Excellence in Mediocrity

Playboy magazine has just recently announced that they will no longer be placing nude photos of women in their periodicals. It seems that the porn industry in America has gotten so pervasive and explicit that the veritable founder of common consumption pornography, has decided that is no longer profitable to produce magazines that include fully nude women. The American public has apparently become bored with the simple nude. Pornography, which used to be offered only on the fringes of society, has become an integral part of our communities. I submit that this is due largely to one issue. The lack of being held to a higher standard. Women seem to be under the impression that men need pornography as a outlet for their sexual energy and that if that outlet is taken away, their boyfriends and husbands will cheat on them. This idea is inherently false. Men are capable of practicing self control to the degree that they can maintain a monogamous relationship without external visual stimuli. This misconception is likely due to one factor. Society is no longer holding its members to a high moral standard of living and men no longer feel pressured to maintain integrity in their entertainment. Mediocrity has become the norm to the point at which we accept previously unacceptable behavior as new societal norms. The members of society, both men and women, should be offended by this. Men should be offended that they are not believed to be capable of practicing self control in the areas of their lives that are most important. Those areas that I’m referring to are their deep, interpersonal relationships with the opposite gender. Women should be offended that they are not holding themselves to the level of importance that they deserve in their relationships. They are allowing the men in their lives to diminish their value in the relationship by looking elsewhere for gratification. And shame on the men of society for taking advantage of this situation. The family unit is breaking down because we have allowed mediocrity to permeate our relationships. This is not a man or a woman problem. This is a societal problem. It's about time that our society holds men and women accountable for their actions and demands a higher standard in family and relationship situations. Strong and well adjusted adults most often come from strong families.

The United States is finding it increasingly hard to compete in a global market on our manufacturing and marketing fronts . Part of this problem is due to the fact that employers are finding it extremely difficult to find employees who will pass the mandatory drug test. The recreational use of controlled substances has become commonplace in America. Controlled substances are controlled for a reason. They are dangerous and cause irreversible damage to the human body. They alter the state of mind of the user and drastically affect the users decision-making paradigm. This causes an unsafe work environment for both the user and his coworkers. Society has allowed this to happen by not holding it's workforce to high standards of moral accountability. This is affecting both our economic situation and our country's physical health.

The weakening of the family unit and the national drug epidemic is creating problems within the workforce. Employees show up late and call off at the last minute. they under perform and expect their coworkers to pick up the slack. When they do complete their tasks, the quality is less than expected which decreases the consumer confidence in domestic products. Employers accept this because that is the nature of the employment pool available to them. When employers demand excellence they are criticized for promoting a hostile work environment and berated as corporate giants with no feelings. To give you an idea of the workplace situation of our country please consider this. GM is moving the production of its Buick line of vehicles to China because their quality of work is just as high in their vehicle production as their American counterparts and their workforce is more reliable. In the interest of full disclosure, I also want to point out that another factor in there decision is that the Buick customer base in China far exceeds its customer base in the States. However, I know that at least a part of that can be attributed to the decrease of consumer confidence in our country.
The leaders of this country are in many ways an accurate representation of their constituents. We have law makers who are unable or unwilling to put forth the effort to pass bills and amendments on the merits of the bills and amendments. As a result, they often try to fold these issues into larger, more important bills that actually have to pass. This has resulted in government shut downs in the past and may very well result in another shut down in the not-to-distant future. We have a rampant inability of our lawmakers to work across party lines to address issues for the common good of the country. We as Citizens are responsible for this situation because we have refused to stand against mediocrity in our society.

The alarming thing is that this training in mediocrity starts at a very early age. Teachers are told not to give out awards unless there is one for every student. They don't want any of the students to teel less valuable than other students. I understand this, but the problem is that in this system, true excellence is not actually rewarded. Why should a student work really hard to achieve a reward if the laziest kid in class gets one too? This trend began when I was in grade school. I distinctly remember being the repeated recipient of the “most improved” award. Even as a young person I knew that this was a consolation prize. If we don't start encouraging our young people to strive for excellence, how can we expect them to become great leaders in our country? We are doing our young people of great disservice by encouraging mediocrity. The only way for a person to achieve his full potential is to be held to a standard of excellence. We should be ashamed of what we are doing to these children by showing them that mediocrity is good enough.

Teenagers are no longer being taught that sexual abstinent is a good thing. We don't feel that our youth is capable of practicing that level of self control that is required to maintain virginity until marriage. Instead we try to teach them to be safe when they engage in intercourse. We tell them to use protection and try to keep the number of partners to a minimum. We use catchy phrases like "If the car is going ninety miles an hour all the time, it may not matter whether or not you're wearing a seat belt." Well, one thing we've learned is that teens tend to push boundaries. Why do we make the boundaries so wide? Don't teach them to be safe when they play in the street. Teach them not to play in the street. Maybe then, if they venture into the road, they'll do so with extreme caution.

We have allowed society to throw off the high standards of moral accountability that this country was founded in. This is the reason that our country is in the state of decay that we see today.

Now I want to take a moment to speak to the church in America. Before you take the opportunity to shake your finger at society and say “See? Look at what you have done to this once great nation under God,” I would like to bring up the point that the Church in America is right on par with society in their divorce rate, their consumption of pornography, their consumption of controlled substances, and their declining work ethic. In some cases we exceed the level failure in secular society when it comes to moral issues. This is truly a travesty considering that we are to hold ourselves to the greatest standard of moral excellence that exists. God's standard. We as the Army of God need to address the problems within our ranks. How are we to fight this spiritual battle when we are aiding and abetting the enemy? And make no mistake. Our failures as the church are contributing directly to the Devils arsenal. Pastors need to hold there congregations accountable to the standard of God's Word. Not to their opinions. Not to societal standards. And churches need to remove pastors and church leaders who are not holding them accountable. Only when we stop accepting mediocrity and start demanding excellence can we truly make America great again.

My Arguments Against the Legalization of Marijuana

In a few weeks, those of us who live in Ohio will be voting on a constitutional amendment that will legalize recreational and medicinal marijuana. A yes vote will legalize it and a no vote will leave the laws as they stand. I expect that most Ohioans know where they stand on the issue by now. I don't really expect to change anyone’s mind. My sole goal in this post is to encourage those in my small circle of influence to put some considerable thought into their decision on the issue. It seems to me that there is a tend in our country to make snap judgments based on our first, and often, our only impression. My hope for this post is that it will spur on some discussion in my community so that we can rest assured that we gave it some solid consideration before showing our opinions with our votes.

The laws prohibiting the sale and subsequent use of marijuana are far to difficult to enforce. Far too many people are using it for law enforcement to enforce such a sweeping law.

This is one of the arguments I’ve heard for the passing of this amendment. I find it to be a little weak for my tastes. It sounds a lot like “Everyone else is doing it!” I can practically hear my mother saying “What if everyone else was jumping off a cliff? Would you follow them then?” I would think that we could find a few laws that were just a little harder to enforce than this one. How about speed limits? I am fairly certain that there is a much higher percentage of the population that breaks that law. Why aren't we thinking about abolishing speed limits? Why stop at marijuana? How about all the laws against the sale and use of other illegal substances? Because these laws are all in place for the safety of the general public. Besides, since when do we remove laws because people break them?

It's impossible to overdose on marijuana. Why should it be illegal if it can't hurt you?

First of all, it can hurt you. The long-term use of this 'harmless plant' will cause a serious reduction of the users mental capacity. It will also cause a reduction of the immune systems ability to protect ones body from disease. There are a number of other negative side effects, but I'm not going to go into all those. It is impossible to overdose on this drug when it's being smoked. The theory is that eventually, the smoker will pass out at which point he will no longer be able to inhale the harmful smoke. However, pot for smoking will only constitute a portion of the products that will be available on the projected market. Many of the products that will include marijuana will be edible. Products such as cookies and candies will be available for the general public's unwise consumption. Let me spin a little yarn for you. He's eleven years old. His twenty-two year old brother is home for the hilidays. While the older of the two is out doing some last minute Christmas shopping, the younger is wandering into the older's room. He makes his way around the room until he comes to a drwaer in the night stand. He pulls it open to find a bag of candies each adorned with the likeness of a leaf. He knos what they are and pops one in his mouth, swallowing it whole. He doesn't feel any different so he swallows two more. Not realizing that it would take a while for the drug to be absorbed into his system this way, he consumes several more... I'm sure you can see where this is going. If we legalize marijuana, sooner or later we will know what an overdose of this drug will look like. And it'll be our children who show us. Is that a risk we are willing to take?

That's an obscure example. There will be regulations in place to prevent people under the age of twenty-one from obtaining marijuana.

We have regulations just like that in place for alcohol. As it turns out, those regulations are only so effective. According to this page, http://www.udetc.org/factsheets/OH.pdf, somewhere in the ballpark of 353,000 underage individuals managed to get alcohol every year. That's only in Ohio, by the way. Also, forty-one people died because of traffic accidents caused by underage drinking. That's in addition to the 2,476 injuries caused by that same type of accident. Please feel free to check out the other statistics found on the cited page. That is how effective we've been at keeping alcohol out of the hands of our youth. Are we so arrogant as to think we'll do any better with drugs?

Well, that's why we're only going to allow ten dedicated sites to grow it and why residents will only be allowed to have four plants for personal use. It'll be easier to regulate it this way.

This point is exactly the reason that there is another amendment up for vote preventing the forming of monopolies in the future. If the government is unable to regulate the growing and distribution of marijuana as an illegal substance, why would making it legal make it any easier for them to regulate? It's counter intuitive. By granting ten sites exclusive rights to produce marijuana, we will be presenting the opportunity for them to corner the market and drive prices up. This creates the perfect environment for a black market to pop up. Then we're right back to the uncontrollable production and distribution of a controlled substance by persons not subject to government regulations. Also, can you imagine the manpower it would tale to enforce the four plant per person rule? You'll end up the same illegal growers as before except they'll keep four plants in their living room and the rest in their basement growing room. We're basically giving them a legal smokescreen

One more point I'd like to make. What kind of precedent will this amendment make? How many other illegal substances will make there way into polite society? As my pastor said, it's a Pandora's Box. Lets just hope we can close the lid before hoplessness gets out.

These arguments for the legalization of marijuana are the main ones that I've heard this fall. This post basically explains the reasons why I intend to vote no on this issue. I leave you to make you own decisions. Please remember that the outcome of this vote will affect our state's future forever. I don't usually ask people to share my posts, but if you agree with some of my arguments and are invested in Ohio's future, then spread the word.