Playing the Game called Government

We have survived another election year. This was the year where you had to endure everyone's Facebook posts about their personal opinions on politics and who they think you should vote for. I have decided to throw my two cents in as well, just to get this off my chest and move on to other things.

Two years ago I got to visit Washington DC. I was able to score a tour of the Capitol building but was unable to see the White House (mostly because at the time the Democrats didn’t want any Republicans even touring the White House.) Even though I am not a Republican, the state of Utah and our senators are, and that is who you need to contact to set up big tours like that.

While on the tour of the Capitol building we got to go into the actual room where congress meets. I then had what they do in that room described to me by one of Jason Chaffetz's fresh-faced interns.

In order to best describe how congress works I will compare it to playing the game of Monopoly with my wife’s family:

When the game gets to its climax, all of the properties have been sold and everyone is trying to make a deal with one another to create monopolies and build hotels on them. My wife’s sisters, "Fanna" and "Falaina," have sworn ever since they were little to be the closest, best friends, regardless of what may come between them.

So when "Fanna" runs completely out of money, Falaina slips her a couple one hundred dollar bills under the table to help bail her out. The entire group playing the game is surprised to see that poverty-stricken "Fanna" was not only able to pay off her mortgages but also purchase real estate. She then coerces my wife’s brother, "Fascott," out of Boardwalk, since he landed on one of her newly-established monopolies with houses on it and can't afford the rent.

My wife and I are fully aware of "Fanna" and "Falaina’s" undying love and devotion for one another and we know full well that they are conspiring with one another to cheat at this wholesome family game. My wife and I now have no choice but to form an alliance with one another and do the same thing the sisters are doing with money: trade under the table to build up our own monopolies and property to stand against them.

Eventually the remaining players catch on to the surrounding corruption and have no choice but to pick a side and join one of the parties to survive. Sometimes my wife or I have Boardwalk and sometimes the foes do, depending on the luck of the dice. While the game drags on, the leading team then manipulates the house rules to help their own cause. (And likewise with the other team.)

As you can see, with the ascending money and corruption, the game never ends and this processional march around the board by all the players gets nowhere.

This is how our government works. I felt so dirty sitting in that room at the nation’s capital.

What is your opinion on government and politics? Do you think it really matters which bi-partisan group runs our country now?

End-of-the-world survivor Part 5 of 5

Warren Jeffs Prophecy from Prison: The president of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints predicted from his prison cell that the world would end by December 23. When the end failed to occur on that day he blamed his followers' “lack of faith” and moved the prediction to December 31, 2012. When this day also passed, Jeffs angrily told his followers to not talk to the press.

Warren Jeffs

I wonder how many more end-of-the-world scares I will experience in my lifetime. Can you think of any I might have missed?

End-of-the-world survivor Part 4 of 5

Mayan apocalypse of 2012: Dec 21, 2012 the Earth would be destroyed by an asteroid, Nibiru, or some other interplanetary object; alien invasion; or a supernova. Scientists from NASA, along with expert archeologists, stated that none of those events were possible. Personally I think the Mayans just ran out of space on their calendar.

End-of-the-world survivor Part 3 of 5

The Noah’s Ark fear of 2011: Harold Camping, a 91-year-old American Christian radio broadcaster, predicted that the Rapture and devastating earthquakes would occur on May 21, 2011 with God taking approximately 3% of the world's population into Heaven, and that the end of the world would occur five months later on October 21. This was in reference to his Bible studies, specifically around Noah’s Ark and how these specific dates in 2011 coincided with that Biblical event. The general populace was not quite as scared as much they were with Y2K. He mostly got laughed at and mocked a lot. When that date came and went he pushed the date back to October 21, 2011 and was still disappointed. He has now been humbled and claims he now does not know when the end of the world is and it was sinful for him to predict it.

Harold Camping

 

End-of-the-world survivor Part 2 of 5

Y2K Scare: The threat that the world would end on the stroke of midnight Jan 1^st2000. First of all who is the person we are listening to that can map out on a calendar by the day and minute the world’s biological clock is going to give out and explode or collapse in on itself? I remember how frightened people were clear up to this specified date. I knew of friends and neighbors who had loaded up and food storage, emergency supplies and spent the News Year’s eve night in their basement bathrooms or bomb shelters if they were that prepared. As we approached the actual day this catastrophe was supposed to hit and people still could see no signs of environmental chaos some people then manipulated the original threat to be digital instead of environmental. The computers will crash! Some did but not to the extent and caliber that they were telling us. Now over a decade later this gigantic fear has been defused and forgotten.

 

End-of-the-world survivor Part 1 of 5

We have now survived another doomsday end-of-the-world scare. I am creating a T-shirt which says: End of the world survivor 5 times and counting. The end of the world scare has been with the human race for centuries. I will only count the end of the world threats that I have personally witnessed in the last three decades. Let’s see if you recognize or remember any of them.

 

Nostradamus: Nostradamus predicted that the "King of Terror" would come from the sky in July of 1999 with seven months of all sorts of fears of the end. I remember watching Fox 13 News when that day was supposedly upon us and I thought nothing of it.