Taking ownership of your life brings power to make needed changes. True freedom begins with reliance on God to guide this process and provide what you need.
My neighborhood is filled with dogs, which is a good thing in my book. While most owners are excellent about cleaning up after them, there are always the bad apples that ruin things for everyone. For whatever reasons, these types find it perfectly acceptable to allow their pets to decorate other people’s lawns with fresh from the source and overly pungent “treats”.
This in turn has sprung up a little cottage industry of homeowner’s outdoing each other with “curb your dog signs”. I find the dynamics behind this fascinating, so naturally I took pictures. Yes, I know this makes me more than a bit strange.
Here they are for the rest of you weirdos out there. I know there’s plenty of you!
First up is the low budget, but gets right to the point category:
Then we have the slightly rude but effective:
A simple plea to courtesy:
Crossing the border now in to passive aggressive territory:
Creativity never hurts:
And finally, our winner, sweeping all categories for extreme creativity, humor, politeness and effectiveness:
Although everyone knows dogs can’t read and cats don’t follow instructions.
It’s always good to remember the liberty our country was founded on and the sacrifices so many made for us to live in such freedom and comfort today. Happy 241st Independence Day America!
I’m sure by now you’ve heard the name Charlie Gard. He is the infant child of parents Chris Gard and Connie Yates who have been fighting a desperate battle with the British State to prevent their son from being put to death against their will.
Charlie was born with infantile onset encephalomyopathic mitochondrial DNA depletion. It’s an extremely rare disease that affects tissues in the muscle, liver and brain. There is no cure and most die in infancy or early childhood. Charlie is unable to breath on his own, has brain damage and frequent seizures.
Last March the London hospital where Charlie is being cared for recommended removing his ventilator, as there was nothing more they could do for him. Chris and Connie refused on the grounds that an experimental treatment was available in America, so the hospital took to the courts, which on final appeal ruled in favor of allowing them to take out the ventilator over the expressed wishes of his parents. This legally sanctioned killing of their son is to be done, of course, in Charlie’s best interest.
Yes, of course, his best interest. How many doorways to evil have been opened with that sentiment? Too many to count. No one is denying that the experimental treatment probably will not work for Charlie, nor that his chances of survival beyond a few years aren’t slim. The point is that his parents deserve the choice of doing what they see best fit for their child and if that means bringing him to the U.S. for medical care they should have that right.
Certainly the decision should not be left up to a hospital bureaucracy whose best interests lay in exterminating costly patients. And if Chris and Connie are making arrangements to to take Charlie out of said hospital than what is the real problem here?
The euthanasia movement throughout western countries has brought with it an unhealthy reliance on “experts” by its promoters to make it seem virtuous. I’m sure the hospital administrators really do believe they are acting with compassion and that’s what frightens me the most in cases like this. So sure they are of this “compassionate” view that the power of the state had to be brought in to enforce it against the will of Charlie Gard’s parents.
You’d think the Catholic Church would offer some moral clarity on this but this recent statement from the Vatican was muddled and tinged with euthanasia talking points. Odd for an outfit that claims to value life in all its forms.
What constitutes a life of value and what does it mean to suffer? Only God knows and we should at least approach such issues with some humble awareness of this.
“It’s gonna be a journey where we’re gonna pour in to you, but you’re also going to pour in to your kids and you’re going to change the course of your life forever”–Chris Megison, Co-Founder and Executive Director of Solutions For Change
Please take 4 minutes to watch the video below before continuing. I promise it will be worth the added context and understanding you’ll get from it.
Homelessness is a complex problem and I certainly don’t pretend to have all the answers. There are some things though that can be said with confidence, because they speak to underlying objective truths about how the world works.
The first would be that making poor choices plays a large role behind many people living on the streets. Yes, I know there are exceptions, such as a woman fleeing an abusive spouse with her kids, or the family breadwinner being suddenly struck down with illness, but I’m talking about chronic homelessness here, not temporary, emergency situations.
The second would be that addiction, mental illness, abuse, generational poverty and familial dysfunction all affect decision-making capabilities, so it’s not just a function of telling someone to stop doing self destructive things. A mind rotted by substance abuse, or struggling with PTSD, or that’s been beaten down by years of emotional manipulation (or suffering from all of the above) will not generally make rational lifestyle choices.
Wouldn’t it make sense then to target the decision-making influencers so people can begin to see their situations clearly and make better choices for themselves? To go after the root cause of why people end up homeless in the first place?
A non-profit organization called Solutions for Change (SFC) thinks so and they operate off the radical idea that being homeless is merely a symptom of much deeper and more complex issues that need to and can be addressed.
Cue its Co-Founder and Executive Director Chris Megison,
“We’ve become a nation of symptom relievers thereby unintentionally escalating the very problems that we claim we care about. Most of the people who lose it all and wind up homeless have very serious problems yet for decades we’ve responded to those problems with soup bowls, shelter beds and even hugs. Those responses might make the person giving the food, shelter or compassion feel good but they do very little to solve the underlying source of the grief and loss that the person is experiencing.”
The Solutions For Change answer is to not just give someone shelter and food, but to also change their thinking process by requiring accountability in return. To live in housing provided by SFC, a person must remain sober and enroll in mandatory job training and life skills classes via their Solutions University program.
“Solutions University is focused on transforming lives permanently. From counseling services, to parenting classes, employment training and work experience, the programs at Solutions University create solid foundations that support meaningful futures for families in our program.”
Lots of common sense there, yes? Well no, not according to our government, whose Housing First policy prohibits federal funds for homeless prevention organizations that require abstaining from booze/drugs and participation in job and life skills training. The thinking behind this, if you can call it that, is to stabilize a person’s living situation first and then work on the other stuff.
Are there cases where providing housing without sobriety mandates makes sense? Probably, but this population is limited, or it should be if the goal is to lead people away from the enslavement of addiction. Shouldn’t it be? Plus it discounts the strong negatives that come with allowing addicts to maintain destructive behavior while living in close proximity to others struggling to remain sober. Add kids in to the equation and it’s a recipe for disaster.
Regardless, the local entities combatting homelessness in their communities should be the ones to decide what they think will work best, not the pointy-headed bureaucrats in Washington. This type of “help” from the federal government too often results in doubling down on processes that do little to move the dial towards self sufficiency and too much towards dependency on government.
SFC views this dependency as just as big a problem as the other underlying issues that contribute to being homeless. It fosters a learned helplessness for those stuck in the cycle of poverty and addiction, where mental barriers to freedom become more daunting than physical ones
Taken from the Solutions For Change website- a visual of the churn cycle that occurs when the root causes of homelessness are not addressed.
“The system keeps the poor, poor and no one’s life is better by getting things for free. We need to lift the poor and homeless up by investing in people and that just getting by is no longer acceptable.”
Exactly. The homeless problem in this country is a national disgrace. Living on the streets is now just another “lifestyle choice” and compassion means either letting people remain that way or providing housing with no expectations of behavioral change. That’s a societal fail in my view and a complete let down for the people that need accountability and a strong sense of moral direction in their lives the most.
Organizations like Solutions For Change are on the right track and we should be doing all we can to encourage them and similar entities to thrive. The quotes below from survivors who have gone through their program speak to this.
“I’m workin’ on my self esteem, I’m workin’ on not feeling worthy”– Louise
“This is why I view the world like this and made the choices that I made.” –Amber
“Just being a productive member of society feels really good.” –Shannon
“I’m slowly gaining some purpose for my life.” – Lenny
“You do it (remain sober) because you have to, then you do it because you ought to, then you do it because you want to.” – Jared
“You can change, you can be better and you can do things different and it’s completely up to you to say that this is not how the story is gonna end.” –Jennifer
These are the words of victory, of minds chartered on a new course of empowerment and change. Want more? Go here and watch a few of their videos. I challenge you not to smile and cry while doing so.
Solutions For Change is a pioneer in combatting homelessness and healing families from the brokenness of street life and addiction. A nice side benefit has been a reduction in welfare rolls as participants transition from dependent wards of the state to healthy, functional and productive members of society.
In return, the federal government has shut off funding grants due to their program requirements on sobriety and job training, forcing the closure of its intake and access center shelter, which directly affected 14 homeless families and 24 children.
Aside from this, they are still fully operational and dedicated as ever in solving chronic homelessness and leading people to empowerment over their own lives. They need money though, so if your heart has been touched by any of this, please go here to make a donation
To a view a letter from Solutions For Change founders Chris and Tammy Megison go here.
The news is just dumb. Every day it seems some unimaginably bizarre event pops up that reminds me why I’ve reformed my former media junkie ways and have all but tuned out. It’s like background noise to me now, it all sounds the same and just makes me sleepy. Stupefied maybe is a better word.
The head of the FBI willingly leaked intelligence? You don’t say. College students rioting over scary opinions? Yawn. Mass hysteria over withdrawing from a poorly designed and pointless climate accord? Yeah, whatever. My immune system response to the ridiculous just doesn’t allow me to get worked up over these things any more. I still care mind you, but not enough to devour the 24/7 news cycle for the latest piece of information. Continue reading →
There is a military base I frequent often in California’s gorgeous central coast area where you can drive for miles after entering its main gate without seeing another soul. The scenery is always nice and the mood peaceful, yet every few hundred yards or so, a roadside sign with just one or two words will appear that demands attention.
ColorStorm has a great post up called Random Goodness about the domino effect doing kind things can have on others who witness them. The video he has is just awesome too; really take 5 minutes to check it out.
This concept of how we can influence others happens to blend nicely with things I’ve been pondering lately now that it’s been a year since I lost my father. He taught me a lot throughout my life of course, but what’s been interesting to discover is how much I am still learning from him after his death. Continue reading →
Citizen Tom has a thoughtful post up on the unpleasant habit many of us fall in to of denigrating our fellow Americans. There’s a lot of good stuff there, but I particularly liked this:
“Why do we want to say such negative things about our own countrymen (Admittedly, I have done it. So I think I know)? When there are all sorts of Americans, who exactly are we talking about? When we denigrate our fellow Americans, what I think we are doing is denigrating a caricature, that thing of legend we call The Ugly American. And I think we do it in pride. We do it to prove our own outstanding tolerance by denigrating the intolerance of the stereotypical Ugly American. Yet is this not in fact a form of bias? Against our fellow Americans?”
It got me thinking about our political world and how saturated in stereotypes it is. The Right is racist and evil, the Left dumb and naïve. Bigot, Commie, Fascist, Democrap, Repugnican, Libtard, Wingnut, the list goes on and on. Continue reading →
Just the other day I was thinking I needed a cheap used beach cruiser to ride around town and voila this showed up for free on the curb near my house. Just my size too!
Howdy and thanks for stopping by! I'm weirdly obsessed with individual liberty and feel it's not given enough credit as being a necessary factor for living a truly empowered and fulfilled life.
Whether it's self serving politicians who are constantly trying to make victims out of us, or the negative fixed narratives we impose on ourselves that limit what we can do, we are constantly giving up personal power over to some person or thing which ironically only shrinks our world further.
This blog is about sticking up for freedom and hopefully opening up a deeper conversation on what it's meaning is, how it enhances our own empowerment and why it's so important to protect.
