SAFETY AT ANY COST - THE AGENDA OF THE DEVIL

The year 2013 has been a terribly one for the company I work for.  I simply cannot wait to see the end of it - to put it behind me.  We have had a few deaths and some severe accidents, as our manufacturing environment is an inherently dangerous one.  Right now, we have a massive, top-down safety campaign going on in order to try and reverse the abhorrent safety trend.  We make a GREAT product that I am proud of - but building that product requires risk on some level.  Nothing in life comes without risk.  It is one of the qualities of God that I admire.  I married a woman who is (and probably most are) very risk averse.  It is the abundant flow of testosterone in the male bloodstream that makes us dumb and dangerous.  In the defense of the male, I consistently state to my wife that, if all ventures were left up to most women, they would still be living in over-crowded and disgusting conditions in Europe while looking over the yonder blue and wondering what the vast expanse might hold.  That is not female bashing - it is simply an observation about the what makes the sexes unique (and I have to throw out the Eve model who did the right thing and threw caution to the wind and munched down on the forbidden fruit, much to Adam's dismay).  Without a throttling back of the male impulses that the female provides in the marital equation, there would be little that would be right in this world (think Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, etc).

Not sure if Satan is gay here (kidding), but he sure exhibits a lot of those female qualities - or panders to the need to feel safe that all of us possess to some degree or another.  His "campaign promise" while challenging Father's plan of salvation - which provided all the opportunity to rise or fall on the basis or moral agency and personal accountability - was that those who followed his plan would thrive and "not one soul shall be lost".  Sounds alot like the leftist political rhetoric of this day of excessive social safety nets and a cradle-to-grave mentality where not a single person will fall thru the cracks - regardless of their lack of personal effort or desire to achieve their individual potential.  It is this something for nothing mentality that has always driven me nuts - and drives my kids nuts because they see all the youth around them getting whatever their whims dictate - and they do not have the same privilege.  I find, the more I give them, the less grateful they are and the more entitled they feel.  I constantly have to remind them that I owe them nothing other than a good example to follow (fail on many levels....) and basic food, shelter and access to worldly and spiritual training.  Anything above and beyond that and they are on their own.  They can strive as they feel the need to do so (that translates into; get a job or do extra chores to earn money).

My daughter recently asked for a high end (40 below, mummy) sleeping bag for her college experience when she goes hiking and camping.  Knowing how she typically takes care of the stuff we just randomly hand to her, I knew that a "something for nothing, freebie" would just get thrashed and would get lost or be unuseable in a short amount of time.  She did NOT get my neat-freak gene.  My solution?  Give her a $20 basis for the most basic bag available and let her decide if its important enough for her to prioritize HER money to upgrade to something she would be proud of having on a backpack.  She would have some skin in the game, so to speak.  I learned this principle late in my parenting life.

The scriptures are replete with examples of God giving his "kids" blessings and then having them piss it all away because of lack of gratitude.  This life is supposed to be a gamble - where nothing is guaranteed.  You could wake up tomorrow and find your kid dead - or you could not wake up tomorrow.  This is by design - so that we will constantly feel after our Maker and supplicate for our every need and righteous desire - our breath even.  By design, it is a walk of faith and humility.  When we truly learn to walk that way, we have arrived at a place where God can use us.

In Babylon, it is the opposite.  We work tirelessly to take away all threats to our mortal existence.  Airbags in the cars (8 or more standard on most newer cars?), zero airplane fatalities is the goal, C-sections to avoid an oxygen-deprived baby and ensure the health of the mother, mal-practice insurance for the hordes of people who insist on having no possible bad outcome in a fallen, telestial world (get real, and get a life folks....), insurance for everything to cover any possible and imaginable circumstance including the very things designed into God's plan of risk (earthquakes, seas heaving beyond their bounds, great hailstones the weight of a talent, general gloom and doom stuff).  If it can be imagined, the odds-makers have calculated the odds and removed the risk with an insurance policy to cover the inevitable occasional bad outcome.  I just made good on a policy that cost the same as the lap-top to ensure that nothing such as a spill of a drink or a careless drop of the machine would damage my ability to enjoy it.  We even have pre-nups to ensure that our pre-marital fortunes do not fail or to try and coerce the other partner into staying in a marriage - you might call it marriage insurance.  Truly maddening - not a shred of personal accountability left in our lives any more under the d'evil's plan which we live under today.  We call it the life of ease; I call it a life not worth living.  You truly do not feel alive until you have experienced risk.  The lives of risk averse people are generally pretty low grade.  After our kid died, I noticed my life became one of low-risk outcomes and it was getting boring.  There was a reason the Savior said that those who chose to do the low-risk option (burying their talent) would not be rewarded handsomely.  God DOES reward risk-taking.  Even in D&C88:81, we are told we need to take risks - open our mouths and share the good news.  Heck - in times of old - you got strung up or otherwise nixed for opening your mouth in a politically charged environment.  Jesus was kind of the ultimate example of that line of thinking.  Soon - it will be as charged as it was in Jesus' day - and death will be the result for opening your mouth and declaring yourself to be a follower of Jesus.  And, in so taking this risk, you lose your life, but gain another type of life of far greater weight and reward.

That is the essence of being as God is.  He risked giving all of us a shot at doing it our own way - and we have seriously messed it up (collectively speaking).  But He will prevail in the end - precisely because the valiant have developed enough spiritual muscle that we will not fail in this battle between good and evil.  The spiritually flabby foes will flounder while those, under Michael's (Adam's) direction, will ultimately prevail.

So, when you hear a politician or leader (read the anti-Christ) saying "Peace in our time", or who is selling yet one more safety net to a lulled and sleeping populace - SHUN IT.  If you hear of a plan to make us all safe from some guy in a turban from the ME by completely removing all of our natural and God-given rights laid down by highly intellectual and inspired Founding Fathers, run from it - it is a trap.  It is the trap of the anti-Christ - and the chump that he has sworn allegiance to.

Health insurance offered to those who refuse to take care of their health will be a disaster and will never be feasible economically or from a sustainable health standpoint.  It is one more incentive to destroy our health by lack of action and concern.  It is just one more example of how far we have fallen as a people who would sell their future for a mess of pottage.  We, collectively, deserve what we have coming to us.

Now - let the angry comments begin..... (wink)