. When I still thought they were going to show up and just be late, I thought of asking them if they liked paying more taxes. When they’d answer no, I’d have to ask them then why they are so inefficient -- because it’s their inefficiency that causes taxes to go up, so we can pay more than we should for these services. I imagine they can’t put two thoughts like that together, though. Sorry. Now I’m just getting bitter. But there would not only be increased efficiency in work and therefore better products and services and more choices if the government got out of these businesses, but there would also be less money in taxes to pay, since we wouldn’t be subsidizing the inefficiency of the existing government agencies with money we worked hard for. My point? Well, I guess you get my point. Nobody likes to have to deal with inefficiency, but no one stops to think of where it comes from or what to do about it. So what do we do about it? Well, I suppose you could complain as much as I do, but then everyone would think that Americans were just a bunch of complainers. We could stop voting for government officials who think we want them spending our money on inefficiency. Or we could tell our officials that they’re right, we don’t like monopolies... And the first ones we want to get rid of are the ones run by the government. The government doesn’t have to be running companies for us -- we’ve proven that we can do that ourselves -- in fact, we can run them better. It’s the government’s hold on companies and industries that’s strangling us. Balancing the Budget If we are going to try to balance the budget, the key isn’t in doing it by taxing everyone until the debt is gone. The key is accepting more responsibilities as citizens, and not expecting the government to make things easier on us. The reason why the government costs so much money is because we continually expect it to do more and more for us. The capitalist base that this country was founded on suggests that the government is there to protect our basic rights -- “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” This means that as individuals we reign supreme, and no one has the right to take our life, our property or our ability to accomplish what we are willing and capable of achieving. However, as time has progressed, our political leaders tell us that we need to be taken care of, and to appease us they have offered, as a government, to do more and more for us. We have agreed, these things would be better if the government took care of them for us. But that was where we went wrong. The government is bogged down with a quagmire of laws protecting ourselves from ourselves. Seat belt laws. Motorcycle helmet laws. Speed limits. Laws to tell you when a rapist moves into your neighborhood, or laws to tell you when you’re mature enough to drive a car, or drink. It seems to make sense that we shouldn’t do these things and can abide by these laws, that we should make responsible choices. But the government is going beyond it’s basic role of protecting us from the force of others by mandating to us as individuals what we are allowed to do that is legally “safe”. This is what is infringing on our rights. We haven’t offended the rights of others by speeding on a highway. By telling us we cannot speed, the government is infringing on our rights to do what we want with our property, when it doesn’t infringe on the rights of others. If, because of our speeding, we hit another car and injure another person and/or their property, then we have infringed on another person’s rights and we should be punished. But not until then. By fitting another car or being in an accident, we have infringed on additional laws. The government’s job is to protect us from others, not from the possibility of accidents caused by others. We haven’t offended the rights of others, for instance, if we choose not to wear our seat belts while driving or riding in a car. The government’s job is not to protect us from ourselves, but from others. Even if we get injured in our cars because we weren’t wearing our seat belts, we cannot and should not blame the government for not intervening -- their job is to protect our right to decide whether or not we want to use these safety measures. I won’t argue that wearing your seat belt is not a good idea, but I’m not going to tell anyone that they should relinquish the responsibility of making these decisions to their government. When you let the government make some choices for you, what’s to stop them from making all your choices for you? Capitalism is a clearly defined set of rules, all surrounded around the notion that the individual human being’s rights are most important. However, when you give rights away you start to slip into socialism and let the government take control of some aspects of your life for you. Then they can take more and more -- because you’ve let them -- until you’re faced with a dictatorship, with communism, and no rights as an individual at all. The government is also bogged down with providing for those who originally can’t -- and now won’t -- provide for themselves. The productivity generated by a free economy has produced a great many things, for all of the people in this country and others. It has raised the standard of living for all. Considering the standards people had two hundred years ago, considering the number of religious wars that killed so many over the millennia in human history, considering the thousands of years the world lived in moral and economic darkness with other political systems, it is evident what people owning their own work can do for productivity, creativity and progress. From workfare, the Welfare State has risen. The creation of the welfare state has given people a reason to be unproductive. The creation of the welfare state has made people believe they deserve something for nothing. The government never said that every individual in the country was granted “life, liberty and a block of government-subsidized cheese,” but this attitude, the attitude that people deserve something for nothing from their government, can be seen in our homeless on the streets, with their cups in their hands, marking a post to beg from daily in front of people going to work. They ask for money, bless you when you pass (invoking the notion of a god and the altruistic notion to give to others, even and especially if they don’t deserve it), and occasionally, when they don’t get the money they want from you, they scream in protest, as if the money in your pocket isn’t yours but theirs, and they think they have every right to expect a handout from you. America created this mentality when they created the welfare state, and we’re paying for it in many ways. The lack of a balanced budget is only one way we’re paying. When the government and the people thought it was good to help others, they didn’t know that helping themselves by being productive raised the standard of living, created new products and services, and did end up helping others. They also didn’t consciously think that the productive earnings given to those who didn’t earn it had to come from somewhere -- from productive people’s pockets. Our productivity, as well as our budget, suffered for it. The government is even bogged down with controlling and subsidizing many aspects of our lives. National defense is a job for the national government, because part of its job is to protect us from outside threats (that’s the “life” part of “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”). But supporting the arts, education -- the government is not responsible for any of these things. The arts have come under great scrutiny because people don’t want their tax dollars funding certain kinds of artwork. America’s health care is more expensive and rated worse than eleven other countries in the world. That also applies to the education system. We need metal detectors at the gates of our city schools and kids graduate from high school without being able to read. A business couldn’t run without producing a good service or product -- in fact, it would have to produce a better product, since it would be in competition with other companies. And a business couldn’t run at a deficit -- it has to be able to run efficiently in order to run well. In what has been the most capitalistic society to date, we have proven that companies can run efficiently and well, and for it they always produce a better product. This could also happen in the areas that the government still has control over. Privatizing education, for example, may be at first more expensive for parents, but it may also make the standards of schooling better, because suddenly there would be open competition. It would also allow for ideas that have merit (but have been suppressed) to be taught, because when goods and services are in demand, the demand will be met in a free economy (versus state schools, where boards of education have to impress the higher-ups in order to get more funding, and alter their curriculum accordingly). It may cost more at first, but if Americans weren’t paying taxes for schools, they may have more money in their pockets to be able to meet these expenses. Parochial schools do this already. And in this example, we wouldn’t have concerns about whether or not prayer is allowed in a school, because it is not state sponsored. And there would be no debate over whether uniforms are allowable -- you could pick the school of your choice to send your children to, and base your decisions on prayer, uniforms, and even ability to teach. A Letter to our Political Leaders After watching a few of our elections, I noticed that politicians were trying to warm up to the twenty-something crowd. It’s a wise decision: we’re a strong group of intelligent new voters. And, as a rule, we’re dissatisfied with the United States’ current political system. It’s a chance for either party to take a hold of a growing and promising voter group and insure additional votes in future elections. It would help to know what this group is looking for, though, if there’s a dissatisfaction with our current parties. To understand this, it may help to learn a little more about this group. Although I’m not a spokesperson for all people aged 20-29, I can give you some insight into how I think, as a member of this “age group.” I’m a twenty-something. But classifying us “twenty-somethings” or “generation x-ers” by our age is something I as an individual finds insulting. I know that we’re Americans, but I also know that we as a group have differing opinions, and we have a right to those opinions. We can have different views on our careers, or families, or music from each other. And that’s something I value -- but I feel like it’s constantly being taken away from us. Other pressure groups may want you to pass laws telling them when a rapist moves into their neighborhood, but I know that just causes more red tape, and we financially pay for it through tax revenue and more dollars, when that information is made public. Besides, it’s not the government’s responsibility to inform, it’d the individual’s. Other pressure groups may want you to pass laws telling them that they need to wear their seat belts, but I know that in a Capitalistic society it’s not the government’s role to protect people from themselves, but from the force of others, and that is all. Other pressure groups may want you to pass all sorts of laws, but they are by and large laws that go beyond the jurisdiction of the American government. Other groups may want the government telling them what to do all the time, but I don’t. Part of the twenty-something dissatisfaction (if I may speak for the group) with our current parties may be because neither party embodies a consistent set of values. Consider that our government-sponsored school systems teach students in general that philosophy is too difficult a subject for a single person to understand. And religion may not offer a practical solution for anyone that believes on the individual rights this country was founded on (I mean, Christianity telling people that the meek shall inherit the earth and that self-sacrifice for the benefit of others as good directly clashes with the idea that the individual has a brain and the right to use it, the right to claim what they have earned and even become successful). But young people, especially ones who still have a glimmer of hope that there is something out there that makes sense, when all their lives their schools and leaders have kept from them that their mind is the answer, young people at least still want their political parties to make sense to them. Currently, neither platform, whether Democratic or Republican -- is consistent or cohesive. If a person believes that government intervention beyond the necessities -- police protection from the force of others, for example -- is wrong, neither political party supports them. Republicans believe in less government when it comes to leaving businesses alone -- economically the government should let businesses prosper -- but when it comes to personal parts of people’s lives -- choosing to have an abortion, whether consenting adults want to engage in sexual activities that are not what they consider “the norm,” the kinds of art work people make and see -- then Republicans know what’s best for us, and want to tell us what to do. Democrats believe in less government intervention when it comes to these personal issues, but when it comes to businesses and the economy, Democrats want to be able to regulate industries because they’ll do business that can somehow be bad for people. They want to be able to tax businesses because big business is bad (Ask them why? No answer from them.), and they want to be able to take money away from people, via business regulations and taxation, in order to give it away to people who haven’t earned it (there’s no more realistic explanation of the welfare system, other than robbery from the people who produce in this country). Republicans and Democrats both believe the government should stay out of their business, whatever their business may happen to be. What about other people’s business? They think: feel free to meddle. Even on more specific subjects both parties split their decisions moralistically. The religious right, a Christian group of Republicans, as well as Republicans in general, will tell you that it’s horrible to kill an unborn child, but it’s okay to kill someone that’s already alive that has committed a crime like murder (what happened to “turn the other cheek”?). If life is so sacred, why do Republicans push capital punishment? With our current appeals system, some estimates say that it takes six times more money to kill someone as it does to keep them in jail for life. And who pays for it? We do, the individuals. The taxpayers. The producers. But the one thing both parties have in common is that they want to take away at least some of our rights. That’s why we’re so disenchanted with the political parties we have today. Republicans want to take away our personal rights, Democrats want to take away our economic rights. Taxation, the Democrats’ answer (so that people on Welfare can still have goods and services while not working for them), is essentially taxation for anything other than the essentials, which is forcibly taking away what individuals have earned. It’s forcibly taking away people’s money. That’s the definition of robbery. And laws instilled by Republicans to protect our private lives, so that we are just like them -- but they are not only forcibly telling us how to live, but enacting laws causing paperwork, with costs to enforce them. How does the government pay for these things? By taxation, again, which means we, the individuals, pay for the government telling us what to do. Every election, I’m sure a good number of people with intelligence, people using reason and logic to the best of their ability in making a decision, go to the polls subconsciously wondering, “Which rights am I willing to lose?” Well, we shouldn’t be losing any of those rights. We should have less government intervention in all respects of our lives. I’m a twenty-something. I’m a woman, but I don’t try to tell the government I need quotas to get a job, because I know that “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” means just that -- it means I can pursue whatever I want. But it doesn’t mean the government should be handing it to me on a platter. I’m a twenty-something. I’m intelligent, and I don’t need the government protecting me from myself. That’s not what I’m paying for it to do. I’m a twenty-something. I’m looking for a political party that embodies not my beliefs, but the belief that people can have their own beliefs (whether or not people choose to live by logic and reason or not is not for the government to control). I’m looking for a political party that knows that individuals can have their lives (that’s the “life” part of “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”), they can have rights, like that no one has the right to take something that belongs to you, like taxation for the welfare state, like that no one has the right to try to take away your life, unlike what the government does to death-row prisoners, for instance). I’m looking for a political party that knows that individuals have the right to pursue their own goals, without intervention from the government and without help from the government (that you can’t expect handouts, but you also can start a business to sustain your life without being burdened by over taxation and regulation). I’m a twenty-something. I’m looking for a political party that embodies not my beliefs, but the belief that people can have their own beliefs. I’m looking for a political party that knows that individuals can own their lives, they can have the right to keep their lives. I’m looking for a political party that knows that individuals have the right to pursue their own goals, without intervention from the government and without help from the government. I’m a twenty-something, and I’m looking for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Can anyone give it to me? (This is an old one, the dates can change, but I wrote this a while ago... - S) The Illness of Volunteerism When I opened up my copy of USA Today this morning, I saw a chart as the illustration for the lead story. The chart stated, “Volunteerism: How Strong is the Drive?” and then asked the question, “If your place of work gave its employees the chance to take paid time off of work to do community volunteer work, how likely are you to take the time off?” The results showed that 51 percent of people surveyed would in fact take the time off to volunteer. The question asked: would you volunteer if someone still paid you. By definition, that’s not volunteering. Ask the same group of people if they’d be willing to put in the same amount of time and they were not being paid for it. I’m sure the results would be much, much lower. People work for a living. They go to work in the morning, come home at night, and live off of what they’ve earned -- that’s Capitalism, and for the most part, that’s America (at least that’s what this country was founded on). I would guess that people, for the most part, don’t want to give away their labor -- or their money -- to people who haven’t earned it. A summit to encourage people to come together to volunteer is another. Asking individuals to volunteer to help out the “less fortunate” is one thing. People have the right to choose what to do with their own time. But making it sound like volunteerism is the responsibility of individual companies is another, which is what authorities make individuals feel. Businesses, by producing better goods and services, increase the standard of living for everyone in this country (consider that poor people can purchase televisions, have entertainment and “luxuries” that they couldn’t have afforded fifty years ago). Businesses are doing a service to the world as well as to themselves when they produce. They produce a product; competition brings better products; everyone wins. It is not the responsibility of businesses to lose their workers to regular volunteer times, because they don’t owe anything to “the community,” when their work produces “good” for the community in the first place. “The community” consists of a group of individuals. This country was founded on individual rights. Expecting business owners to shell out money to employees for not working -- for volunteering -- is just another way of extracting money from the producers. Won’t that hurt the economy in the end, which affects the standard of living for all? The article went on, stating that there were philosophical questions with wide-scale, imposed volunteerism: “How should the role of the government be balanced with the roles of companies, individuals and non-profit groups?” It shouldn’t be balanced; the government shouldn’t be involved. Government intervention would mean more taxes and less freedom for individuals. Companies should not feel the need to volunteer themselves or their employees, as imposed by a government; if they want to help, they can, but should not be expected or forced to. They do enough by producing better goods and services for the individuals that purchase them. “Is volunteerism a politically popular but lightweight response to the intractable social problems government leaders can’t, or won’t manage?” ... Now we’re getting somewhere. Volunteerism won’t solve a problem. If the individual you are helping doesn’t want to help themselves, or if they expect to be helped instead of working on finding their own solution, then nothing is solved. The government, when involved with other aspects of our lives, has made a very expensive tangled mess of red tape. Consider education, for example. Pressure groups have pulled funding back and forth for education, providing not the best education, but what the right people wanted. The result? a poor educational system that the government thinks more money will solve. When more money doesn’t help, add more money, and tax the people some more. “Volunteerism is one of the great glories in America,” states Will Marshall of the Progressive Party Institute. No it isn’t. It’s a great glory to communism, where people are supposed to make sure everyone is equal and not be able to advance with their achievements, therefore giving them no incentive to achieve. It’s even a great glory to Christianity, because you’re not supposed to rise above everybody else. “The meek shall inherit the earth,” they say. No, it’s individual rights, and the right to own your accomplishments and achievements Ð that is one of the great glories of America, and that directly opposes volunteerism. The right to produce and create and succeed is the American way, and it turned us into the greatest country in the world. But for years now, we’ve been told that we need to help others. Since we’ve heard that cry, our country has been slipping. General Colin Powell is working on the volunteerism summit, and he added that it is in individual’s best interests to look beyond their neighborhoods when volunteering. Why? How is it in any individual’s best interest to do work for free that doesn’t affect their lives? No answer. Companies may be interested in participating in volunteering programs because it bolsters their image in their community, providing business; or it may give their employees a feeling that their company cares about others, which may reduce their turnover rate; or it may be a tax write-off. Either way, the only reasons a business should, in order to be an efficient business, explore volunteerism, is in order to help their own business out somehow. The CEO of Home Depot, Bernie Marcus, said, “We don’t do it (volunteerism) because it increases our business.” Well, then, your business isn’t running as efficiently as it should be. If a company wants its employees to volunteer, hoe do they make a profit? Probably by increasing the prices of the goods and services that company sells. When you don’t see a return on an investment, you lose. In 1993 Maryland Lt. Governor Kathleen Kennedy Townsend “pushed through a controversial requirement that all her state’s public high school students must do 75 hours of community service before they graduate,” the article goes on to say. What does that teach students? That the government has the right to tell people how to spend their time, that the government can tell people what to do, that the government can force people to do things, whether or not they want to do it? It teaches students that volunteerism isn’t actually volunteer work, but a required activity. Does it teach them their achievements don’t matter, that other people matter more then they do? The problem is that a “requirement” to do “community service” is not volunteering. At the end of the article, there was another chart with the results of a survey. It asked people, “Who should take the lead role in meeting the following goals (providing medical care for the poor, caring for the elderly, reducing homelessness, reducing hunger, helping illiterate adults learn to read, providing job training for the youths): the government, through programs and funding, or individuals and businesses, or through donations and volunteer work?” Answers varied, but people thought that the government should help out in all of these areas. But how is the government going to do that? With your tax money, deciding how to spend it without conferring with you. If it were the responsibility of individuals and businesses, on a volunteer basis, at least you would know where your money was going. But then it occurred to me: it’s not the government’s responsibility, and it’s not a business person’s or producing individual’s responsibility -- it’s the responsibility for those in need to do something with their lives, to satisfy that need and accomplish their own goals. “Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” means that people have a right to their lives, and the right to do what they want with their lives. They can’t infringe on other’s rights to help them. final “Rights and Ownership” essay We are so lucky that we have access to so much information. The Internet alone allows you to get information from reliable as well as a range of sources about topics that might not be covered in depth in the daily news. Look how powerful new news can be now, how there are a few cable channels and web sites that show only the news, all to make the world a more informed place. In my own work, we have been able to use the power of the media on a number of topics related to AIDS and HIV research. I personally have been able to find information on the Internet alone about the relationships between different topics and combating AIDS, such as: * shark liver oil * mineral water * meditation * herbal treatments * vitamin supplements * exercise * appetite changes * therapy * acupressure * acupuncture * oxygen therapy * Tai Chi * hypnosis * yoga * Chinese herbs * diet additions * building muscle mass in your body * increasing protein * keeping a positive outlook * keeping working * reaffirming religious connections Since the release of Emivir, we have worked on not only trying to improve the effectiveness of Emivir but to also come up with an integrase inhibitor -- a third drug to be used in AIDS cocktails to deal a more severe blow to the HIV virus in the human body. Because we had worked on ways to alter natural cells with Emivir, we used previous tests and samples to come up with an effective integrase inhibitor -- more effective because it is not entirely synthetic, like its predecessors. In other words, we used old research in new ways. This is why we are coming up with these new possibilities so quickly. But I think that has already been reported in the general media. If not, medical journals have printed our findings. The information is out there. More than that, I write this as a citizen. A citizen of the United States of America. You see, that is something I’m proud to say, because this is currently the greatest country in the world. It was this country that laid the groundwork for property rights. It was the idea of owning what you earn that gave people the incentive to produce and excel. It is because of these ideas that we have vastly improved our standard of living -- for all people, all over the world. It was our Founding Fathers that said that they wanted a fair and just government, ruled by the people, for the people. And these are the things I believe in. That is why this is my favorite country in the whole world. Because I love my work. I love being one of those ’producers’. I love doing the research I do. I like using my mind, making something that people need and want. This country lets me work, knowing that it is mine, knowing that I earned it. We have worked insanely long hours to accomplish what we have, and everyone that works with me should be commended for all of the accomplishments. But we didn’t do it for money, fame, or the recognition of our accomplishments by anyone. We didn’t even do it for the idea of the ’public good,’ although I have to admit, the work is that much more rewarding when it is so needed, making it such a demanded product. No, the reason why we put in the long hours, the reason why we do this very difficult work day in and day out, is because it’s who we are. It’s because we love the idea of doing something, making something, and having it be ours. Everyone has to admit that they like their work, but they like their work, they like seeing their name on the product, not because it gives them money or fame but because it is theirs. You deserve credit for the work you do. Every person out there deserves their credit, from the man at the car assembly line who checks the bolt for the left door of the sedan model on the line to the woman who sees her name on the sign in front of the house that has just been sold. Everyone out there who earns their work and their rewards loves their work. We like to see a job well done, and we like to know that we did it. This is why plagiarism is illegal. This is why theft is illegal. Because in this country, you have a right to own what you produce. I remember reading a few years ago about the national government’s intervention in the broadcasting industry. After pressure from the government as well as various organizations, major networks uniformly adopted a television rating system, like the current system the movie industry uses to regulate content and inform viewers of movies. However, since the enactment of this new system, groups have been complaining that the new rating system does not tell viewers enough about why the shows received the rating they have. Is there a rating because there is bad language? Is there sexual content? Is there violence? Groups have been pushing for an adoption of a plan similar to a system that lists more of a program’s content. Then the government agreed that this change would be a good idea. So they asked the networks to come together and come up with a plan. But one network chose not to adopt the plan Ð they immediately stated that they can tell people what the content of a given show is, but that they don’t want the government telling them to adopt a system. They also stated in press releases that they will be working on their own plan for a system that will help people understand what exactly is on the shows. This network didn’t appease the first group loud enough to be heard. But I applaud the fact that they were willing to distance themselves from government regulation, and that they were willing to state this so explicitly. When citizens find something they don’t like about the goods and services they receive, they should not make it the government’s job to try to remedy the situation. The government is there to protect individual citizens from the force of others -- not from television programming that one group of people or another might not like. This network concisely pointed out that it is not that they don’t want to inform people about programming if that is what the public wants -- they do not want that authority to be placed in the hands of an already-too-powerful government. The press release stated that it has “-- consistently stated that, as a matter of principle, there is no place for government involvement in what people watch on television. Viewers, not politicians or special interest groups, should regulate the remote control”. There is a song on the radio, one with lyrics that repeatedly mockingly comment on the average person’s willingness to conform to the media influences and the television, assuming it is how one should lead their life. One of the lines, in fact, uses the reference of having television help the viewers help themselves.
I know the late-night network commonwealth is there to help me help myself The media gives people an image of violence, waif-like models contribute to how the sexes should be viewed, and people seem to embrace it with open arms. This, however, is the decision of the people of the country Ð it is not the decision of the government to impose or force standards on the people on how to view life or how to live their lives. As that one network noted, the government has a powerful hold on the people as it is, and it should not have a stronger stranglehold on how this country thinks. Recently press releases from the U.S. Scientific Research Advancement Department note that Madison Pharmaceuticals and my staff have been working on integrase inhibitors at the same time as them. This is very possible. The government press releases, however, have implied that their work had been too similar to be a coincidence. And to this I ask them to show me proof. The press releases from the U.S. Scientific Research Advancement Department state that they had been working on an integrase inhibitor for nearly a year, yet no research reports are published on it in any medical or scientific journal. It is possible that they might not have published anything about their research in the journals; but there was never even a mention of it in their almost daily press releases to the media in the past year as well. This concerns me, because they seem to be having problems with our research without showing us (or proving to us) that they have even done any research in the same field in the first place. Not a soul from Madison Pharmaceuticals has spoken with anyone from the U.S. Scientific Research Advancement Department, even though they claimed to have talked to people at Madison in one of their press releases. Apparently they visited my laboratory today, attempting to open cabinets and ask questions about our research for no reason. This type of behavior from our government, our government, is not something that should be tolerated. This is supposed to be a government for the people, by the people. This is supposed to be your government. My government. If the government has concerns about whether or not someone’s work coincided with theirs, they have to first prove that they were doing the work. If not, then there is an unacceptable amount of government intervention in the private market. Madison Pharmaceuticals has repeatedly done an excellent job at creating a good, reliable product for people -- the fact that our product sells proves this. We want to continue to do our work. We want to continue to create better and better medicines for patients who need it. We want to continue to fill an urgent medical need. And we want to continue to work, knowing that no one will stop us from doing our best. Madison and other research and drug corporations have all kept their computer clocks synchronized with the National Institute of Standards and Technologies, so that they could “time stamp” their work and have a verifiable record of their progress. The U.S. Scientific Research Advancement Department has not shown any “time stamped” proof or evidence, though I hate to consider or post the theory that as a branch of the government they have the power to “doctor” their evidence. This is supposed to be an organization that we can count on, and it is leading us to doubt. This is what happens when the government gets too much control over people. Having pride in your work and what you own, this is the American way, the way it is supposed to be. This is my way. This is your way. This is the way of every person in this country who has pride in their work. We continue working because we love our work. It is our love of having the right to what we produce and what we earn. Give a government some power, and they will eventually take more -- see any dictatorship or any form of communism or socialism as an example (even see the history of our own government -- we have been slowly losing more and more of our rights here in America). In a way, we should thank that network for understanding that the rights of individuals also include the rights of business people -- and those rights should not be given away so quickly. A female friend of mine has fears -- a fear of flying is a perfect example of this. I tried to make it better for her when we went on a business trip together once, where she ended up meeting her husband for the weekend. During the flight, I cracked jokes, I made her laugh, and I tried to keep talking to her so she wouldn’t think about the fact that we were in the air. I even told her to order a beer on the airplane, that her husband wasn’t there to stop her. She had a great time flying, she loved the flight, and after we landed I had to tell her that everything went just fine and that she made it. My friend didn’t like the idea of spending the weekend with her husband. He was another thing that she feared. She was afraid of him; he would threaten her and occasionally he hit her. This weekend was no exception. She called me in my hotel room crying telling me she intentionally left his wallet in another part of the hotel after they had started arguing. He had hit her a few times, she had broken his glasses in self-defense, and she was afraid to stay in the hotel room while he was getting his wallet and she was wondering if she could come to my hotel room. Looking back, all I could think is that her rights were being taken away from her from someone she gave power to. I told her I would wait in the hall, so that when I saw her I would personally make sure he did not come near her. I didn’t want her to feel like she was powerless, how we can often feel if we let someone or something take too much power from us or take our rights away, so I wanted to do anything I could to help. When she saw me in the hall she came running to me and I held her before I told her to come into my room. I saw that as she came into my room her husband turned the corner in the hallway looking for her. I turned away and went into my room. I knew at that point where he was going next. He knocked repeatedly at my room for the next hour before leaving. We had called the front desk of the hotel to have him removed from the hallway in front of my hotel room. She knew she would eventually have to go back to that room, though, and she knew that she would have to deal with him. I hope it was helpful to her that I was there for her, but I could not be there every time she was in trouble with her husband. She was later able to get a well-deserved divorce from him, so that she would be able to start her life over again. In this case, I know that someone got married, and did not know that they would have to lose so many of their rights. Sometimes people don’t know their spouse will act that way after they are married, but sometimes they do, and in those cases they know that they are losing rights by stepping into marriage, because that is their choice. But the government shouldn’t take rights away from people, when they have no choice in the matter at all (you can’t just divorce the country you live in and leave when you’d leave your home, your job your family and friends). I have also heard reports that a few counties in this country are interested in putting waiting periods on obtaining marriage licenses unless the couples go through premarital counseling. Divorce rates are high, these people claim, and it is our responsibility as the people who allow marriages to make sure couples know what they’re getting into. These defenders claim that divorces cause social stress as well as economic stress, and it is their responsibility to try to correct the problem. Allow me to repeat a part of this. “it is our responsibility as the people who allow marriages...” Who allows marriages? The government. And “divorces cause social stress?” Did they stop to think about the woman who has been beaten by her husband regularly, or raped by his family friend, when she was too afraid to press charges? I will be the first to admit that I am not a counselor, and I do not work for any women’s rights groups, but I do know a woman who was in a marriage where the husband occasionally beat her, and made her feel like she was worth nothing. He kept money from her, and took her paychecks when she had a job, which allowed her to be away from their home. Please allow me to point out that no studies have been conducted to test the effectiveness of putting waiting periods on marriages or marriage licenses. If a couple wants to get married, the decision in one county to wait on giving out a marriage license doesn’t stop an anxious couple from going to the next county to get a marriage license. This merely makes people not want to marry in that particular county. The couples can still hold out through the waiting period to get their marriage license, all without marriage counseling. Then the waiting period accomplishes nothing except irritating the couple and putting off what the couple wanted in the first place. And who decides what kinds of things need to be covered in these small counseling sessions? Is it the people running the sessions? Counselors? Therapists? Psychologists? The government? If not the government, then who pays for the counselors? The individuals who cannot afford the hundred-dollar-an-hour visits, or the government, oops, I mean, the general public, through taxes? I know that personally I don’t want the government to have enough intervention in my life as to tell me how to be a good wife. Some religions offer counseling to people who plan to get married. Catholicism, for instance, requires people to go through daylong seminars with their priest before that priest will marry them. Religious institutions have the right to do this, because people decide to be a part of an institution that imposes these restrictions. The United States government was designed with the rights of the individual in mind, and the idea of government-imposed counseling for couples that want to marry violates individual rights in two respects. One is that a couple should be able to get married without the government forcing them to wait (the government is not supposed to apply force except to protect its citizens from force). The other is that the government is forcing people to give up more of their money (in the form of additional taxes or direct pre-approved counseling, probably with a counselor pre--approved by the government). The government is not our moral regulator, nor should it ever be. And economic problems, in a capitalistic society, should be the concern of the individuals within the society and not the government. This is why these defenders are wrong when they claim that it is their responsibility to try to correct the problems of social and economic stress form divorce. The government has no reason and no right to intervene in people’s private lives. This includes intervening with marriage and divorce. There may be a problem with divorce in America, but the government is not the group to solve it. We are. This is a perfect example of why it is not a good idea that the government should be so involved with the actions of members of society, especially when they are acting in a way that can help other people and not hurt them. There are a number of examples of this. Giving preferential treatment to certain groups of people before who have gone through past hardships (which have no bearing on their abilities to work in present-day situations) is an example. Enforcing rigid speed limits in some areas of the country is another. These examples of broadcast intervention or marriage counseling are also good examples. This all relates to how the government should not be allowed to intervene with the work of companies on achieving the goals of people in the country -- and around the world. A number of private companies have been working on integrase inhibitors over the past year and a half. And unlike the U.S. Scientific Research Advancement Department, the progress of private institutions is documented in press releases, news articles, medical journals and press conferences. And no one from any private organization has complained that our work was similar to theirs, not one private organization has asked to see our offices and expected us to comply. Only the government has the power to do this, if we choose to give it to them. Our government exists to protect us from the force of others. But who protects us from the force of a government gone out of control? There is no one to stop them but us. If we care about keeping what we produce and what we earn, then we are the ones that have to stand up for our rights. I choose to not give our government that much power. The more power you give someone who doesn’t deserve it, the more power they will try to take. I choose to continue doing my work, because it is mine. I speak for my staff when I say that this is our work, and we will not give it away to someone who hasn’t earned it, simply because they make a claim with no evidence to back it up. I choose to let the government be accountable for what it does. Without evidence that their claims are true, there is no reason why we should answer to the U.S. Scientific Research Advancement Department. - Sloane Emerson He couldn’t believe what he was reading. He could see spots for changes and additions that could have been made, but otherwise parts of this could be used for an essay for the end of the book. Before he could be distracted by sentiment, Carter started writing on a scratch piece of paper,
Or: finding the answers Oh, wait, he thought, try a few more:
Carter liked the idea of using the phrase “the key” in the letterhead, but he also thought he would have to bounce these ideas off Ellen. Carter leaned back in his chair. He felt the cold of the metal of his chair along his back. He liked that feeling, making sure he wouldn’t move to disturb the sensation. Most everyone else would have thought it was more like pain, but at this point in the game Carter was used to the feeling, and it was something he was coming to expect. He wanted pain to feel good again. Carter knew for a fact that he had been in pain waiting for her, and he also knew that he needed to talk to Ellen as soon as possible about excerpts of these edited essays possibly being added to the end of the book. He looked up her home number from his Rolodex at the counter next to the table and dialed her number, expecting to get her answering machine. He didn’t expect an answer. “Hello?” he heard from a tired female voice. “Hello, is Ellen there?” “This is she. May I ask who is calling?” “Ellen, I am sorry to call you so late, it’s Carter, from Quentin.” “Carter Donovan?” Ellen answered, as she was stunned by the call. “Ellen, I am sorry to call --” “Don’t worry. Did you need something? I can’t imagine this being a social call.” “I was calling for business reasons first of all... There is potentially a new essay for the end of the book, and that might be hard to add when we are just about to send it off to the press. I don’t know how the pages are set up with the printer right now, and I know this essay will need some major editing and splicing from other pieces so it can all fit together somehow, but I was wondering if it could be done, so --” “We have it set up so that there are blank pages for notes after every chapter so that the reader can add notes. And pages for printing have to be in sections of eight, so depending on how long the last ’essay’ or ’letter’ would be, we could just tack a few additional pages for notes after the letter, you know, for notes about the book and notes for their own experiences.” “That’s fine. I don’t even know yet if it going to definitely be in the book, but I wanted to see if we could be able to add it as late as the end of next week.” “It shouldn’t be a problem to add it, but we can check on it as soon as we get the chance to talk to the printers in Ohio, but for that we would have to wait until after they open tomorrow.” “Ellen, do you have the number with you at home by any chance?” “I have it in my files, so I can call them tomorrow morning.” “Ellen, I’m sorry to call, but this is immensely helpful. You have no idea how good this is for me.” “Mr. Donovan, it’s no problem. But was there anything else you needed?” “Well... ” Carter thought for a split second before he continued, “Well, I would appreciate it if you called me Carter and not Mr. Donovan.” “Saying your first name still even sounds, well, formal...” “But it’s my name, and it makes me feel more comfortable if you’d call me by it.” Carter waited for a moment before Ellen responded. “Carter it is,” Ellen said. “Was there anything else?” Ellen waited for a moment before Carter responded. “You know, Ellen,” Carter started, “I think we could be more social together, maybe. You know, we could go to a club, or even a coffee shop to hang out and talk to each other.” Ellen sounded confused and Carter could tell. “Excuse me?” she said. “Well, just to do something together.” “I’m sure you’re too busy to go out with the likes --” “As a rule, I try to not be too social or go out with just anyone.” “But I’m beginning to think you’re inviting me out as more than a friend.” “Ellen, I was just trying to be nice. Sometimes I think I am not supposed to ever be with a woman, so... I don’t know what to say, but I wasn’t trying to make a move on you.” “Mr. Donovan, you don’t say the ’right’ words to make a woman feel good.” “I think you’re pretty, and I was just saying that I wasn’t hitting on you, and I thought it would be good to talk to you, and you can keep calling me Carter, not Mr. Donovan.” Carter finished their conversation so they could say goodbye to each other. When he hung up the phone, he took the essay, along with the letter that was written to him, to his room. He thought for a moment about bringing the phone with him to the bedroom, to call her once he was in bed, to tell her about his reading the essay, but he thought that would be too much for him to do. He left the phone at the counter, turned off the lights, and took his paperwork into his bedroom. Carter went to his bed, dropped the paperwork on the dresser next to it, took of his t-shirt, unbuttoned his pants and let them drop to the floor at his feet. He figured he would put them away when he woke up in the morning. He fell into the bed face down; he then looked at the letter from her as he rolled over and tried to go to sleep.
Click here for Chapter 12 of The Key To Believing
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portions of this book are in the following books:
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