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C.L. Harmon Posts

WHAT ARE WE TRULY WORTH

 

When we become objects we no longer contain value. When persons become only ‘the
people’, liberty becomes an idea and not a practice and living becomes a curse and not a gift, then there
is no longer any value to them.Creation gives an intrinsic value to what it creates. Humanity decides
whether or not to keep and respect that inherent worth. Each person takes in air, food and water. We
bleed, love and suffer as individual creations with value that is understood through its preciousness to
each of us. When we become an object, we become something with a label or assembled together in a
category with lesser or no value.It’s easier to destroy that which is only an object or a ‘thing’. Objects do
not feel as people do or suffer as creations with value. As such, they can be tortured, annihilated and
enslaved by those blinded by their ignorance of what is true in nature.The ignorance of man is because
of man. It is each person’s responsibility to see the value of themselves and of others and to hold tight
to that understanding. It is further our obligation to keep what we hold sacred and priceless from
becoming the object of destruction by those who hold only themselves as worthy of being valuable.

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Mindset 7/17/17

BY C.L. HARMON

Many times we hear that we need to choose a side, pick a team, know where we stand and not stand in the middle of the road. Perhaps though, it is in the middle of the road where we should all strive to walk the path of life.

Now consider the best vantage point to see both sides of any issue. Wouldn’t the middle be the best location in which to not only step away and see the ideas more clearly, but also to give us the view to get a better understanding of the side in which we find disagreement? Does not standing firm in the middle show that we believe in compromise and humanity’s ability to find peaceful solutions? Does it not allow us to approach either side without hostility and be welcomed as we are not considered an enemy?

By walking the central path between issues does not compromise our values or moral convictions because those should be with us no matter where we stand. But it does allow to know that where we stand can always be a place where opposing sides can approach us and be heard with an open mind and heart. And the middle is and has always been the place where people meet to become the only side.

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Have You Considered This?

By C.L. Harmon

The SD organization in Nazi Germany was the country’s intelligence and security branch. Heinrich Himmler, the most feared man in Nazi Germany next to Hitler, described the SD’s function as this: “The SD will discover the enemies of the National Socialist concepts and it will initiate counter-measures through the official police authorities.” It’s interesting that if we replace “National Socialist” with the word Democratic then this very sentiment has become acceptable reasoning in the US and many other countries around the world in their plight to fight terrorism. I should note that the SD was deemed an illegal organization by the judges of the Nuremberg Trials where high ranking Nazi officials were tried and convicted for crimes against humanity following WWII.

The Mission Statement for Homeland Security reads: “Missions include preventing terrorism and enhancing security; managing our borders; administering immigration laws; securing cyberspace; and ensuring disaster resilience.” Since Homeland Security was brought about as a direct result of an act of terrorism, according to its website, I thought it might be interesting to look back at another act of terrorism in history and see what was done to combat it and the consequences that followed regarding what was done. Hitler used the 1933 burning of the Reichstag. (Parliament) building, what he considered an act of terrorism against the “Fatherland” by a deranged Dutchman, to declare a “war on terrorism.”

“You are now witnessing the beginning of a great epoch in history,” he proclaimed, standing in front of the burned-out building, surrounded by national media. Does this remind us of George Bush standing at ground zero on September 14, 2001? “This fire,” Hitler said, “is the beginning.” He used the occasion to declare an all-out war on terrorism and its ideological sponsors, a people, he said, who traced their origins to the Middle East and found motivation for their “evil” deeds in their religion.

Does this not sound familiar with our current enemies of terrorism? Within a year of that terrorist attack, Hitler coordinated the administration necessary to deal with the terrorist threat facing the nation, including those citizens who were of Middle Eastern ancestry and thus probably terrorist sympathizers in his opinion. He proposed a single new national agency to protect the security of the Fatherland, consolidating the actions of dozens of previously independent police, border, and investigative agencies under a single powerful leadership. This would become the SS organization of the Nazi regime under the control of Himmler.

Now the US Department of Homeland Security does not control all of the policing agencies, but it does have a good start. The Secretary of Homeland Security leads the third largest Department of the U.S. government, with a workforce of 229,000 employees and 22 components including TSA, Customs and Border Protection, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, FEMA, the Coast Guard, and the Secret Service.

What needs to be recognized most I feel when we look at the actions of the past is the difference between fear and reasonable national security and which one that we actually have. Are the same actions today repeating themselves from Nazi Germany? Is what we currently possess freedom or fascism in sheep’s clothing? Should we be concerned that each of us are searched and questioned at our airports? Does this not conjure up the scenes of Nazi check points in WWII movies?

Each nation’s people and government have a responsibility to protect citizens. However, it does not have a right to trade its people’s civil liberties in its efforts to bring about that protection. Especially in the manner in which Hitler did. The Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution provides, “[t]he right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.” Is the Constitution of the United States still the governing doctrine of this land from which all other laws are built upon? If so, when did it become acceptable to ignore this doctrine and under whose authority?

So this begs the question, how does travelling on an airplane justify probable cause to be searched and then to have a bottle of shampoo or water confiscated? We are not free if we are under guard but only free if we are guarded against those who deprive us of our liberties. Liberty is defined by the dictionary as the state of being free within society from oppressive restrictions imposed by authority on one’s way of life, behavior, or political views. So with this in mind, it simply boils down to the question of what is most important to us. Is having liberty more or less important than the belief in protection we have by depriving us of liberty?

Following the 9/11 attacks, President George Bush said’ “Terrorist attacks can shake the foundations of our biggest buildings, but they cannot touch the foundation of America. These acts shatter steel, but they cannot dent the steel of American resolve.” But is this what happened? Is it not apparent that change has not only come about, but done so in a very intrusive manner as is apparent each time we venture through airport security?

What about the belief that we are being watched through electronic surveillance? Is it real? Surveillance agencies, such as the DHS and the position of Director of National Intelligence have exponentially escalated mass surveillance since 2001. A series of media reports in 2013 revealed programs and techniques employed by the US intelligence community using advances in computer and information technology to allow the creation of huge national databases that facilitate mass surveillance in the United States by DHS managed Fusion centers, the CIA’s Terrorist Threat Integration Center (TTIC) program, and the FBI’s TSDB.

Being watched and searched without our consent is simply the absence of freedom, not the protection of it. Freedom is taken from countless people because they allow it to be taken. Hitler initiated his war on terrorism and used the cause of protection for the people to garner its support. However, he did not ask the people if they even wanted his idea of protection or offer to divulge what such protection would cost to millions of people who committed no crimes. Freedom is seldom lost in the actions of battle, but almost always taken by the lack of action from those who believe their right to freedom it is not their battle to fight.

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Quote of the Day

By C.L. Harmon

Some people carry the Cross.

Some people build the Cross.

Some people burn the Cross.

Life is about deciding which of these people we will be.

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Mindset: 10-14-16

By C.L. Harmon

When we make room for others in our lives, we fill up spaces in our souls that might otherwise become cluttered with the baggage that accumulates over time. Life is in constant motion from our first breath to our last and within that time comes the sum of all our actions.

We have no control over the rate in which time passes, but we do have dominion over how that time is spent. We can spend it creating baggage that we must store in the limited spaces that are available. Or we can use that time to share with others.

Time with others is not the creation of a burdensome load that clutters the chambers in our soul, but the expansion of a life that creates more rooms to house the valuable relationships of love and friendship we acquire.

Happiness and misery are both results of time plus choices. When we choose baggage, we crowd ourselves into a small existence that revolves only around ourselves. However, when we share ourselves with others, we grow as large as we need to be to hold all the valuables our time allows us to discover.

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Mindset 7-2-15

By C.L. Harmon

What separates us? What unites us or draws us together? Differences of opinions, belief systems and even traditions distance from each other. This is a fundamental fact of humanity since the beginning. What comes of these when we focus so heavily on what divides us as opposed to what unites us?

There are wars, acts of terror, violence, political upheaval and even attempts at genocide. We are so focused on being right and having our beliefs accepted by others that we lose sight that our opinions are stealing from us what allows us to connect to each other. Love, forgiveness, compassion and generosity connect us all to each other in a way that beliefs and opinions cannot.

Different races, religions, and cultures will live in harmony by simply loving and respecting the other. Harmony and peace need no agreement of like-minded individuals to prosper. They only need acceptance and tolerance. Our world is a reflection of our choices. If this is not the world you hope for, then change it by exchanging an opinion for an act of kindness toward those who feel differently than you.

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Quips & Quotes

Perspectives change depending on where one is standing.

Convictions however, stands regardless of where one’s perspectives may change.

~C.L. Harmon

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Mindset (2-15-16)

By C.L. Harmon
The right to speak, to be informed, to be heard and to understand are not free, nor are they easily attainable or kept. They represent the very essence of self and the expression associated with identity. A sense of self and one’s belief to expression is an enemy to authority.
Control and freedom can only coexist within a society when both are respective of the role the other plays and its importance in maintaining the balance that is necessary for harmony. Although there can be harmony, one must always be dominant. We can choose to be free with limits of control or we can choose to be controlled with limited freedom. We cannot have both.
People of every nation must choose for themselves which it is they wish to be. They must not ask their governments or other nations to choose for them because it is individuals who desire freedoms and liberties, not governments. Authority by definition is control and it is rarely in the nature of authority to grant the freedom that limits or abolishes that control.
In order to be free, we must act as free. Control desires nothing more than a willingness not to act by people for it to rule.

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The Lost Forgotten

Nothing has ever been destroyed by peace, lost through understanding, burdened by compassion or stolen through honesty. These are lessons that have slipped from the human conscience as we have grown older and grown apart.

We have become a people that has forgotten to raise our nations in simplicity, thus we have become a race lost unto itself.

We have forgotten to teach honesty to our children so they will be become adults with integrity. We have forgotten to teach that we all must accept responsibility for our actions and learn to apologize so we can understand that the true meaning of respect is earned not self-proclaimed.

We have forgotten to live with understanding so that new generations discover fairness and compromise and that one only works when applied to the other. We have forgotten to express compassion to friend and enemy alike and so our world has suffered the tragedies of indifference and not the benefit of charity.

We have simply forgotten to be who we should be. If we continue to allow these lessons to slip away from our lives, then eventually they will be beyond our reach. A people who can no longer learn the simple lessons of life are a people who lose themselves and ultimately become lost to history.

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Mindset: The Journey Into A Dream

Every destination is the beginning of a new journey just as every thought can the beginning of a new dream. Upon arrival, if we step back for a moment then we see where it all began. We further see why we started, how we have traveled and where we have been. And mostly we see where we are now and this is a must in order to move to other places we wish to go.

Stepping back in our lives does not make us weak, misguided or hinder us from moving forward. It gives us perspective and the tools such as humility and patience that we often find so difficult to use in everyday life, to strengthen our will as we dream. It is in the rare moments in which we reflect upon the rough road behind that we are allowed the opportunity of seeking the smoothest highway ahead to reach our next destination.

Taking a pause from the chaos of everyday life and after the moments of victory, even for only a moment, can sometimes be our only window in which to view the map of that long and narrow path that leads to the ultimate ends of our dreams.

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