BCS Delusions

They say that the first step to personal healing is to admit that I have a problem, and so to coax the healing, I hereby admit the existence of my own mired situation. Do I have a drinking problem? No. Am I addicted to nicotine? No. My problem may not be as serious as the aforementioned, but perhaps I am just as if not more deluded as he or she who smokes like a Californian wildfire and spits in the face of future consequence. Explicitly stated, my problem is as follows: every year when the summers ebbs and the calendar flips to August, I truly believe that the college football teams about whom I most passionate, will end their respective seasons in national respect, prominence, and glory. As Fall approaches, I am convinced that the teams Boise State and Brigham Young University suit up and send out each year will hold their own against the nation’s best.

Granted, BSU ended an amazing run during the ’06 season by beating a very good Oklahoma team in the Fiesta Bowl, which they did with some of the most flashy and memorable late game heroics ever displayed in any football game. However, it was evident that had BSU merely answered Adrian Peterson’s touchdown score with one of their own, they would not have been able to do so a second time, hence the two-point, quasi-statue of liberty play from Zabranski to Johnson that sealed victory for the Broncos.

This year however, an undefeated BSU squad couldn’t even beat one of the best from the non-BCS affiliated Mountain West Conference. Which brings me to my other favorite team that coincidentally dukes it out every year in the same Mountain West Conference, BYU. My delusion of their grandeur was poignantly dashed by a much better Texas Christian University team, a team with superior talent, speed, and game planning. One BYU coach allegedly said that the weaknesses exploited by the Horned Frogs were clearly evident to the Cougar staff from the season’s get go; the Cougars simply fooled previous opponents with their branded bend-not-break defense. Once teams figured out how to take advantage of the gracious 10 yard cushion the nearly lead-footed BYU secondary consistently offered, the result was the shellacking smacked down by the University of Utah at season’s end. Brian Johnson completely nearly 400% of his passes and did so with the kind of ease that reminded me of playing video games with all the cheats. Want to complete another 8 or 10 yard pass? Just press any button.

My beloved BYU Cougars and Boise State Broncos don’t have the talent and will never be able to recruit the kind of talent that can compete with the Florida Gators, USC Trojans, and Texas Longhorns or any other of the BCS best. When a five star high school recruit has those schools to choose from, why would he settle for BSU or BYU?

We’ll talk again when BYU and BSU join one of the BSC conferences. Until then and until pigs fly, here’s hoping for a little Cinderella magic!

Lamm guys

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ELF BABY!

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THE REAL CHANGE WE NEED AND CAN BELIEVE IN

When I was a senior in high school, my Honor’s English teacher, Ms. Ford, told us a story about a priest in Seattle who took it upon himself to wake up early every morning to make sandwiches. Each day he would take his sandwiches to the city and would give them to the homeless and hungry. Word of his goodness and generosity soon spread, and people so moved by his actions began to send him letters with checks to aid him in his ministry. But he returned every check to its sender with the following response:

“Make your own damn sandwiches.”

This story is analogous to the current push for redistribution of wealth and bigger government, and here’s why. First, if a heart beats red in your chest, then you sympathize with those who struggle in life. However, a significant divergence arises in discussions centered around the alleviation of struggle and suffering. The current prevailing ideology is symbolized in this story by the people who sent checks to the sandwich-making priest. But my worry is that too many today seem more eager to write checks from the books of the wealthy and prosperous than to either write their own checks or to make and distribute their own proverbial sandwiches.

With our own checks and with many more from the rich, we have created many and varied government programs designed to aid the lowly and down trodden. And now we are mandating that the rich pay more into these same programs. If their 36% taxed income hasn’t already done the trick to “save” the middle class, to give the lower class a “fighting chance,” then it is foolhardy to suggest that a further 3% or even more is going to do the trick.

The real change this country needs, the real change we can believe in will never be realized this way, by a government directive or program. It doesn’t happen when we reach into the pockets of the rich to further fund existing social programs or to create new ones. It never happens when you and I stand idly by and let others do the kind of work that lifts the hands that hang down. The change we need and can believe doesn’t come from Barack Obama, and it certainly wasn’t going to come from John McCain.

Perennial change is created by you, and it’s created by me. When we pull over to assist those with broken down cars and broken down spirits, we engender lasting change. When we feed the hungry and clothe the naked in our own neighborhoods and cities, we further the change we need. When those with more cease to oppress those with less, they both change. When those who have little in the world stop hating those who have much, and when they stop begrudging them the right to reap the harvest of their own sowing, they change.

When I place an indefinite moratorium on my own mediocrity and stop making excuses for my own failings, I change. When the privileged white man appreciates the struggles of those who weren’t born into a world of innate privilege, he changes. When the black man forgives those responsible for slavery, those responsible for social inequity, he enhances his own freedom, and he changes. It no longer is news worthy when he accomplishes greatness because he will no longer associate such greatness with his skin color but rather with the content of his own character. His victory won’t be one for black people; it will be one for us all.

The priest had it right. His ability to enact change and good in the world may have been small, but it was he and he alone who took full responsibility for it and did the most with it. Therefore, when we no longer seek to change those around us, when we stoke the fires of change that would burn in our own hearts, then we bate our addiction to government fabricated hope and change, and we freely create our own.

My Case for Conservatism

To those of you who will indulge in the following, please know that I am not an advocate of John McCain, but you will soon see that I am conservative and have written this in an effort to further the merits of conservatism. I recognize that somehow conservatism has become an unpopular message, and I’d like to do my part to revitalize it. The following thoughts were retrieved from the deep, dark recesses of the pink matter between my own two ears, so if you disagree, please feel free to discuss your point of view with me. I will listen and be respectful as long as you assert your opinions without any of the trite rhetoric from the campaign trail. Let me know what you believe is right or wrong.

If anyone out there can convince me that Obama is not purveying a socialistic agenda, then I will gladly vote for him. If you cannot convince me otherwise, and you still support his proposals that are designed to empower the government to redistribute wealth, then please give me three specific examples of successful socialist governments, and I will easily rebut with three embarrassingly clear examples of such states that failed: Stalin's Russia, Hitler's Third Reich, and Castro's communist Cuba (the list goes on). Would any of you who proudly wave the flag of support for Obama trade your current life style for a domicile in one of those nations? Would you trade the current health care system for a socialized one where patients are forced to wait patiently for necessary medical procedures with wait times that can surpass a year? I proudly declare that it is the very capitalist, small government system, decried and besmirched by left leaning ideologues, that has given the citizens of this nation the freedoms they currently enjoy but are, in some measure, in danger of losing. Please, show me one example of any other government entity that can take responsibility and credit for lifting its citizens to the heights of individual fiscal prosperity and happiness. Show me one that at least permits its people the hope and possibility of true financial independence. Show me one that created numerous, prosperous jobs for its people.

The time has indeed come for the poor and lower classes of this nation to be reclaimed from the crutches and clutches of the big government advocates currently and previously in power. But the problem is that leftist politicians need the poor to stay poor, for a significant portion of their voting base is comprised of such. It is the system of big government and bleeding heart liberalism that engenders and furthers the dependence of the lower classes of this nation on the government. Their message does more, in the name of equality and fairness, to cripple the human spirit than it does to elicit its best. Their message of “tax credits” and stimulus packages is designed to deceive and buy those lower income votes. What would these politicians, Democratic or otherwise, do in the absence of those currently waiting on their hollow assistance? With their craft destroyed and their dependent base depleted, they would have nothing to do. They would lose the power they crave, the power for which they lust, and certainly they are loath to permit such an outcome. The framers of our nation designed its constitution to empower the people, not the government, but it is Obama’s explicitly stated desire to switch things around.

However, it is conservatism that invites everyone everywhere to shed the shackles of financial and moral poverty. It pushes the poor to be poor no more by extolling the virtues and merits of personal accountability and responsibility. It would not spare us from the consequences of personal failure and mishap nor would it deny us the crucial life lessons to be learned thereby. It urges us to look inward and to each other for the help we need to surmount life’s hardships, not to a government program. Conservatism still champions the American dream, the same dream by which Barack Obama went from humble beginnings to a successful life autonomous of any government organization. Unfortunately it is not Barack Obama but rather the principles of conservatism and capitalism that guarantee the possibility of a similar outcome for you and me. Sure, he can do it on his own, but his message is that you and I need him in order to have a “fighting chance.”

And it is conservatism that pushes us to rid ourselves of the chains associated with victimization. It inspires us to let go of circumstances beyond our control and to exercise dominion over the things we can control. It does not seek to pin the blame of personal failure on anyone else but the person who has failed; however, it still offers the promise of future triumphs that are independent of past follies.

When it comes to the sharing of wealth, conservatism abhors a system where charity is coerced by legislatively mandated taxation, but it inspires, encourages, and entices the individual to give selflessly. It wouldn’t rob us of the benefits of freely choosing to be charitable. It counsels those who have profited from charitable assistance to in turn give charitably to those still in need.

Furthermore, it is conservatism that begs us to live within our means and to stay out of debt, thus avoiding the pitfalls that produce nationwide recession and depression. It discourages the kind of pride that teaches us to hate those with more than us. Is it right to take points from the valedictorian’s hard earned 4.0 and give those points to the student who chose not to work as hard? No. But it is right to lift this nation’s lower wage earners by encouraging them to work and to strive for more, to aspire to improve their own situations, to help lift those around them. I do not deny the fact that many in this nation have enjoyed greater privilege than many others; however, the choice is equally shared by everyone to work hard, and the promise and opportunity of success are also equally shared by all. Conservatism asks us not to pray for rescue from difficulty but for the courage and strength to overcome it.

Conservatism would allow us all opportunities to make more on our own; it would not coerce parity through the exorbitant taxation of the corporations and higher bracket earners who already shoulder the vast majority of this nation’s tax burden.

This election cycle, though I will vote for John McCain, my vote is more against Barack Obama than it is for John McCain. I am voting to at least keep the opportunity for these conservative principles to stay alive. I only wish I had a candidate that truly espoused them.