EXCELLENCE

“There is nothing new under the sun, anything you do will always have been done by somebody else. But you can always do it better. You must always do it better. Do it excellently…There is no traffic jam on the extra mile.”-Gary Powers, CEO of Ortho Molecular Products, Inc.

Iowa -- We are in a cultural war. We live in a volatile time, when the massive states and cultures of the world are on the brink of collapse and the precipice of destruction. We are trying to save it. However, just as we would never fight a war halfheartedly, or at least I hope we never would, we must fight this war for the minds of men, the war of ideas, as desperately as we would anything else.

All those that fight on one side of anything against another side must be ambassadors. The ambassador must represent his country, his city, as a kingdom builder for Christ. He must do it excellently.

We live in a world of half-heartedness. Schools are full of halfhearted and unmotivated teachers. In business excellence is rare, mass production is encouraged, at the expense of everything else.

We need to be different. Zeal without knowledge and zeal without excellence will both fall to pieces.

When men fight to begin, in business, in politics, in church denominations, the new system must fight its way up. However, once the fortress is built it can be managed and often is managed by complacent and less than excellent men. McDonalds can make more mistakes than Joes Hamburger Joint; the Green Party must have many times the energy and initiative than the GOP if it is going to continue to climb.

For the beginners, they must be excellent. But do not forget that even once you grow, you must still be excellent. We are tired of half-heartedness, it makes us feel that we are not worth your full striving.

Excellence takes a lot of hard work, it takes diligence. It is through diligent excellence that men like a poor young man in law school with a rat trap of a car becomes president of the United States, as our own president is a testimony to.

Anyone can be average, it is exceptional to go a little farther, to work a little harder, and to be excellent. It is attained through diligence. That is how we excel, and that is how we stand before kings, not mean men.

 

Andrew C. Abbott

THE MORAL MINORITY

St. Louis. – It is hard sometimes for the little guy to keep fighting.

The little nation of Britain stood up against the great and mighty German Luftwaffe. Washington stood against the crown. Brave young resistance fighters died fighting Communist Russia. The 300 Spartans stood at the pass of Thermopile and said to the great Persian Army, “you cross these mountains over our dead bodies.”

William Wallace and his Scots battled it out fiercely with the tyrant king Edward, giving it everything they had, while being the forgotten minority left out in the cold.

The Moral Majority in America has ceased to exist; the days of the Moral Minority are here. But that is alright. Today they are getting laughed at, how many said the 300 Spartans would accomplish anything? During his time William Wallace was not seen as the great savior, today who has ever heard of Sir James of Lennox, the cowardly knight who refused to stand with him?

Politics is a marathon, not a sprint. Many people forget that. They come to the track, they look down its vast expanse, at the many that are plodding along, and they decide to take a new approach. They find the most popular track, they set themselves, and then they begin running as fast as they can. The populace thinks they are watching a sprint, but they are really watching a marathon.

The crowds love to watch men sprint, but no man can sprint for 26 miles. Once he gets past the grandstand he will collapse and the race will be over for him. Such a man will never accomplish anything great. It is the man that jogs that counts, not the man who runs on the most open lane to receive the applause of the crowds while he lives.

It is the man who jogs that wins. It is the man who receives boos for running too slowly, the man who is spit on because he will not look good to the crowd, he cares only for the final assessment as he nears the wire.

The laurel wreath of history only kisses the brow of the dead or dying hero.

We may not receive the applause in our day, but it is in the long run that the work must pay off.

Robin Hoods will always be scorned in their times, but it is the Sherriff whose grave we will all spit on. The race is long. Victory is not about the ratings. The sprinters are always forgotten, there are so many of them we could never name them. The crowds become lost in a sea of temporary wonder, and then another comes along with a different color jersey and their eyes and hearts follow him.

Victory is not in the smiles you win but in the miles you run.

It is worth getting booed if you take the gold in the end. The jogger is the man who will receive the great monuments to him, which state REMEMBERING THE GREAT MAN WHO WON THE WAR. There is no gold medal for the man that sprints, for him there is only a grave, its inscription will read He ran so fast, and looked so good, that he did nothing. The race is a lot longer than the quarter mile where the grandstand is.

We could sprint for the crowd, but what would we attain in so doing? Are accolades really worth it? Are our souls worth 30 pieces of silver? The true statesman leaves popularity to others, for him, the important thing is that he finishes the race well.

Our generation may not see a very great deal of “success” it may not be until our great grandchildren’s lifetimes that the tortes begins to catch up with the hare. The slowly plodding battle line of the moral majority however will continue to fight.

 

Through His Strength We Will Conquer.

Andrew C. Abbott

Food Fight: Which Side Are You On?

There is an interesting food fight going on.

There are two sides in a food fight, the governments and the green food advocates-the greens and the govs.

The greens would like to have little or no accreditation from the USDA, they say such accreditation is worth nothing, and that the current food system is dangerous for all of our health. They complain that the massive- in their opinion- over packing, of slaughterhouses where cows are grown to kill is immoral and breeds disease.

The govs say that to let anyone grow anything anywhere would breed massive epidemics, with people eating unknown and unsecured foods which have the potential to kill little children who consumed it. Accreditation is important, they say, because it protects from such things.

The greens complain that the massive, in their opinion over packing, of slaughterhouses where cows are grown to kill is immoral and breeds disease. They say that to grow a chicken with health problems, let it suffer for 5 weeks and then slaughter it is unkind and unfair.

The govs say that it is an efficient way of mass producing food in the modern era, with everything carefully sterilized, and inspected by agencies such as the USDA to be sure that regulations are followed for optimum health safety.

The greens say they would like to sell raw uncooked milk on their farm to their community.

The govs reply that that is dangerous for health, raw milk has killed many, and that it needs to be sterilized

The greens would like to hire their neighbor’s children to work for them on their farms.

The govs say that is child abuse.

The greens say they just want to have their farms in peace.

The govs say they are just trying to keep people safe from a salmonella poisoning epidemic.

There is definitely a food fight going on. And so, in the words of the old union song “Which side are you on?”

Andrew C. Abbott

Public Opinion

St. Louis -- National Politics are often like a weather vane, with the actors feeling the winds of public opinion and drawing their maps according to the way the ships would like to sail. If the people do not want to see a shoal or a reef in their way then it does not exist in politics.

Those that do not follow will lose their job, thus the leaders become the followers, wishing rather for ease and comfort then the slightest turmoil and difficulty, no matter how great the rewards.

When a patient is sick it is not always nor often that the cure is enjoyable or easy. When there is a man to whom his sickness is pleasure, health and happiness for him can never be a coexisting reality, the physician who takes away his sickness, which the patient perhaps does not think he has, the physician will be set upon as an enemy, no matter how dangerous the illness he cured was.

It is the same with politics, if a political malady is enjoyable to many an attempt at a remedy may be made by a few, a few who will be called radical, dangerous, or insane, they go against the norm, refuse to predict the wanted weather, but rather they tell the truth, and are laughed off of their stage.

All revolutions, however peaceful, begin by being looked on as comic acts, however, sometimes they are as necessary as a physician’s painful but helpful touch, like a leg that is infected being sawn off.

Principle is not always a very convenient thing, it is much easier to go with public opinion than anything else. Applause is easier to listen to than boos. We are a nation who values comfort, in everything from our chairs to our “work.” It is more comfortable to float with the stream than to go against it.

In America comfort and conform must go hand in hand, you cannot have the first without the last. He that conforms the best will have the most comfort. It is easier to walk in a crowd than to walk alone, the lone man does not have others to hide behind. A flock of sheep blown about by every shepherd that comes along feels more secure than a lone wolf raising up his voice.

Revolution is the cry of the lone wolf.

I close with a quote I saw on the wall of the Guilford Courthouse Battlefield Museum while there in 2012.

I hold it, a little revolution now and then is a good thing, and as necessary to the political world as storms to the physical.-Thomas Jefferson.

Andrew C. Abbott