02/26/2015; Happiness the world over.

My friends, what good is it for one of you to say that you have knowledge and understanding; if your actions do not prove it?

Can that knowledge and understanding save you?

Suppose there are brothers or sisters who need clothes and don't have enough to eat.

What good is there in your saying to them, “God bless you! Keep warm and eat well!”— if you don't give them the necessities of life? ...

Developing Knowledge and Understanding:

1. 15 minutes daily applied to learning and understanding good moral and ethical values; The Lord says, follow my commandments.
1. Love the Lord your God with all your heart (internalized ideas), with all your soul (the essence of your purposes), and with all your strength (mind or intellect – holding every evil thought captive).
2. Love your neighbor (Must show kindliness or helpfulness toward his or her fellow humans) as you love yourself.
2. 15 minutes daily applied to getting the facts about the five top things that affect your day negatives yesterday (personal challenges, your neighbor’s challenges, local challenges, state challenges, and national challenges).
3. 15 minutes daily developing an action plan in works to change today’s outcome to a positive personal and neighborly outcome with perseverance only in positive attitudes (thoughts) and positive (works – actions).
4. 15 minutes daily taking actions to cleanse your physical mental being (family time, friend time, relaxing in meditating upon good – music, reading, resting quietly...).

Examples:

Use of words (person to person interactions):

1. Physical situations (Eye to eye contact); what excites you about you about today (developing an attitude of gratitude in others)? Not how are you!
2. Phone situations; thank you for contacting me; thank you for giving me some of your valuable time; I really like the sound of your voice and verbal presentation; how can I get you to smile or laugh? Not What!
3. Social Media situations; Is this what you are about to post, like, favorite, or follow positive in how it will affect you personally in a judgmental world; will what you post show your judgments of others or will it initiate communication to reach consensus and lead to compromise, even if it means just agreeing to disagree out of respect for each others loving purposes of being good neighbors.

Today’s national situation evaluated:

Constituency’s (Citizens Voters) attitude and actions directly affect an Elected Officials perceptions and attitude toward his/her constituency (Citizens Voters) which directly affects an Elected Officials Roll Call Behavior.

Voter Turnout:

Voter Turnout Trends in Local Elections:

Voter turnout for local elections has historically lagged but is getting worse, prompting officials to explore new ways to get people to the polls.

Midterm Turnout Trends Down in 2014:

New data for the midterm elections show turnout dropped in most states.

National Turnout Trends (Shaming United States Voters):

Robust voter turnout is fundamental to a healthy democracy. As low turnout is usually attributed to political disengagement and the belief that voting for one candidate/party or another will do little to alter public policy, "established" democracies tend have higher turnout than other counties.

Voter turnout in the United States fluctuates in national elections, but has never risen to levels of most other well-established democracies. In countries with compulsory voting, like Australia, Belgium, and Chile, voter turnout hovered near 90% in the 2000s. Other countries, like Austria, Sweden, and Italy, experienced turnout rates near 80%. Overall, OECD countries experience turnout rates of about 70%, while in the U.S., about 60% of the voting eligible population votes during presidential election years, and about 40% votes during midterm elections.

Understanding what must happen:

1. Approach voting with the idea that 1 vote does affect local elections and how your community works to make your life successful. Example: of what happens if you are not actively involved; $250,000 spent on ornaments on the streets; geese in flight.
2. Approach voting with the idea that 1 vote does affect state elections and how your state works to make your life successful. Example: $220 Million (including stealing money from infrastructure tax funds - like gas taxes) spent to help billionaires build a new basketball stadium instead of fixing bridges, roads, etc.
3. Approach voting with the idea that 1 vote does affect national elections and how your community works to make your life successful. Example: stealing money from the Social Security Trust fund, a now known to be incorrect and negative outcome causing, war in IRAQ.

Becoming a direct influence in how we are governed: Hints for Communicating withCongress.

One of the many wonderful aspects of living in the United States is that we can have a direct Influence on the way we are governed.

To do so, you need to become your own advocate with Congress. Members of Congress listen to their constituents and care about constituent opinions.

But to be effective, you must communicate properly with your representative and senators. Members of Congress are people, too, and as you would react negatively to someone who sent you an angry or threatening letter, so do they. So to be effective, you need to follow some guidelines that are founded on civility and common sense.

Big in the news is today is “Right to Work” legislation. The reality is that everyone has a right to work without laws limiting group bargaining; that tell you how much you can be paid ($4.00 less an hour in “Right to Work” states.).

Gerry-Mandering has lead elected officials to believe they can work with ever worrying about being fired (impeached, recalled, or even not being elected again). We can prove to that is not true!