Obviously, I suppose, my first marriage was doomed. We had a world view incompatibilty situation. As my signature line indiactes, I do believe that none of us are without sin. I think that in any relationship there are sins of commission, ommission, and acquiescense. Sometimes we commit the wrong, sometimes we ignore, often without realizing it, the other party or our responsibilities, and sometimes we just give in to their demands because we get tired of fighting.

It is the tendency to acquiesce that I think is inherent in all of us that I fear means any form of democracy may be doomed.

We who desire to live in a state of freedom tend to not desire to have power over others. Those who desire power tend to run for office. Adverse selection?

If we were to get to some point of Constitutional freedom, most of us would say ok — let’s get to work on our lives. But then the power seekers would start the process of incrementalizing the power grab of the governing types. We being peaceable types would argue for freedom, but compromise a little, then later more compromise, then …

The Constitution is a depressing read these days, but more depressing is to read the Ant-Federalist papers. Patrick Henry et.al predicted much of what we have today.

Is there any hope? Do we just accept the fact that the Constitution is irrelevant? There is no New World to which to emigrate.

Unrelated thought — this site is like Karaoke for frustrated journalists

And another — those are some nice little buttons up there, but how come none of them say SPELL CHECK. I swear I know how to spell, just not type.

My second lawyer really focused on presentation. My first lawyer was basically not there and left me to fend for myself. So I came across in Court as upset, angry, etc. Her lawyer pushed my buttons a few times, I am sure you have the basic idea. The judge did not like me. He did all that he could to help the ex. So, in the very beginning of the process, I had only my oldest son, and my childhood bedroom set. Oh yeah, I got the fridge. Couldn’t figure out why she would give it to me. When we went to get it, we found out it had been in a storage facility with the food still in it (over a year). As I said, I paid my second lawyer for a lot of coaching on how to appear. But it didn’t really matter. The judge never liked me, my ex … never mind, and my ex’s lawyer still was able to make me look bad — I just acted calmer while he did it.

But as time wore on, I got my second son back. Then my third. And a great wife. And plenty of stuff. My ex lost her house she had conned my father into giving her. My point? Things may seem bleak right now, but they will get better. The enduring truth of the conservative/libertarian/Austrian/classical liberal way is too darn true to not win in the long run. We all want solutions right now, I do too. But we must have the patience to stay true to our principles, because the fundamentals are what our children need. We have to realize we may well be fighting for our great grand children’s USA.

Sometime after our divorce was finalized, I asked my ex wife to agree to an annullment. Why not? According to her I am responsible for the Black Plague. Control freak type II that she is, she said no, because she would not have our children be considered illegitimate by the Church. After supplying documentation that this would not be the case. She raised another objection. I supplied documentation showing that her concern was not valid. She raised another, same response from me. Then she started to supply me with information from a website that talked about what the church used to say about annullments. This was not an official Church site. It was not a site about what the Church currently says. After I pointed this out, she said she didn’t care — this was the site she was going to rely on and that was that.

Substitute gloabl warming, free markets, gun ownership, etc. for annullment.

I already knew better than to even try. One time, I wanted to save her 5 hours on the road during our Thanksgiving kid swap. She would have been at her home with the kids earlier than if we met at our normal location. She would have only had to drive 5 minutes form her house to get them. She said no, she would rather drive that far than make my planned trip convenient for me.

Why do we conservatives keep trying with the libs?

We have to ignore them. We have to go on with our own lives and work to improve our society. We will accomplish this not by answering every ludicrous accusation that they make. We will accomplish this not by answering their criticisms. If they benefit from our work, so be it. Our calling is not to win against the libs, it is to improve the world through what we know is the right way.

Divorce is actually very similar to our two party system. Not marriage, but the relationship that two begin when divorce is the paradigm. Although I am sure that the thought crosses the mind of both parties, simply eliminating the other one is not feasible.

So it is with our political parties. Mutual cooperation is not the reality and it is foolish to pretend that it ever would be. Reluctantly giving in when one is out of options is the way in which things move forward.

How many times have we seen the Republicans “reach out” only to have the Democrats lure them in so that they could get a better shot when the best time came to kick them between the legs.

This is exactly the way a divorce goes.

I remember a hearing in my wife’s attorny’s office during which we had to redo our visitation agreement. Everything was warm and fuzzy because my ex had been consistently ignoring the existing agreement. Of course, this was not her fault, but mine. Just as the Republicans, I was guilty of causing every evil in the world from the beginning of time and into the eternal future. But at any rate, they really did not want to go into court to try to use this as an explanantion for my ex’s behavior. So we had a warm fuzzy. Her attorney came up with an idea that I thought was great and I said so genuinely.

So we had an agreement and it needed to be filed. Under the advice of my attorney I conformed to the new agreement instead of the old. The new agreement had some requirements for my ex. She did not really want to follow the new requirements. Remember that the impetus for the new agreement was that seh was avoiding court for ignoring the old one. So… the reality was she agreed to the new terms, because her agreement meant that I was not going to pursue any grievances based on the old agreement.

At any rate she ignored the new agreement. She never signed it so that it could be filed. We sent one letter to her attorney pointing out an oversight on a date and asked very politely that it be changed. No response. Finally, we went to court only to ask that it be signed or an explanation given as to why not. You guessed it — it was presented as my fault that she didn’t sign it because we had asked to fix the one small date issue. It was presented that we had “suddenly, at the last minute” decided to change EVERYTHING.

Ok, now substitute Dems for my ex and me for Repubs.

I will continue to expand this theme.

No matter what, my ex has to disagree with me, and especially when I come up with something first. For instance, if I learn that the one son of whom I do not have custody has a soccer game during one of my weekends, and a bye on a non-visit weekend, I will suggest a switch. The answer will ALWAYS be no.

If I were to say that Ohio is west of Maryland she would say that she does not believe it to be the case, and that I cannot say that she does not believe it.

I used to answer her line by line (generally our communication is by email). I would show through irrefutable logic that 2 + 2 = 4. She would always say somwe form of: I believe 2+2=5 and you can’t tell me I don’t.

About a year ago I started ignoring every false and/or provocative statement she makes.

I now have much more time to actually do important things.