New kind of government shakedown?

It's sad when government employees can organize and refuse to do their taxpayer-funded jobs until the taxpayers agree to give them more money. I've always taken seriously the advice that Jesus gave the soldiers to "never complain about your wages."

A quick look at the entire wage-benefit package the teachers get in Wisconsin shows the enormity of the problem when other public servants don't follow that admonition. Not only do they complain, the boycott their jobs and tell the kids to go away! Imagine the power soldiers would have if we refused to do our jobs until we got more money. Pretty soon, we would be just like those countries where their dictators have the military on their side and nobody else (Egypt comes to mind).

Bottom line: If public service is no longer viewed as stewardship, then (quoting Jed Clampett) . . . "we in a heep of trouble."

Seth Godin is the genius behind Yahoo. He recently wrote on his blog...

Make big plans

...that's the best way to make big things happen.

Write down your plans. Share them with trusted colleagues. Seek out team members and accomplices.

Shun the non-believers. They won't be easily convinced, but they can be ignored.

Is there any doubt that making big plans increases the chances that something great will happen?

Is there any doubt that we need your art and your contribution?

Why then, are you hesitating to make big plans?

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I (Jay) ask that you adopt that approach to our effort to turn this nation away from the rocky cliffs of destruction. I've reached the conclusion that some really bad people have used voter fraud to disenfranchise the rational voters (also called "the producers") in our nation.

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While there are many great causes to which we can donate our creative time and talent, I will ask you to consider this one because it is bedrock to our freedom. If we can't protect the integrity of our electoral process, then the Constitution of the United States is lost. Today is not the time to cast blame for who lost the Constitution. Today is the day to pull up our sleeves and get to work rebuilding a nation that has often stood as a shining example to the rest of the world of what freedom can accomplish.

Check the website, www.voterintegrityproject.com for more info on how to join our effort.

Blessings,

Jay

• Greetings, friends...
  
• A key to improving the electoral process in the US is getting honest people to participate in the process. While the people we need already vote, many of them have kids at soccer practice or jobs that keep them away from any sort of volunteer activities after a long day at work. As a result, the only participation they have given was the 30 minutes it took for them to vote.
• This speaker (in the video below) explains how great things are happening because people are willing to donate their creative talent for the good of the the community. Some contributions are purely for nonsense (think of LoL Cats) while other efforts are a genuine contribution to society (think of open-source software development). Anyway, because of the greater opportunities in today's entertainment technology, we are no longer destined to veg out in front of the television every night. Now, we can log on and interact with a community to develop something--anything--for the good of others.Some make stuff that is humorous (and kinda dumb) while others create things that will change our world.
  
• That would be my challenge to you. A group called "True The Vote" (TTV) created a data base management system that we shall use it in NC. Pls pardon the geek speak, but it merges fields of information that is imported from diverse state agencies that track things like voter registrations, death certificates and driver's license addresses. While the local election boards should have been doing this kind of work all along, they don't. After TTV collected the data bases, they ran analysis on the data with volunteers and took their findings to the election board. (Oddly enough, less than a week after the Harris County (TX) election board received the information from TTV, the county election board warehouse burned to the ground and destroyed every single voting machine owned by the county! But I digress. The key is that volunteers used their talents for the good of the community. While LoL Cats does it for cat owners, TTV and USHAHIDI (in the video) did it for a more significant cause.
  
• This video illustrates one kind of help we will need if we are to right this ship of state. Currently, she is listing heavily and taking on lots of water. If we are to save her, we will need to plug the leaks and start the bilge pumps. I could ramble on for too long with this metaphor, so please take a moment (actually about 13 minutes) to watch this fast-moving and informative video to understand how you, dear reader, might just have a place that you didn't anticipate in this effort to build voter integrity.

Blessings,
Jay