A Right To His Own

This one is important, and perhaps the best explanation of this idea's practical implications is this clip from YouTube.




The philosopher Bastiat said it this way:

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"Each of us has a natural right – from God – to defend his person, his liberty, and his property. These are the three basic requirements of life, and the preservation of any one of them is completely dependent upon the preservation of the other two. For what are our faculties but the extension of our individuality? And what is property but and extension of our faculties?" (The Law, p.6)

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I love the litmus test that Ezra Taft Benson recommended in his essay, The Proper Role of Government:

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An important test I use in passing judgment upon an act of government is this: If it were up to me as an individual to punish my neighbor for violating a given law, would it offend my conscience to do so? Since my conscience will never permit me to physically punish my fellow man unless he has done something evil, or unless he has failed to do something which I have a moral right to require of him to do, I will never knowingly authorize my agent, the government to do this on my behalf.

I realize that when I give my consent to the adoption of a law, I specifically instruct the police – the government – to take either the life, liberty, or property of anyone who disobeys that law. Furthermore, I tell them that if anyone resists the enforcement of the law, they are to use any means necessary – yes, even putting the lawbreaker to death or putting him in jail – to overcome such resistance. These are extreme measures but unless laws are enforced, anarchy results.

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Self-Evident Truth

"The Founders wrote in the Declaration of Independence that some truths are self-evident, and one of those is the fact that all men are created equal.

"Yet everyone knows that no two human  beings are equally alike in any respect. They are different when they are born. They plainly exhibit different natural skills. They acquire different  tastes. They develop along different lines.  They vary in physical strength, mental capacity, emotional stability, inherited social status, in their opportunities for self-fulfillment, and in scores of other ways. They how can they be equal?

"The answer is, they can't, except in three ways. They can only be treated as equals in the sight of God, in the sight of the law, and in the protection of their rights. In these three ways, all men are created equal. It is the task of society, as it is with God, to accept people in all their vast array of individual differences, but treat them as equals when it comes to their role as human beings. As members of society, all persons should have their equality guaranteed in two areas. Constitutional writer Clarence Carson describes them:

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"First, there is equality before the law. This means that every man's case is tried by the same law governing any particular case. Practically, it means that there are no different laws for different classes and orders of men [as there were in ancient times]. The definition of premeditated murder is the same for the millionaire as for the tramp. A corollary of this is that no classes are created or recognized by law.

"Second, the Declaration refers to an equality of rights... Each man is equally entitled to his life with every other man; each man has an equal title to God-given liberties along with every other."

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"John Adams was in France when Jean Jacques Rousseau was teaching that all men were designed to be equal in every way. Adams wrote:

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"That all men are born to equal rights is true. Every being has a right to his own, as clear, as moral, as sacred, as any other being has... But to teach that all men are born with equal powers and faculties, to equal influence in society, to equal property and advantages through life, is a gross a fraud, as glaring an imposition on the credulity of the people, as ever was practiced by monks, by Druids, by Brahmins, by priests of the immortal Lama, or by the self-styled philosophers of the French Revolution."

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-Cleon Skousen, The Five Thousand Year Leap, page 79-80

A Summer of Freedom!

Welcome to the Summer of Freedom! My goal is to post something about freedom every couple of days all summer long, and I'm excited! To start with, I wanted to share this quote from Elder Benson. It's a big statement, but one that the Doctrine and Covenants bears out:

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According to the laws and constitution of the people, which I have suffered to be established, and should be maintained for the rights and protection of all flesh, according to just and holy principles; That every man may act in doctrine and principle pertaining to futurity, according to the moral agency which I have given unto him, that every man may be accountable for his own sins in the day of judgment. Therefore, it is not right that any man should be in bondage one to another. And for this purpose have I established the Constitution of this land, by the hands of wise men whom I raised up unto this very purpose, and redeemed the land by the shedding of blood.
-Doctrine and Covenants 101:77-80 (emphasis added)

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It makes sense to me that when we are evaluating the Constitutionality of measures proposed one of the things we should bear in mind is the way that the measure would affect the agency of the people. If it is not in harmony with the purposes for which the Lord set up the Constitution to serve, then it probably is not a good measure and should be opposed as something that is not in harmony with the principles of the document.

I look forward to looking more closely at the principles that underlie the Constitution over the next few weeks!

Teaching Apologies

I think one of the more difficult things that I have need to teach is teaching how to deal with conflict. It's not an easy thing, even for adults. Figuring out how to help my children to correct their own behavior (and why they should go to the effort), and how they ought to deal with the behavior of a sibling that's doing wrong, these are not simple things to deal with. Still, the mandate is clear:

It's got to happen. But it's not easy.

I'm pretty much always in the market for good ideas about how to make things go better. Not too long ago, I found one. Cuppacocoa has a fabulous post about how to apologize. It's well worth the time to read the whole thing, but here's the heart of her method:

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I’m sorry for…
This is wrong because…
In the future, I will…
Will you forgive me?

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I read it, lost it, and found it again, and in between times tried what I could remember, which was only the first two steps, and it is already making a difference in our home. Owning your mistakes is such a huge part of fixing them, and already, just that much is making a noticeable difference in the quality of apologies. But, as much as I like her formula for a good apology, I think that some of her insights into why apologizing is important and the benefits it brings to the offender are quite possibly even better. She plays out a common insincere apology scenario, and then she steps back and looks at it a bit:

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You know inside, however, that the offended still feels bitter, because the apology was not sincere. And while it may seem like the offender got off easy– not even having to show proper remorse or use a sincere tone–he is actually the one who loses out the most. He not only learns a poor lesson that he can get away with lies and empty words, but does not have the opportunity to experience true reconciliation and restoration of relationships. He will probably continue inflicting similar offenses, feel less remorse than he should, and undergo less positive character change than he could have.

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That's an unfortunate circumstance for the offended, but it's a serious problem for the one apologizing! So much of parenting hinges on finding ways to reach the hearts of our children, and fakey-fake apologies are a complete failure. Empty form, with no truth behind it -- just exactly what we need to avoid in all areas if we are to be successful in leading our children to Christ!

It's not the saying sorry that makes the difference - that's just the outward sign of an inward change (or mumbled compliance to get Mom off your back). It's this idea of Godly Sorrow that really makes the difference. For change to happen, you need more than just feeling sorry for yourself because you got caught and now you're in trouble. Real change, the stuff that builds character traits like courage and virtue, the real stuff grows out of sorrow for actually having done the deed. This kind of feeling can't be imposed from the outside - "Say sorry, and mean it!!" It's just not going to get the job done. It comes from understanding what the wrong did to the other person, and wishing you could undo it. And that wish leads to the determination to avoid doing the same thing in the future. And THAT is what we're aiming for when we teach our children. The process of saying, "This is wrong because _____," helps this process along more than a little!

I was pretty sure that I was forgetting something important, and I was. That third step. Planning for success next time. That's so important, to help kids know what they should do, the next time a similar situation comes up. We'll be adding that to our practice here in the next little while. And I really like the way that the blog post focuses on stating things positively:

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Wrong: In the future, I won’t push.
(Right: In the future, I will keep my hands to myself.)
Wrong: In the future, I won’t take your eraser.
(Right: In the future, I will ask you if I can borrow your eraser.)

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I love when I can help my kids plan and practice for success. I love the message that it sends to them that they are good kids. This was just a little hiccup, and next time it'll go better. That's an important message. YOU ARE A GOOD KID. So much tells kids just the opposite. We watch heroes on TV, and read books about Superman, Batman, and the rest, and we spend a good bit of time talking about the differences between Heroes and Bad Guys. One of those differences is that Heroes make mistakes, but they fix them. Fixing things is hard, and this sort of apology seems to offer a chance for the kids to practice and plan for being one of the Good Guys by fixing things this time, and planning how to do better next time.

I like that.

Bilingual Education

We're not truly bilingual; I only speak a smattering of Japanese, though that's improving daily, with the help of tools like Sticky Study, Memrise, and various podcasts that I use, including my favorite, JapanesePod101.

We've been working on Japanese for a while now; it's getting pretty close to a year since I decided to teach the kids. Some remarkable things have happened in that time. Most recently, Hero took the initiative in learning to read hiragana. That happened like this:

Uncle Stachelbeere loves languages, and he came for a visit. He's learning about 15 languages, mostly Pacific Island languages. Many of them I've never heard of. I'm finding 2 languages (I also am trying to get some Welsh in my brain) challenging, but he's having a good time. Doing some translating. (You don't happen to know anyone that wants to read his translation of Aesop in Marshallese, do you?) While he was here, he spent some time on Memrise, working on his various projects. And Hero wanted in. So we set him up with an account and helped him choose some classes to take. He chose a couple that help him work on hiragana (a Japanese alphabet) and a couple that are teaching Latin vocabulary, which pleased me, since we just started doing Latin as well. And, since Memrise uses timed typing, Hero also decided he wants to improve his typing skills. Keyboard Ninja is an entertaining way to do it. All kinds of happy stuff going on - and he's so excited about it that he asks for permission each night to get up and do this stuff in the morning if he's up before me. And then he does it. That's been going on several days now.

Initiative? Learning? Happy kid? Works for me!

In the mean time, other kinds of Japanese learning are going forward as well. Interestingly, the one that seems to make the biggest difference is just using Japanese words when I talk to the kids. I still have a relatively small vocabulary, so this means mixing languages. I spent a long time feeling like that was somehow... wrong. I wish I'd started mixing things up earlier. I'd speak and read better now, had I done that. So I talk to the kids. I mix languages when we read stories - the Elephant and Piggie books by Mo Willems are particularly good for that, because the language is so simple. When I can do a whole sentence, I'll say it in Japanese, and then watch the kids. If they understand, then I just continue. If not, they give me these puzzled looks. And then I say it in English too. And they're picking it up, slowly, but surely. It's really cool to watch. I keep working on my own skills, and that means I can say more and more to them all the time.

It's not bilingual, not really. At least, not yet. But we're working on it.


P.S. I'm so glad you stopped by to read about the adventures at our house! If you want more, "Like" my blog on Facebook to get posts (and the articles n things I wish I had time to blog about) in your feed. Wanna see all the projects and ideas that I may or may not get around to? Follow me on Pinterest. Thanks for stopping by!