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Lost Like Bats in the Daytime
When we face the apparent tragedies of sorrow, suffering, and death, we must put our trust in God. Tragedy sometimes comes like a thunderbolt. However, the enduring appeal of tragedy lies in its ability to connect us to something larger than ourselves. By confronting the darkest aspects of human existence, tragedy offers us a glimpse into the shared vulnerabilities and anxieties that bind us together. It reminds us that we are all susceptible to suffering, loss, and ultimately death. Yet, it also celebrates the human capacity for courage, resilience, and compassion in the face of adversity. Think about how tragic it was for Mrs. Sarah L. Winchester to suffer the death of her newborn daughter, and just a few short years later, the loss of her husband. Still, even while facing the deep sadness of such experiences, she found comfort in prayer. With the loss of her daughter and husband weighing so heavily upon her tender heart, she bravely battled with her grief and sought comfort in building the Winchester Mansion. Mrs. Winchester did not remain limited in her visions. Her eyes did not see but a few miles. With her heart, she built a magnificent palace to house all the spirits whose light had gone out in this life, as she was able to see beyond mortal limitations. Inside this fabulous mansion, the veil goes down, time ends, and distance fades and vanishes as we step into eternity, into a great world in which there are no earthly limitations. Mrs. Winchester enjoyed the pleasures of the imagination while constructing her home, as well as those of the senses. #RandolphHarris 1 of 31
She used her tragedy to reflect the highest pleasures of the understanding, the charming, varied pleasures of the imagination, and the vast pleasures of the senses. Mrs. Winchester’s mansion is proof that at no stage of her existence was she left without some pleasure. The fact that it was never completed over the 38 years of construction reflects eternity because eternity never ends, therefore, it is never completed. Tragedy challenges us to confront uncomfortable truths about ourselves and the world around us, and it ultimately affirms the enduring power of the human spirit. The world of everyday life is structured both spatially and temporally. The spatial structure is quite peripheral to our present considerations. Suffice it to point out that it, too, has a social dimension by virtue of the fact that my manipulatory zone intersects with that of others. More importantly, for our present purpose, is the temporal structure of everyday life. Temporarily is an intrinsic property of consciousness. The stream of consciousness is always ordered temporally. It is possible to differentiate between different levels of this temporality as it is intrasubjectively available. Every individual is conscious of an inner flow of time, which in turn is founded on the physiological rhythms of the organism, though it is not identical with these. It would greatly exceed the scope of these prolegomena to enter into a detailed analysis of these levels of intrasubjective temporality. As we have indicated, however, intersubjectivity in everyday life also has a temporal dimension. The world of everyday life has its own standard time, which is intersubjectively available. This standard of time may be understood as the intersection between cosmic time and its socially established calendar, based on the temporal sequences of nature, and inner time, in its afore-mentioned differentiations. There can never be full simultaneity between those various levels of temporality, as the experience of waiting indicates most clearly. #RandolphHarris 2 of 31
Both my organism and my society impose upon me, and upon my inner time, certain sequences of events that involve waiting. I may want to take part in a sports event, but I must wait for my bruised knee to heal. Or again, I must wait until certain papers are processed so that my qualification for the event may be officially established. It may readily be seen that the temporal structure of everyday life is exceedingly complex because the different levels of empirically present temporality must be ongoingly correlated. The temporal structure of everyday life confronts me as a facticity with which I must reckon, that is, with which I must try to synchronize my own projects. I encounter time in everyday reality as continuous and finite. All my existence in this world is continuously ordered by its time, and is indeed enveloped by it. My own life is an episode in the externally factitious stream of time. It was there before I was born, and it will be there after I die. The knowledge of my inevitable death makes this time finite for me. I have only a certain amount of time available for the realization of my projects, and the knowledge of this affects my attitude to these projects. Also, since I do not want to die, this knowledge injects an underlying anxiety into my projects. Thus, I cannot endlessly repeat my participation in sports events. I know that I am getting older. It may even be that this is the last occasion on which I have the chance to participate. My waiting will be anxious to the degree in which the finitude of time impinges upon the project. #RandolphHarris 3 of 31
The same temporal structure, as has already been indicated, is coercive. I cannot reverse at will the sequences imposed by it—“first things first” is an essential element of my knowledge of everyday life. Thus, I cannot take a certain examination before I have passed through certain educational programs, I cannot practice my profession before I have taken this examination, and so on. Also, the same temporal structure provides the historicity that determines my situation in the world of everyday life. I was born on a certain date, entered school on another, started working as a professional on another, and so on. These dates, however, are all “located” within a much more comprehensive history, and this “location” decisively shapes my situation. Thus, I was born in the year of the great bank crash, in which my father lost his wealth, I entered school just before the revolution, I began to work just after the great war broke out, and so forth. The temporal structure of everyday life not only imposes prearranged sequences upon the “agenda” of any single day but also imposes itself upon my biography as a whole. Within the co-ordinates set by this temporal structure, I apprehend both daily “agenda” and overall biography. Clock and calendar ensure that, indeed, I am a “man of my time.” Only within this temporal structure does everyday life retain for me its accent of reality. Thus, in cases where I may be “disoriented” for one reason or another (say, I have been in an automobile accident in which I was knocked unconscious), I feel an almost instinctive urge to “reorient” myself within the temporal structure of everyday life. I look at my watch and try to recall what day it is. By these acts alone, I re-enter the reality of everyday life. #RandolphHarris 4 of 31
So much easier to miss than to hit, to fall on one side or the other. And yet, if only I can get rid of what prevents me, I seem to be so made that I can do it. Then, I “take my time” when my time should be taken, permitting others to take their time too. I do not hurry them or me. When I am in a hurry, it takes longer, and my peace is lost. (This is probably why it took Mrs. Winchester 38 years to build her mansion, which is still incomplete.) Or as one young man said, “I feel that I am going 90 miles an hour inside and 5 miles an hour outside.” When I slow down, the inner speed decreases and the outer speed increases until they match. This is my subjective feeling. (When a small child seems to me to be dawdling and protests, “But I am hurrying,” he may be speaking the truth of himself.) Objectively (as I am seen by others) I have slowed down, may even seem “dull,” but although I “do” less, I accomplish more. I am in harmony with me, and whatever I do goes easily and well. I do not do all that I would like to do, but I do all that I can do (at any time). By limiting myself, I have the feeling of it, throughout my body and my mind, with all the worlds open to me? When I am bored, time slows down, and it accelerates when I am involved. It seems to me that this is true only when I am in the wrong place, where there are these either/ors. There is another place (or world) in which time changes differently: I am not bored. I am involved, and yet I am surprised at how much has got done, that a usual day’s work has taken only a few hours. I look at the clock and am astonished that so little time has passed. During those few hours, time has not seemed to be either fast or slow. Time and I have flown together, so how can I feel it moving or note its speed? It has neither got stuck nor run away from me. I can only be conscious of time when I am not living fully in the present. #RandolphHarris 5 of 31
This masterless slavery in which capitalism enmeshes the worker or the debtor is only debatable ethically as an institution. In principle, the personal conduct of those who participate, on either side of the rulers or of the ruled, is not morally debatable, as such conduct is essentially prescribed by objective situations. If they do not conform, they are threatened by economic bankruptcy, which would, in every respect, be useless. From our special point of view, where the increased fear of the world has led to a flight from occupational pursuits in the private economy, pietism not only turns into something differing in degree but into an element differing in quality. The study of the ego in psychoanalysis has hardly begun to account for the relationship of “inner agency” to social life. Men who share the concerns of an ethnic group, who are contemporaries in a historical era, or who compete and co-operate in economic pursuits are also guided by common images of good and evil. Infinitely varied, these images reflect the elusive nature of cultural differences and of historical change; in the form of contemporary social models, they assume decisive concreteness in every individual’s struggle for ego synthesis—and in every patient’s residence, ethnic background, and occupation are the first items to be radically altered when it is necessary to disguise his personal identity. The essence of the inner dynamics of a case, it is judged, is thereby left intact. The exact nature, then, of the values common to the patient’s background are considered to be so close to the “surface” that they are not necessarily of “psychoanalytic” interest. Contemporary social models are both clinically and theoretically relevant and cannot be shunted off by brief and patronizing tributes to the role “also” played by “social factors.” #RandolphHarris 6 of 31
The general neglect of these factors in psychoanalysis naturally has not furthered a rapprochement with the social sciences. Students of society and history, on the other hand, blithely continue to ignore the simple fact that all individuals are born by mothers; that everybody was once a child; that people and peoples begin in their nurseries; and that society consists of generations in the process of developing from children into parents, destined to absorb the historical changes of their lifetimes and to continue to make history for their descendants. Only psychoanalysis and social science together can eventually chart the course of individual life in the setting of a changing community. Ambitious steps in this direction have been made by eminent psychoanalysts, generally called neo-Freudians, who bypass the efforts of “ego psychology.” We were distressed when we saw ourselves caricatured in patients who, in social life, spread a compulsive attitude of mutual mental denuding under the guise of being alert to the defensive tricks of the ego. And we were dismayed when we saw our purpose of enlightenment perverted into a widespread fatalism, according to which man is nothing but a multiplication of his parents’ faults and an accumulation of his own earlier selves. We must grudgingly admit that even as we were trying to devise, with scientific determinism, a therapy for the few, we were led to promote an ethical disease among the many. The existence and the multiplicity of defensive regressive mechanisms in adolescence were systematically demonstrated in Anna Freud’s The Ego and the Mechanisms of Defence. Her book defines inner defense in the widest sense; but it does not foreclose the psychoanalysis of adolescent development. When she states: “The abstract intellectual discussions and speculations in which young people delight are not genuine attempts at solving the tasks set by reality. Their mental activity is rather an indication of a tense alertness for the instinctual processes and the translation into the abstract thought of that which they perceive,” she presents the defensive half of the story of adolescent rumination, the other half being its adaptive functions, and its functions in the history of changing ideas. #RandolphHarris 7 of 31
There is a historical concomitance which teaches us how, in the period between puberty and adulthood, the resources of tradition fuse with new inner resources to create something potentially new: a new person; and with this new person, a new generation, and with that, a new era. The question of what happens to persons, generations, and eras because of guiding ideologies are of postadolescent origin, and are dedicated to the proposition that what we have learned as pathologists must become part of an ecology of the mind before we can take full responsibility for the ideological implications of our knowledge. We cannot even begin to encompass the human life cycle without learning to account for the fact that a human being under observation has grown stage by stage into a social world, always for the worse and for the better, has step by step prepared for him an outer reality made up of human traditions and institutions which utilize and thus nourish his developing capacities, attract and modulate his drives, respond to and delimit his fears and phantasies, and assign to him a position in life appropriate to his psychosocial powers. We cannot even begin to encompass a human being without indicating for each of the stages of his life cycle the framework of social influences and of traditional institutions which determine his perspectives on his more infantile past and on his more adult future. In this sense, we can learn from patients only to the extent that we realize (and the patient realizes) that what is said and done in treatment is based on a formal contract between healer and patient and must be carefully transposed before being applied to the general human condition. This is the reason why the fragments of case histories or psychoanalytic interpretations which flutter around in increasing numbers in our newspapers and magazines seem lost like bats in the daytime. #RandolphHarris 8 of 31
On the other hand, we cannot leave history entirely to nonclinical observers and to professional historians who often all too nobly immerse themselves into the very disguises, rationalizations, and idealizations of this historical process from which it should be their business to separate themselves. Only when the relation of historical forces to the basic functions and stages of the mind has been jointly charted and understood can we begin a psychoanalytic critique of society as such without falling back into mystical or moralistic philosophizing. Dr. Siegmund Freud warned against the possible misuse of his work as an ideology, a “Weltanschauung;” but a man who inspires new ideas has little power to restrict them to the area of his original intentions. And Dr. Freud did not refrain from interpreting other total approaches to man’s condition, such as religion, as consequences of man’s inability to shake off the bonds of his prolonged childhood, and thus, comparable to collective neuroses. The psychological and historical study of the religious crisis of a young great man renews the opportunity to review this assertion in the light of ego-psychology and of theories of psychosocial development. There are four consequences of self-contempt. The first is the compulsive need of certain neurotic types to compare themselves with everybody whom they come in contact, and to their own disadvantage. The other fellow is more impressive, better informed, more interesting, more attractive, better dressed; he has the advantage of age or youth, of a better position, of greater importance. However, even though the comparisons may strike the neurotic himself as lopsided, he does not think them through clearly; of if he does, the feeling of comparative interiority still remains. The comparisons made are not only unfair to himself; they often do not make any sense. Why should an older man who could be proud of his own accomplishments compare himself with a youngster who is a better dancer? Or why should somebody who has never been interested in music feel inferior to musicians? #RandolphHarris 9 of 31
The practice makes sense, however, when we remember the unconscious claims to be superior to others in every regard. We must add here that the neurotic’s pride also demands that he should be superior to everybody and everything. Then, of course, any “superior” skill or quality of others must be disturbing, and must call forth a self-destructive berating. Sometimes the connection operates in reverse: the neurotic, already in a self-berating frame of mind, utilizes the “shining” qualities of others, as he encounters them, to reinforce and buttress his castigating self-criticism. To express it in terms of two people: it is as if an ambitious and sadistic mother used the better marks or cleaner fingernails of Leo’s friend to put Leo to shame. It is insufficient to describe these processes simply as a recoiling from competition. The recoiling from competition in these instances is rather the result of self-disparagement. A second consequence of self-contempt is vulnerability in human relations. Self-contempt makes the neurotic hypersensitive to criticism and rejection. On little or no provocation, he feels that others look down on him, do not take him seriously, do not care for his company, and in fact slight him. His self-contempt adds considerably to the profound uncertainty he has about himself, and hence cannot but make him as profoundly uncertain about the attitudes of others toward him. Being unable to accept himself as he is, he cannot possibly believe that others, knowing him with all his shortcomings, can accept him in a friendly or appreciative spirit. What he feels in deeper layers is much more drastic, and may amount to an unshakable conviction that others plainly despise him. And such a conviction may live in him, although he is not consciously aware of even a trace of self-contempt. Both of these factors—the blind assumption that others despise him and a relative or total awareness of his own self-contempt—point to the fact that the bulk of self-contempt is externalized. This may lead to a subtle poisoning of all his human relations. He may become unable to take any positive feelings of others at their face values. A compliment may, in his mind, register as a sarcastic comment; an expression of sympathy as condescending pity. Somebody wants to see him—it is because he wants something from him. Others express a liking for him—it can only be because they do not know him well, because they themselves are worthless or “neurotic,” or because he has been or could be useful to them. #RandolphHarris 10 of 31
Similarly, incidents which in fact have no hostile meaning are interpreted as evidence of an existing contempt. Somebody has not greeted him on the street or in the theater, has not accepted his invitation, or has not replied right away—it can only be a slight. Somebody makes a good-natured joke about him—it is a clear intent to humiliate him. An objection to, or a criticism of, some suggestion or activity of his does not constitute an honest criticism of the particular activity, et cetera, but becomes evidence of the other’s despising him. The person himself, as we see in analysis, is either unaware of his experiencing his relations with others in this way, or he is unaware of the distortions involved. In the latter case, he may take it for granted that others’ attitudes toward him are really of this sort, and even pride himself on being “realistic.” In the analytic relationship, we can observe to what extent a patient can take it for granted that others look down on him. After much analytic work is done, and the patient is apparently on good friendly terms with his analyst, he may mention casually and without affection that it was also so self-evident to him that the analyst was looking down on him that he did not feel it necessary to mention it or to give it any extended thought. All of these distorted perceptions in human relations are understandable because the attitudes of others are indeed open to several interpretations, particularly when torn out of context, while the externalized self-contempt feels unmistakably real. Also, the self-protective character of such a shift in responsibility is evident. If possible, at all, it is probably intolerable to live with a constantly awake, sharp self-contempt. The neurotic has an unconscious interest in regarding others as the offenders. Although it is painful for him, as it would be for anybody, to feel slighted and rejected, it is less painful than coming face to face within his own self-contempt. It is a long and hard lesson for anybody to learn that others can neither hurt nor establish self-esteem. #RandolphHarris 11 of 31
The vulnerability in human relations caused by self-contempt combines with that brought about by neurotic pride. It is often difficult to say whether a person feels humiliated because something has hurt his pride or because he has externalized his self-contempt. They are so inseparably interwoven that we must tackle such reactions from both angles. Of course, at a given time, one or the other aspect will be the more easily observable and the more accessible. If a person reacts to a seeming disregard with vindictive arrogance, hurt pride is uppermost in the picture. If, as a result of the same provocation, he turns abject and tries to ingratiate himself, as self-contempt sticks out most clearly. However, in either case, the reverse aspect is also operating and should be kept in mind. Thirdly, a person in the clutches of self-contempt often takes too much abuse from others. He may not even recognize a flagrant abuse, whether it be humiliation or exploitation. Even if indignant friends call it to his attention, he tends to minimize or justify the offender’s behavior. This occurs only under certain conditions, such as in a morbid dependency, and is the outcome of a complicated inner constellation. However, essential among the factors producing it is the defenselessness produced by the person’s conviction that he does not deserve any better treatment. For instance, a woman whose husband is flaunting his affairs with other women may be unable to complain or even to feel conscious resentment because she feels unlovable and regards most other women as more attractive. A last consequence to be mentioned is the need to alleviate or balance self-contempt with the attention, regard, appreciation, or love of others. The pursuit of such attention is compulsive because of the compelling need not to be at the mercy of self-contempt. It is also determined by a need to triumph, and may amount to an all-consuming life goal. The result is a total dependence on others for self-evaluation: it rises or falls with the attitudes of others toward him. #RandolphHarris 12 of 31
Thinking along the broader theoretical lines, observations like these help us to understand better why the neurotic clings so tenaciously to the glorified version of himself. He must maintain it because he feels only one alternative: to succumb to the terror of self-contempt. There is thus a vicious circle operating between pride and self-contempt, one always reinforcing the other. This can change only to the extent that he gets interested in the truth about himself. However, again, self-contempt renders it difficult to find himself. As long as his degraded image of himself is real to him, his self appears despicable. Alienation is the name that Dr. Hegel gives to the condition that arises from the experience of the failure of personhood as a conception of the self. When the predominant conception of what it means to be a self fails to capture those elements of my constitution that are essential to my own self-understanding, alienation arises. Intersubjective relations are alienating when others strive to recognize me according to that incomplete and flawed conception of the self. There are several indicators of self-alienation that a person can look for in self or in others: The general capacity for conscious experience is impaired. The person is living “as if in a fog. Nothing is clear to them. Not only their own thoughts and feelings but also other people, and the implications of a situation, are hazy.” There may be a decrease in awareness or concern for the body, for its needs and feelings, or for material possessions such as a house, car, or clothing. There is a loss of the feeling of being an active, determining force in one’s own life. There are a few factors that are responsible for the process of self-alienation which include: The development of compulsive solutions to neurotic conflicts, such as striving for affection, detachment from others, or chronic hostility to others. Active moves away from the real self, such as the drive for glory and striving to live up to an impossible self-ideal. Active moves against the real self, as in self-hate or self-destruction. #RandolphHarris 13 of 31
The consequence of alienation from the self is that the person’s relation to himself has become impersonal. More specifically, in the self-alienated person, pride governs feelings—the individual does not react with spontaneous emotion. Instead, the person feels what he or she should feel. Further, the self-alienated person does not feel in possession of his or her own energies; the person’s powers are not his or her own. Another consequence of self-alienation is an impairment in the ability to assume responsibility for the self. The self-alienated person is lacking in plain, simple honesty about self and his or her life. The lack of honesty manifests itself as an inability to recognize oneself as one really is, without minimizing or exaggerating, an unwillingness to accept the consequences of one’s actions and decisions, and an unwillingness to realize it is up to oneself to do something about one’s difficulties. Self-alienated persons insist that others, fate, or time will solve these difficulties for them. Self-alienation means, basically, that a person is not choosing action by consulting all components of the real self, such as needs and values; instead, the person serves as some part of the real self. However, if the total self is not the source of direction for the individual’s behavior, what is? Dr. Riesmen’s concept of the “inner-directed character” is an excellent illustration of persons whose behavior expresses the dictates of conscience and self-ideal rather than the real self. When choices for action arise, such persons experience a conflict between what they really want to do and what they believe they ought to do. Implicitly, such persons believe that real selves are unreliable guides to conduct, and so they repress them. The consequence of ignoring the real self in favor of a rigid conscience is that these persons may behave in a moral and exemplary fashion, but their real needs are ignored, and they will be perpetually thwarted. #RandolphHarris 14 of 31
The “authoritarian character” is a person who seeks some authority figure to direct his or her conduct. These persons strive to discern what behavior the authority figure expects of them, and they hasten to comply. If there is any conflict between their own wishes and the demands of authority, they habitually suppress their wishes and compulsively comply with the authority’s wishes. Indeed, they experience their real selves as evil or weak, not worth considering. Dr. Fromm interprets the manner in which authoritarian characters perceive authority as a byproduct of real-self repression, followed by a projection to the authority figure of all of one’s own repressed “powers.” Hence, authoritarian characters perceive themselves as weak and the leader as all-powerful and possessing unusual strength and wisdom—the “charismatic” leader. Dr. Riesman’s concept, the “other-directed” character, describes an individual who allows the wishes and expectations of social peers to direct personal actions. The other-directed character becomes sensitized to others’ wishes and actively seeks to comply with them. The result may be popularity and acceptance, but it is purchased at the cost of knowledge of the real self and of thwarting many basic needs. Dr. Riesman’s concept, the “other-directed” character, describes an individual who allows the wishes and expectations of social powers to direct personal actions. The other-directed character becomes sensitized to others’ wishes and actively seeks to comply with them. The result may be popularity and acceptance, but it is purchased at the cost of knowledge of the real self and of thwarting many basic needs. Impulses and emotions are a part of the real self, just as are will and ideals. Everyone has to struggle to reconcile the conflicting demands of impulses, ideals, and the expectations of other people. #RandolphHarris 15 of 31
An impulse-directed person is one who habitually ignores all demands upon behavior save those imposed by personal impulses and feelings. This person ignores the conscience, the rights of other people, even his or her own long-range welfare and growth. All is subordinated to the immediate expression of the feelings. Psychoanalysts refer to such individuals as “instinct-ridden” characterss; they idealize and rationalize their drives and emotions because they cannot voluntarily control them. They are like adult children who have evaded growth. The goal is to get the patient “out of his script” during his treatment hours so he will behave like a real person, called colloquially, “a card-carrying member of the human race.” The chief difficulty to be overcome is the pull of the script, something like the “Id resistance” of Dr. Freud. The unconscious, instinctual forces that oppose the therapeutic process often manifest as the patient’s compulsion to repeat unhealthy patterns rather than explore them. The “resistance” is driven by the id’s fundamental nature to satisfy innate desires and impulses, such as urges for pleasures of the flesh and aggressive urges, and the inherent pleasure principle of immediate gratification. It opposes the ego’s efforts and the superego’s moral constraints by clinging to the “disease” or symptom. Professional patients adopt that role because they decided when they were very young, with encouragement from their parents, to be mental cripples, and may have been helped along by their previous therapists. This is usually a family script, and the brothers and sisters and parents may also be in treatment. A typical example is where a brother or sister is in a psychiatric hospital, where he or she continually “acts out” (as the staff calls it), or “acts crazy,” as Jeff now learns to call it. Jeff is a little huffy, and will soon say quite frankly that he is jealous of his brother or sister, because he or she is in a hospital while Jeff must be contented without-patient therapy. As one man put it, “How come my brother is in a nice plushy mental hospital on the East Coast while I have to be contented with this lousy little therapy group? I was enjoying it much more when I was a professional patient.” #RandolphHarris 16 of 31
While such things are said jokingly, they are the core of the resistance against getting well. First of all, Jeff is losing all the advantages of being in a hospital and all the fun of acting crazy. However, more than that, he says quite frankly (after he begins to understand his script), his Child is scared to get well and cannot accept the permission offered by the therapist and the other group members to do so, because if he does, his mother (in his head) will desert him. No matter how miserable he is with all his fears, anxieties, obsessions, and physical symptoms, he is still better off, he thinks, than being out in the world on his own without his Parent to protect him. At this point, there is a phase where script analysis becomes almost indistinguishable from psychanalytic probing. The protocol of his script becomes the subject of investigation, and the early influences which led him to decide on a not-O.K. position and way of life come under scrutiny. Here is pride at being a neurotic, a paranoid schizophrenic, an addict, or a criminal will begin to emerge, and he may bring in his diary or talk about his plans for writing an autobiography, as so many of his predecessors have done. Even people who are cured of “mental retardation” may have some nostalgia for their previous condition. People who are mentally healthy often do not know what they think or how they really feel until they have a chance to express themselves and to hear themselves and then decide whether that is actually what they believe. Sometimes just saying something aloud to another person is enough to make one realize that they do not fully believe what they have said—which frees them to change their minds. If you do not try to make every disagreement into a federal case, speaking your mind is important and helpful. People do not have to agree on everything. #RandolphHarris 17 of 31
People always think that they understand themselves, and they always think that they are being honest with themselves, and then later, after something happens and they see themselves differently, they can see how wrong they were. One can kid about how they feel until it hurts too much to go on pretending. Like you might walk with a Lego in your shoe, but sooner or later it would hurt too much and one would have to stop walking and get rid of it. Where there is gathered a sufficient number of facts on which to base a reasonably correct decision, it is still possible that one or more fact, of an importance outweighing all the others, could induce a man’s mind to alter the decision. The order of his thoughts may be perfectly logical yet the truth of them may be largely absent. For the premises with which they start may be ready-made theories, the facts upon which they rest may be less important than those which they ignore, and personal factors may have unconsciously accepted the one and chosen the other. Just as mysticism may give the dangerous illusion that it is dealing with reality when it is not, so logic may give the equally dangerous illusion that it is dealing with truth when it too is not doing so. To call a man a “philosopher” when he is only a mere logician is to demean the word. Logic is a useful tool, for certain limited purposes, but it can as easily lead a man into great error as into great wisdom. Let them not mistake exercises in logic for penetration into truth. Logic is always beset by the serious charge that its so-called truths are fallacious ones. For instance, it insists on the law of contradiction, the law which says that a statement of facts cannot be true and false at the same time. However, the careful study of illusions produces conclusions which falsify this law. We do not mean by this criticism to declare logic to be useless. We mean only that it is a good servant but a bad master. If our original assumptions are wrong, then the irony is that the more logically we travel from them to our conclusions, the more distantly we travel from truth. You can have sacred, revelatory, profoundly instructive experience with the Lord in the most miserable experiences of your life—in the worst settings, while enduring the most painful injustices, when facing the most insurmountable odds and opposition you have ever faced. #RandolphHarris 18 of 31
Heroes and heroines are archetypal in that they emanate and embody an immediate, recognizable pattern. Humans know one when they see one. The hero can be seen as the central human archetype of transformation for wholeness. The transformation comes through the hero’s own journey. Like the magical threshold, the sphere of rebirth, the awakening to the flow of forces, and the creation of wakefulness to dissolve the unconscious into timelessness, the hero emerges. Although talk of improving health and fitness is nothing new to emergency response providers, there are signs that it has now been moved to the front burner. As a result of the unacceptable number of line-of-duty deaths every year, movements have come from different directions to ensure that health and fitness standards are developed that apply to what these heroes do. Some argue that firefighting is a strenuous job, and that sudden cardiac arrest is just the cost of doing business. If that were really true, we would see the same trend of fatalities in other physical occupations, such as professional sports. Although professional athletes have to try out each year and firefighters tend to have a longer career, not many active athletes die from overexertion. When a professional team invests a significant amount of money in a player, they insure their investment through proper diet, physical training, and medical observation. Although the award-winning Sacramento Fire Department does not get as much attention or money as an NFL star, they still have a physically demanding job. As the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) 1583, Standard on Health-Related Fitness Programs for Fire Fighters, explains, firefighters need “to be medically and physically fit in order to perform the required tasks. #RandolphHarris 19 of 31
In every city, there seems to be one place or street where everything seems to happen. In Sacramento, California, one particular block of Capitol Avenue seems to be that place. Just a sampling of events in less than twenty years reveals several major fires, gang activity, drug dealing, mail theft, threats, over sixty-six deaths, animal attacks, stalking, many instances unlawful entries, a few missing persons cases, shootings, hit and run accidents, sexual assaults, felony assault, theft and vandalisms, financial crimes, and miraculous rescues. The amount of death and destruction that happened in just this one block area of the city is unparalleled in the community’s history. Upon one occasion, a night watchman discovered a fire burning. The fire department came quickly, but the blaze had spread to two adjoining buildings. The fire department, however, was able to prevent the massive blaze and stop the spread to the rest of the street. Despite the roaring fire, there were no deaths or injuries. Compared to automobiles, fire apparatus and ambulances do not provide the amount of protection you would expect. Much of the engineering designated to automobile design is related to either fuel efficiency or meeting federal crash standards. In contrast, custom emergency vehicles are engineered more to function and aesthetics. For instance, a modern sports utility vehicle (SUV) with three rows of seats might safely transport seven people. Lap and shoulder seat belts are in every riding position, and side curtain airbags protect the driver and passengers in an intersection crash. Padded seat backs and cushioned door liners assist in containing passengers in the event of a rollover. Compare that to a Type III ambulance with the same wheelbase. It may have lap and shoulder belts for the two front seats and the captain’s chair, yet only provide lab belts for the other bench positions, which are positioned perpendicular to the direction of travel. Although it may be capable of transporting seven occupants, very little restraint protection is provided. Now factor in that some of the occupants in the back will be providing patient care and might not be restrained at all. By the 1980s, most “impaling hazards” had been removed from the dashboards of automobiles, replaced with flush-mount knobs and rounded corners on the dash. Take a look in the back of the ambulance. How many sharp corners, after-market interior modifications, or potential missiles are present during patient transport? Some ambulances do a good job of securing the sharps container for contaminated needles, yet the container has an open top or nonlatching lid. A rollover could pepper the back of the ambulance with poisoned darts. #RandolphHarris 20 of 31
If you see a fire truck stopped in the street without the lights on, be very careful. Sometimes there is an emergency, and you should not pass the fire truck. It might be a good idea to safely turn around and go another way because if you hit someone and they happen to die, you could be charged with manslaughter. Sometimes fire firefighters are getting back into their vehicle, and if you pass the apparatus, you may collide with a firefighter who is on foot. Also, be sure to look at their signals; sometimes emergency vehicles are in motion, albeit slowly, and drivers try to pass them, and this could lead to a dangerous situation. Also, if you are in an intersection when you see an emergency vehicle, continue through the intersection. Drive to the right as soon as it is safe and stop. Obey any direction, order, or signal given by a law enforcement officer or a firefighter. Even if they conflict with existing signs, signals, or laws, follow their orders. When their siren or flashing lights are on, it is against the law to follow within 300 feet of any fire engine, law enforcement vehicle, ambulance, or other emergency vehicle. If you drive to the scene of a fire, collision, or other disaster, you can be arrested. When you do this, you are getting in the way of firefighters, ambulance crews, or other rescue and emergency personnel. The concept of professional courage does not always mean being as tough as nails, either. It also suggests a willingness to listen to other people’s problems, to go to bat for them in a tough situation, and it means knowing just how far they can go. It also means being willing to tell the boss when he or she is wrong. #RandolphHarris 21 of 31
California is the third most expensive state in the nation. A single person making an income above $100,000 is now considered low-income in five counties in California. This distinction now applies to individuals living in Santa Cruz, Santa Clara, San Mateo, San Francisco, and Marin counties. In 37 percent of counties, a family of four living on a six-figure income is now considered low-income. In fact, Governor Gavin Newsom of Democratic controlled California, brags about being the world’s “fifth largest economy,” but it also facing a $12 billion deficit, looking to cut $747 million for state worker’s pay, pushing to keep medical insurance for illegal immigrants, but wants to cut medical for anyone who has assets over $2,000 and the state has the largest homeless population in the nation. If they are all officially counted, California has approximately 4 million homeless people. The highest home prices in the nation, the highest taxes, and the most unfriendly business regulations known to man. The average home price in California is nearly $1,000,000.00 USD, while the average salary is $96,036.00, meaning that most Californians cannot even afford to buy a home. California is having an affordability crisis. In 2025, many people in California saw their bills increase by an estimated $500 a month. This includes items such as food, automobile insurance, homeowners’ insurance, and electricity. In fact, more than 3 million people in California are facing household hardship, and more than 300,000 of them are facing eviction soon. This comes at a time when California is having a shortage of affordable housing. This is caused by nearly half a century-old laws that discourage home sales and encourage higher rents. #RandolphHarris 22 of 31
Meanwhile, China, where we are sending all our jobs and money, has more than 50 ghost cities, with 65 million vacant homes. Ghost cities are regions will housing has been overdeveloped to the point that these places are uninhabited. Because California is so hostile towards people and businesses, more than 360 companies have fled the state since 2020. Businesses like Chevron, SpaceX, Oracle, and Hewlett-Packard are among the names on that list. Also, more than 500,000 people a year are abandoning California because it is too expensive to live in, Gavin Newsom has criminalized homelessness and actually started arresting people without homes, crime is out of control, and they are losing their jobs due to companies relocating. More than 100 companies have announced layoffs in California for 2025. Intel is cutting 15,000 jobs, PayPal 2,500, and Meta has terminated 4,000 employees. California also has the highest unemployment rate in the country at 5.4 percent, while the national average is 4.1 percent. The California crisis created by Democrats is driving up home prices and mortgages, and rents all over the nation and the world, making living unaffordable for all, and advocates say the crisis is far from over. Accordingly, California has more than 3.5 million illegal immigrants. Having the Southern American border open and not having American farmland protected, not producing beef, poultry, fish, fruit, produce and dairy in America, and without American goods and services being our number one manufactured and selling items, America has created a dangerous and significantly elevated risks to national security, national economic security, and national public health. Some people may believe that these claims are overstated, but by not routinely monitoring Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CEVs) or other security-relevant alerts, such as the end-of-life of machinery is how the Oroville Dam Crisis occurred in 2017. #RandolphHarris 23 of 31
Other crises that have occurred due to neglect of critical infrastructure are the 2025 Palisades fires because Southern California ran out of water, when they are located next to an ocean and they could have simply created desalination plants to help with the water shortage. The water is so plentiful that it is currently eroding land and causing homes to fall into the sea. Desalination has been identified as one technology that will help solve California’s water scarcity problem. Desalination is a cost-effective technology that can transform an abundance of salt water into a reliable supply of potable, fresh water, which is a great way to fight climate change and have enough water for our region’s water requirements. Ras Al Khair, Saudi Arabia, is producing 1,036,000 meters (273,682,192) per day of desalinated water. As we see gangs fighting with federal law enforcement, states and cities refusing to honor federal laws, and politicians showing an utter disregard for the Constitution of the United States of America, anarchy is becoming increasingly common. Anarchism is a cluster of doctrines and attitudes centered on the belief that government is both harmful and unnecessary. Derived from the Greek root anarchos, meaning “without authority,” anarchism, anarchist, and anarchy are used to express both approval and disapproval. The anarchist denies man-made laws, regards property as a means of tyranny, and believes that crimes are merely the product of property and authority. #RandolphHarris 24 of 31
However, the anarchist would argue that their denial of constitutions and governments leads not to “no justice” but to the real justice inherent in the free development of human sociality—the natural inclination, when unfettered by laws, to live according to the principles and practice of mutual aid. Anarchism is also a form of treason. Treason, the crime of betraying a nation or a sovereign by acts considered dangerous to security. In English law, treason includes the levying of war against the government and the giving of aid and comfort to the monarch’s enemies. In the United States of America, treason was defined restrictively by the framers of the Constitution. Treason against the United States of America “shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them aid and comfort,” which is something that many politicians are currently guilty of. The American government should know all exploitable vulnerabilities and fix them before the situation becomes a crisis. Failure to take such mitigating actions is dangerous and significantly elevates risk to national security, national economic security, and national public health and safety. The American government must understand that significant time and resources must be invested in America. They must also encourage corporations to plan for both mitigating safety vulnerabilities in the short term and eliminating them in the long term. For instance, a company might begin by reaching out to the federal, state, or local government and requesting tax incentives to provide security to dangerous communities, to help the government repair bridges and potholes. #RandolphHarris 25 of 31
America needs an approach to eliminate safety vulnerabilities in American cities. There needs to be a road map by the end of 2025, outlining a prioritized approach to eliminate crisis situations in America. There is enough money to send aid to foreign nations, but the American government does not have enough money to care for its infrastructure, provide adequate resources, or end the affordable housing crisis. Nor is there enough money to fund other national critical functions (NCFs). These bad practices of putting America and Americans last are considered exceptionally risky, particularly to national security, national economic security, and national public health and safety. In 2024, Americans spent $100 billion on Japanese cars. As a result, the American automobile trade deficit with Japan was $39 billion. The maximum percentage of your gross income that you should earmark for a monthly mortgage payment is calculated at 28 percent, and no more than 36 percent of your gross income to all debts, including mortgage. If you take 28 percent of the median household income per home in Sacramento County, homeowners can only afford a mortgage of $2,070.23 per month. And if you take 36 percent of their gross income to all debts, including mortgage, they should be devoting no more than $2,661.72 a month to these debts. The mortgage lenders must be using some kind of sorcery to get buyers into these expensive homes. To afford one of these homes using traditional guidelines, a household would need to gross $11,280.24 per month or $135,362.88 per year, but the median household in Sacramento County is grossing $7,393.67 a month or $88,724.00 annually, and that typically means two to four people in the home are working and contributing to the mortgage. #RandolphHarris 26 of 31
Home prices in Sacramento County are rivaling the Bay Area. Historically, homes in the Bay Area have been more expensive because they have higher-paying jobs, a larger population, and the Bay Area is a tourist destination. Contributing to the housing affordability crisis is Gavin Newsom, who has been lavishing illegal immigrants with taxpayer-funded resources and cash aid. The State of California has a budget deficit of $12 billion because Governor Gavin Newsom granted 700,000 illegal immigrants free health care, which costs taxpayers $3 billion annually. At the same time, Newsom cut vital programs for veterans, school children, the disabled, and the homeless. Additionally, Newsom seems to be uneducated about economics and is proposing to fast-track his plan to build a $20 billion water tunnel beneath the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, which would eliminate environmental reviews and limit avenues for legal challenges. Gavin Newsom only cares about the environment when his policies allow him to raise taxes and restrict freedoms. To further highlight this illustration, Mexico has been causing one of America’s worst environmental disasters. Fifty million gallons a day of industrial chemicals, untreated sewage, and trash flow from Tijuana, Mexico, into southern San Diego County daily. This toxic waste has been turning up on Imperial Beach and is causing the miles of white sands to become polluted and the ocean breeze to smell of poop, which has been sickening residents and wildlife and costing San Diego millions in the form of lost tourism and health problems. The problem has been going on for more than a century. #RandolphHarris 27 of 31
Drug cartels have been threatening the health and safety of Native American communities. The trafficking of dangerous and illegal drugs into their territories is leading to a second genocide. The overdose rate for Indigenous people is 42 percent higher than the national average. A recent bust on Montana’s Blackfeet Nation’s Tribal Reservation resulted in the seizure of more than 700,000 fentanyl pills, which was the largest bust in Montana history. Recently, the Blackfeet Nation had to declare a state of emergency after facing 17 overdoses in just one week. There are only 6.8 million Native Americans left in the world, which is 2 percent of the American population. We should be doing more to protect these proud and honorable people; they should not want for anything. People rush and give away resources to illegal immigrants, but totally disregard the Indigenous people of this land, as their race silently fades away into extinction. We must secure our borders and increase federal funding to Native American tribes so we can save this precious population. Meanwhile, Gavin Newsom has given billions of taxpayer dollars away to illegal immigrants and protected them from law enforcement, while arresting law-abiding Americans because they cannot afford to pay rent or mortgage, and the homeless shelters are unsafe, overcrowded, and have restrictions on who is allowed inside. He has also totally ignored the cartel problems on American lands. Clean air, water, land, and preserving our heritage are extremely important. We cannot just allow criminals to kill off the people who are native to this land and do nothing about it. Wars have been started over governments that tax citizens without representation. Taxation without representation is what led to the American Revolution. #RandolphHarris 28 of 31
Much like the land crisis in Las Vegas, we could also run out of land to farm and will not be able to grow or cultivate our own food. We can protect American farmland and support American farmers by buying American made beef, poultry, dairy, and produce. Also, country of origin labeling is very important so Americans can know where their food is coming from and can support American farmers and ranchers. As money flows, it influences further investment. Save the land that sustains us by protecting American farmland. Once the land is built on, we lose it forever. And in the future, there may be food wars. Also, to ensure that we have farmland and buildable land for future use, we need to start limiting the number of people allowed to immigrate to America. Perhaps with the immigrants we do allow into America, there needs to be a diversity program to make sure we have a population that equally represents all races of people. If Americans continue to spend money on American products, then more need to be made to keep up the inventory. When investors notice these goods are selling, it gives them the confidence to pour more money into that local business. It shows that people want these goods made in America and pressures investors to keep these goods and services in America. The jobs stay here, the business stays in America, wages naturally increase, and more money is invested to keep up with demand. This reduces the burden on the taxpayer. When you support American businesses, that money stays in our economy and can help to reduce the national debt. The government creates debt by borrowing from businesses in the private sector or from foreign countries. It also increases the national debt by spending more than it gains in tax revenue in a fiscal year. #RandolphHarris 29 of 31
When people shop locally, more tax money stays in the economy and goes to the government. This way, it keeps more money in our national economy and keeps more jobs located in America which also sends more taxes to the government, which can again help to reduce the national debt. When you buy foreign goods, these companies usually have lighter tax loads or exemptions, meaning less money for the national debt, plus you are helping to strengthen these foreign nations by sending more money overseas. Buying American-made products is also better for the environment and helps to reduce the carbon footprint because these products do not have to travel nearly as far. Furthermore, American companies and manufacturers are held to much higher standards on pollution. American companies must be more careful about air, land, and water pollution and have proper ways to dispose of waste. Moreover, please remember to respect law and order and treat your elders with the utmost dignity and kindness possible. And take your education seriously so that you will be successful in life and make your family proud. It is inborn in the human mind to wish to know. If this begins with the endless surface questions of a child’s curiosity, if it continues into deeper questions of a scientist’s probing investigation, it cannot and does not stop there. For the higher part of the mind will eventually come into unfoldment, that union of abstract reflective thought with mystical intuition, which is true intelligence, which needs and sees a view of the whole of things. And so, the knowing faculty enters the realm of philosophy. #RandolphHarris 30 of 31
As you can see, President Donald Trump and his pledge to “Make America Great Again” is exactly what America needs to save the country and the American people. As of 31 August 2025, President Trump has brought $8 Billion in Tariff revenue into America and hundreds of thousands of new jobs. However, if President Trump’s Tariffs are deemed illegal by the Supreme Court, taxpayers will have to pay back trillions and trillions of dollars. And yes, diversity is important, so you can see why it is also important to preserve blonde hair and blue eyes, as the people with these characteristics are becoming a minority in America. We must think before we can understand the soul’s existence; we must understand before we can realize it. The earliest beginnings of thought, as apart from instinct, when it was itself still but a lurking tendency, belong far back in primeval time. The human intellect as we find it today, so rich and developed an instrument for the consciousness of the ego, did not arrive at this fullness without a series of graduated stages. We have had plenty of scientific thinking, business thinking, and political thinking long enough, but we have had very little inspired thinking. That is the world’s need. The intellect is cradled in selfishness but runs the evolutionary track into reason, where it will one day finish at the winning-post of selflessness. As a reminder, parents, please teach your children to love America and be patriotic citizens, and to buy goods and services made in America. It is also important to respect law and order and treat your elders with respect. Also, to make sure they have all the resources required, please donate to the Sacramento Fire Department to help improve our national security. “Oh, thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand between their loved home and the war’s desolation! Blest with victory and peace, may the heav’n-rescued land Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation! Then conquer we must, when our cause is just, and this be our motto: ‘In God is our trust.’ And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.” #RandolphHarris 31 of 31
According to locals, over a century ago, the land that houses The Winchester Mansion had been vacant forever. Then, sometime in the early afternoon of Saturday, March 13, 1886, Sheriff Angel Camilio began getting reports that a massive castle made of wood had suddenly appeared. Gables rose, towers peaked into the sky as the mansion mushroomed into a labyrinth overnight.
The house’s sudden manifestation had been both disconcerting and fascinating to the community. Some felt dark curses flowing from the estate, and things moving around in the darkness. Others saw a fairytale castle glimmering in the spring sunlight. Perhaps this is why there are no records of construction, no blueprints, and no permits filed with the county. Come and see what secrets this so-called, “Winchester Mystery House” may hold.
Experience an unforgettable journey back to the time of kings and queens with this entry ticket for The Winchester Mansion in Santa Clara, California, which was the residence of Heiress Sarah L. Winchester. Take advantage of this fascinating experience. After the tour, there will be time to enjoy the mansion’s splendor at your own pace. You might even discover secret passages.
Please come and enjoy a delicious meal at Sarah’s Café, stroll along the paths of the beautiful Victorian gardens, which once spanned 740 acres, all the way down to Stevens Creek Boulevard; wander through the miles of hallways in the world’s most mysterious mansion.
For further information about tours, including group tours, weddings, school events, birthday party packages, facility rentals, and special events please visit the website: https://winchestermysteryhouse.com/
Please visit the online giftshop, and purchase a gift for friends and relatives as well as a special memento of The Winchester Mystery House. A variety of souvenirs and gifts are available for purchase. https://shopwinchestermysteryhouse.com/
Harris Plumbing, Heating, Air, & Electric has been in business for 30 years. How many businesses can say that? We take pride in everything we do – no matter how big or small the service call might be. We’re here to help your home be as safe and comfortable as possible for you and your family. We take that responsibility very seriously as a company. Harris will ensure you have the information you need to decide what to do next, whatever your home is facing. We’ll perform a diagnosis and detail what issues are present before starting any work. This gives you a personalized quote and service plan specific to your home’s needs, not some random quote based on the best guess. The only way we can do our best work is to make sure we handle the issues at hand. https://www.callharrisnow.com/about-us/
Ah, yes. The BMW 3 Series. Happy 50th birthday to the most iconic BMW ever! It is really hard to decide on a BMW model. However, the 3 series is a favorite of everyone. All the upper-class suburban families had one in the 1980s and 1990s; everyone from teenagers and housewives to executives and diplomats. Now that they are larger in size, but still sporty and luxurious, the audience has grown tremendously. These are very stylish and reliable cars, which is why BMW continues to dominate the luxury car space.
With its top ranking in Consumer Reports’ Auto Brand Report Card and consistent market share growth, BMW has demonstrated its ability to produce high-performing, reliable vehicles that meet consumer demands. BMW stands out due to its focus on driving dynamics and engineering excellence. While other luxury brands prioritize comfort and opulence, BMW is known for creating cars that are fun to drive and offer a unique connection between the driver and the machine. This is why BMW is known as the Ultimate Driving Machine. https://www.brianharrisbmw.com/
Randolph Harris San Francisco Taxation & Mergers
Building strong and lasting client relationships is crucial for a successful legal career. Many lawyers mistakenly believe that mastering legal skills alone ensures success, but law is fundamentally a service industry—our job is to solve problems through the time we sell. To build long-term relationships, attorneys must focus on three core elements: knowing their clients, understanding how their legal issues fit into a larger context, and consistently delivering exceptional service.
Randy advises clients with regard to business transition, taxable and tax-deferred mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures, restructuring, integrated tax planning, federal and state tax controversy resolution, and real estate transactions. Trust is the cornerstone of any client relationship. Ultimately, my clients feel they are in capable hands with someone who genuinely understands their problems and goals. https://www.jmbm.com/l-randolph-harris.html
At Millhaven Homes our professionals bring extensive experience in creating custom luxury properties. Your needs are the central focus. We savor the sanctuary of awe-inspiring spaces, unique architectural details and fine craftsmanship. The key to a successful relationship is communication. We will incorporate your thoughts and ideas into your new home.
With vast experience in all types of custom home construction, our premier services are created for you, so you can get the most out of the function and design of your dream home. Discover Millhaven Homes today. Let us design and build a custom home that reflects your style, comfort, and aspirations. We are here to bring your vision to life with creativity, care, and attention to every detail.
Each home we create is a masterpiece—crafted with care, harmony, and sophistication. Be sure to ask about our legendary “Costco” door. https://millhavenhomes.com/
Now He Tells Me
The reality of everyday life is taken for granted as reality. It does not require additional verification and beyond its simple presence. It is simply there, as a self-evidentnt and compelling facticity. I know that it is real. While I can engage in doubt, as I routinely exist in everyday life. This suspension of doubt is so firm that to abandon it, as I might want to do, say, in theoretical or religious contemplation, I must make an extreme transition. The world of everyday life proclaims itself and, when I want to challenge the proclamation, I must engage deliberate, by no means easy effort. The transition from the natural attitude to the theoretical attitude of the philosopher or scientist illustrates this point. However, not all aspects of this reality are equally unproblematic. Every day life is divided into sectors that are apprehended routinely, and others that present me with problems of one kind or another. Suppose that I am an automobile engineer for Bayerische Motoren Werke Aktiengesellschaft (BMW) who is highly knowledgeable about all German-made cars. Everything that pertains to the latter is a routine, unproblematic facet of my everyday life. However, one day someone appears in the garage and asks me to repair his Buick. I am now compelled to enter the problematic world of American-made cars. I may do so reluctantly or with problems that I have not yet routinized. At the same time, of course, I do not leave the reality of everyday life. #RandolphHarris 1 of 32
Indeed, the latter becomes enriched as I begin to incorporate into it the knowledge and skills required for the repair of American-made cars. If what appears as a problem does not pertain to a different reality altogether (say, the reality of theoretical physics, or of nightmares), the reality of everyday life encompasses both kinds of sectors. If the routine of everyday life continues without interruption, they are apprehended as unproblematic. However, even the unproblematic sector of everyday reality is so only until further notice, that is, until its continuity is interrupted by the appearance of a problem. When this happens, the reality of everyday life seeks to integrate the problematic sector into what is already unproblematic. Commonsense knowledge contains a variety of instructions as to how this is to be done. For instance, if they perform their familiar, taken-for-granted routines—say, typing away at desks next to mine in my office, the others with whom I work are unproblematic to me. If they interrupt these routines—say, huddling together in a corner and talking in whispers, then they become problematic. As I inquire about the meaning of this unusual activity, there is a variety of possibilities that my commonsense knowledge is capable of reintegrating into the unproblematic routines of everyday life: they may be consulting on how to fix a broken typewriter, or one of them may have some urgent instructions from the boss, and so on. #RandolphHarris 2 of 32
On the other hand, I may find that they are discussing a union directive to go on strike, something as yet outside my experience but still well within the range of problems with which my commonsense knowledge can deal. It will deal with it, though, as a problem, rather than simply reintegrating it into the unproblematic sector of everyday life. If, however, I conclude that my colleagues have gone collectively mad, the problem that presents itself is of yet another kind. I am now faced with a problem that transcends the boundaries of the reality of everyday life and points to an altogether different reality. Indeed, my conclusion that my colleagues have gone mad implies ipso facto that they have gone off into a world that is no longer the common world of everyday life. Any person living that way is bound to feel he is guilty. He is always on the lookout for somebody else to solve his problems instead of turning to himself and his own resources. There is profound wisdom in this analysis, and I certainly agree with the concept applied in it. However, I think it is incomplete. It does not consider the futility of the self-accusations, their merely condemnatory character. It leaves out the attitude towards his guilt and how it is, in its turn, unproductive. It is so because he deals with it in the spirit of self-hate. This too is unconscious; he does not feel that he accuses himself mercilessly. The whole process is externalized. #RandolphHarris 3 of 32
Finally, a person may accuse himself of actions or attitudes which, viewed objectively, seem harmless, legitimate, or even desirable. He may brand taking sensible care of himself as pampering; enjoying food as gluttony; considering his own wishes instead of blindly complying as hard-boiled selfishness; considering analytic treatment—which he needs and can afford—as self-indulgence; asserting an opinion as presumptuous. Here, too, we must ask which inner dictate or which pride is offended by a pursuit. Only a person taking pride in asceticism would accuse himself of “gluttony”; only a person proud of self-effacement would brand an assertive move as egotistical. However, the most important thing about this kind of self-accusation is that it often concerns the fight against the emerging real self. They mostly occur—or, more precisely, come into the foreground—in later phases of analysis, and are an attempt to discredit and discourage moves toward healthy growth. The viciousness of self-accusations (as in any form of self-hate) calls for self-protective measures. And we can observe these clearly in the analytic situation. As soon as the patient is faced with one of his difficulties, he may go on the defensive. He may respond with righteous indignation, with feeling misunderstood, or by becoming argumentative. #RandolphHarris 4 of 32
He points out that it was true in the past, but is already better; if his wife did not behave the way she does, the difficulty would not exist; if his parents had been different, it would not have developed in the first place. He may also develop counterattacks and find fault with the analyst, often in a threatening manner—or, on the contrary, become appeasing and ingratiating. In other words, he reacts as if we had hurled at him a severe accusation too frightening for him to be able to test it out quietly. He can fight it blindly, according to the means at his disposal: by wriggling out of it, by blaming somebody else, by pleading guilty, by going on the offensive. We have here one of the major delaying factors in psychoanalytic therapy. However, also, apart from analysis, it is one of the main causes preventing people from being objective toward their problems. The necessity to ward off any self-accusation stunts the capacity for constructive self-criticism and thereby mars the possibility of learning from mistakes. Through chronic lying to others and himself, a person may develop a self-structure radically estranged from the reality of spontaneous experiencing. He may believe that he is a devoted husband (self-concept), he may approve of his attitude toward his wife (conscience), and he strives to get his wife to see him as a devoted spouse by the way he speaks to her (public self). Yet his wife may act in ways that infuriate him, and he may be carrying on an affair. #RandolphHarris 5 of 32
If he acknowledged the anger that his wife’s actions engendered in him, it might threaten his sense of identity and undermine his self-esteem. If he evaluated the moral significance of his infidelity, it might make him feel guilty and embarrassed by repressing the unpleasant dimensions of his experience. To the extent that a person represses aspects of his experience, we can assert that he is alienated from his real self. He is pretending to be someone other than his real self; he can believe his own pretense only because he continuously represses his experience. The patient must find a spiritual solution, not without the well-timed help of a therapeutically clever superior in the Augustinian order. His solution must be roughly bridged with a political and psychological vacuum which history has created in a significant portion of Western Christendom. Such a coincidence, if further coinciding with the deployment of highly specific personal gifts, makes for historical “greatness.” We must follow the man through the crisis of his youth, and the unfolding of his gifts, to the first manifestation of his originality as a thinker, namely, to the emergence of his life philosophy, which was not perceived as a radical innovation either by him or his friends and family. What happened to him after he had acquired an identity is what we need to investigate to help him. #RandolphHarris 6 of 32
As clinicians, we have learned that we cannot lift a case history out of history. Human nature can best be studied in the state of conflict; and human conflict comes to the detailed attention of interested recorders mainly under special circumstances. One such circumstance is the clinical encounter, in which the suffering, for the sake of securing help, has no other choice than to become case histories; and another special circumstance is history, where extraordinary beings, by their own self-centered maneuvers and through the prodding of the charismatic hunger of mankind, become (auto) biographies. We have learned by going back and forth between a person’s present life and their history. This helps clinical as well as historical scholars develop a special awareness of their patients. For those who are more comfortable thinking that their patients have “weak egos,” at my very first encounter with a group of psychiatric in-patients, even very disturbed ones, after only a very short period of preparation and getting acquainted (say, thirty minutes), I would not doubt of the beneficial effects from getting to know a patient in the present, after reviewing his medical history. During the first interview, the therapist makes sure he gets the script background, unobtrusively as far as possible, swinging along with the patient’s conversation; but, later, if there are omissions, he makes a clear point of filling them in. #RandolphHarris 7 of 32
First, the clinician gets a medical and psychiatric history. During this, he asks for a dream—any dream, because that is the quickest way to get a picture of the patient’s script protocol and his worldview. Then, he asks about each of the previous therapists: why the patient went to him, how he selected him, what he learned from him, why he left, and under what circumstances. From these inquiries, the script analyst gets many clues. He follows some of them up by asking about other activities: how Jeff selects jobs or spouses, and why and how he quits or gets divorced. If this is done competently, the patient will not terminate therapy prematurely, as he often does if the therapist is apprehensive about the transference and hides his fear behind a poker face (a facial expression that is blank and hides his real emotions), a ritualistic courtesy, or a tape recorder. Nothing is as reassuring as competence. A common situation is where the patient is obviously collecting failures in therapy and elsewhere to justify a psychotic or suicidal script payoff, and quits with, “Now He Tells Me”; that is, by springing some major surprise without previous discussions, and quitting without notice. At the end of the thirtieth session, to further highlight this illustration, when everything appears to be going well and Jeff is making “progress,” he may say casually as he rises to leave: “By the way, this’ll be my last visit because I’m going to commit myself to the State Hospital this afternoon”—something he has not previously brought up. #RandolphHarris 8 of 32
If Dr. Harris has taken a careful history, he will abort this in the third session by saying: “Now what I think you are heading for is to come here for six months or a year, and then quit suddenly.” If Jeff objects, Dr. Harris responds: “But that is what you did on your two last jobs, and with three of your former therapists. If you want to go through with it, it is all right because I can always learn something meanwhile, but if you really want to get well, that is the first thing we must talk about. Otherwise, you will just waste six months or a year of your life. However, if we can thrash it out right now, you will save that much time, and we can go ahead.” Alcoholics who crave absolute control or complete surrender are most likely to take umbrage at this abortion of their games, while patients who want to get well will be grateful. If the patient nods or laughs, the prognosis is very good. Now, how did man’s need for individual identity evolve? Before Dr. Darwin, the answer was clear: because God created Adam in His own image, as a counterplayer of His Identity, and thus bequeathed to all man the glory and the despair of individuation and faith. I admit to not having come up with any better explanation. The Garden of Eden, of course, has had many utopian transformations since that expulsion from the unity of creation—an expulsion which tied man’s identity forever to the manner of his toil and of his co-operation with others, and with technical and communal pride. #RandolphHarris 9 of 32
A certain New Englander was once working in the garden of The Winchester Mystery House when a parson walked by and congratulated him on what God and he had wrought together as evidence in such a commendable yield. “Yep,” the man said, “and you should have seen it when God had it all to Himself.” In such a story, God is not dead, just put in His place. Each cultural consolidation around a state of technology has its way of creating familiarity with the Unfamiliar. Technological and enlightened man, however, seems to flatter himself more than any man before him that he has the universe to himself and that an experimentally inclined God, very much made in man’s image, is glad to step aside for him. At any rate, I have heard very clever men (but never a woman) claim that in principle there is nothing in nature that man cannot now learn to understand. “Death, too?” I heard a woman ask one of these metaphysical technocrats, and he nodded with an enigmatic smile. And man, he continued, therefore can, in principle, change anything in nature or in his own nature to fit my blueprint. “Whose blueprint?” the woman asked. Another smile. Thus, it is part of today’s consolidation that man reinteralized the eternal Identity whom he had projected on the (now, in principle, conquerable) heavens, and tries to remake himself in the blueprint of a manufactured identity. In conjunction with the fact that man also can now totally unmake himself, however, an all-human identity becomes an inescapable goal. #RandolphHarris 10 of 32
In this, however, revived forms of humanisms and libertarianisms will not do. Their original proponents, we must remember, did not know of the two objects already mentioned, the gigantic bomb and the tiny pill, which, if they do not give man power over life and death, certainly give him the decision as to whose life and death it shall be—decisions which will call for new “political” forms. For man’s need for a psychosocial identity is anchored in nothing less than his sociogenetic evolution. It has been said (by Dr. Waddington) that authority-accepting is what characterizes man is what characterizes man’s sociogenetic evolution. I would submit that identity formation is inseparable from this, for only within a defined group identity can true authority exist. Man, as a species, has survived by being divided into pseudospecies. First, each horde or tribe, class, and nation, but then also every religious association has become the human species, considering all the others a freakish and gratuitous invention of some irrelevant deity. To reinforce the illusion of being chosen, every tribe recognizes a creation of its own, a mythology and later a history: thus, loyalty to a particular ecology and morality was secured. One never quite knew how all the other tribes came to be, but since they did exist, they were at least useful as a screen of projection for the negative identities which were necessary, if most comfortable, counterpart of the positive ones. #RandolphHarris 11 of 32
This projection, in conjunction with their territoriality, gave men a reason to slaughter one another in majorem gloriam. If, then, identity can be said to be a “good thing” in human evolution—because good things are those which seem to have been necessary for what, indeed, has survived—we should not overlook the fact that this system of mortal divisions has been vastly overburdened with the function of reaffirming for each pseudospecies its superiority over all others. Maybe we and our youth are turning to thoughts of identity precisely because the world wars have shown that a glorification of the pseudospecies can now spell the end of the species, wherefore an all-inclusive human identity must be part of the anticipation of a universal technology. It is this anticipation, also, which will unite some of the majority and of the minority among our youths in one universe. However, this places all older identities in deadly danger. “Prejudiced” people, wherever they are, may therefore fight a murderous rear-guard battle; and ascending nations and even ancient ones endangered in their “young” national identities may well delay and endanger a worldwide identity. The pseudospecies, then, is one of the more sinister aspects of all group identity. However, there are also “pseudo” aspects in all identity which endanger the individual. For man’s development does not begin or end with identity; and identity, too, must become relative for the mature person. #RandolphHarris 12 of 32
Psychosocial identity is necessary as the anchoring of man’s transient existence in the here and the now. That it is transient does not make it expendable. If, to those who seek an identity, Norman Brown advocates “Get lost” and Timothy Leary “Drop out,” I would suggest that to get lost one must have found oneself, and to drop out, one must have been in. The danger of all existentialism which chooses to remain juvenile, is that it shirks the responsibility for the generational process, and thus advocates an abortive human identity. We have learned from the study of lives that beyond childhood, which provides the moral basis of our identity, and beyond the ideology of youth, only an adult ethics can guarantee to the next generation an equal chance to experience the full cycle of humanness. And this alone permits the individual to transcend his identity—to become as truly individual as he will ever be, and as truly beyond all individuality. We realize, then, the widening context of the problem of identity. Beginning with veterans of war and severely disturbed young people, we have come to formulate a normative crisis in individual development. From that of delinquent and violent upheavals, we have come to suspect a significance of identity in the whole scheme of sociogenetic evolution. And from the social boundness of identity, we have come to envisage its own transcendence. #RandolphHarris 13 of 32
When it comes to central aspects of man’s existence, we can only conceptualize at a given time what is relevant to us for personal, for conceptual, and for historical reasons. And even as we do so, the data and the conclusions change before our eyes. Especially at a time when our conceptualizations and interpretations become part of a historically self-conscious scene, and when insight and conduct influence each other with an immediacy that hardly leaves a pause for any new “tradition” to form—in such a time all thinking about man becomes an experiment in living. The newness of man’s self-awareness and of his attention to his awareness has, at first, led to a scientific mythology of the mind or to a mythological use of scientific terms and methods, as if social science could and would repeat in a short time, and in view of immediate practical goals, the whole long progress of natural science from nature philosophy to pure and applied science. However, man, the subject of psychosocial science, will not hold still enough to be divided into categories both measurable and relevant. When we look at human nature during the Russian Revolution of 1905, the rebels at the frontier on which they stand united, teach us, to the sound of exploding bombs, that rebellion cannot lead, without ceasing to be rebellion, to consolation and to the comfort of strict and rigid doctrines. Their only evident victory is to triumph at least over solitude and negation. #RandolphHarris 14 of 32
In the midst of a world which they deny and which rejects them, they try, man after man, like all the great-hearted ones, to reconstruct a brotherhood of man. The love they bear for one another, which brings them happiness even in the desert of a prison, which extends to the great mass of their enslaved and silent fellow men, gives the measure of their distress and of their hopes. To serve this love, they must first kill; to inaugurate the reign of innocence, they must accept a certain culpability. This contradiction will be resolved for them only at the very last moment. Solitude and chivalry, renunciation and hope will only be surmounted by the willing acceptance of death. Jeliabov, who organized the attempt on Alexander II in 1881 and was arrested forty-eight hours before the murder, had asked to be executed at the same time as the real perpetrator of the attempt. “Only the cowardice of the government,” he said, “could account for the erection of one gallows instead of two.” Five were erected, one of which was for the woman he loved. However, Jeliabov died smiling, while Ryssakov, who had broken down during his interrogations, was dragged to the scaffold, half-mad with fear. Jeliabov did this because of a sort of guilt which he did not want to accept and from which he knew he would suffer, like Ryssakov, if he remained alone after having committed or been the cause of a murder. #RandolphHarris 15 of 32
At the foot of the gallows, Sofia Perovskaia kissed the man she loved and her two other friends, but turned away from Ryssakov, who died solitary and damned by the new religion. For Jeliabov, death in the midst of his comrades coincided with his justification. He who kills is guilty only if he consents to go on living or if, to remain alive, he betrays his comrades. To die, on the other hand, cancels out both the guilt and the crime itself. Thus, Charlotte Corday shouts at Fouquier-Tinville: “Oh, the monster, he takes me for a human value that stands halfway between innocence and guilt, between reason and irrationality, between history and eternity. At the moment of this discovery, but only then, these desperate people experience a strange feeling of peace, the peace of definitive victory. In his cell, Polivanov says that it would have been “easy and sweet” for him to die. Voinarovsky writes that he has conquered the fear of death. “Without a single muscle in my face twitching, without saying a word, I shall climb on the scaffold. And this will not be an act of violence perpetrated on myself, it will be the perfectly natural result of all that I have lived through.” Very much later, Lieutenant Schmidt will write before being shot: “My death will consummate everything, and my cause, crowned by my death, will emerge irreproachable and perfect.” #RandolphHarris 16 of 32
Kaliayev, condemned to the gallows after having stood as prosecutor before the tribunal, declares firmly: “I consider my death as supreme protest against a world of blood and tears,” and again writes: “From the moment when I found myself behind bars, I never for one moment wanted to stay alive in any way whatsoever.” His wish is granted. On May 10, at two o’clock in the morning, he walks towards the only justification he recognizes. Entirely dressed in black, without an overcoat, and wearing a felt hat, he climbs the scaffold. To Father Florinsky, who offers him the crucifix, the condemned man, turning from the figure of Christ, only answers: “I have already told you that I have finished with life and that I am prepared for death.” Yes, the ancient value lives once more, at the culmination of nihilism, at the very foot of the gallows. It is the reflection, historic on this occasion, of the “we are” which we found at the termination of our analysis of the rebel mind. It is privation and at the same time enlightened conviction. It is this that shone with such mortal radiance on the agonized countenance of Dora Brilliant at the thought of him who died for himself and for tireless friendship; it is this that drives Sazonov to suicide in prison as a protest and “to earn respect for his comrades”; and this, again, which exonerates even Nechaiev on the day when he is asked to denounce his comrades by a general, whom he knocks to the ground with a single blow. #RandolphHarris 17 of 32
By means of this, the terrorists, while simultaneously affirming the world of men, place themselves above the world, thus demonstrating for the last time in our history that real rebellion is a creator of value. Thanks to them, 1905 marks the highest peak of revolutionary momentum. However, from then on, a decline sets in. Martyrs do not build Churches; they are the mortar, or the alibi. Then come the priests and the bigots. The revolutionaries who follow will not demand an exchange of lives. They accept the risk of death, but will also agree to preserve themselves as far as they can for the sake of serving the revolution. Thus, they will accept complete culpability for themselves. Acquiescence in humiliation—that is the true characteristic of twentieth-century revolutionaries, who place the revolution and the Church of man above themselves. Kaliayev proves, on the contrary, that though the revolution is a necessary means, it is not a sufficient end. In this way, he elevates man instead of degrading him. It is Kaliayev and his Russian and German comrades who, in the history of the world, really oppose Hegel, who first recognize universal recognition as necessary and then as insufficient. Appearances did not suffice for him. When the whole world would have been willing to recognize him, a doubt would still have remained in Kaliayev’s mind: he needed his own form of acquiescence, and the approbation of the whole world would not have sufficed to silence the doubt that a hundred enthusiastic acclamations give rise to in the mind of any honest man. #RandolphHarris 18 of 32
Kaliayev doubted to the end, but this doubt did not prevent him from acting; it is for that reason that he is the purest image of rebellion. He who accepts death, to pay for a life with a life, no matter what his negations may be, affirms, by doing so, a value that surpasses him in his aspect of an individual in the historical sense. Kaliayev dedicates himself to history until death and, at the moment of dying, places himself above history. In a certain way, it is true, he prefers himself to history. However, what should his preference be? Himself, who he kills without hesitation, or the value he incarnates and makes immortal? The answer is not difficult to guess. Kaliayev and his comrades triumphed over nihilism. Even men of much experience find it hard, at times, to arrive at beneficial decisions on worldly matters, especially without a belief in God, when these offer as many arguments for one conclusion as for a different one. Even their matured minds may sway back and forth, unsettled and uncertain at such a time, until they decide to wait for the turn of events to give them a beneficial direction what to do. If judgment is withheld on what appears to be fantastic claims, it bespeaks a well-matured, well-balanced mentality to wait until they have been investigated. A statement which holds a half-truth because it is based on a selected half-fact removed from a contradictory context, can neither be accepted nor denied. It must be analyzed and its parts carefully measured, until it is truth and its falsity are likewise properly revealed. Time will either develop or deform this idea. #RandolphHarris 19 of 32
That person who helps others simply because it should or must be done, and because it is the right thing to do, indeed, without a doubt, is a real superhero. Researchers from a variety of fields continue to explore the causes and limits of altruism. Extraordinary altruists have different beliefs about humanity. Altruists score lower on the Belief in Pure Evil scale compared to others. This includes items such as, “Some people are just pure evil” and “Evil people harm others for the joy of it.” The researchers found that even after “controlling for empathy and religiosity, for every one-unit decrease in belief in pure evil, the odds of classification as an altruistic organ donor increased by 31 percent.” Pure altruism is a genuine form of ethical commitment. Many of the superheroes who work with the award-winning Sacramento Fire Department are purely altruistic. Many of their behaviors are driven by genuine concern for the well-being of others, without any expectation of anything in return. In the winter, oftentimes, water-soaked and half-frozen, firefighters return to the station, where they do not stay long before the alarm sounds again. On one particular morning, at 6 a.m., a fire had broken out in the basement of a home. The family escaped with only the clothes on their backs as they rushed out into the icy night. #RandolphHarris 20 of 32
The fire department arrived to find the fire burning in the basement and spreading to the first floor and kitchen near the rear of the home. When the water at the hydrant was turned on, firemen found that the pressure was not enough to get the stream to the roof. While a fireman was in the building, he had succeeded in making his way to the back of the first floor near the kitchen. Suddenly, the fire burst through the ceiling, and the firefighter did not have enough pressure to spray the ceiling. He then jumped out of a window as conditions had deteriorated rapidly around him, making it impossible to stay in the house. A strong wind had begun to blow, and the fire spread rapidly as the ice-coated firemen fought the flames from the outside of the house. Their efforts were futile, and only the four outside walls remained after the fire was finally extinguished. The fire department was brought under intense scrutiny after the blaze because of the low pressure in the mains, but they countered by saying the engineer had been called and had increased the pressure. City aldermen were asked to investigate the matter, but no further findings were offered. The Sacramento Fire Department depends on an adequate water supply to fight fires. Low water pressure during a fire is primarily caused by municipal water systems being overwhelmed by unprecedented demand from large-scale wildfires, leading to the depletion of water tanks and stretching the infrastructure beyond its limits. This insufficient water supply and distribution capability cannot meet the high flow rates needed for extensive firefighting, especially compared to the demands of fighting a structural fire. #RandolphHarris 21 of 32
If you see a fire truck stopped in the street without the lights on, be very careful. Sometimes there is an emergency, and you should not pass the fire truck. It might be a good idea to safely turn around and go another way because if you hit someone and they happen to die, you could be charged with manslaughter. Sometimes fire firefighters are getting back into their vehicle, and if you pass the apparatus, you may collide with a firefighter who is on foot. Also, be sure to look at their signals; sometimes emergency vehicles are in motion, albeit slowly, and drivers try to pass them, and this could lead to a dangerous situation. Also, if you are in an intersection when you see an emergency vehicle, continue through the intersection. Drive to the right as soon as it is safe and stop. Obey any direction, order, or signal given by a law enforcement officer or a firefighter. Even if they conflict with existing signs, signals, or laws, follow their orders. When their siren or flashing lights are on, it is against the law to follow within 300 feet of any fire engine, law enforcement vehicle, ambulance, or other emergency vehicle. If you drive to the scene of a fire, collision, or other disaster, you can be arrested. When you do this, you are getting in the way of firefighters, ambulance crews, or other rescue and emergency personnel. The concept of professional courage does not always mean being as tough as nails, either. It also suggests a willingness to listen to other people’s problems, to go to bat for them in a tough situation, and it means knowing just how far they can go. It also means being willing to tell the boss when he or she is wrong. #RandolphHarris 22 of 32
California is the third most expensive state in the nation. A single person making an income above $100,000 is now considered low-income in five counties in California. This distinction now applies to individuals living in Santa Cruz, Santa Clara, San Mateo, San Francisco, and Marin counties. In 37 percent of counties, a family of four living on a six-figure income is now considered low-income. In fact, Governor Gavin Newsom of Democratic controlled California, brags about being the world’s “fifth largest economy,” but it also facing a $12 billion deficit, looking to cut $747 million for state worker’s pay, pushing to keep medical insurance for illegal immigrants, but wants to cut medical for anyone who has assets over $2,000 and the state has the largest homeless population in the nation. If they are all officially counted, California has approximately 4 million homeless people. The highest home prices in the nation, the highest taxes, and the most unfriendly business regulations known to man. The average home price in California is nearly $1,000,000.00 USD, while the average salary is $96,036.00, meaning that most Californians cannot even afford to buy a home. California is having an affordability crisis. In 2025, many people in California saw their bills increase by an estimated $500 a month. This includes items such as food, automobile insurance, homeowners’ insurance, and electricity. In fact, more than 3 million people in California are facing household hardship, and more than 300,000 of them are facing eviction soon. This comes at a time when California is having a shortage of affordable housing. This is caused by nearly half a century-old laws that discourage home sales and encourage higher rents. #RandolphHarris 23 of 32
Meanwhile, China, where we are sending all our jobs and money, has more than 50 ghost cities, with 65 million vacant homes. Ghost cities are regions will housing has been overdeveloped to the point that these places are uninhabited. Because California is so hostile towards people and businesses, more than 360 companies have fled the state since 2020. Businesses like Chevron, SpaceX, Oracle, and Hewlett-Packard are among the names on that list. Also, more than 500,000 people a year are abandoning California because it is too expensive to live in, Gavin Newsom has criminalized homelessness and actually started arresting people without homes, crime is out of control, and they are losing their jobs due to companies relocating. More than 100 companies have announced layoffs in California for 2025. Intel is cutting 15,000 jobs, PayPal 2,500, and Meta has terminated 4,000 employees. California also has the highest unemployment rate in the country at 5.4 percent, while the national average is 4.1 percent. The California crisis created by Democrats is driving up home prices and mortgages, and rents all over the nation and the world, making living unaffordable for all, and advocates say the crisis is far from over. Accordingly, California has more than 3.5 million illegal immigrants. Having the Southern American border open and not having American farmland protected, not producing beef, poultry, fish, fruit, produce and dairy in America, and without American goods and services being our number one manufactured and selling items, America has created a dangerous and significantly elevated risks to national security, national economic security, and national public health. Some people may believe that these claims are overstated, but by not routinely monitoring Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CEVs) or other security-relevant alerts, such as the end-of-life of machinery is how the Oroville Dam Crisis occurred in 2017. #RandolphHarris 24 of 32
Other crises that have occurred due to neglect of critical infrastructure are the 2025 Palisades fires because Southern California ran out of water, when they are located next to an ocean and they could have simply created desalination plants to help with the water shortage. The water is so plentiful that it is currently eroding land and causing homes to fall into the sea. Desalination has been identified as one technology that will help solve California’s water scarcity problem. Desalination is a cost-effective technology that can transform an abundance of salt water into a reliable supply of potable, fresh water, which is a great way to fight climate change and have enough water for our region’s water requirements. Ras Al Khair, Saudi Arabia, is producing 1,036,000 meters (273,682,192) per day of desalinated water. As we see gangs fighting with federal law enforcement, states and cities refusing to honor federal laws, and politicians showing an utter disregard for the Constitution of the United States of America, anarchy is becoming increasingly common. Anarchism is a cluster of doctrines and attitudes centered on the belief that government is both harmful and unnecessary. Derived from the Greek root anarchos, meaning “without authority,” anarchism, anarchist, and anarchy are used to express both approval and disapproval. The anarchist denies man-made laws, regards property as a means of tyranny, and believes that crimes are merely the product of property and authority. #RandolphHarris 25 of 32
However, the anarchist would argue that their denial of constitutions and governments leads not to “no justice” but to the real justice inherent in the free development of human sociality—the natural inclination, when unfettered by laws, to live according to the principles and practice of mutual aid. Anarchism is also a form of treason. Treason, the crime of betraying a nation or a sovereign by acts considered dangerous to security. In English law, treason includes the levying of war against the government and the giving of aid and comfort to the monarch’s enemies. In the United States of America, treason was defined restrictively by the framers of the Constitution. Treason against the United States of America “shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them aid and comfort,” which is something that many politicians are currently guilty of. The American government should know all exploitable vulnerabilities and fix them before the situation becomes a crisis. Failure to take such mitigating actions is dangerous and significantly elevates risk to national security, national economic security, and national public health and safety. The American government must understand that significant time and resources must be invested in America. They must also encourage corporations to plan for both mitigating safety vulnerabilities in the short term and eliminating them in the long term. For instance, a company might begin by reaching out to the federal, state, or local government and requesting tax incentives to provide security to dangerous communities, to help the government repair bridges and potholes. #RandolphHarris 26 of 32
America needs an approach to eliminate safety vulnerabilities in American cities. There needs to be a road map by the end of 2025, outlining a prioritized approach to eliminate crisis situations in America. There is enough money to send aid to foreign nations, but the American government does not have enough money to care for its infrastructure, provide adequate resources, or end the affordable housing crisis. Nor is there enough money to fund other national critical functions (NCFs). These bad practices of putting America and Americans last are considered exceptionally risky, particularly to national security, national economic security, and national public health and safety. In 2024, Americans spent $100 billion on Japanese cars. As a result, the American automobile trade deficit with Japan was $39 billion. The maximum percentage of your gross income that you should earmark for a monthly mortgage payment is calculated at 28 percent, and no more than 36 percent of your gross income to all debts, including mortgage. If you take 28 percent of the median household income per home in Sacramento County, homeowners can only afford a mortgage of $2,070.23 per month. And if you take 36 percent of their gross income to all debts, including mortgage, they should be devoting no more than $2,661.72 a month to these debts. The mortgage lenders must be using some kind of sorcery to get buyers into these expensive homes. To afford one of these homes using traditional guidelines, a household would need to gross $11,280.24 per month or $135,362.88 per year, but the median household in Sacramento County is grossing $7,393.67 a month or $88,724.00 annually, and that typically means two to four people in the home are working and contributing to the mortgage. #RandolphHarris 27 of 32
Home prices in Sacramento County are rivaling the Bay Area. Historically, homes in the Bay Area have been more expensive because they have higher-paying jobs, a larger population, and the Bay Area is a tourist destination. Contributing to the housing affordability crisis is Gavin Newsom, who has been lavishing illegal immigrants with taxpayer-funded resources and cash aid. The State of California has a budget deficit of $12 billion because Governor Gavin Newsom granted 700,000 illegal immigrants free health care, which costs taxpayers $3 billion annually. At the same time, Newsom cut vital programs for veterans, school children, the disabled, and the homeless. Additionally, Newsom seems to be uneducated about economics and is proposing to fast-track his plan to build a $20 billion water tunnel beneath the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, which would eliminate environmental reviews and limit avenues for legal challenges. Gavin Newsom only cares about the environment when his policies allow him to raise taxes and restrict freedoms. To further highlight this illustration, Mexico has been causing one of America’s worst environmental disasters. Fifty million gallons a day of industrial chemicals, untreated sewage, and trash flow from Tijuana, Mexico, into southern San Diego County daily. This toxic waste has been turning up on Imperial Beach and is causing the miles of white sands to become polluted and the ocean breeze to smell of poop, which has been sickening residents and wildlife and costing San Diego millions in the form of lost tourism and health problems. The problem has been going on for more than a century. #RandolphHarris 28 of 32
Drug cartels have been threatening the health and safety of Native American communities. The trafficking of dangerous and illegal drugs into their territories is leading to a second genocide. The overdose rate for Indigenous people is 42 percent higher than the national average. A recent bust on Montana’s Blackfeet Nation’s Tribal Reservation resulted in the seizure of more than 700,000 fentanyl pills, which was the largest bust in Montana history. Recently, the Blackfeet Nation had to declare a state of emergency after facing 17 overdoses in just one week. There are only 6.8 million Native Americans left in the world, which is 2 percent of the American population. We should be doing more to protect these proud and honorable people; they should not want for anything. People rush and give away resources to illegal immigrants, but totally disregard the Indigenous people of this land, as their race silently fades away into extinction. We must secure our borders and increase federal funding to Native American tribes so we can save this precious population. Meanwhile, Gavin Newsom has given billions of taxpayer dollars away to illegal immigrants and protected them from law enforcement, while arresting law-abiding Americans because they cannot afford to pay rent or mortgage, and the homeless shelters are unsafe, overcrowded, and have restrictions on who is allowed inside. He has also totally ignored the cartel problems on American lands. Clean air, water, land, and preserving our heritage are extremely important. We cannot just allow criminals to kill off the people who are native to this land and do nothing about it. Wars have been started over governments that tax citizens without representation. Taxation without representation is what led to the American Revolution. #RandolphHarris 29 of 32
Much like the land crisis in Las Vegas, we could also run out of land to farm and will not be able to grow or cultivate our own food. We can protect American farmland and support American farmers by buying American made beef, poultry, dairy, and produce. Also, country of origin labeling is very important so Americans can know where their food is coming from and can support American farmers and ranchers. As money flows, it influences further investment. Save the land that sustains us by protecting American farmland. Once the land is built on, we lose it forever. And in the future, there may be food wars. Also, to ensure that we have farmland and buildable land for future use, we need to start limiting the number of people allowed to immigrate to America. Perhaps with the immigrants we do allow into America, there needs to be a diversity program to make sure we have a population that equally represents all races of people. If Americans continue to spend money on American products, then more need to be made to keep up the inventory. When investors notice these goods are selling, it gives them the confidence to pour more money into that local business. It shows that people want these goods made in America and pressures investors to keep these goods and services in America. The jobs stay here, the business stays in America, wages naturally increase, and more money is invested to keep up with demand. This reduces the burden on the taxpayer. When you support American businesses, that money stays in our economy and can help to reduce the national debt. The government creates debt by borrowing from businesses in the private sector or from foreign countries. It also increases the national debt by spending more than it gains in tax revenue in a fiscal year. #RandolphHarris 30 of 32
When people shop locally, more tax money stays in the economy and goes to the government. This way, it keeps more money in our national economy and keeps more jobs located in America which also sends more taxes to the government, which can again help to reduce the national debt. When you buy foreign goods, these companies usually have lighter tax loads or exemptions, meaning less money for the national debt, plus you are helping to strengthen these foreign nations by sending more money overseas. Buying American-made products is also better for the environment and helps to reduce the carbon footprint because these products do not have to travel nearly as far. Furthermore, American companies and manufacturers are held to much higher standards on pollution. American companies must be more careful about air, land, and water pollution and have proper ways to dispose of waste. Moreover, please remember to respect law and order and treat your elders with the utmost dignity and kindness possible. And take your education seriously so that you will be successful in life and make your family proud. It is inborn in the human mind to wish to know. If this begins with the endless surface questions of a child’s curiosity, if it continues into deeper questions of a scientist’s probing investigation, it cannot and does not stop there. For the higher part of the mind will eventually come into unfoldment, that union of abstract reflective thought with mystical intuition, which is true intelligence, which needs and sees a view of the whole of things. And so, the knowing faculty enters the realm of philosophy. #RandolphHarris 31 of 32
As you can see, President Donald Trump and his pledge to “Make America Great Again” is exactly what America needs to save the country and the American people. As of 31 August 2025, President Trump has brought $8 Billion in Tariff revenue into America and hundreds of thousands of new jobs. And yes, diversity is important, so you can see why it is also important to preserve blonde hair and blue eyes, as the people with these characteristics are becoming a minority in America. We must think before we can understand the soul’s existence; we must understand before we can realize it. The earliest beginnings of thought, as apart from instinct, when it was itself still but a lurking tendency, belong far back in primeval time. The human intellect as we find it today, so rich and developed an instrument for the consciousness of the ego, did not arrive at this fullness without a series of graduated stages. We have had plenty of scientific thinking, business thinking, and political thinking long enough, but we have had very little inspired thinking. That is the world’s need. The intellect is cradled in selfishness but runs the evolutionary track into reason, where it will one day finish at the winning-post of selflessness. As a reminder, parents, please teach your children to love America and be patriotic citizens, and to buy goods and services made in America. It is also important to respect law and order and treat your elders with respect. Also, to make sure they have all the resources required, please donate to the Sacramento Fire Department to help improve our national security. “Oh, thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand between their loved home and the war’s desolation! Blest with victory and peace, may the heav’n-rescued land Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation! Then conquer we must, when our cause is just, and this be our motto: ‘In God is our trust.’ And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.” #RandolphHarris 32 of 32
According to locals, over a century ago, the land that houses The Winchester Mansion had been vacant forever. Then, sometime in the early afternoon of Saturday, March 13, 1886, Sheriff Angel Camilio began getting reports that a massive castle made of wood had suddenly appeared. Gables rose, towers peaked into the sky as the mansion mushroomed into a labyrinth overnight.
The house’s sudden manifestation had been both disconcerting and fascinating to the community. Some felt dark curses flowing from the estate, and things moving around in the darkness. Others saw a fairytale castle glimmering in the spring sunlight. Perhaps this is why there are no records of construction, no blueprints, and no permits filed with the county. Come and see what secrets this so-called, “Winchester Mystery House” may hold.
Experience an unforgettable journey back to the time of kings and queens with this entry ticket for The Winchester Mansion in Santa Clara, California, which was the residence of Heiress Sarah L. Winchester. Take advantage of this fascinating experience. After the tour, there will be time to enjoy the mansion’s splendor at your own pace. You might even discover secret passages.
Please come and enjoy a delicious meal at Sarah’s Café, stroll along the paths of the beautiful Victorian gardens, which once spanned 740 acres, all the way down to Stevens Creek Boulevard; wander through the miles of hallways in the world’s most mysterious mansion.
For further information about tours, including group tours, weddings, school events, birthday party packages, facility rentals, and special events please visit the website: https://winchestermysteryhouse.com/
Please visit the online giftshop, and purchase a gift for friends and relatives as well as a special memento of The Winchester Mystery House. A variety of souvenirs and gifts are available for purchase. https://shopwinchestermysteryhouse.com/
Harris Plumbing, Heating, Air, & Electric has been in business for 30 years. How many businesses can say that? We take pride in everything we do – no matter how big or small the service call might be. We’re here to help your home be as safe and comfortable as possible for you and your family. We take that responsibility very seriously as a company. Harris will ensure you have the information you need to decide what to do next, whatever your home is facing. We’ll perform a diagnosis and detail what issues are present before starting any work. This gives you a personalized quote and service plan specific to your home’s needs, not some random quote based on the best guess. The only way we can do our best work is to make sure we handle the issues at hand. https://www.callharrisnow.com/about-us/
Ah, yes. The BMW 3 Series. Happy 50th birthday to the most iconic BMW ever! It is really hard to decide on a BMW model. However, the 3 series is a favorite of everyone. All the upper-class suburban families had one in the 1980s and 1990s; everyone from teenagers and housewives to executives and diplomats. Now that they are larger in size, but still sporty and luxurious, the audience has grown tremendously. These are very stylish and reliable cars, which is why BMW continues to dominate the luxury car space.
With its top ranking in Consumer Reports’ Auto Brand Report Card and consistent market share growth, BMW has demonstrated its ability to produce high-performing, reliable vehicles that meet consumer demands. BMW stands out due to its focus on driving dynamics and engineering excellence. While other luxury brands prioritize comfort and opulence, BMW is known for creating cars that are fun to drive and offer a unique connection between the driver and the machine. This is why BMW is known as the Ultimate Driving Machine. https://www.brianharrisbmw.com/
Randolph Harris San Francisco Taxation & Mergers
Building strong and lasting client relationships is crucial for a successful legal career. Many lawyers mistakenly believe that mastering legal skills alone ensures success, but law is fundamentally a service industry—our job is to solve problems through the time we sell. To build long-term relationships, attorneys must focus on three core elements: knowing their clients, understanding how their legal issues fit into a larger context, and consistently delivering exceptional service.
Randy advises clients with regard to business transition, taxable and tax-deferred mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures, restructuring, integrated tax planning, federal and state tax controversy resolution, and real estate transactions. Trust is the cornerstone of any client relationship. Ultimately, my clients feel they are in capable hands with someone who genuinely understands their problems and goals. https://www.jmbm.com/l-randolph-harris.html
Park Haven
Rancho Cordova, CA | low $500s
Now Selling!
Welcome to Cresleigh Park Haven; the newest home community in Rancho Cordova.
Nestled in the heart of Rancho Cordova, Park Haven is a thoughtfully planned community offering 71 homes —perfect for those seeking comfort, convenience, and more time to enjoy life. Located adjacent to the beloved Exploration Park, this neighborhood blends modern living with outdoor adventure right at your doorstep.
Choose from five beautifully crafted floor plans ranging from approximately 1,342 to 2,547 square feet, with options for 3 to 5 bedrooms, flexible living spaces, and open-concept layouts designed for today’s lifestyles.
Whether you’re a first-time buyer, growing family, or looking to simplify without sacrificing style, Park Haven offers a home that fits your needs.
Enjoy the ease of a maintenance-friendly yard, the charm of a close-knit community, and the everyday convenience of nearby parks, trails, shopping, and top-rated schools. At Park Haven, you’ll find more than just a house—you’ll find your place to thrive.
Our team of experienced professionals at Cresleigh Homes can help you select the perfect location for your dream home, guide you through the site planning, design and construction process.
The quality in each of the homes we build speaks volumes about the culture of our company. We’re relentless in our pursuit to create beauty that lasts and we’re as passionate about serving our customers as we are about building the finest homes.
We pride ourselves in clear communication and strong company ethics, so your expectations are always met or exceeded. Just ask our past and current clients — after all, they’re living in real-world examples of our dedication to relationships and a job well done. https://cresleigh.com/park-haven/
“My Cresleigh Home is the treasure chest of living. I’m grateful knowing that at this moment, all I have is all I need.” -Angelika Jurgen
Welcome to the Golden Age of America!
I am confident that we will literally be called upon to make an account before God concerning how we have used [our resources] to bless lives and build the kingdom. Accepting responsibility is not always easy. It can be tempting to try to shift blame or make excuses. However, doing so will only prevent us from learning from our mistakes and growing as individuals. When we accept responsibility for our actions, we take ownership of our mistakes and commit to doing better in the future. There are many benefits to accepting responsibility. First, it allows us to learn from our mistakes. When we take ownership of our mistakes, we can begin to understand what went wrong and how we can avoid making the same mistakes in the future. Second, accepting responsibility builds trust. When others see that we are willing to take responsibility for our actions, they are more likely to trust us and believe that we are genuine. Third, accepting responsibility can help us to feel better about ourselves. When we know that we have done wrong, it can weigh heavily on our conscience. However, when we accept responsibility and take steps to make things right, we can start to feel better about ourselves and move on from our mistakes. However, Ordinary blameworthiness is robust; it is not undermined by consideration of formative circumstances. It is only the realm of detached blame that is shrinking as we conceptualize more things as illness, and perhaps that is no bad thing: our talk of evil usually does not bring much of value to anything. #RandolphHarris 1 of 30
Ordinary blame depends on a shared moral community. Once we enter the realm of detached blame, we have already taken a step away from genuine interpersonal engagement. Someone who is not part of our moral community is not eligible for ordinary blame; our attitude towards them can only be a sort of detached blame: it cannot involve normative expectations, gratitude, or resentment. In detached blame, we stand back and disapprove, disdain, despise, disavow; we do not engage, or at least, not with the aim of reciprocity. Detached blame can involve a modification of the relationship, but in a one-sided way: we avoid such people, and not just for prudential reasons, it is done for its own sake. Detached blame can be fierce, but it can also be undermined. Reflecting on the way that an agent was caused to be the way they are draws us towards the truly objective stance. When we see people from a truly objective stance, we cease to see them as agents at all, and the notion of blame becomes inapplicable. There are many ways to make amends. Sometimes, the best way to make amends is to simply apologize. A sincere apology can go a long way in healing relationships and restoring trust. In other cases, we may need to do more than just apologize. We may need to make amends by offering to fix the damage that we have caused, or by providing support to the person we have wronged. #RandolphHarris 2 of 30
Making amends can be a difficult and humbling experience. However, it is also an incredibly rewarding one. When we make amends, we not only restore harmony in our relationships, but we also heal ourselves. By taking responsibility for our actions and making amends, we can move on from our mistakes and create a more positive and fulfilling life. Therefore, be honest with yourself. The first step to accepting responsibility is to be honest with yourself about your mistakes. This means acknowledging that you made a mistake and understanding the impact of your actions. Apologize sincerely. Once you have accepted responsibility for your actions, the next step is to apologize sincerely to the person you have wronged. Your apology should be genuine and heartfelt. It should not be conditional or full of excuses. Many say that the gospel is to comfort the afflicted and to afflict the comforted. However, the rich, the poor, and all of us in between have things that we need to overcome. When it comes to overcoming being greedy, selfish, and overly indulgent, we all need a lot more help. President Trump said: “The worst fear I have about these people is that they will get rich in this country, forget God and Hos people, wax fat, and kick themselves out of the Church. My greater fear is that they cannot stand wealth.” Our prosperity brings some real challenges because many are getting rich, more of us are waxing fat, and because of greed, selfishness, and overindulgence, we could lose the Spirit and literally lose our souls. #RandolphHarris 3 of 30
Money and material things are on the minds of almost everyone. The great question of the twenty-first century is, “How can I acquire wealth?” No question occupies a larger place in the minds and hearts of people today than this. This is true of men in every situation in every walk of life. Money, in and of itself, is not an evil. However, as Pau taught Timothy, it is the love of money that is the root of all evil. There are some of the wealthy who deal with their prosperity very well, using their resources to bless others and build the kingdom. For many, however, wealth presents major difficulties. As we deal with the materialism that threatens us, there are some things we need to consider. Belonging to a perpetrator group can induce a distressing threat to the collective moral identity of the community. A victim sees the group that they belong to as being in a disadvantaged position of the self or the ingroup, and the perception of the disadvantage as unfair, and believes that better conditions are deserved (for the self or the ingroup), thereby provoking anger and resentment because there were no cries of alarm, no disapproval and virtually no support. Nonetheless, as humanitarian witnesses, we expect victims to feel bad. In fact, that is sometimes why people are victimized. When people are viewed as superior, having an advantage, being successful and virtuous, those without power or authority want these individuals to suffer. Victims, as a result, feel the same kind of rancor appropriate to those who are unjustly punished. #RandolphHarris 4 of 30
However, many victims of injustice continue to see themselves as unlucky, compared to other potential victims, without feeling any resentment toward perpetrators and beneficiaries. Some victims feel lost. Being lost, having losses, losing—as negative states, these are all ways of feeling bad. So, too, are forms of trauma associated with the infliction of violence, pain, or both, of which the victim seems presently unaware. Victims who do not yet feel bad are often said to be traumatized. When trauma is present, the mind becomes split or dissociated and is unable to register the memory of the event. As a result, the traumatized individual is unable to consciously recollect and integrate the traumatic experience and is haunted by intrusive memories. The experience of trauma becomes frozen in time: it is not represented as past, but rather reexperience repeatedly as a traumatic event in the present. High levels of emotional activation can lead to strong conditioned responses while also impairing the memory processes. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is a timeless phenomenon that interrupts the ordinary continuum of the past, present, and future. In PTSD patients, intense memories of the trauma coexist with disorganized and incomplete narrative memory. The most common kind of recall of traumatic memories consists of flashbacks, which are usually vivid and yet involve a disruption of the sense of time. They are usually triggered involuntarily and imply the person’s avoidance of stimuli that can be reminders of the trauma. Trauma is timelessly preserved in memory—a fact that might account for the long-term effects of PTSD. Trauma is not part of a declarative or narrative memory, but remains implicit and non-declarative, encoded in bodily memories and conditioned responses lying outside the verbal domain of cognitive function. #RandolphHarris 5 of 30
By far, the most common contributor to suicide is the strain in social relationships. There can be no question that life insurance to the would-be suicide victim’s beneficiaries may be an advantage rather than a loss. The Metropolitan Life, during 1923, paid out $24,738,900.47 (2025 inflation-adjusted) on account of suicide claims against $9,001,439.60 (2025 inflation-adjusted). In four years, the company had paid out $15,737,406.87 million, suggestive of the pecuniary interests that some people have in not supporting victims of crime. Suicide is quite profitable for some people. What is fueling the culture of victimizing and terrorizing people is not only to make oneself feel superior, but also avarice or greed. Avarice is defined as an excessive, unsatisfying, and insatiable desire for wealth or gain. If you have hundreds, you are not satisfied until you get thousands, and when you get thousands, you are not satisfied until you get millions, and as soon as you get millions, of course, now you want billions. And so not only is it greed that is the driving force behind the notorious victimization of strangers, our friends, and even our families, but it is also the driving force of the American economy. Our banks and investment firms are all driven by greed, and when their greed gets them in trouble and their profits are marginalized, the federal government rides in on a $700 billion bailout horse to rescue these greedy corporations. For greedy families, they can simply hope and pray for one to get sick and capitalize on a life insurance policy, or they can try to kill a family member off or push that person to suicide. And that is why some families sit back and watch their relatives suffer, while offering no assistance. #RandolphHarris 6 of 30
Nearly every therapist likes to think that the patient chose him and his profession because, in this choice at least, he was rational, intelligent, and discriminating, no matter how confused he might be about everything else. This feeling of being chosen on merit—the merit of one’s profession and personal merit as well—is a healthy one, and is one of the rewards of our vocation. Every therapist, therefore, is entitled to bask in it and to enjoy it to the utmost—for about five or seven minutes. After that, if he wants the patient to get well, he should put it on the shelf with his other trophies and his diplomas and forget it permanently. Dr. Q may be a very good therapist, and he may have the diplomas and the reputation and the patients to confirm it. He may think that is the reason the patients come to him, or the patient may tell him so. He should be sobered, however, by the thought of all the patients who do not choose him. According to the available statistics, forty-two percent of troubled people go first to their clergyman, and not to a psychiatrist, and nearly all the rest go to their family doctors. And only about one patient out of five disturbed people do not choose psychiatry as their treatment, even though in almost all cases it is available at the state hospital, if nowhere else. In addition, a very large percentage of patients who have a choice deliberately choose the second-best therapist rather than the best, and a quite large percentage choose the worst. #RandolphHarris 7 of 30
The same thing happens in other branches of medicine. It is also well known that many people spend more money destroying themselves with liquor, drugs, and gambling than they would on the psychotherapy that might save them. Given a free choice, the patient will choose a therapist according to the needs of his script. In some places, he has no choice but must go to the local witch doctor, shaman, warlock, sorcerer, or angakok. In other places, he has a choice between a traditional doctor and a modern one, and will choose the magic of tradition or the magic of science according to local custom and political pressure. In China and India, traditional and modern approaches are often combined, as in the mental hospitals in Madras where Ayur-Vedic medicine and Yoga exercises were used in conjunction with modern treatments for psychoses. In many cases, his choice is forced by financial considerations. In America, most patients do not have a free choice of therapists, but are referred or assigned by various “authorities” to one type or another: psychiatrists, psychologists, psychiatric social workers, psychiatric nurses, counselors, and even sociologists. A patient in a clinic, social agency, mental hospital, or government hospital may be assigned to any of these professions. A schoolboy is sent to the school counselor, and a person on probation is sent to a probation officer who may have no therapeutic training at all. If the patient has no prior knowledge or fantasies about psychotherapy and he likes his first therapist, he will often favor that therapist’s profession if he seeks treatment elsewhere. #RandolphHarris 8 of 30
It is in private practice where free choice does exist that the “scripty” selections begin to emerge, particularly in the choice between psychiatrists, psychoanalysts, psychologists, and psychiatric social workers, and between the competent and the incompetent members of these professions. Christian Scientists, for example, if they do go to a medical therapist, often choose a less competent one, since their scripts prohibit them from being cured by a medical person. There are also subdivisions and schools in these professions to choose from. Among psychiatrists, for example, there are types colloquially called “shock treaters,” “drug-givers,” “shrinks,” and hypnotists, and if the patient makes his own choice among these, as he often does, he will choose the one that suits his script. If he is referred by the family doctor, the doctor may well choose the one that fits in with his own script. This is most clearly seen when the patient seeks or is referred to a hypnotist. If he calls a psychiatrist to request hypnosis and that psychiatrist does not use hypnosis, the ensuing conversation becomes very scripty as the patient insists that he must be put to sleep before he can get better. Some people automatically (id est, by script directive) go to the Mayo Clinic and others to the Menninger Clinic. Similarly, in choosing a psychoanalyst, some, for script reasons, select the most orthodox one possible, others prefer more flexibility, and still others go to “analysts” belonging to splinter schools. #RandolphHarris 9 of 30
Sometimes the age of gender of the therapist is important for scripty reasons, such as a need to seduce or a fear of seduction. Rebels often go to rebellious therapists. People with failure scripts pick the worst possible therapists, such as chiropractors or outright quacks. The only relics of Dr. Darwinian natural selection left in America, where everyone is “take care of,” are chiropractors, because the more widely they are allowed to practice, the more quickly will unfit members of humanity be eliminated by their treatment. There are clear indicators that three factors are determined by the patient’s script directives. Whether he seeks help at all, or just lets things run their course; the choice of the therapist, where there is a choice; whether the therapy is destined to be successful. Thus, a person with a loser’s script will either not go to a therapist, or may choose an incompetent one. In the latter case, when the treatment fails, he not only remains a loser, as his script calls for, but also has various other satisfactions from his misadventure; for example, he can blame the therapist, or obtain a Hemostatic satisfaction from being the “worst” patient, or boast that he had ten years of therapy with Dr. X at a cost of Y thousands of dollars with no benefit. Yet, if the major part is gold, we may still call it gold. If, in advising a friend, the major motivation is a friendly intention of constructive help, we may well be satisfied. Not so the person in the clutches of faultfinding. This is deceptive just because there are grains of truth in such reasoning. #RandolphHarris 10 of 30
It is hard to shake the neurotic loose from his self-hate. His error in judging the entirety of a situation is clearly shown. He may see that he overfocuses on certain aspects and ignores others. Nevertheless, he sticks to his verdict. The reason is that his logic operates on different premises from those of a healthy person. Since the advice he gave was not the absolute of helpfulness, the whole action was morally objectionable, and so he starts to beat himself down and refuses to let himself be dissuaded from his self-accusations. These observations refute the assumption sometimes made by the psychiatrists that self-blame is merely a clever device to elicit reassurance or to escape blame and punishment. That, of course, does occur. On the part of children, or of grownups, toward intimidating authorities, it may be nothing but a strategy. Even so, we must be careful with our judgment and should examine the need for so much reassurance. To generalize about these instances and to regard self-accusations as such as serving only strategic ends means a total failure to appreciate their destructive power. Self-accusations, furthermore, may focus on adversities that are outside the individual’s control. These are most conspicuous in psychotics, who may accuse themselves, for instance, of a murder they read about, of responsibility for a flood in the Middle West six hundred miles away. Seemingly absurd self-accusations often are the outstanding symptoms in melancholic conditions. However, the self-accusation in neurosis, while less grotesque, may be no less unrealistic. #RandolphHarris 11 of 30
Why do people manipulate? Many do so because they are beset by fear, fear of others, and fear of expressing the truth of their feelings and desires. They are afraid that if others know the truth of their feelings and desires, they will be at the mercy of others. However, manipulators are often selective about what they fear. Some who fear anger avoid conflict and confrontation with others. Others who fear love avoid closeness with others. And some fear being weak, while others fear being strong. It is the denial of what we fear that defines our manipulative style or pattern. If you are afraid of love, you may be avoiding it with phony expressions of anger. You are predominantly aggressive in your dealings with others and play the role of the blamer and attacker. In doing so, you avoid closeness with others, but you also lose touch with your authentic anger. If you are afraid of anger, you may be avoiding it with phony expressions of love. You play the role of pleaser and placater in the belief that you can get what you want from others without confrontation and conflict. This allows you to avoid feeling and expressing genuine anger, but you also lose touch with your authentic love. If you are afraid of being weak, you may avoid any hint that you are “just a human being” with phony expressions of superiority. You play the role of controller and dictator. By refusing to allow others to be strong, you enhance only the appearance of your own strength. You thereby lose both the power of genuine strength and the opportunities for closeness with others that authentic vulnerability (weakness) brings. #RandolphHarris 12 of 30
If you are afraid of being too strong, you avoid responsibility with phony expressions of incompetence, weakness, and humility. You play the role of avoider and withdrawer, avoiding opportunities to display adequacy and withdrawing from participation with others. You fear that someone might expect more from you than you are willing to give. In doing so, you never have to perform (be strong). You are also seldom able to achieve, and you often overlook your genuine feelings of weakness. Examples of manipulation: Fear and Denial of Lead to Phony Expressions of Lead to Phony Expressions of: Genuine Love….Blaming and Attacking. Genuine Anger….Pleasing and Placating. Genuine Weakness….Controlling and Dictating. Genuine Strength….Withdrawing and Avoiding. Since manipulation is learned by experience in actual encounter with the world, it is important to overcome manipulation by similar methods. The methods cannot be simply intellectual, but must be experiential as well. Self-affirmation. A healthy conscience is not experienced as an “alien power” within the total personality structure, a power compulsively obeyed out of dread. Rather, it is composed of a set of ideals and taboos, each of which has been examined by the person and affirmed so that it became a true part of the real self. A self-affirmed conscience is one to which the person conforms because he or she wants to, not through fear of disobeying. Another way of saying this is to assert that the person feels he or she owns the conscience. The individual has had a voice in determining the rules by which he or she will live, like the citizen in a democracy who does not mind conforming with the rules that the person has helped formulate. #RandolphHarris 13 of 30
A healthy conscience is based upon general values and ideals that remain fixed throughout life or that change only with difficulty. However, the specific behavior that these values call for is not rigidly defined. The person can challenge these self-demands when they are no longer relevant to his or her present life circumstances. For example, a student may have been trained to believe that premarital pleasures of the flesh relationships are evil and destructive of love. In his college career, he may live with a girl and enjoy intimacies involving pleasures of the flesh within the context of a loving relationship. He discovers that no harm befalls the young lady or himself. He may change one of the taboos that is at the root of his conscience. Another student who once believed that premarital pleasures of the flesh were permissible may change and accept a taboo against the practice. If the conscience is not authoritarian, this openness to change is most possible. Persons with a healthy conscience are living among other people, and so they will be obliged to share at least some of the other people’s ideals and taboos. This is not to say that their conscience must be congruent with social mores. These persons may find their values more ethical than the prevailing mores, and so they will follow their conscience rather than the moral expectations of their peers. It may be necessary for persons with a healthy conscience to resist the efforts of others to make them conform to their moral precepts. They may even have to leave home because of moral-ethical differences and seek a group more congenial to their outlooks. #RandolphHarris 14 of 30
It is not implied that a healthy conscience will be highly lenient, permitting any antisocial behavior. Indeed, it may be difficult to conform to the precepts of a healthy conscience. Dr. Fromm has stated that the voice of a humanistic conscience may be only dimly heard because it is readily masked by the authoritarian elements of the conscience. As Dr. Fromm puts it, conscience “is the voice of our true ‘selves’ which summons us back to ourselves, to live productively, to develop fully and harmoniously—that is, to become what we potentially are.” He points out further that guilt arising from violation of a healthy conscience may be difficult to identify; we might feel guilt arising from our authoritarian conscience when we ignore its demands to pursue the requirements of a healthy conscience. There have been several theories to explain why humans exhibit altruistic behavior. These include: evolutionary perspectives involving kin selection and reciprocal altruism; social exchange theory; and the empathy-altruism hypothesis. In Dr. Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution, he postulated that traits that aided humans to survive and reproduce were more likely to be passed on from one generation to the next. It would appear at first glance that genes promoting selfish behavior would likely be passed on. One way that evolutionary psychologists attempt to explain how a trait such as altruism could be passed on through kin selection. #RandolphHarris 15 of 30
Kin selection is the idea that behaviors that help a blood relative would be favored by natural selection. Not only can one pass on their genes by having children, but also by ensuring that their relatives have children. Evolutionary theorists also use the norm of natural selection to help explain altruism. This is the expectation that helping others will increase the likelihood that they will help us in the future. It is posited that groups that learned to cooperate were more likely to survive than selfish and isolated individuals. The emotion of gratitude may have evolved to facilitate reciprocity. That is, if someone is helped, they feel grateful, which motivates them to return the favor in the future. For the people of the award-winning Sacramento Fire Department, helping others is rewarding. It is an investment in the future, not unlike reciprocal altruism. It can feel distressing just to observe someone in pain. Helping that person can then relieve our own discomfort. This, in turn, can help us gain social rewards like approval from others and greater feelings of self-worth. From this perspective, altruistic acts only occur when the perceived gains of helping outweigh the perceived risks. One morning, at nearly 1 o’clock, a saloon was discovered to be on fire. By the time the fire department arrived, the entire structure was ablaze. The nearest building on the east, a carpenter shop, was quickly set ablaze as well from the intense heat and flames. A small dwelling house was also set ablaze. #RandolphHarris 16 of 30
The winds then changed to a westerly direction, spreading flames to another home. Another carpentry shop was thought to be next to succumb to the heat, but the Sacramento Fire Department managed to save the building through hard work. It must have been an incredible feat, for the building was only two feet from the previous home that had just caught fire. The losses on all the buildings added up to between $4 million and $6 million. The newspaper stated that “the fire department did as good a job as could be expected under the circumstances.” New firefighters are trained to take orders from their first day at the academy. They learn to trust their officer’s judgment and follow his or her lead the first time they enter a burning building. Providing them with the latest protective gear on their back and having an officer with years of experience escorting them, the sense of security the Sacramento Fire Department gives trainees far outweighs their worries of self-preservation. They are taught that what they had previously perceived as fear is both normal and exciting, and they cannot wait to impress their peers and instructors. The Sacramento Fire Department pushes firefighters, EMTs, and paramedics through dangerous scenarios repeatedly, and they emerge unscathed each time. As they gain more experience, their armor grows thicker and their confidence builds through recognition-primed decision making. Sure, the Sacramento Fire Department teaches them building construction and lightweight trusses and the dangers of collapse in the classroom, but then it is back to the burn building where they are victorious again, and nothing falls down. Eventually, they become firefighters, EMTs, and paramedics. During their career, they learn to pick up on the visual clues that allow them to make decisions for themselves. #RandolphHarris 17 of 30
If you see a fire truck stopped in the street without the lights on, be very careful. Sometimes there is an emergency, and you should not pass the fire truck. It might be a good idea to safely turn around and go another way because if you hit someone and they happen to die, you could be charged with manslaughter. Sometimes fire firefighters are getting back into their vehicle, and if you pass the apparatus, you may collide with a firefighter who is on foot. Also, be sure to look at their signals; sometimes emergency vehicles are in motion, albeit slowly, and drivers try to pass them, and this could lead to a dangerous situation. Also, if you are in an intersection when you see an emergency vehicle, continue through the intersection. Drive to the right as soon as it is safe and stop. Obey any direction, order, or signal given by a law enforcement officer or a firefighter. Even if they conflict with existing signs, signals, or laws, follow their orders. When their siren or flashing lights are on, it is against the law to follow within 300 feet of any fire engine, law enforcement vehicle, ambulance, or other emergency vehicle. If you drive to the scene of a fire, collision, or other disaster, you can be arrested. When you do this, you are getting in the way of firefighters, ambulance crews, or other rescue and emergency personnel. The concept of professional courage does not always mean being as tough as nails, either. It also suggests a willingness to listen to other people’s problems, to go to bat for them in a tough situation, and it means knowing just how far they can go. It also means being willing to tell the boss when he or she is wrong. #RandolphHarris 18 of 30
California is the third most expensive state in the nation. A single person making an income above $100,000 is now considered low-income in five counties in California. This distinction now applies to individuals living in Santa Cruz, Santa Clara, San Mateo, San Francisco, and Marin counties. In 37 percent of counties, a family of four living on a six-figure income is now considered low-income. In fact, Governor Gavin Newsom of Democratic controlled California, brags about being the world’s “fifth largest economy,” but it also facing a $12 billion deficit, looking to cut $747 million for state worker’s pay, pushing to keep medical insurance for illegal immigrants, but wants to cut medical for anyone who has assets over $2,000 and the state has the largest homeless population in the nation. If they are all officially counted, California has approximately 4 million homeless people. The highest home prices in the nation, the highest taxes, and the most unfriendly business regulations known to man. The average home price in California is nearly $1,000,000.00 USD, while the average salary is $96,036.00, meaning that most Californians cannot even afford to buy a home. California is having an affordability crisis. In 2025, many people in California saw their bills increase by an estimated $500 a month. This includes items such as food, automobile insurance, homeowners’ insurance, and electricity. In fact, more than 3 million people in California are facing household hardship, and more than 300,000 of them are facing eviction soon. This comes at a time when California is having a shortage of affordable housing. This is caused by nearly half a century-old laws that discourage home sales and encourage higher rents. #RandolphHarris 19 of 30
Meanwhile, China, where we are sending all our jobs and money, has more than 50 ghost cities, with 65 million vacant homes. Ghost cities are regions will housing has been overdeveloped to the point that these places are uninhabited. Because California is so hostile towards people and businesses, more than 360 companies have fled the state since 2020. Businesses like Chevron, SpaceX, Oracle, and Hewlett-Packard are among the names on that list. Also, more than 500,000 people a year are abandoning California because it is too expensive to live in, Gavin Newsom has criminalized homelessness and actually started arresting people without homes, crime is out of control, and they are losing their jobs due to companies relocating. More than 100 companies have announced layoffs in California for 2025. Intel is cutting 15,000 jobs, PayPal 2,500, and Meta has terminated 4,000 employees. California also has the highest unemployment rate in the country at 5.4 percent, while the national average is 4.1 percent. The California crisis created by Democrats is driving up home prices and mortgages, and rents all over the nation and the world, making living unaffordable for all, and advocates say the crisis is far from over. Accordingly, California has more than 3.5 million illegal immigrants. Having the Southern American boarder open and not having American farmland protected, not producing beef, poultry, fish, fruit, produce and dairy in America, and without American goods and services being our number one manufactured and selling items, America has created a dangerous and significantly elevated risks to national security, national economic security, and national public health. Some people may believe that these claims are overstated, but by not routinely monitoring Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CEVs) or other security-relevant alerts, such as the end-of-life of machinery is how the Oroville Dam Crisis occurred in 2017. #RandolphHarris 20 of 30
Other crises that have occurred due to neglect of critical infrastructure are the 2025 Palisades fires because Southern California ran out of water, when they are located next to an ocean and they could have simply created desalination plants to help with the water shortage. The water is so plentiful that it is currently eroding land and causing homes to fall into the sea. Desalination has been identified as one technology that will help solve California’s water scarcity problem. Desalination is a cost-effective technology that can transform an abundance of salt water into a reliable supply of potable, fresh water, which is a great way to fight climate change and have enough water for our region’s water requirements. Ras Al Khair, Saudi Arabia, is producing 1,036,000 meters (273,682,192) per day of desalinated water. As we see gangs fighting with federal law enforcement, states and cities refusing to honor federal laws, and politicians showing an utter disregard for the Constitution of the United States of America, anarchy is becoming increasingly common. Anarchism is a cluster of doctrines and attitudes centered on the belief that government is both harmful and unnecessary. Derived from the Greek root anarchos, meaning “without authority,” anarchism, anarchist, and anarchy are used to express both approval and disapproval. The anarchist denies man-made laws, regards property as a means of tyranny, and believes that crimes is merely the product of property and authority. #RandolphHarris 21 of 30
However, the anarchist would argue that their denial of constitutions and governments leads not to “no justice” but to the real justice inherent in the free development of human sociality—the natural inclination, when unfettered by laws, to live according to the principles and practice of mutual aid. Anarchism is also a form of treason. Treason, the crime of betraying a nation or a sovereign by acts considered dangerous to security. In English law, treason includes the levying of war against the government and the giving of aid and comfort to the monarch’s enemies. In the United States of America, treason was defined restrictively by the framers of the Constitution. Treason against the United States of America “shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them aid and comfort,” which is something that many politicians are currently guilty of. The American government should know all exploitable vulnerabilities and fix them before the situation becomes a crisis. Failure to take such mitigating actions is dangerous and significantly elevates risk to national security, national economic security, and national public health and safety. The American government must understand that significant time and resources must be invested in America. They must also encourage corporations to plan for both mitigating safety vulnerabilities in the short term and eliminating them in the long term. For instance, a company might begin by reaching out to the federal, state, or local government and requesting tax incentives to provide security to dangerous communities, to help the government repair bridges and potholes. #RandolphHarris 22 of 30
America needs an approach to eliminate safety vulnerabilities in American cities. There needs to be a road map by the end of 2025, outlining a prioritized approach to eliminate crisis situations in America. There is enough money to send aid to foreign nations, but the American government does not have enough money to care for its infrastructure, provide adequate resources, or end the affordable housing crisis. Nor is there enough money to fund other national critical functions (NCFs). These bad practices of putting America and Americans last are considered exceptionally risky, particularly to national security, national economic security, and national public health and safety. In 2024, Americans spent $100 billion on Japanese cars. As a result, the American automobile trade deficit with Japan was $39 billion. The maximum percentage of your gross income that you should earmark for a monthly mortgage payment is calculated at 28 percent, and no more than 36 percent of your gross income to all debts, including mortgage. If you take 28 percent of the median household income per home in Sacramento County, homeowners can only afford a mortgage of $2,070.23 per month. And if you take 36 percent of their gross income to all debts, including mortgage, they should be devoting no more than $2,661.72 a month to these debts. The Mortgage lenders at Cresleigh Homes must be using some kind of sorcery to get buyers into these expensive homes. To afford one of these homes using traditional guidelines, a household would need to gross $11,280.24 per month or $135,362.88 per year, but the median household in Sacramento County is grossing $7,393.67 or $88,724.00, and that typically means two to four people in the home are working and contributing to the mortgage. #RandolphHarris 23 of 30
Home prices in Sacramento County are rivaling the Bay Area. Historically, homes in the Bay Area have been more expensive because they have higher-paying jobs, a larger population, and the Bay Area is a tourist destination. Contributing to the housing affordability crisis is Gavin Newsom, who has been lavishing illegal immigrants with taxpayer-funded resources and cash aid. The State of California has a budget deficit of $12 billion because Governor Gavin Newsom granted 700,000 illegal immigrants free health care, which costs taxpayers $3 billion annually. At the same time, Newsom cut vital programs for veterans, school children, the disabled, and the homeless. Additionally, Newsom seems to be uneducated about economics and is proposing to fast-track his plan to build a $20 billion water tunnel beneath the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, which would eliminate environmental reviews and limit avenues for legal challenges. Gavin Newsom only cares about the environment when his policies allow him to raise taxes and restrict freedoms. To further highlight this illustration, Mexico has been causing one of America’s worst environmental disasters. Fifty million gallons a day of industrial chemicals, untreated sewage, and trash flow from Tijuana, Mexico, into southern San Diego County daily. This toxic waste has been turning up on Imperial Beach and is causing the miles of white sands to become polluted and the ocean breeze to smell of poop, which has been sickening residents and wildlife and costing San Diego millions in the form of lost tourism and health problems. The problem has been going on for more than a century. #RandolphHarris 24 of 30
However, Mexico’s pollution of California has become a severe public health crisis as the population of Tijuana has drastically increased in recent years, and the waste treatment plants are no longer usable. Some of the beaches in San Diego have been closed for more than three years, and evidence suggests that even breathing the air may be harmful, as toxic particles in the water can become airborne. Yet, even though Gavin Newsom has been governor for six years, he has not rushed into action to stop this very preventable environmental disaster. Why? Because he is not getting kickbacks from China and Mexico, not being gifted mansions and cars, and he cannot tax the struggling California taxpayers to clean up this mess. Simply, it is not profitable for him. Gavin Newsom has been a total tyrant with no regard for taxpayers and no mind for business, and he should be impeached as soon as possible. He has criminalized poverty, increased taxes, increased taxes on gas, and insurance rates so high that people are struggling to survive. In addition to Gavin Newsom’s increased gas prices starting on 1 July 2025, the war between Iran and Israel is going to further exacerbate the prices of gas and cause more inflation and economic hardship for people in California. While everyone is making war over America and who belongs here and who she belongs to, so many people forget about the people who are Indigenous to this land. Open borders have allowed hundreds of thousands of cartel operatives to infiltrate reservations across the United States of America and use the isolated lands as havens to traffic fentanyl pills and other drugs into the country without protection from federal authorities. #RandolphHarris 25 of 30
Drug cartels have been threatening the health and safety of Native American communities. The trafficking of dangerous and illegal drugs into their territories is leading to a second genocide. The overdose rate for Indigenous people is 42 percent higher than the national average. A recent bust on Montana’s Blackfeet Nation’s Tribal Reservation resulted in the seizure of more than 700,000 fentanyl pills, which was the largest bust in Montana history. Recently, the Blackfeet Nation had to declare a state of emergency after facing 17 overdoses in just one week. There are only 6.8 million Native Americans left in the world, which is 2 percent of the American population. We should be doing more to protect these proud and honorable people; they should not want for anything. People rush and give away resources to illegal immigrants, but totally disregard the Indigenous people of this land, as their race silently fades away into extinction. We must secure our borders and increase federal funding to Native American tribes so we can save this precious population. Meanwhile, Gavin Newsom has given billions of taxpayer dollars away to illegal immigrants and protected them from law enforcement, while arresting law-abiding Americans because they cannot afford to pay rent or mortgage, and the homeless shelters are unsafe, overcrowded, and have restrictions on who is allowed inside. He has also totally ignored the cartel problems on American lands. Clean air, water, land, and preserving our heritage are extremely important. We cannot just allow criminals to kill off the people who are native to this land and do nothing about it. Wars have been started over governments that tax citizens without representation. Taxation without representation is what led to the American Revolution.#RandolphHarris 26 of 30
If Gavin Newsom is not stopped, next he will euthanize the poor and sterilize the disabled. Under Governor Gavin Newsom, California has the highest car theft rate in the United States of America. Violent gangs and bloodthirsty criminals, roving mobs of wild youth, drugged-out maniacs, and homeless people have overtaken cities. Wars and fires are breaking out on the streets. This monster is unfit to be governor and must never be allowed to be President of America! Stop Gavin Newsom now! Save California and impeach this unreasonable man. Meanwhile, with President Trump, we are seeing crime rates sharply decrease. He is restoring law and order, starting in Washington D.C., and he just signed the “HALT Fentanyl Act” into law, which permanently classifies the narcotic as a “Schedule I drug” under the “Controlled Substances Act.” Also, President Trump recently secured $10 trillion in investments for the United States of America. Additionally, in May of 2025, the United States of America collected a record $100 billion in tariff revenue, and that number will increase to $300 billion by the end of 2025. Also, President Trump has just sealed a $550 billion deal with Japan. This means Japan will invest $550 billion in the United States of America. Furthermore, President Trump has been nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize for making Iran and Israel cease fire. As you can see, President Trump is creating solutions and remediating problems to protect America and the American people, while Governor of California, Gavin Newsom, is making life hard on American citizens and causing economic hardship, and totally ignoring Mexico’s polluting beaches in San Diego. If elected president for an unprecedented third term, to make housing more affordable and to offset the cost of homeowners’ insurance and auto insurance, President Trump plans to abolish property taxes. #RandolphHarris 27 of 30
Much like the land crisis in Las Vegas, we could also run out of land to farm and will not be able to grow or cultivate our own food. We can protect American farmland and support American farmers by buying American made beef, poultry, dairy, and produce. Also, country of origin labeling is very important so Americans can know where their food is coming from and can support American farmers and ranchers. As money flows, it influences further investment. Save the land that sustains us by protecting American farmland. Once the land is built on, we lose it forever. And in the future, there may be food wars. Also, to ensure that we have farmland and buildable land for future use, we need to start limiting the number of people allowed to immigrate to America. Perhaps with the immigrants we do allow into America, there needs to be a diversity program to make sure we have a population that equally represents all races of people. If Americans continue to spend money on American products, then more need to be made to keep up the inventory. When investors notice these goods are selling, it gives them the confidence to pour more money into that local business. It shows that people want these goods made in America and pressures investors to keep these goods and services in America. The jobs stay here, the business stays in America, wages naturally increase, and more money is invested to keep up with demand. This reduces the burden on the taxpayer. When you support American businesses, that money stays in our economy and can help to reduce the national debt. The government creates debt by borrowing from businesses in the private sector or from foreign countries. It also increases the national debt by spending more than it gains in tax revenue in a fiscal year. #RandolphHarris 28 of 30
When people shop locally, more tax money stays in the economy and goes to the government. This way, it keeps more money in our national economy and keeps more jobs located in America which also sends more taxes to the government, which can again help to reduce the national debt. When you buy foreign goods, these companies usually have lighter tax loads or exemptions, meaning less money for the national debt, plus you are helping to strengthen these foreign nations by sending more money overseas. Buying American-made products is also better for the environment and helps to reduce the carbon footprint because these products do not have to travel nearly as far. Furthermore, American companies and manufacturers are held to much higher standards on pollution. American companies must be more careful about air, land, and water pollution and have proper ways to dispose of waste. Moreover, please remember to respect law and order and treat your elders with the utmost dignity and kindness possible. And take your education seriously so that you will be successful in life and make your family proud. It is inborn in the human mind to wish to know. If this begins with the endless surface questions of a child’s curiosity, if it continues into deeper questions of a scientist’s probing investigation, it cannot and does not stop there. For the higher part of the mind will eventually come into unfoldment, that union of abstract reflective thought with mystical intuition, which is true intelligence, which needs and sees a view of the whole of things. And so, the knowing faculty enters the realm of philosophy. #RandolphHarris 29 of 30
As you can see, President Donald Trump and his pledge to “Make America Great Again” is exactly what America needs to save the country and the American people. And yes, diversity is important, so you can see why it is also important to preserve blonde hair and blue eyes, as the people with these characteristics are becoming a minority in America. We must think before we can understand the soul’s existence; we must understand before we can realize it. The earliest beginnings of thought, as apart from instinct, when it was itself still but a lurking tendency, belong far back in primeval time. The human intellect as we find it today, so rich and developed an instrument for the consciousness of the ego, did not arrive at this fulness without a series of graduated stages. We have had plenty of scientific thinking, business thinking, and political thinking long enough, but we have had very little inspired thinking. That is the world’s need. The intellect is cradled in selfishness but runs the evolutionary track into reason, where it will one day finish at the winning-post of selflessness. As a reminder, parents, please teach your children to love America and be patriotic citizens, and to buy goods and services made in America. It is also important to respect law and order and treat your elders with respect. Also, to make sure they have all the resources required, please donate to the Sacramento Fire Department to help improve our national security. “Oh, thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand between their loved home and the war’s desolation! Blest with victory and peace, may the heav’n-rescued land Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation! Then conquer we must, when our cause is just, and this be our motto: ‘In God is our trust.’ And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.” #RandolphHarris 30 of 30
On Friday, September 5th, we invite you to join us in honoring Sarah Winchester on the 103rd anniversary of her passing.
The gardens will be open with free admission that day, and guests are welcome to enter the Front Parlor to offer their respects to Sarah. The bell will ring at the 13th hour (1:00 PM) in remembrance of her life. We hope you will take this opportunity to honor the life and legacy of the woman behind the mansion. 🌹 🖤https://winchestermysteryhouse.com/
Harris Plumbing, Heating, Air, & Electric has been in business for 30 years. How many businesses can say that? We take pride in everything we do – no matter how big or small the service call might be. We’re here to help your home be as safe and comfortable as possible for you and your family. We take that responsibility very seriously as a company. Harris will ensure you have the information you need to decide what to do next, whatever your home is facing. We’ll perform a diagnosis and detail what issues are present before starting any work. This gives you a personalized quote and service plan specific to your home’s needs, not some random quote based on the best guess. The only way we can do our best work is to make sure we handle the issues at hand. https://www.callharrisnow.com/about-us/
Ah, yes. The BMW 3 Series. Happy 50th birthday to the most iconic BMW ever! It is really hard to decide on a BMW model. However, the 3 series is a favorite of everyone. All the upper-class suburban families had one in the 1980s and 1990s; everyone from teenagers and housewives to executives and diplomats. Now that they are larger in size, but still sporty and luxurious, the audience has grown tremendously. These are very stylish and reliable cars, which is why BMW continues to dominate the luxury car space.
With its top ranking in Consumer Reports’ Auto Brand Report Card and consistent market share growth, BMW has demonstrated its ability to produce high-performing, reliable vehicles that meet consumer demands. BMW stands out due to its focus on driving dynamics and engineering excellence. While other luxury brands prioritize comfort and opulence, BMW is known for creating cars that are fun to drive and offer a unique connection between the driver and the machine. This is why BMW is known as the Ultimate Driving Machine. https://www.brianharrisbmw.com/
Randolph Harris San Francisco Taxation & Mergers
Building strong and lasting client relationships is crucial for a successful legal career. Many lawyers mistakenly believe that mastering legal skills alone ensures success, but law is fundamentally a service industry—our job is to solve problems through the time we sell. To build long-term relationships, attorneys must focus on three core elements: knowing their clients, understanding how their legal issues fit into a larger context, and consistently delivering exceptional service.
Randy advises clients with regard to business transition, taxable and tax-deferred mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures, restructuring, integrated tax planning, federal and state tax controversy resolution, and real estate transactions. Trust is the cornerstone of any client relationship. Ultimately, my clients feel they are in capable hands with someone who genuinely understands their problems and goals. https://www.jmbm.com/l-randolph-harris.html
Magnolia Station at Cresleigh Ranch
Rancho Cordova, CA | 4 Bedrooms – 3.5 Bathrooms – 3,377 sq. ft. – $796,485.
Homes built by Cresleigh Homes are made to last. Throughout each community you will find thoughtful design crafted with YOU in mind. We offer homes for any lifestyle and stand by our construction quality – it’s why we’ve been in the business for over 30 years.
Welcome to 770 Havenwood, where Residence Four, the largest floor plan offered in the community offers an impressive 3,377 square feet of thoughtfully designed living space. This expansive two-story home features four bedrooms, including a private suite on the first floor, three and one-half bathrooms, and a true three car garage to meet the needs of growing families or multigenerational living.
Inside, you’ll find four bedrooms, two and a half bathrooms, and a generous three-car garage. A versatile den provides the flexibility to be used as a private study or converted into an optional fifth bedroom. The thoughtfully designed kitchen and dining area create a seamless flow, making entertaining effortless.
A covered porch welcomes you into a warm and inviting entry, where the dining room is thoughtfully placed just off the foyer. The gourmet kitchen connects seamlessly to the dining area through a convenient butler’s pantry, providing both elegance and additional storage.
Upstairs, the spacious loft and generous great room offer flexibility for entertainment, relaxation, or work from home needs, easily adapting to your lifestyle. With no HOA fees, complimentary solar, and up to $41,000 in Flex Cash to be used toward closing costs or interior upgrades on select homes, this residence presents a rare opportunity for exceptional value.
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Heavenly Father, please guide our steps as a nation. With grace and great discernment, lead us in the direction that aligns with Your will. Grant America the strength to overcome challenges and persevere in our endeavors. Lord, let Your favor be upon us. Open doors of opportunity and bless the work of our hands. In Jesus’ name, Amen. Happy 250 Years, America.
Man, if You Enter Here, Leave All Hopes Outside
If one wants to justify emergency law, one must take the point of view, perhaps, not quite incorrect, that without this emergency law, a considerable restriction of many accomplishments of public life would be inevitable, namely, freedom of speech, assembly, and association. However, when I think of the matter quietly, sometimes it seems to me as if equal rights for all might be preferable to everything else, and in this case, the thing to do is to muzzle everybody rather than to put some in chains. The basic mistake, after all, seem to have been putting Americans and law and order last, which was a pure murder of equal rights for all in the truest sense of the word. Many democrats, however, wish to forge small peasants to the soil of the fatherland not by legal but by psychological chains. They want to exploit their land hunger to chain them to the homeland. And if we had to stamp a generation of men into the soil to guarantee the future of America, we would shoulder this responsibility. Nevertheless, keep in mind that no economic policy is possible based on optimistic hopes for happiness. The next question is not how men in the future will feel, but rather who they will be. That is the question which concerns us when we think beyond the graves of our generation. And in truth, this question lies at the root of every economic and political work. We do not strive for man’s future well-being; we are eager to breed in them those traits with which we link the feeling that they constitute what is humanly great and noble in our nation. #RandolphHarris 1 of 35
The processes of economic development are power struggles. Our ultimate yardstick of values is “reason of state,” and this is also the yardstick for our economic reflections. Financial power and the call for political leadership of the nation do not always coincide. If an economically sinking class holds political power in its hands, it is dangerous and, in the long run, irreconcilable with the interests of the long run. If those classes to whom economic power and therewith the claim for political authority is shifting are politically immature in their leadership of the state, it is still more dangerous. Both are threatening America currently, and, in truth, they provide the keys to the present danger of our situation. The country has lost prestige through the scandalous exposures of the democratic policies, the morally unsavory atmosphere of democrats in the White House, the series of humiliations of religion and family values, the intense wars on American streets, and the general disrespect that has been allowed to flourish. Many people these days are offended just for the sake of having a reason to respond rudely to someone else. These are some of the events and trends that have made reasonable Americans and tourists feel as if they are riding on an express train towards an abyss, and not feeling certain whether the next switch has been set right. #RandolphHarris 2 of 35
We must create a national unity by spreading a sense of social responsibility among teachers, civil servants, artisans, workers, and the bourgeois. The symbol of America, the American flag, has become the target of international ridicule. The root of these difficulties is in the political structure of the democratic party that has prevented the efficient selection of responsible political leaders. Political careers are something that must remain attractive to talented and effective people, who prefer to enter business or science. Democracy is not an intrinsically valuable body of ideas: natural law, the equality of men, and their intrinsic claims to equal rights. Democratic institutions and ideas are pragmatic: not in their consequences in their inner worth, but in terms of their consequences in the selection of efficient political leaders. In modern society, such leaders must be able to build up and control a large, well-disciplined machine, in the true American sense. The choice is between a leaderless democracy or a democracy run by the leaders of large-party bureaucracies. The universal struggle for votes, and the freedom of organization have no political value unless they result in powerful political leaders willing to assume responsibility rather than evade it and cover up their deeds behind court cliques and imperial bureaucrats who have happened to win the favor of the moment. Many democrats are trying to usurp power illegally because they are a hysterical howling of powerless party journalists drilling the masses for an intellectual goosestep, thus making them more amenable to manipulation by the bureaucracy. #RandolphHarris 3 of 35
The utopian comfort contained in the democratic party’s destruction of family values and religion possesses an automatic drift into paradise which appears to substitute a harmless complacency for righteous indignation. As the masses cower behind people like Gavin Newsom, as if he has some divine right of a king, democrats refuse to make any compromises with the republican party and assume cabinet responsibilities are one of the factors blocking the introduction of constitutional government. Some men who wear trousers have nothing in them and wish to make political eunuchs out of the people. Policy making is not a moral trade, nor can it ever be. Every victory brings us closer to peace. It is in America’s interest to force a peace in which the main result is the heel of the American boot standing upon everyone’s toes. This is how America will gain industrial supremacy. Wars are always a result of a constellation of economic and political rivalries among nations. America will no longer be guilty of romantic and inefficient management of her affairs. Otherwise, our resources will be confiscated and used against us. The geographic position of America amid powerful neighbors should make for a policy of sober alliances rather than a policy of boastful vanity and handouts. We must become a nation organized into a power state. Not for vanity, but for the sake of our responsibility toward world history. We will be held responsible for future generations, especially by our descendants. Therefore, we must fight; world power must be partitioned to American officials. The consolidation of world power ultimately means the control of the nature of future culture. Future generations will hold us responsible in these matters, and rightly so, for we are a of 350,000,000, and not the fifth largest economy in the world. #RandolphHarris 4 of 35
America’s reconstruction is happening today. The bloody carnival of the democratic party is over. We can only secure world peace on these terms; otherwise, it will not be possible. The Republican party is a party of humanity and dignified existence, which for decades had been so great that many democrats often pondered whether they should join our ranks as a party member. No one can be an honest socialist unless one is ready to forego a cultured existence based on slavery. Standing with President Trump is not only a matter for the American people but a matter of restoring the honor of the officer corps and the army. Constitutions are techniques just like other machines. The party will come to a perspective of passionate will to power. They possess the technical know-how required for subduing the bureaucracy to their will. Republicans will steer the bureaucracy as a technical means to making correct policy while being politically responsible. With President Trump’s guidance, we are seeing a rise of charismatic leaders and an ever-denser, indestructible spirit of patriotism. President Trump has an affinity and love for those who are marginalized. His hatred of sham and lies, and his unceasing campaign against racism and anti-Semitic demagoguery, is part of his promise to Make America Great Again. America is escaping from vulgar social and immoral influences that have corrupted the human mind, the most vulgar of which is when people attribute the diversities of conduct and character to inherent natural differences. #RandolphHarris 5 of 35
Urbanism, legal history, economics, music, world religions—there is hardly a field which will be left untouched. Knowledge is power—that is the impulse behind the quest of many powerful men for knowledge. It is not a question of right, but we must eliminate everything that may harm our cause. When revolution is the sole value, there are, in fact, no more rights; there are only duties. To found an indestructible society, we offered our blood in the old days; now these people do nothing but sharpen their beaks. How can we explain that the fake news media and the democratic party suddenly broke ranks and chose a path of their own? They go their own way, the way of sneaking into nations and undermining their inner structure. This was the only reason they started a campaign that cost billions, and which essentially aided in the total devaluation of the national currency. However, it is pleasing to watch those in America who support the American system. The democratic royal house of evil—with the lying deceit that they are so proud of—is the very one that would have bankrupted America. In those days, these same men were happy to support the policy of their treacherous monarch and did not care about America or anything else. The terrorists no doubt want to destroy—to make absolutely everything into Hell. Their tortured contradictions come with the assumptions of guilt and death. Nihilism intimately involves a frustrated religious movement, thus culminates in terrorism. In the universe of total negation, people try, with bombs and revolvers and fear. The crisis has become manifest in faddish manners or in psychotic-like conditions, in delinquent-like behavior or in fanatic movements, in creative spurts or even in all too erratic social commitment. The republican movement, on the other hand, appeals to living souls and educates people so that they will march forward to their liberation. We must put ourselves in the hands of God, and retain our supreme values. #RandolphHarris 6 of 35
In looking at the youth of today, one is apt to forget that identity formation, while being “critical” in youth, is a generational issue. If only so that youth can rebel against a well-defined set of older values, we must not overlook what appears to be a certain abrogation of responsibility on the part of the older generation in providing those forceful ideals which must antecede identity formation in the next generation. A recent television documentary dealt with young people in Lexington, Massachusetts USA. This town was selected, I assume, because it was the cradle of American liberty. The documentary showed with remarkable frankness what has happened to “free” young Americans, or at any rate, how they behave publicly. However, their parents were hardly there. True, there was one mother who seemed to have opened her home to adolescents, and twelve to fifteen teenagers would gather to study and play the afternoon away in her house and in her garden. However, there was hardly a word about the other homes. As if they were an invasion from another planet, parents were seen only at a meeting called to discuss teenagers. And that is, indeed, the way youth is now reflected in the “media.” And these media, we must note, are no longer content to mediate communication; brashly and efficiently, they make themselves the mediators between the generations. This sometimes forces youth into being caricatures of the reflections of the images they had experimentally “projected,” and drives the parents farther away from the eerie happenings. #RandolphHarris 7 of 35
However, parental sanction, too, diminishes with parental indignation, and one often senses that youth would rather get rid (as it were) of strong-minded parents than not have any worth mentioning. For if I am not mistaken, parents often impress the young as having remained overgrown boys and girls themselves, taken up with a world of gadgetry and buying power, which permits them to circumvent the whole formidable issue of the new meaning of the generations in a technological universe including the Bomb and the Pill. Where, then, are some of the principal contemporary sources of identity strength? By contemporary, I mean present with an anticipated future, for we must do our best to overcome clinical habits which make us assume that we have done our part if we have clarified the past. It must be confessed that at least those of us who are occupied with making sense of case histories of biographies (which so often superficially resemble case histories) and who are teaching either young psychiatrists or the humanistically privileged college youth, are often out of touch with the resources of identity available to that majority of youths whose ideology is a product of the machine age. That youth, overall, does not need us, and those who do assume the “patient role” created by us. Nor do we seem to think that our theories need to include them. And yet we must assume that masses of young people both here and abroad are close enough both by giftedness and by opportunity to the technological trends and the scientific methods of our time to feel at home in it as much as anybody ever felt at home in human life. #RandolphHarris 8 of 35
I, for one, have never been able to accept the claim that in mercantile culture or in agricultural culture, or, indeed, in book culture, man was in principle less “alienated” than he is in technology. It is, I believe, our retrospective romanticism that makes us think that peasants or merchants, or hunters were less determined by their techniques. To put it in terms of what must be studied concertedly: in every technology and in every historical period there are types of individuals who (“properly” brought up) can combine the dominant techniques with their identity development, and become what they do. Independent of minor superiorities or inferiorities, they can settle on that cultural consolidation which secures them what joint verification and what transitory salvation lies in doing things together and in doing them right—a rightness proven by the bountiful response of “nature,” whether in the form of the prey bagged, the food harvested, the goods produced, the money made, or the technological problems solves. In such consolidation and accommodation, a million daily tasks and transactions fall into practical patterns and spontaneous ritualizations which can be shared by leaders and led, men and women, adults, and children, the privileged and the underprivileged, the specially gifted and those willing to do chores. Only such consolidations offer the coordinates for the range of a period’s identity formations and their necessary relation to a sense of inspired activity, although for many or most it does so only by creating compartments of pronounced narrowness, of enforced service, and of limited status. #RandolphHarris 9 of 35
Each such consolidation, by dint of its very practicality (the fact that “it works” and maintains itself by mere usage and habituation), also works for entrenched privileges, enforced sacrifices, institutionalized in equalities, and built-in contradictions, which become obvious to the critics of any society. However, how such consolidation leads to a sense of embeddedness and natural flux among the very artifacts of organization; how it helps to bring to ascendance some style of perfection and self-glorification; and how it permits man at the same time to limit his horizon so as not to see what might destroy the newly won familiarity of the world and expose him to all manner of strangeness and, above all, to the fear of death or of killing—all of this we have hardly approached from the point of view of depth psychology. Here, the discussion of the “ego” should take on new dimensions. Strength and weakness are extreme opposites—or so they seem. Yet, life experience demonstrates the paradoxical nature of the polarity that in weakness is strength and in strength is weakness. This polarity is like two sides of the same coin: Slice a coin in half, and each slice still has both sides. Controlling and dictating manipulators, however, denying this reality, futilely try to divide and conquer their weakness, destroying in the process their genuine strength. Genuine strength, on one side, is to endure, to preserve, and to survive. Its qualities are adequacy, self-esteem, and self-reliance. On the other side, genuine weakness is to be vulnerable, to be open, and to be interdependent. Its qualities are trust, honesty, and cooperation. #RandolphHarris 10 of 35
Inordinately fearful of helplessness, hurt, and humiliation, manipulators try to recreate themselves into invulnerable fortresses, totally self-contained. Never certain of their success, however, they try to disarm others, negating the power in everyone else. Not trusting others, they cannot acknowledge or tolerate strength in anyone but themselves. However, because “achievers” must be “good,” they tend to keep their feelings under careful control, and they often suffer from ulcers or high blood pressure. People who have a desire for “power” express themselves freely in action to attain it; they have a high death rate from what we call “scripty” causes: suicide, homicide, and cirrhosis of the liver from drinking too much. The “achievers’” scripts were based on success stories, while the “power” people’s scripts were based on tales of risk. However, script analysis cannot attain the precision and certainty of mouse psychology or bacteriology. What script analysts have to do in practice is read biographies, keep track of their friends’ successes and their enemies’ failures, see large numbers of patients with various types of early programming, and project backward and forward in the lives of people they are clinically acquainted with for a reasonably long period. A clinician who has been in practice for twenty or thirty years, for example, and keeps in touch with his former patients either by periodic visits or even through Christmas cards, begins to feel increasingly secure in his script analyses. #RandolphHarris 11 of 35
With such a background, he knows better what to do with the patients he is currently seeing, and how to get the maximum amount of information as quickly as possible with new patients. The more quickly and accurately the script can be understood in each case, the more quickly and effectively its antithesis can be applied by the therapist, thus avoiding a waste of time, energy, lives, and new generations. Psychiatric practice, like all branches of medicine, carries with it a certain mortality rate and a certain disability rate, and the first aim of the therapist must be to reduce those, whatever else he accomplishes besides. Overnight suicide by drugs, and long-term suicide by alcohol or high blood pressure, must be averted. His slogan must be, “Get better first and analyze it later,” otherwise he will have some of his most “interesting” and “insightful” patients, either the smartest people in the morgue or the smartest people in the state hospital or penitentiary. The first problem, then, is: what are the “script signs” that occur during treatment? He should know what to look for, where to find it, what to do about it after he finds it, and how to tell whether he is doing it effectively. The second problem is to check his observation and impressions and out them to others. Many patients who come to transitional analysts do so after going to other kinds of therapists. If not, they go through, with the transactional analyst, the phases they would otherwise go through in “preliminary” therapy. It is therefore convenient to consider two phases in clinical script analysis: the preliminary phase, and the phase of script analysis. #RandolphHarris 12 of 35
Whatever form of therapy is used, similar phases will occur, and they are not peculiar to script analysis. The script analyst may see the failures of other therapists, but he does not see their success. Conversely, other therapists see the failures of script analysis and do not usually see the successes. Some self-accusations are directed against existing inner difficulties. They may therefore look deceptively rational. At any rate, the person himself feels them to be entirely warranted. After all, is it not such severity commendatory since it is commensurate with high standards? He takes the difficulties out of context and hurls at them the full fury of moral condemnation. They are lodged regardless of the person’s responsibility for them. Whether he could, in any way, have felt, thought, or acted differently, whether he was even aware of them does not matter in the least. A neurotic problem to be examined and worked at thus turns into a hideous blemish branding the person as being beyond redemption. He may, for instance, be unable to defend his interests or his opinions. He notices that he was rather appeasing when he should have voiced his dissenting opinion or defended himself against exploitation. To have observed this squarely is not only all to his credit but could be a first step toward a gradual recognition of the forces compelling him to appease rather than to assert himself, Instead, in the grip of destructive self-reproaches, he will beat himself down for having “no guts” or being a disgusting coward, or he will feel that the people around him despise him for being a weakling. The whole effect of his self-observation is to make him feel “guilty” or inferior, with the result that his lowered self-esteem makes it still harder for him to speak up the next time. #RandolphHarris 13 of 35
Similarly, somebody who is overtly afraid of snakes or of driving a car may be well informed about the facts that such fears stem from unconscious forces over which he has no control. His reason tells him that the moral condemnation of “cowardice” makes no sense. He may even argue with himself about being “guilty” or “not guilty,” back and forth. However, he cannot possibly arrive at any conclusion because it is an argument involving different levels of being. As a human being, he can allow himself to be subject to fears. However, as a godlike being, he should have the attribute of absolute fearlessness, and he can only hate and despise himself for having any fears. Again, a writer is inhibited in doing creative work because of several factors within himself which make writing an ordeal. His work, therefore, proceeds solely; he fiddles around or does irrelevant things. Instead of being sympathetic with himself, a lazy, good-for-nothing, or a fraud who is not interested in his work. When in a marriage, it is a hard ideal to achieve—to be two separate people with total respect for each other as individuals and still manage to function together, both partners holding to the basic concept that as a unit…we have more to gain by being together than either of us can gain being alone. However, both people must communicate; they must know each other and let themselves be known. Many men depict a pattern that is all too familiar in this society, a value system about men and their feelings that has been rigidly built into them, but which does not represent them as human beings. #RandolphHarris 14 of 35
Several women explain that they cannot stay in a marriage that seems stagnating, that gives them no opportunity to be creative. Now, how does a couple reach out to each other? Bridges are built most easily through simple kinds of negotiation. Men sometimes have no opportunity to express themselves or to discover their dimensions as a person because of the rigid value systems instilled when they were boys. All right, if he is angry for whatever reason, rational or not, he can let his wife share that anger. He can force himself for a while to say: “I am angry and I do not know why, but this is how I feel,” and he can let her share his feelings. That helps her avoid shadowboxing or pretending that all is well when she knows it is not, and it allows her to be the creative, growing kind of person she feels herself capable of being. If he or she strives to pay attention to it, a person with a healthy conscience will foster a healthy personality. Such attention will have several consequences. It will enable the person to obtain enough basic need gratifications to make life worth living, but in a guilt-free manner. The person will enjoy relatively high self-esteem. His or her behavior may be approved by other members of the social group—at least to the extent that the person’s conscience is congruent with the group’s value system. A healthy conscience will be compatible with continual personality growth; indeed, it may be a strong motivating force toward personal growth. Like pain in the physical realm, a twinge of conscience is a healthy signal that something is wrong. #RandolphHarris 15 of 35
It would be difficult to conceive of any phase of mental experience less representative of health, growth, and conscious evolution than “normality.” We are told that we are not practical, and that we do not mind so much, but it is said in a way that means that we are irresponsible, and that hurts very much. Our love is called “pleasures of the flesh,” and sometimes we become confused by what we are told. And our knowing of a better world is called “idealism” or “mystic” or “imagination,” and when we would like people to come into our world to know the joy of it, they become frightened, and insist that we must come into theirs. However, their world is a world that they will not explore. We want a world that is warm and friendly, and they say, “This world is that”—and go on stepping on or over others to “get somewhere.” “The trouble with you is, you have no ambition,” they tell us. And we feel ashamed and guilty, and crawl into ourselves and hide. They convey, “You are worthless,” and, wishing to be good, we feel bad because we are worthless. And if there is enough of this, unleavened by love and understanding, we enter a kind of paralysis and can do nothing. We are feeling so guilty. We cannot do “what is right.” And if we do do these things that are “right” and “good,” we must make ourselves cold to do it, cold and hard, so we will not slip and be human, so that we will not remember ourselves and know the pain. #RandolphHarris 16 of 35
“Forget it!” “Keep your mind on your work.” The important thing is to stay on top, so you will be respected. However, if there were no bottom, where would be “the top,” and why should some people be the bottom? Looking outward, to others, for what I can only find it myself. The less that I have self-respect, the more I need respect from others to take its place, and the respect of others can be lost so very easily. Just one slip…So, I must always watch my step, be wary. The world is a jungle, and I have made myself a beast. Or is it making myself a beast that creates the jungle? Or, the world is seen as a jungle, and I want no part of it. “It will make a man of you.” A man? Or does it mean, “it will take out of you what I do not have?” “What I have given up, you must, too.” Is it human to be beastly? Or is it just human to make a mistake? Even those who take philosophy as a merely academic pursuit are not wasting their time. Learning what the world’s thinkers have put forward as their best wisdom or sharpest observation has its place and value in the intellectual life, just as comparative study of religions has its value in the religious life. To read what others have written is to read what others have thought or fancied. These great verities will always bear restating. They are too important to be said once and for all. If every knower of the divine were to live as if he were struck dumb or as if his writing hand were paralyzed, none of the great world revelations, truth-statements, or gospels would have come down to us. Only the enlightened self-actualized Christian is entitled to say that silence is the best teacher, for he alone has the power to use it adequately. However, such geniuses are extremely rare, and for anyone else to utter the phrase is merely to babble words, to mislead and to confuse. In what way does it serve the hearer or the reader? #RandolphHarris 17 of 35
The highly spiritual words of Jesus Christ teach us more of what matters than anything else on this earth. Sometimes a man’s words are wiser than he knows. Sometimes he speaks a truth above his ordinary knowledge. However, these times are rare. Part of our reassurance about the free, noble, and progressing spirit of man comes from the glorious realization that we all existed and had our identities and our agency long before we came to this world. To some, that will be a new thought, but the Christian Bible teaches clearly just such an eternal view of life, a life stretching back before this world was and stretching forward into the eternities ahead. God said to Jeremiah, “Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before though camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations,” reports Jeremiah 1.5. At another time, God reminded Job that “all the sons of God shouted for joy,” (reports Job 38.7) before there was yet any man or woman on the earth of God was creating. The Apostle Paul taught that God the Father chose us “before the foundation of the world,” reports Ephesians 1.4. Where and when did all of this happen? Well, it happened long before man’s mortal birth. It happened in a great premortal existence where we developed our identities and increased our spiritual capabilities by exercising our agency and making important choices. We developed our intelligence and learned to love the truth, and we prepared to come to Earth to continue our progress. #RandolphHarris 18 of 35
Our Father in Heaven wanted our growth to continue in mortality and to be enhanced by our freedom to choose and learn. He also wanted us to exercise our faith and our will, especially with a new physical body to master and control. Through Christ and his valiant defense of our Father’s plan, the course of agency and eternal aspirations prevailed. In that crucial, premortal setting, a major milestone was passed, a monumental victory was won. As a result, we have been allowed to continue to pursue the eternal principle of progress. To fully understand this gift of agency and its inestimable worth, it is imperative that we understand that God’s chief way of acting is by persuasion and patience and long-suffering, not by coercion and stark confrontation. He acts by gentle solicitation and by sweet enticement. He always acts with unfailing respect for the freedom and independence that we possess. He wants to help us and pleads for the chance to assist us, but he will not do so in violation of our agency. He loves us too much to do that, and doing so would run counter to his divine character. The volition of man is free; this is the law of their existence, and the Lord cannot violate his own law; were he to do that, he would cease to be God…This is a law which has always existed throughout all the eternities to come. Very intelligent being must have the power of choice. #RandolphHarris 19 of 35
Heroes fill an important function in the self-definition of a group. Persons who represent accepted group values are talked about, admired, and even venerated as heroic. There is no doubt that the stresses of emergency scenes will reduce the effectiveness of communication for our heroes of the award-winning Sacramento Fire Department. Worse yet, listen to any recording of a trapped firefighter, and you will hear radio communications get even worse. We know what firefighting stress sounds like, but it is helpful to listen to pilots when they are in a Mayday situation. If you took the time to surf for air traffic control, head back to your favorite search engine and look for airline crash audio. If you listen to and score these transmissions as you did before, you will probably find that effective communication has dropped by 30 percent when pilots are unsure if they will be able to regain control of the plane. By listening closely to the radio traffic in Mayday situations, we learn some important lessons in communication. Fire scene radio communications are not the same as air traffic control. Emergency scenes are much more distracting, have more and have more background noises. One of the best ways the award-winning Sacramento Fire Department reduces injuries and deaths in the fire service is to concentrate on how they make decisions. Risk versus benefit must be the basis for action. #RandolphHarris 20 of 35
The Sacramento Fire Department knows that emergency scenes are dynamic situations with inherent risk, but human decisions play an enormous role in the outcome of event. Strategic, tactical, and task decisions made during the emergency not only dictate the timeline of the mitigation for the event but also directly affect the chances of injury or death. They are trained to understand that time is their worst enemy when it comes to fire development, building collapse, traumatic injuries, and the environmental exposure of a hazardous material. Emergency workers are therefore very mindful of the ticking clock. Similar to a football team in a “two-minute drill,” they use predetermined plays to win the game. It is important to realize that the football team deploying a “hurry-up offense” in the closing seconds of the game is always losing and is getting desperate. Many times, the team resorts to high-risk plays such as a deep pass in heavy coverage in an attempt to pull off a win. It is also not uncommon to see a desperate throw result in a game-ending interception. An IC (incident commander) might resort to a similar tactic in a desperate situation, risking much more than originally intended. A fire broke out shortly after 1 o’clock on the morning of September 19th. A small house was noticed ablaze. The fire was reportedly noticed in a shed kitchen, but then quickly spread to the main structure. The fire burned so quickly that the occupants barely had time to escape and could not save anything at all. Near the house was a tenement house. The large structure housed a total of ten to eleven families. Residents of the home did not have adequate notice and were able to save most of their belongings. #RandolphHarris 21 of 35
Several fire trucks responded and were able to get the fire under control. However, one of the families lost everything and was left almost destitute. A collection was soon circulated, and enough money was raised for the family to purchase “a few things to go housekeeping with.” There was no insurance in the tenement building. Risk management is designed to slow the speed of decision-making at an incident. The IC needs to establish specific components of incident management and use situational awareness to make intelligent risk-benefit decisions. It is equally important to be mindful of the incident clock, but not allow it to force a poor decision. Likewise, award-winning Sacramento firefighters, paramedics, and EMTs are educated about how to weigh the options of individual tasks, make good management decisions at the task level, and trained to react appropriately. Communication is an area where emergency services can make an immediate improvement. This integration of risk management techniques at all levels of emergency management is best accomplished through education, training, and practice. The association with heroes with “greatness” is because of the awe they evoke from the audience by risking their lives to protect those who are overwhelmed and fearful. Heroic action is terrifying. However, the community is thankful that we have heroes who confront prejudice and give the city a sense of empowerment and confidence. #RandolphHarris 22 of 35
If you see a fire truck stopped in the street without the lights on, be very careful. Sometimes there is an emergency, and you should not pass the fire truck. It might be a good idea to safely turn around and go another way because if you hit someone and they happen to die, you could be charged with manslaughter. Sometimes fire firefighters are getting back into their vehicle, and if you pass the apparatus, you may collide with a firefighter who is on foot. Also, be sure to look at their signals; sometimes emergency vehicles are in motion, albeit slowly, and drivers try to pass them, and this could lead to a dangerous situation. Also, if you are in an intersection when you see an emergency vehicle, continue through the intersection. Drive to the right as soon as it is safe and stop. Obey any direction, order, or signal given by a law enforcement officer or a firefighter. Even if they conflict with existing signs, signals, or laws, follow their orders. When their siren or flashing lights are on, it is against the law to follow within 300 feet of any fire engine, law enforcement vehicle, ambulance, or other emergency vehicle. If you drive to the scene of a fire, collision, or other disaster, you can be arrested. When you do this, you are getting in the way of firefighters, ambulance crews, or other rescue and emergency personnel. The concept of professional courage does not always mean being as tough as nails, either. It also suggests a willingness to listen to other people’s problems, to go to bat for them in a tough situation, and it means knowing just how far they can go. It also means being willing to tell the boss when he or she is wrong. #RandolphHarris 23 of 35
California is the third most expensive state in the nation. A single person making an income above $100,000 is now considered low-income in five counties in California. This distinction now applies to individuals living in Santa Cruz, Santa Clara, San Mateo, San Francisco, and Marin counties. In 37 percent of counties, a family of four living on a six-figure income is now considered low-income. In fact, Governor Gavin Newsom of Democratic controlled California, brags about being the world’s “fifth largest economy,” but it also facing a $12 billion deficit, looking to cut $747 million for state worker’s pay, pushing to keep medical insurance for illegal immigrants, but wants to cut medical for anyone who has assets over $2,000 and the state has the largest homeless population in the nation. If they are all officially counted, California has approximately 4 million homeless people. The highest home prices in the nation, the highest taxes, and the most unfriendly business regulations known to man. The average home price in California is nearly $1,000,000.00 USD, while the average salary is $96,036.00, meaning that most Californians cannot even afford to buy a home. California is having an affordability crisis. In 2025, many people in California saw their bills increase by an estimated $500 a month. This includes items such as food, automobile insurance, homeowners’ insurance, and electricity. In fact, more than 3 million people in California are facing household hardship, and more than 300,000 of them are facing eviction soon. This comes at a time when California is having a shortage of affordable housing. This is caused by nearly half a century-old laws that discourage home sales and encourage higher rents. #RandolphHarris 24 of 35
Meanwhile, China, where we are sending all our jobs and money, has more than 50 ghost cities, with 65 million vacant homes. Ghost cities are regions will housing has been overdeveloped to the point that these places are uninhabited. Because California is so hostile towards people and businesses, more than 360 companies have fled the state since 2020. Businesses like Chevron, SpaceX, Oracle, and Hewlett-Packard are among the names on that list. Also, more than 500,000 people a year are abandoning California because it is too expensive to live in, Gavin Newsom has criminalized homelessness and actually started arresting people without homes, crime is out of control, and they are losing their jobs due to companies relocating. More than 100 companies have announced layoffs in California for 2025. Intel is cutting 15,000 jobs, PayPal 2,500, and Meta has terminated 4,000 employees. California also has the highest unemployment rate in the country at 5.4 percent, while the national average is 4.1 percent. The California crisis created by Democrats is driving up home prices and mortgages, and rents all over the nation and the world, making living unaffordable for all, and advocates say the crisis is far from over. Accordingly, California has more than 3.5 million illegal immigrants. Having the Southern American boarder open and not having American farmland protected, not producing beef, poultry, fish, fruit, produce and dairy in America, and without American goods and services being our number one manufactured and selling items, America has created a dangerous and significantly elevated risks to national security, national economic security, and national public health. Some people may believe that these claims are overstated, but by not routinely monitoring Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CEVs) or other security-relevant alerts, such as the end-of-life of machinery is how the Oroville Dam Crisis occurred in 2017. #RandolphHarris 25 of 35
Other crises that have occurred due to neglect of critical infrastructure are the 2025 Palisades fires because Southern California ran out of water, when they are located next to an ocean and they could have simply created desalination plants to help with the water shortage. The water is so plentiful that it is currently eroding land and causing homes to fall into the sea. Desalination has been identified as one technology that will help solve California’s water scarcity problem. Desalination is a cost-effective technology that can transform an abundance of salt water into a reliable supply of potable, fresh water, which is a great way to fight climate change and have enough water for our region’s water requirements. Ras Al Khair, Saudi Arabia, is producing 1,036,000 meters (273,682,192) per day of desalinated water. As we see gangs fighting with federal law enforcement, states and cities refusing to honor federal laws, and politicians showing an utter disregard for the Constitution of the United States of America, anarchy is becoming increasingly common. Anarchism is a cluster of doctrines and attitudes centered on the belief that government is both harmful and unnecessary. Derived from the Greek root anarchos, meaning “without authority,” anarchism, anarchist, and anarchy are used to express both approval and disapproval. The anarchist denies man-made laws, regards property as a means of tyranny, and believes that crimes is merely the product of property and authority. #RandolphHarris 26 of 35
However, the anarchist would argue that their denial of constitutions and governments leads not to “no justice” but to the real justice inherent in the free development of human sociality—the natural inclination, when unfettered by laws, to live according to the principles and practice of mutual aid. Anarchism is also a form of treason. Treason, the crime of betraying a nation or a sovereign by acts considered dangerous to security. In English law, treason includes the levying of war against the government and the giving of aid and comfort to the monarch’s enemies. In the United States of America, treason was defined restrictively by the framers of the Constitution. Treason against the United States of America “shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them aid and comfort,” which is something that many politicians are currently guilty of. The American government should know all exploitable vulnerabilities and fix them before the situation becomes a crisis. Failure to take such mitigating actions is dangerous and significantly elevates risk to national security, national economic security, and national public health and safety. The American government must understand that significant time and resources must be invested in America. They must also encourage corporations to plan for both mitigating safety vulnerabilities in the short term and eliminating them in the long term. For instance, a company might begin by reaching out to the federal, state, or local government and requesting tax incentives to provide security to dangerous communities, to help the government repair bridges and potholes. #RandolphHarris 27 of 35
America needs an approach to eliminate safety vulnerabilities in American cities. There needs to be a road map by the end of 2025, outlining a prioritized approach to eliminate crisis situations in America. There is enough money to send aid to foreign nations, but the American government does not have enough money to care for its infrastructure, provide adequate resources, or end the affordable housing crisis. Nor is there enough money to fund other national critical functions (NCFs). These bad practices of putting America and Americans last are considered exceptionally risky, particularly to national security, national economic security, and national public health and safety. In 2024, Americans spent $100 billion on Japanese cars. As a result, the American automobile trade deficit with Japan was $39 billion. The maximum percentage of your gross income that you should earmark for a monthly mortgage payment is calculated at 28 percent, and no more than 36 percent of your gross income to all debts, including mortgage. If you take 28 percent of the median household income per home in Sacramento County, homeowners can only afford a mortgage of $2,070.23 per month. And if you take 36 percent of their gross income to all debts, including mortgage, they should be devoting no more than $2,661.72 a month to these debts. Mortgage lenders must be using some kind of sorcery to get buyers into these expensive homes. To afford one of these homes using traditional guidelines, a household would need to gross $11,280.24 per month or $135,362.88 per year, but the median household in Sacramento County is grossing $7,393.67 or $88,724.00, and that typically means two to four people in the home are working and contributing to the mortgage. #RandolphHarris 28 of 35
Home prices in Sacramento County are rivaling the Bay Area. Historically, homes in the Bay Area have been more expensive because they have higher-paying jobs, a larger population, and the Bay Area is a tourist destination. Contributing to the housing affordability crisis is Gavin Newsom, who has been lavishing illegal immigrants with taxpayer-funded resources and cash aid. The State of California has a budget deficit of $12 billion because Governor Gavin Newsom granted 700,000 illegal immigrants free health care, which costs taxpayers $3 billion annually. At the same time, Newsom cut vital programs for veterans, school children, the disabled, and the homeless. Additionally, Newsom seems to be uneducated about economics and is proposing to fast-track his plan to build a $20 billion water tunnel beneath the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, which would eliminate environmental reviews and limit avenues for legal challenges. Gavin Newsom only cares about the environment when his policies allow him to raise taxes and restrict freedoms. To further highlight this illustration, Mexico has been causing one of America’s worst environmental disasters. Fifty million gallons a day of industrial chemicals, untreated sewage, and trash flow from Tijuana, Mexico, into southern San Diego County daily. This toxic waste has been turning up on Imperial Beach and is causing the miles of white sands to become polluted and the ocean breeze to smell of poop, which has been sickening residents and wildlife and costing San Diego millions in the form of lost tourism and health problems. The problem has been going on for more than a century. #RandolphHarris 29 of 35
However, Mexico’s pollution of California has become a severe public health crisis as the population of Tijuana has drastically increased in recent years, and the waste treatment plants are no longer usable. Some of the beaches in San Diego have been closed for more than three years, and evidence suggests that even breathing the air may be harmful, as toxic particles in the water can become airborne. Yet, even though Gavin Newsom has been governor for six years, he has not rushed into action to stop this very preventable environmental disaster. Why? Because he is not getting kickbacks from China and Mexico, not being gifted mansions and cars, and he cannot tax the struggling California taxpayers to clean up this mess. Simply, it is not profitable for him. Gavin Newsom has been a total tyrant with no regard for taxpayers and no mind for business, and he should be impeached as soon as possible. He has criminalized poverty, increased taxes, increased taxes on gas, and insurance rates so high that people are struggling to survive. In addition to Gavin Newsom’s increased gas prices starting on 1 July 2025, the war between Iran and Israel is going to further exacerbate the prices of gas and cause more inflation and economic hardship for people in California. While everyone is making war over America and who belongs here and who she belongs to, so many people forget about the people who are Indigenous to this land. Open borders have allowed hundreds of thousands of cartel operatives to infiltrate reservations across the United States of America and use the isolated lands as havens to traffic fentanyl pills and other drugs into the country without protection from federal authorities. #RandolphHarris 30 of 35
Drug cartels have been threatening the health and safety of Native American communities. The trafficking of dangerous and illegal drugs into their territories is leading to a second genocide. The overdose rate for Indigenous people is 42 percent higher than the national average. A recent bust on Montana’s Blackfeet Nation’s Tribal Reservation resulted in the seizure of more than 700,000 fentanyl pills, which was the largest bust in Montana history. Recently, the Blackfeet Nation had to declare a state of emergency after facing 17 overdoses in just one week. There are only 6.8 million Native Americans left in the world, which is 2 percent of the American population. We should be doing more to protect these proud and honorable people; they should not want for anything. People rush and give away resources to illegal immigrants, but totally disregard the Indigenous people of this land, as their race silently fades away into extinction. We must secure our borders and increase federal funding to Native American tribes so we can save this precious population. Meanwhile, Gavin Newsom has given billions of taxpayer dollars away to illegal immigrants and protected them from law enforcement, while arresting law-abiding Americans because they cannot afford to pay rent or mortgage, and the homeless shelters are unsafe, overcrowded, and have restrictions on who is allowed inside. He has also totally ignored the cartel problems on American lands. Clean air, water, land, and preserving our heritage are extremely important. We cannot just allow criminals to kill off the people who are native to this land and do nothing about it. Wars have been started over governments that tax citizens without representation. Taxation without representation is what led to the American Revolution.#RandolphHarris 31 of 35
If Gavin Newsom is not stopped, next he will euthanize the poor and sterilize the disabled. Under Governor Gavin Newsom, California has the highest car theft rate in the United States of America. Violent gangs and bloodthirsty criminals, roving mobs of wild youth, drugged-out maniacs, and homeless people have overtaken cities. Wars and fires are breaking out on the streets. This monster is unfit to be governor and must never be allowed to be President of America! Stop Gavin Newsom now! Save California and impeach this unreasonable man. Meanwhile, with President Trump, we are seeing crime rates sharply decrease. He is restoring law and order, starting in Washington D.C., and he just signed the “HALT Fentanyl Act” into law, which permanently classifies the narcotic as a “Schedule I drug” under the “Controlled Substances Act.” Also, President Trump recently secured $10 trillion in investments for the United States of America. Additionally, in May of 2025, the United States of America collected a record $100 billion in tariff revenue, and that number will increase to $300 billion by the end of 2025. Also, President Trump has just sealed a $550 billion deal with Japan. This means Japan will invest $550 billion in the United States of America. Furthermore, President Trump has been nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize for making Iran and Israel cease fire. Additionally, President Trump plans to abolish taxes for anyone making less than $200,000 a year. As you can see, President Trump is creating solutions and remediating problems to protect America and the American people, while Governor of California, Gavin Newsom, is making life hard on American citizens and causing economic hardship, and totally ignoring Mexico’s polluting beaches in San Diego. If elected president for an unprecedented third term, to make housing more affordable and to offset the cost of homeowners’ insurance and auto insurance, President Trump plans to abolish property taxes. #RandolphHarris 32 of 35
Much like the land crisis in Las Vegas, we could also run out of land to farm and will not be able to grow or cultivate our own food. We can protect American farmland and support American farmers by buying American made beef, poultry, dairy, and produce. Also, country of origin labeling is very important so Americans can know where their food is coming from and can support American farmers and ranchers. As money flows, it influences further investment. Save the land that sustains us by protecting American farmland. Once the land is built on, we lose it forever. And in the future, there may be food wars. Also, to ensure that we have farmland and buildable land for future use, we need to start limiting the number of people allowed to immigrate to America. Perhaps with the immigrants we do allow into America, there needs to be a diversity program to make sure we have a population that equally represents all races of people. If Americans continue to spend money on American products, then more need to be made to keep up the inventory. When investors notice these goods are selling, it gives them the confidence to pour more money into that local business. It shows that people want these goods made in America and pressures investors to keep these goods and services in America. The jobs stay here, the business stays in America, wages naturally increase, and more money is invested to keep up with demand. This reduces the burden on the taxpayer. When you support American businesses, that money stays in our economy and can help to reduce the national debt. The government creates debt by borrowing from businesses in the private sector or from foreign countries. It also increases the national debt by spending more than it gains in tax revenue in a fiscal year. #RandolphHarris 33 of 35
When people shop locally, more tax money stays in the economy and goes to the government. This way, it keeps more money in our national economy and keeps more jobs located in America which also sends more taxes to the government, which can again help to reduce the national debt. When you buy foreign goods, these companies usually have lighter tax loads or exemptions, meaning less money for the national debt, plus you are helping to strengthen these foreign nations by sending more money overseas. Buying American-made products is also better for the environment and helps to reduce the carbon footprint because these products do not have to travel nearly as far. Furthermore, American companies and manufacturers are held to much higher standards on pollution. American companies must be more careful about air, land, and water pollution and have proper ways to dispose of waste. Moreover, please remember to respect law and order and treat your elders with the utmost dignity and kindness possible. And take your education seriously so that you will be successful in life and make your family proud. It is inborn in the human mind to wish to know. If this begins with the endless surface questions of a child’s curiosity, if it continues into deeper questions of a scientist’s probing investigation, it cannot and does not stop there. For the higher part of the mind will eventually come into unfoldment, that union of abstract reflective thought with mystical intuition, which is true intelligence, which needs and sees a view of the whole of things. And so, the knowing faculty enters the realm of philosophy. #RandolphHarris 34 of 35
As you can see, President Donald Trump and his pledge to “Make America Great Again” is exactly what America needs to save the country and the American people. And yes, diversity is important, so you can see why it is also important to preserve blonde hair and blue eyes, as the people with these characteristics are becoming a minority in America. We must think before we can understand the soul’s existence; we must understand before we can realize it. The earliest beginnings of thought, as apart from instinct, when it was itself still but a lurking tendency, belong far back in primeval time. The human intellect as we find it today, so rich and developed an instrument for the consciousness of the ego, did not arrive at this fulness without a series of graduated stages. We have had plenty of scientific thinking, business thinking, and political thinking long enough, but we have had very little inspired thinking. That is the world’s need. The intellect is cradled in selfishness but runs the evolutionary track into reason, where it will one day finish at the winning-post of selflessness. As a reminder, parents, please teach your children to love America and be patriotic citizens, and to buy goods and services made in America. It is also important to respect law and order and treat your elders with respect. Also, to make sure they have all the resources required, please donate to the Sacramento Fire Department to help improve our national security. “Oh, thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand between their loved home and the war’s desolation! Blest with victory and peace, may the heav’n-rescued land Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation! Then conquer we must, when our cause is just, and this be our motto: ‘In God is our trust.’ And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.” #RandolphHarris 35 of 35
President Donald J. Trump is keeping his promise to secure our borders and make America safe again. In July, Border Patrol reported just 4,399 apprehensions along our southern border—a new monthly record. That is an average of only 141 per day across nearly 2,000 miles. For the third month in a row, not a single illegal immigrant has been released into the United States. This is not just progress—it is a total reversal. Under the last administration, more than 300,000 illegal immigrants attempted to cross the border in a single month. The results speak for themselves. For the first time in at least five decades, the United States is on track to see negative net migration. Stopping illegal immigrants from entering our communities creates safer neighborhoods, protects taxpayer resources, and ensures more jobs and opportunities for American citizens. After 4 years of record-breaking illegal entries, this is the turnaround our Nation needs. President Trump will never stop fighting to end this invasion once and for all. He is working every day to secure our borders and restore the rule of law. Illegal immigrants who commit heinous crimes are being deported, loopholes are being closed, and sanctuary policies are being dismantled for good. Under the Trump Administration, America is safer and stronger than ever before. To learn more, visit www.WhiteHouse.gov.
According to locals, over a century ago, the land that houses The Winchester Mansion had been vacant forever. Then, sometime in the early afternoon of Saturday, March 13, 1886, Sheriff Angel Camilio began getting reports that a massive castle made of wood had suddenly appeared. Gables rose, towers peaked into the sky as the mansion mushroomed into a labyrinth overnight.
The house’s sudden manifestation had been both disconcerting and fascinating to the community. Some felt dark curses flowing from the estate, and things moving around in the darkness. Others saw a fairytale castle glimmering in the spring sunlight. Perhaps this is why there are no records of construction, no blueprints, and no permits filed with the county. Come and see what secrets this so-called, “Winchester Mystery House” may hold.
Experience an unforgettable journey back to the time of kings and queens with this entry ticket for The Winchester Mansion in Santa Clara, California, which was the residence of Heiress Sarah L. Winchester. Take advantage of this fascinating experience. After the tour, there will be time to enjoy the mansion’s splendor at your own pace. You might even discover secret passages.
Please come and enjoy a delicious meal at Sarah’s Café, stroll along the paths of the beautiful Victorian gardens, which once spanned 740 acres, all the way down to Stevens Creek Boulevard; wander through the miles of hallways in the world’s most mysterious mansion.
For further information about tours, including group tours, weddings, school events, birthday party packages, facility rentals, and special events please visit the website: https://winchestermysteryhouse.com/
Please visit the online giftshop, and purchase a gift for friends and relatives as well as a special memento of The Winchester Mystery House. A variety of souvenirs and gifts are available for purchase. https://shopwinchestermysteryhouse.com/
Harris Plumbing, Heating, Air, & Electric has been in business for 30 years. How many businesses can say that? We take pride in everything we do – no matter how big or small the service call might be. We’re here to help your home be as safe and comfortable as possible for you and your family. We take that responsibility very seriously as a company. Harris will ensure you have the information you need to decide what to do next, whatever your home is facing. We’ll perform a diagnosis and detail what issues are present before starting any work. This gives you a personalized quote and service plan specific to your home’s needs, not some random quote based on the best guess. The only way we can do our best work is to make sure we handle the issues at hand. https://www.callharrisnow.com/about-us/
Ah, yes. The luxurious and sporty BMW 3 Series. Happy 50th birthday to the most iconic BMW ever! It is really hard to decide on a BMW model. However, the 3 series is a favorite of everyone. All the upper-class suburban families had one in the 1980s and 1990s; everyone from teenagers and housewives to executives and diplomats. Now that they are larger in size, but still sporty and luxurious, the audience has grown tremendously. These are very stylish and reliable cars, which is why BMW continues to dominate the luxury car space.
With its top ranking in Consumer Reports’ Auto Brand Report Card and consistent market share growth, BMW has demonstrated its ability to produce high-performing, reliable vehicles that meet consumer demands. BMW stands out due to its focus on driving dynamics and engineering excellence. While other luxury brands prioritize comfort and opulence, BMW is known for creating cars that are fun to drive and offer a unique connection between the driver and the machine. This is why BMW is known as the Ultimate Driving Machine. https://www.brianharrisbmw.com/
Randolph Harris San Francisco Taxation & Mergers
Building strong and lasting client relationships is crucial for a successful legal career. Many lawyers mistakenly believe that mastering legal skills alone ensures success, but law is fundamentally a service industry—our job is to solve problems through the time we sell. To build long-term relationships, attorneys must focus on three core elements: knowing their clients, understanding how their legal issues fit into a larger context, and consistently delivering exceptional service.
Randy advises clients with regard to business transition, taxable and tax-deferred mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures, restructuring, integrated tax planning, federal and state tax controversy resolution, and real estate transactions. Trust is the cornerstone of any client relationship. Ultimately, my clients feel they are in capable hands with someone who genuinely understands their problems and goals. https://www.jmbm.com/l-randolph-harris.html
Park Haven
Rancho Cordova, CA | low $500s
Now Selling!
Welcome to Cresleigh Park Haven; the newest home community in Rancho Cordova.
Nestled in the heart of Rancho Cordova, Park Haven is a thoughtfully planned community offering 71 homes —perfect for those seeking comfort, convenience, and more time to enjoy life. Located adjacent to the beloved Exploration Park, this neighborhood blends modern living with outdoor adventure right at your doorstep.
Choose from five beautifully crafted floor plans ranging from approximately 1,342 to 2,547 square feet, with options for 3 to 5 bedrooms, flexible living spaces, and open-concept layouts designed for today’s lifestyles. Whether you’re a first-time buyer, growing family, or looking to simplify without sacrificing style, Park Haven offers a home that fits your needs.
Enjoy the ease of a maintenance-friendly yard, the charm of a close-knit community, and the everyday convenience of nearby parks, trails, shopping, and top-rated schools. At Park Haven, you’ll find more than just a house—you’ll find your place to thrive.
Your main level opens up all the opportunity to showcase your style, in a space that is always party ready and yet is equally as comfortable elevating the everyday, too.
Waking up to a home you love sets just the right tone for what’s ahead. These thoughtfully curated collections of on-trend home designs deliver maximum livability and minimal maintenance
We made a significant investment and commitment to our customers to provide everything they will need to complete their real estate and homebuilding journey.
Your home sweet home is waiting at Residence 4 at Park Haven 🏡 This flexible two-story plan is built for modern living — think open-concept main level, chef-inspired kitchen, dedicated laundry room, and a primary suite with a spa-like bath and spacious closet. Ready to call this address yours? Contact our team for availability and next steps! https://cresleigh.com/park-haven/residence-4/
If home is where the heart is, then may your Cresleigh Home be blessed.
Void of Faceless Faces, of Soundless Voices Lying Outside History
Identity in America is a formation highly dependent on the cultural conditions of a sedentary, middle-class society. However, the revolutionary minds of the middle-class of the nineteenth century: Jesus Christ, by telling us to love each other and not to sin; Dr. Darwin, by making man’s very humanity relative to his animal ancestry; Marx, by exposing the middle-class mind itself as class bound; and Dr. Freud, by making our ideals and our very consciousness relative to an unconscious mental life have all determined what chances we fruitfully take with it. Since then, there have been national wars, political revolutions, and moral rebellions that have shaken the traditional foundations of all human identity. If we wish to find witnesses to a radically different awareness of the relation of positive and negative identity, we only must change our historical perspective and look at the most marginalized writers in America today. For what if there is nothing in the hopes of generations past nor in the accessible resources of the contemporary community which would help to overcome the negative image held up to a member of a marginalized population by the “compact majority”? Then, so it seems, the creative individual must accept the negative identity as the very baseline of the recovery. And so, we have in our American writers, who have been marginalized in this country, the almost ritualized affirmation of inaudibility, invisibility, namelessness, facelessness—a void of faceless faces, of soundless voices lying outside history. #RandolphHarris 1 of 30
However, the responsible writers who are marginalized in America continue to write and write strongly, for fiction even in acknowledging the depth of nothingness can contribute to something akin to a collective recovery. This is a universal trend among the exploited. It is no coincidence that one of the most telling autobiographic documents of India’s liberation as a nation also bears the “negative” title Autobiography of an Unknown Indian. No wonder that in young people not included in literary reflection, such deep-seated negative identities can be reabsorbed only by a turn to militancy, if not violence. A less well-known figure than Bakunin, still more mysterious, but more significant for our purpose, Nechaiev pushed nihilism to the farthest coherent point. His thought presents practically no contradiction. He appeared, about 1866, in revolutionary intellectual circles, and died, obscurely, in January 1882. In this short space of time, he never ceased to suborn the students around him, Bakunin himself, the revolutionary refugees, and finally the guards in his prison, whom he succeeded in persuading to take part in a crazy conspiracy. When he first appears, he is already quite sure of what he thinks. If Bakunin was fascinated by him to the point of consenting to entrust him with imaginary authority, it is because he recognized in that implacable figure the type of human being that he recommended and what he, in a certain manner, would have been if he had been able to silence his heart. Nechaiev was not content with saying that one must unite with “the savage of the world of bandits, the true and unique revolutionary environment of Russia,” nor with writing once more, like Bakunin, that henceforth politics would be religion and religion politics. He made himself the cruel high priest of a desperate revolution; his most recurrent dream was to found a homicidal order that would permit him to propagate and finally enthrone the sinister divinity that he had decided to serve. #RandolphHarris 2 of 30
He not only gave dissertations on universal destruction; his originality lay in coldly claiming, for those who dedicate themselves to the revolution, an “Everything is permitted” and in permitting himself everything. “The revolutionary is a man condemned in advance. He must have neither romantic relationships nor objects to engage his feelings. He should even cast off his own name. Every part of him should be concentrated in one single passion: the revolution.” If history is, in fact, independent of all principles and composed only of a struggle between revolution and counterrevolution, there is no way out but to espouse wholeheartedly one of the two and either die or be resurrected. Nechaiev pursues this logic to the bitter end. With him, for the first time, revolution is going to be explicitly separated from love and friendship. The consequences of an arbitrary psychology set in motion by Hegel’s method can be seen, for the first time, in of minds could be accomplished in love. He would not, however, give a place in the foreground of his analysis to this “phenomenon,” which, according to him, he found “had not the strength, the patience, nor the application of the negative.” He had chosen to demonstrate human minds in blind combat, dimly groping on the sands, like crabs that finally come to grips in a fight to the death, and voluntarily abandoned the equally legitimate image of beams of light painfully searching for one another in the night and finally focusing together in a blaze of illumination. #RandolphHarris 3 of 30
Those who love, friends or lovers know that love is not only a blinding flash but also a long and painful struggle in the darkness for the realization of definitive recognition and reconciliation. After all, if virtue in the course of history is recognized by the extent to which it gives proof of patience, real love is as patient as hatred. Moreover, the demand for justice is not the only justification throughout the centuries for revolutionary passion, which is sustained by a painful insistence on universal friendship, even—and above all—in defiance of an inimical heaven. Those who die for justice, throughout history, have always been called “brothers.” Violence, for every one of them, is directed only against the enemy, in the service of the community of the oppressed. However, if the revolution is the only positive value, it has the right to claim everything—even the denunciation and therefore the sacrifice of the friend. Henceforth, violence will be directed against one and all, in the service of an abstract idea. The accession to power of the possessed had to take place so that it could be said, once and for all, that the revolution was more important than the people it wanted to save, and that friendship, which until then had transformed defeats into the semblance of victories, must be sacrificed and postponed until the still invisible day of victory. Nechaiev’s originality thus lies in justifying the violence done to one’s brother. He decided, with Bakunin, on the terms of the Catechism. However, once the latter, in a fit of mental aberration, had given him the mission of representing Russia as a European Revolutionary Union, which existed only in his imagination, Nechaiev in effect came to Russia, founded his Society of the Ax, and himself defined its regulations. #RandolphHarris 4 of 30
There we find again the secret central committee, necessary, no doubt, to any military or political action, to whom everyone must swear absolute allegiance. However, Nechaiev does more than militarize the revolution from the moment when he admits that the leaders, to govern their subordinates, have the right to employ violence and lies. Nechaiev lies, to begin with, when he claims to be a delegate of a central committee that is still nonexistent and when, to enlist certain skeptics in the action that he proposes to undertake, he describes the committee as disposing of unlimited resources. He goes still further by distinguishing between categories of revolutionaries, with those of the first category (by which he means the leaders) reserving the right to consider the rest as “expendable capital.” All the leaders in history may have thought in these terms, but they never said so. Until Nechaiev, at any rate, no revolutionary leader had dared to make this guiding principle of his conduct. Up to his time, no revolution had put at the head of its table of laws the concept that man could be a chattel. Traditionally, recruiting relied on its appeal to courage and to the spirit of self-sacrifice. Nechaiev decided that the skeptics could be terrorized or blackmailed and the believers deceived. If they were urged on systematically to perform the most dangerous deeds, even pseudo-revolutionaries could still be used. As for the oppressed, since they were going to be saved once and for all, they could be oppressed still more. What they would lose, the oppressed of the future would gain. #RandolphHarris 5 of 30
Nechaiev states, in principle, that governments must be driven to take repressive measures, that the official representatives most hated by the population must never be touched, and that finally, the secret society must employ all its resources to increase the suffering and misery of the masses. Bravery consists of attacking the whole problem of human destiny and finding its solution using the dynamic slogan and the clinical principle. The dynamic slogan of transactional and script analysis is “Think sphincter.” Their clinical principle is to observe every movement of every muscle of every patient at every moment during a group meeting. And their existential motto is “Transactional analysts are healthy, happy, rich, and brave, and get to travel all over and meet the nicest people in the world, and the same when they are home treating patients.” Script analysis is then the answer to the problem of human destiny, and tells us (alas!) that our fates are predetermined for the most part, and that free will in this respect is for most people an illusion. For example, R. Allendy points out that for everyone who faces it, the decision to commit suicide is a lonely and agonizing, and autonomous one. Yet, whatever vicissitudes it goes through in each individual case, the “rate” of suicide remains relatively constant from year to year. The only way to make (Darwinian) sense of this is to consider human destiny to be the result of parental programming, and not of individual “autonomous” decision. #RandolphHarris 6 of 30
What, then, is the responsibility of the parents? Script programming is not their “fault,” any more than an inherited defect is, such as scoliosis or clubfoot, or an inherited talent for music or mathematics. They are merely passing on the dominants and recessives they got from their parents and grandparents. The script directives are being continually reshuffled, just as the genes are, by the fact that the child requires two parents. On the other hand, the script apparatus is much more flexible than the genetic apparatus and is continually being modified by outside influences, such as life experience and the injunctions inserted by other people. It is only rarely possible to predict when or how an outsider will say or do something that alters a person’s script. It may be a casual remark accidentally overheard at a carnival or in a corridor, or it may be the result of a formal relationship such as marriage, school, or psychotherapy. It is a common observation that spouses gradually influence each other’s attitudes toward life and people, and that these changes are reflected in the tonus of their facial muscles and their gestures, so that they come to look alike. A parent who wishes to change his script so that he will not lay on his children the same directives that were laid on him should first become familiar with the Parent ego state and the Parental voices he carries around in his head, and which the children learn to “cathect” by appropriate trigger behavior. Since the parent is older and presumably wiser in some ways than his offspring, it is his duty and responsibility to control his Parental behavior. Only if he brings his Parent under the control of his Adult can he accomplish this. Beyond that, he is just as much the product of his Parental upbringing as his children are. #RandolphHarris 7 of 30
One difficulty is that children represent facsimile and immortality. When his children respond the way he does, every parent is openly or secretly delighted, even when they follow his worst characteristics. If he wishes his children to adapt to the solar system and all its ramifications better than he himself did, this delight is what he must forgo under Adult control. There is a lot of conflict in adult relationships because of competition between spouses. In our culture, women have been made so insecure about the man-woman relationship that they often compete for reasons they themselves do not understand. A woman’s competitiveness may reflect this culturally induced sense of insecurity. It may be more difficult for her, as a female, to make the perfectly rational assumptions that some men make—that, after all, it is okay to let your wife be the dominant spouse in the relationship. Perhaps if the women’s equality movement achieves its potential for social change, women will be relieved of some of this insecurity. Many think that Women’s Lib takes the whole concept of women’s place in society and turns it upside down. A lot of the roles that are called into question are biological roles. However, a lot of others are strictly social roles. These are questions that a man has to deal with when he is married to a woman who is attempting to find her own real identity—her true self, and not her sociological self. It is extremely difficult for both partners in the marriage. #RandolphHarris 8 of 30
Of course, several couples are in transition, and that is always hard on the people who are caught up in it. Sometimes, there is something about Women’s Lib that can be threatening to a man. Some men think it may be a potential for a marriage breaking up because a woman might come to see that marriage is essentially a false relationship between a man and a woman. Or that a woman may decide to do something on her own. However, the women’s movement does not necessarily mean that marriage concepts are false. Yet, it does mean that there must be a greater sense of reality between the two people in the marriage. In other words, they must make more of a marriage than just leaning on the legality of it. Consider this: if a woman is always putting herself last in the marriage, she is depriving her husband of the opportunity of saving her soul. If she is always protective of him and always gets there first, he does not have a chance! I am talking now about people who always have a pressing need to do the giving and thereby cheat themselves of the pleasure of receiving—and cheat others of their chance to experience the pleasure of giving. Culturally, this translates into the gender stereotype of the woman giving pleasure to the man. And all of us tend to think that we must be responsible for our emotions. Nothing is further from the truth. How we feel is how we feel, and no one, least of all our marriage partners, has the right to make us accountable for those feelings. We are accountable only for what we do because of those feelings. #RandolphHarris 9 of 30
You are entitled to your feelings, and it can be dangerous to ignore them, for you and others around you. You are entitled, and your partner does not have the right to interpret or evaluate or judge your feelings. On the other hand, it is your responsibility to express your feelings and thoughts as clearly as you can. Making your partner guess is asking for trouble. And the more comfortable you are in expressing those feelings and the more comfortable your partner becomes in accepting the feeling as an honest reflection of where you stand at that moment, the easier it is to communicate. Besides, many should show their self-destructive character in their very contents. As an illustration, I should like to refer to three should, all of which operate in the condition of morbid dependency and which will be elaborated in that context: I should be big enough to mind absolutely nothing that is done to me; I should be able to make her love me; and I should sacrifice absolutely everything for “love”! The combination of these three shoulds is indeed bound to perpetuate the tortures of a morbid dependency. Another frequent demand of a person is that he assume full responsibility for his relatives, friends, pupils, employees, etcetera. He should be able to solve everyone’s problems to everyone’s satisfaction. This implies that anything that goes wrong is his fault. If a friend or relative is upset for any reason, complains, criticizes, is discontented, or wants something, such a person is forced to be the helpless victim who must feel guilty and set everything right. He is, to quote a patient, like the harassed manager of a Pink Flamingo summer hotel: the guests are always right. Whether or not any of the mishaps are his fault does not matter. #RandolphHarris 10 of 30
This process is well described in a French book The Witness. The main character and his brother are out boating; the boat leaks, a storm comes up, and they are capsized. Since his brother has a badly injured leg, he cannot swim in the violent water. He is doomed to drown. The hero tries to swim ashore, supporting his brother, but soon realizes that he cannot do it. The alternatives are that both drown or that the hero saves himself alone. Clearly realizing this, he decides to save himself. However, he feels as if he were a murderer, and this is so real to him that he is convinced everybody else will regard him as a murderer. If he operates on the premise that he should be responsible in any case, his reason is of no avail and cannot be effective. To be sure, this is an extreme situation. However, the hero’s emotional response illustrates exactly what people do feel when driven by this particular should. An individual can also impose tasks upon himself which are detrimental to his whole being. A classic example of this kind of should is to be found in Dostoevski’s Crime and Punishment. Raskolnikov, in order to prove to his Napoleonic qualities, felt that he should be able to kill a human being. As Dostoevski shows us in unmistakable terms, despite Raskolnikov’s manifold resentments against the world, nothing was more distasteful to his sensitive soul than to kill. He had to beat himself into doing it. What he actually felt is expressed in a dream in which he sees a scrawny, underfed little mare forced by drunken peasants to try pull an impossibly heavy cartload. It is brutally and mercilessly whipped and finally beaten to death. Raskolnikov himself rushes to the mare in an upsurge of deep compassion. #RandolphHarris 11 of 30
This dream appeared at a time when Raskolnikov was engaged in a violent inner struggle. He felt both that he should be able to kill and that it was so utterly distasteful that he simply could not do it. In the dream, he realized the senseless cruelty with which he was beating himself into doing something that was impossible for him, as it was for the mare to pull the heavy cartload. And from the depth of his being emerged a profound compassion for himself over what he was beating himself up over, what he was doing to himself. Having thus experienced his true feelings, he felt more at one with himself after the dream and decided against the killing. However, this Napoleonic self soon afterward again got the upper hand, because at that time his real self was as helpless against it as the underfed mare was against the brutal peasants. The third factor which renders the shoulds self-destructive and which, more than others, accounts for their coerciveness, is the self-hate with which we may turn against ourselves when we violate them. Sometimes this connection is clear or can be established easily. A person has not been as all-knowing or all helpful as he feels he should be, and, as in the story The Witness, is filled with unreasoning self-reproaches. More often, he is not aware of such a violation but, seemingly out of the blue, feels low, uneasy, fatigued, anxious, or irritable. #RandolphHarris 12 of 30
Let us recall the example of the woman who was suddenly scared of the dog after having climbed to the mountain top. The sequence here was as follows: first, she experienced as a failure her sensible decision to give up the climbing—a failure in the light of a dictate telling her that she should manage everything (and which remained unconscious). Next followed her self-contempt, which likewise remained unconscious. Then came the response to her self-berating, in the form of feeling helpless and scared, the first of the emotional process that reached awareness. If she had not analyzed herself, the scare of the dog would have remained a puzzling incident, puzzling because it was disconnected from all that preceded it. In other instances, a person experiences in conscious awareness only the special ways in which he automatically protects himself from his self-hate, such as his special ways to allay anxiety (eating sprees, drinking or shopping sprees, etcetera), his feeling victimized by others (passive externalization), or irritable at others (active externalization). We all have ample opportunity to see from various viewpoints how these attempts at self-protection operate. We can usually find refuge from the world of action by taking to the world of books. Then, stress and turmoil left behind, and restfully ensconced in a chair or bed, pictured scenes may be enjoyed, or ideas received, which act like a holiday. Live in the atmosphere that great books bring, their truer and wider ideas, their finer, exalted ideals. Most men are not yet built to wait in the silence for the visitation of the spirit of truth. It must be described in words for them, by the intellect for their intellect. Conscience is acquired gradually through identification. Identification is the process of ascribing to oneself the characteristics of another (usually admired) person. As one identifies with and takes on more traits of the valued model, intrafamilial resemblances in behavior, values, gestures, attitudes, and morals are acquired. #RandolphHarris 13 of 30
Children come into the world with only the capacity to develop a conscience. They act by their momentary needs and feelings, and their parents are usually watching them closely, making moral judgments about their behavior. If they act in ways that violate the parents’ concepts of what is right, the parents will punish the children for behaving in that way. The parents appear huge, powerful, and admirable from the children’s standpoint; they want to become like the parents. To avoid punishment, to retain the parents’ love, and to acquire their wonderful attributes, children strive to become like them in many ways. They identify with their demands and expectations; these gradually become their expectations of themselves. In short, they come to forbid in themselves what their parents forbade. They come to demand of themselves what their parents demanded. They come to expect of themselves what their parents expected. In this manner, the conscience commences. We declare a bright and glorious view of God and man to all who will hear, a view revealed in illuminated by the restored light of the gospel of Jesus Christ. We testify of God’s loving goodness and of his eternal respect for each of us, for us as individual children of God and for what each of us may become. God has a plan for the benefit and blessing of us, His children. Basic to that all-important plan is our free agency. The right of choice runs like a golden thread throughout the gospel for the blessing of His children. We all existed and had our identities and our agency, long before we came to this world. #RandolphHarris 14 of 30
One central function of emotions is to enable the formation, maintenance, and negotiation of attachments and relationships and thereby to structure social life. Emotions inform our choices of who to affiliate with, distance from, praise, blame, dominate, or submit to. Admiration, a social emotion that attracts us to exemplars and motivates us to promote the virtues possessed by them, might be conceived of as the most fitting emotional response to heroes. Adolescents describe how heroes help them to do good or be a better person. However, where a young person selects a hero with dubious moral standards, this relationship may result in “bad” behavior where the young person models their behavior on an unsuitable target. Young people describe how heroes protect them from physical and psychological harm. Specifically, heroes were described as offering emotional support, social support, instrumental support, resources to develop self-efficacy, social control, and physical protection from danger. However, young people also cautioned that someone might become over-reliant on a hero, asking for help rather than taking personal responsibility. Young people believe that heroes play a role in helping them to experiment with their own sense of self and develop greater clarity about their authentic sense of self. Heroes can represent a person’s ideal self-influencing career paths and life decisions. #RandolphHarris 15 of 30
Adolescents gravitate toward heroes while navigating challenges in their own lives. Many people look at the award-winning Sacramento Fire Department as heroes. The representations of heroes and heroines represent formal elements which are used to create an affective appeal and to encourage an audience to consider the individual in question as heroic. As heroes, people are enticed by the Sacramento Fire Department because they use various forms of intensification through suspense, communication of increased danger, or heightened antagonism. Particularly effective in the view of viewing the Sacramento Fire Department as heroes is the light, radiance, and reflection they produce. Firefighters, paramedics, and EMTs stand in the spotlight and are singled out by (quasi-) divine illumination. Ancient, medieval, or early modern heroes have shining armors or they are placed in a beam of light coming from the heavens. Napoleon in Antoine-Hean Gros’ oil painting La Bataille des Pyramides (1810) is both elevated above his generals by his rearing horse, and he is placed in the center of light. The Sacramento Fire Department has these big, fancy red trucks with chrome wheels, chrome fender wall trim, and all these beautiful lights. Then the heroes get out of the truck and rush to save you from danger. The ambulances are essentially red box trucks with chrome wheels, fancy lights, and when the back doors open, bright white light glares out, and there is technology and personnel there to save your life. #RandolphHarris 16 of 30
The elevation of these heroes is displayed with lens flares to combine an aura of light and mystery, which gives the characters almost divine attributes, especially in combination with the sirens. An excess of light both singles out the heroes and partially obscures the details of their bodies because it is too bright. This popular combination between radiance and partial blinding also produces the ambivalence that is characteristic of heroes: they inspire emulation, and yet they remain inimical. The inapproachability, produced by the light or distance, contributes to the sense of awe and wonder that the heroic image of the Sacramento Fire Department inspires. The classic aesthetic trope that evokes awe in the recipient is the sublime. From the eighteenth-century aesthetic theory onwards, especially under the influence of Burke and Kant, the sublime combines the experience of terror and pleasure, the paradoxical experience of feeling at once overwhelmed and exalted, fearful and fascinated, as we are when we see the vast expanse of the ocean or a towering mountain. The experience of the sublime offers a feeling of transcendence even in a secular context and it helps us to reach beyond ourselves. The hero or heroine themselves are the source of the sublime, but also the setting contributes to the affective arrangement: Sacramento Fire Department in action in large scale, terrifying surroundings (confronted with a wall of fire in a burning building), gain a type of grandeur that is much more difficult to achieve in, let us say, a cluttered sitting room with a flowery wallpaper and lace doilies on Rudolf I King of Germany furniture. All these forms of expression are aimed at drawing attention and appealing to an audience to evoke admiration, veneration, and, ideally, imitation. These wished-for responses are evoked not through rational argument but through the engagement of the responses. #RandolphHarris 17 of 30
If you see a fire truck stopped in the street without the lights on, be very careful. Sometimes there is an emergency, and you should not pass the fire truck. It might be a good idea to safely turn around and go another way because if you hit someone and they happen to die, you could be charged with manslaughter. Sometimes fire firefighters are getting back into their vehicle, and if you pass the apparatus, you may collide with a firefighter who is on foot. Also, be sure to look at their signals; sometimes emergency vehicles are in motion, albeit slowly, and drivers try to pass them, and this could lead to a dangerous situation. Also, if you are in an intersection when you see an emergency vehicle, continue through the intersection. Drive to the right as soon as it is safe and stop. Obey any direction, order, or signal given by a law enforcement officer or a firefighter. Even if they conflict with existing signs, signals, or laws, follow their orders. When their siren or flashing lights are on, it is against the law to follow within 300 feet of any fire engine, law enforcement vehicle, ambulance, or other emergency vehicle. If you drive to the scene of a fire, collision, or other disaster, you can be arrested. When you do this, you are getting in the way of firefighters, ambulance crews, or other rescue and emergency personnel. The concept of professional courage does not always mean being as tough as nails, either. It also suggests a willingness to listen to other people’s problems, to go to bat for them in a tough situation, and it means knowing just how far they can go. It also means being willing to tell the boss when he or she is wrong. #RandolphHarris 18 of 30
California is the third most expensive state in the nation. A single person making an income above $100,000 is now considered low-income in five counties in California. This distinction now applies to individuals living in Santa Cruz, Santa Clara, San Mateo, San Francisco, and Marin counties. In 37 percent of counties, a family of four living on a six-figure income is now considered low-income. In fact, Governor Gavin Newsom of Democratic controlled California, brags about being the world’s “fifth largest economy,” but it also facing a $12 billion deficit, looking to cut $747 million for state worker’s pay, pushing to keep medical insurance for illegal immigrants, but wants to cut medical for anyone who has assets over $2,000 and the state has the largest homeless population in the nation. If they are all officially counted, California has approximately 4 million homeless people. The highest home prices in the nation, the highest taxes, and the most unfriendly business regulations known to man. The average home price in California is nearly $1,000,000.00 USD, while the average salary is $96,036.00, meaning that most Californians cannot even afford to buy a home. California is having an affordability crisis. In 2025, many people in California saw their bills increase by an estimated $500 a month. This includes items such as food, automobile insurance, homeowners’ insurance, and electricity. In fact, more than 3 million people in California are facing household hardship, and more than 300,000 of them are facing eviction soon. This comes at a time when California is having a shortage of affordable housing. This is caused by nearly half a century-old laws that discourage home sales and encourage higher rents. #RandolphHarris 19 of 30
Meanwhile, China, where we are sending all our jobs and money, has more than 50 ghost cities, with 65 million vacant homes. Ghost cities are regions will housing has been overdeveloped to the point that these places are uninhabited. Because California is so hostile towards people and businesses, more than 360 companies have fled the state since 2020. Businesses like Chevron, SpaceX, Oracle, and Hewlett-Packard are among the names on that list. Also, more than 500,000 people a year are abandoning California because it is too expensive to live in, Gavin Newsom has criminalized homelessness and actually started arresting people without homes, crime is out of control, and they are losing their jobs due to companies relocating. More than 100 companies have announced layoffs in California for 2025. Intel is cutting 15,000 jobs, PayPal 2,500, and Meta has terminated 4,000 employees. California also has the highest unemployment rate in the country at 5.4 percent, while the national average is 4.1 percent. The California crisis created by Democrats is driving up home prices and mortgages, and rents all over the nation and the world, making living unaffordable for all, and advocates say the crisis is far from over. Accordingly, California has more than 3.5 million illegal immigrants. Having the Southern American boarder open and not having American farmland protected, not producing beef, poultry, fish, fruit, produce and dairy in America, and without American goods and services being our number one manufactured and selling items, America has created a dangerous and significantly elevated risks to national security, national economic security, and national public health. Some people may believe that these claims are overstated, but by not routinely monitoring Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CEVs) or other security-relevant alerts, such as the end-of-life of machinery is how the Oroville Dam Crisis occurred in 2017. #RandolphHarris 20 of 30
Other crises that have occurred due to neglect of critical infrastructure are the 2025 Palisades fires because Southern California ran out of water, when they are located next to an ocean and they could have simply created desalination plants to help with the water shortage. The water is so plentiful that it is currently eroding land and causing homes to fall into the sea. Desalination has been identified as one technology that will help solve California’s water scarcity problem. Desalination is a cost-effective technology that can transform an abundance of salt water into a reliable supply of potable, fresh water, which is a great way to fight climate change and have enough water for our region’s water requirements. Ras Al Khair, Saudi Arabia, is producing 1,036,000 meters (273,682,192) per day of desalinated water. As we see gangs fighting with federal law enforcement, states and cities refusing to honor federal laws, and politicians showing an utter disregard for the Constitution of the United States of America, anarchy is becoming increasingly common. Anarchism is a cluster of doctrines and attitudes centered on the belief that government is both harmful and unnecessary. Derived from the Greek root anarchos, meaning “without authority,” anarchism, anarchist, and anarchy are used to express both approval and disapproval. The anarchist denies man-made laws, regards property as a means of tyranny, and believes that crimes is merely the product of property and authority. #RandolphHarris 21 of 30
However, the anarchist would argue that their denial of constitutions and governments leads not to “no justice” but to the real justice inherent in the free development of human sociality—the natural inclination, when unfettered by laws, to live according to the principles and practice of mutual aid. Anarchism is also a form of treason. Treason, the crime of betraying a nation or a sovereign by acts considered dangerous to security. In English law, treason includes the levying of war against the government and the giving of aid and comfort to the monarch’s enemies. In the United States of America, treason was defined restrictively by the framers of the Constitution. Treason against the United States of America “shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them aid and comfort,” which is something that many politicians are currently guilty of. The American government should know all exploitable vulnerabilities and fix them before the situation becomes a crisis. Failure to take such mitigating actions is dangerous and significantly elevates risk to national security, national economic security, and national public health and safety. The American government must understand that significant time and resources must be invested in America. They must also encourage corporations to plan for both mitigating safety vulnerabilities in the short term and eliminating them in the long term. For instance, a company might begin by reaching out to the federal, state, or local government and requesting tax incentives to provide security to dangerous communities, to help the government repair bridges and potholes. #RandolphHarris 22 of 30
America needs an approach to eliminate safety vulnerabilities in American cities. There needs to be a road map by the end of 2025, outlining a prioritized approach to eliminate crisis situations in America. There is enough money to send aid to foreign nations, but the American government does not have enough money to care for its infrastructure, provide adequate resources, or end the affordable housing crisis. Nor is there enough money to fund other national critical functions (NCFs). These bad practices of putting America and Americans last are considered exceptionally risky, particularly to national security, national economic security, and national public health and safety. In 2024, Americans spent $100 billion on Japanese cars. As a result, the American automobile trade deficit with Japan was $39 billion. The maximum percentage of your gross income that you should earmark for a monthly mortgage payment is calculated at 28 percent, and no more than 36 percent of your gross income to all debts, including mortgage. If you take 28 percent of the median household income per home in Sacramento County, homeowners can only afford a mortgage of $2,070.23 per month. And if you take 36 percent of their gross income to all debts, including mortgage, they should be devoting no more than $2,661.72 a month to these debts. Mortgage lenders must be using some kind of sorcery to get buyers into these expensive homes. To afford one of these homes using traditional guidelines, a household would need to gross $11,280.24 per month or $135,362.88 per year, but the median household in Sacramento County is grossing $7,393.67 or $88,724.00, and that typically means two to four people in the home are working and contributing to the mortgage. #RandolphHarris 23 of 30
Home prices in Sacramento County are rivaling the Bay Area. Historically, homes in the Bay Area have been more expensive because they have higher-paying jobs, a larger population, and the Bay Area is a tourist destination. Contributing to the housing affordability crisis is Gavin Newsom, who has been lavishing illegal immigrants with taxpayer-funded resources and cash aid. The State of California has a budget deficit of $12 billion because Governor Gavin Newsom granted 700,000 illegal immigrants free health care, which costs taxpayers $3 billion annually. At the same time, Newsom cut vital programs for veterans, school children, the disabled, and the homeless. Additionally, Newsom seems to be uneducated about economics and is proposing to fast-track his plan to build a $20 billion water tunnel beneath the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, which would eliminate environmental reviews and limit avenues for legal challenges. Gavin Newsom only cares about the environment when his policies allow him to raise taxes and restrict freedoms. To further highlight this illustration, Mexico has been causing one of America’s worst environmental disasters. Fifty million gallons a day of industrial chemicals, untreated sewage, and trash flow from Tijuana, Mexico, into southern San Diego County daily. This toxic waste has been turning up on Imperial Beach and is causing the miles of white sands to become polluted and the ocean breeze to smell of poop, which has been sickening residents and wildlife and costing San Diego millions in the form of lost tourism and health problems. The problem has been going on for more than a century. #RandolphHarris 24 of 30
However, Mexico’s pollution of California has become a severe public health crisis as the population of Tijuana has drastically increased in recent years, and the waste treatment plants are no longer usable. Some of the beaches in San Diego have been closed for more than three years, and evidence suggests that even breathing the air may be harmful, as toxic particles in the water can become airborne. Yet, even though Gavin Newsom has been governor for six years, he has not rushed into action to stop this very preventable environmental disaster. Why? Because he is not getting kickbacks from China and Mexico, not being gifted mansions and cars, and he cannot tax the struggling California taxpayers to clean up this mess. Simply, it is not profitable for him. Gavin Newsom has been a total tyrant with no regard for taxpayers and no mind for business, and he should be impeached as soon as possible. He has criminalized poverty, increased taxes, increased taxes on gas, and insurance rates so high that people are struggling to survive. In addition to Gavin Newsom’s increased gas prices starting on 1 July 2025, the war between Iran and Israel is going to further exacerbate the prices of gas and cause more inflation and economic hardship for people in California. While everyone is making war over America and who belongs here and who she belongs to, so many people forget about the people who are Indigenous to this land. Open borders have allowed hundreds of thousands of cartel operatives to infiltrate reservations across the United States of America and use the isolated lands as havens to traffic fentanyl pills and other drugs into the country without protection from federal authorities. #RandolphHarris 25 of 30
Drug cartels have been threatening the health and safety of Native American communities. The trafficking of dangerous and illegal drugs into their territories is leading to a second genocide. The overdose rate for Indigenous people is 42 percent higher than the national average. A recent bust on Montana’s Blackfeet Nation’s Tribal Reservation resulted in the seizure of more than 700,000 fentanyl pills, which was the largest bust in Montana history. Recently, the Blackfeet Nation had to declare a state of emergency after facing 17 overdoses in just one week. There are only 6.8 million Native Americans left in the world, which is 2 percent of the American population. We should be doing more to protect these proud and honorable people; they should not want for anything. People rush and give away resources to illegal immigrants, but totally disregard the Indigenous people of this land, as their race silently fades away into extinction. We must secure our borders and increase federal funding to Native American tribes so we can save this precious population. Meanwhile, Gavin Newsom has given billions of taxpayer dollars away to illegal immigrants and protected them from law enforcement, while arresting law-abiding Americans because they cannot afford to pay rent or mortgage, and the homeless shelters are unsafe, overcrowded, and have restrictions on who is allowed inside. He has also totally ignored the cartel problems on American lands. Clean air, water, land, and preserving our heritage are extremely important. #RandolphHarris 26 of 30
We cannot just allow criminals to kill off the people who are native to this land and do nothing about it. Wars have been started over governments that tax citizens without representation. Taxation without representation is what led to the American Revolution. If Gavin Newsom is not stopped, next he will euthanize the poor and sterilize the disabled. Gavin Newsom has wars and fires breaking out on the streets, but goes out of his way to arrest people who have no place to live. This monster is unfit to be governor and must never be allowed to be President of America! Stop Gavin Newsom now! Save California and impeach this unreasonable man. Meanwhile, with President Trump, we are seeing crime rates sharply decrease. President Trump just signed the “HALT Fentanyl Act” into law, which permanently classifies the narcotic as a “Schedule I drug” under the “Controlled Substances Act.” Also, President Trump recently secured $10 trillion in investments for the United States of America. Additionally, in May of 2025, the United States of America collected a record $100 billion in tariff revenue, and that number will increase to $300 billion by the end of 2025. Also, President Trump has just sealed a $550 billion deal with Japan. This means Japan will invest $550 billion in the United States of America. Furthermore, President Trump has been nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize for making Iran and Israel cease fire. As you can see, President Trump is creating solutions and remediating problems to protect America and the American people, while Governor of California, Gavin Newsom, is making life hard on American citizens and causing economic hardship, and totally ignoring Mexico’s polluting beaches in San Diego. If elected president for an unprecedented third term, to make housing more affordable and to offset the cost of homeowners’ insurance and auto insurance, President Trump plans to abolish property taxes. #RandolphHarris 27 of 30
Much like the land crisis in Las Vegas, we could also run out of land to farm and will not be able to grow or cultivate our own food. We can protect American farmland and support American farmers by buying American made beef, poultry, dairy, and produce. Also, country of origin labeling is very important so Americans can know where their food is coming from and can support American farmers and ranchers. As money flows, it influences further investment. Save the land that sustains us by protecting American farmland. Once the land is built on, we lose it forever. And in the future, there may be food wars. Also, to ensure that we have farmland and buildable land for future use, we need to start limiting the number of people allowed to immigrate to America. Perhaps with the immigrants we do allow into America, there needs to be a diversity program to make sure we have a population that equally represents all races of people. If Americans continue to spend money on American products, then more need to be made to keep up the inventory. When investors notice these goods are selling, it gives them the confidence to pour more money into that local business. It shows that people want these goods made in America and pressures investors to keep these goods and services in America. The jobs stay here, the business stays in America, wages naturally increase, and more money is invested to keep up with demand. This reduces the burden on the taxpayer. When you support American businesses, that money stays in our economy and can help to reduce the national debt. The government creates debt by borrowing from businesses in the private sector or from foreign countries. It also increases the national debt by spending more than it gains in tax revenue in a fiscal year. #RandolphHarris 28 of 30
When people shop locally, more tax money stays in the economy and goes to the government. This way, it keeps more money in our national economy and keeps more jobs located in America which also sends more taxes to the government, which can again help to reduce the national debt. When you buy foreign goods, these companies usually have lighter tax loads or exemptions, meaning less money for the national debt, plus you are helping to strengthen these foreign nations by sending more money overseas. Buying American-made products is also better for the environment and helps to reduce the carbon footprint because these products do not have to travel nearly as far. Furthermore, American companies and manufacturers are held to much higher standards on pollution. American companies must be more careful about air, land, and water pollution and have proper ways to dispose of waste. Moreover, please remember to respect law and order and treat your elders with the utmost dignity and kindness possible. And take your education seriously so that you will be successful in life and make your family proud. It is inborn in the human mind to wish to know. If this begins with the endless surface questions of a child’s curiosity, if it continues into deeper questions of a scientist’s probing investigation, it cannot and does not stop there. For the higher part of the mind will eventually come into unfoldment, that union of abstract reflective thought with mystical intuition, which is true intelligence, which needs and sees a view of the whole of things. And so, the knowing faculty enters the realm of philosophy. #RandolphHarris 29 of 30
As you can see, President Donald Trump and his pledge to “Make America Great Again” is exactly what America needs to save the country and the American people. And yes, diversity is important, so you can see why it is also important to preserve blonde hair and blue eyes, as the people with these characteristics are becoming a minority in America. We must think before we can understand the soul’s existence; we must understand before we can realize it. The earliest beginnings of thought, as apart from instinct, when it was itself still but a lurking tendency, belong far back in primeval time. The human intellect as we find it today, so rich and developed an instrument for the consciousness of the ego, did not arrive at this fulness without a series of graduated stages. We have had plenty of scientific thinking, business thinking, and political thinking long enough, but we have had very little inspired thinking. That is the world’s need. The intellect is cradled in selfishness but runs the evolutionary track into reason, where it will one day finish at the winning-post of selflessness. As a reminder, parents, please teach your children to love America and be patriotic citizens, and to buy goods and services made in America. It is also important to respect law and order and treat your elders with respect. Also, to make sure they have all the resources required, please donate to the Sacramento Fire Department to help improve our national security. “Oh, thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand between their loved home and the war’s desolation! Blest with victory and peace, may the heav’n-rescued land Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation! Then conquer we must, when our cause is just, and this be our motto: ‘In God is our trust.’ And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.” #RandolphHarris 30 of 30
President Donald J. Trump is keeping his promise to secure our borders and make America safe again. In July, Border Patrol reported just 4,399 apprehensions along our southern border—a new monthly record. That is an average of only 141 per day across nearly 2,000 miles. For the third month in a row, not a single illegal immigrant has been released into the United States. This is not just progress—it is a total reversal. Under the last administration, more than 300,000 illegal immigrants attempted to cross the border in a single month. The results speak for themselves. For the first time in at least five decades, the United States is on track to see negative net migration. Stopping illegal immigrants from entering our communities creates safer neighborhoods, protects taxpayer resources, and ensures more jobs and opportunities for American citizens. After 4 years of record-breaking illegal entries, this is the turnaround our Nation needs. President Trump will never stop fighting to end this invasion once and for all. He is working every day to secure our borders and restore the rule of law. Illegal immigrants who commit heinous crimes are being deported, loopholes are being closed, and sanctuary policies are being dismantled for good. Under the Trump Administration, America is safer and stronger than ever before. To learn more, visit www.WhiteHouse.gov.
According to locals, over a century ago, the land that houses The Winchester Mansion had been vacant forever. Then, sometime in the early afternoon of Saturday, March 13, 1886, Sheriff Angel Camilio began getting reports that a massive castle made of wood had suddenly appeared. Gables rose, towers peaked into the sky as the mansion mushroomed into a labyrinth overnight. The house’s sudden manifestation had been both disconcerting and fascinating to the community. Some felt dark curses flowing from the estate, and things moving around in the darkness. Others saw a fairytale castle glimmering in the spring sunlight. Perhaps this is why there are no records of construction, no blueprints, and no permits filed with the county. Come and see what secrets this so-called, “Winchester Mystery House” may hold.
Experience an unforgettable journey back to the time of kings and queens with this entry ticket for The Winchester Mansion in Santa Clara, California, which was the residence of Heiress Sarah L. Winchester. Take advantage of this fascinating experience. After the tour, there will be time to enjoy the mansion’s splendor at your own pace. You might even discover secret passages.
Please come and enjoy a delicious meal at Sarah’s Café, stroll along the paths of the beautiful Victorian gardens, which once spanned 740 acres, all the way down to Stevens Creek Boulevard; wander through the miles of hallways in the world’s most mysterious mansion.
For further information about tours, including group tours, weddings, school events, birthday party packages, facility rentals, and special events please visit the website: https://winchestermysteryhouse.com/
Please visit the online giftshop, and purchase a gift for friends and relatives as well as a special memento of The Winchester Mystery House. A variety of souvenirs and gifts are available for purchase. https://shopwinchestermysteryhouse.com/
Harris Plumbing, Heating, Air, & Electric has been in business for 30 years. How many businesses can say that? We take pride in everything we do – no matter how big or small the service call might be. We’re here to help your home be as safe and comfortable as possible for you and your family. We take that responsibility very seriously as a company. Harris will ensure you have the information you need to decide what to do next, whatever your home is facing. We’ll perform a diagnosis and detail what issues are present before starting any work. This gives you a personalized quote and service plan specific to your home’s needs, not some random quote based on the best guess. The only way we can do our best work is to make sure we handle the issues at hand. https://www.callharrisnow.com/about-us/
Ah, yes. The BMW 3 Series. Happy 50th birthday to the most iconic BMW ever! It is really hard to decide on a BMW model. However, the 3 series is a favorite of everyone. All the upper-class suburban families had one in the 1980s and 1990s; everyone from teenagers and housewives to executives and diplomats. Now that they are larger in size, but still sporty and luxurious, the audience has grown tremendously. These are very stylish and reliable cars, which is why BMW continues to dominate the luxury car space.
With its top ranking in Consumer Reports’ Auto Brand Report Card and consistent market share growth, BMW has demonstrated its ability to produce high-performing, reliable vehicles that meet consumer demands. BMW stands out due to its focus on driving dynamics and engineering excellence. While other luxury brands prioritize comfort and opulence, BMW is known for creating cars that are fun to drive and offer a unique connection between the driver and the machine. This is why BMW is known as the Ultimate Driving Machine. https://www.brianharrisbmw.com/
Randolph Harris San Francisco Taxation & Mergers
Building strong and lasting client relationships is crucial for a successful legal career. Many lawyers mistakenly believe that mastering legal skills alone ensures success, but law is fundamentally a service industry—our job is to solve problems through the time we sell. To build long-term relationships, attorneys must focus on three core elements: knowing their clients, understanding how their legal issues fit into a larger context, and consistently delivering exceptional service.
Randy advises clients with regard to business transition, taxable and tax deferred mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures, restructuring, integrated tax planning, federal and state tax controversy resolution, and real estate transactions. Trust is the cornerstone of any client relationship. Ultimately, my clients feel they are in capable hands with someone who genuinely understands their problems and goals. https://www.jmbm.com/l-randolph-harris.html
Millhaven Homes luxury construction is our specialty. We are second to none in our ability to sacred places of hidden wishes that our clients desire. We believe that building your custom home or undertaking a major remodeling project should be an exciting and rewarding experience. Through our fully transparent process, you remain in control of every detail, from custom design selections to sustainable building materials and smart home technology integration.
Millhaven Homes offers Design + Build services for luxury homes in various styles and locations in Utah. See their portfolio of projects, services, development, and contact information. https://millhavenhomes.com/portfolio/
Be a Good Girl, and When You are Tempted, Pray!
We are at the dawn of an American gratitude renaissance. Unprecedented interest in Christianity, American cars, American companies, American educational institutes, and the American Dream is so welcome because this is what gives us the strength and determination to make life better for ourselves and countless others around the world. The rebirth of Americana has caused many to express a feeling of gratitude. Gratitude is not just a nice sentiment, a warm cozy feeling, or an expression of happiness. Gratitude is the truest approach to life. When we express gratitude, we understand that it is a feeling of appreciation and thankfulness for the blessings or benefits we have received. As we cultivate a grateful attitude, we are more likely to be happy and spiritually strong. We should regularly express our gratitude to God for the blessings He gives us and to others for the kind acts they do for us. The Lord has promised, “He who receive all things with thankfulness shall be made glorious.” Gratitude is an uplifting, exalting attitude. People are generally happier when they have gratitude in their hearts. We cannot be bitter, resentful, or mean-spirited when we are grateful. The effects of showing gratitude are sustainable and quantifiable, and the practice of gratitude is readily accessible, available to everyone. You are never too old, too young, too rich, too poor, to live gratefully. #RandolphHarris 1 of 35
We should be thankful for the wonderful blessings that are ours and for the tremendous opportunities we have. We can be thankful to our parents, family, friends, and teachers. We should express appreciation to everyone who has assisted us in any way. Gratitude is not information, but enthusiasm and commitment. The enlightenment that can ignite a trend toward global gratitude is the seal of men and women who discover that grateful living makes life meaning and fulfilling. So, living in gratitude is living in touch. It is the most accurate and honest approach to life. Yet the grateful state of mind, as accessible as it is, can be fleeting, difficult to sustain over the long-term unless it is practiced with attention and intention. We should thank our Heavenly Fathers for His goodness to us by acknowledging His hand in all things, thanking Him for all that He gives us, keeping His commandments, and serving others. We should especially thank God for His Beloved Son, Jesus Christ, for the Savior’s great example, for His teachings, for His outreaching hand to lift and help, and for His infinite Atonement. As we have seen, Human nature is characterized by polarities. Humans are active and passive, weak but strong, independent yet dependent, affectionate yet aggressive. They are both dominate with great authority and marginalized with little recognition. We would like to introduce two more general terms—conservative and liberal—chosen because of their universal usage and because of their non-moralistic connotations. #RandolphHarris 2 of 35
The two-party system of politics in America is a good example of the importance of giving credence to opposing viewpoints. In Great Britain, the part out of power is referred to as “Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition.” In every one of us there is a similar two-party system, each with its loyal opposition, sometimes in power and sometimes not. We use the terms liberal and conservative to describe these several “me’s” because they imply the truth, which is that both are parts of a potential unity. Too often people would repress or destroy one side or the other of this polarity. The truth is that ultimate mental health requires retaining, valuing, and living with both sides of ourselves. The two sides of our psychological nature may be thought of as parallel to the two sides of our physical nature. We have right and left eyes, right and left ears, and so on. Recently a patient came in, complaining that her husband was unfaithful. She was afraid that he was about to leave her, and she wanted to save their marriage. As she talked, it became obvious that the left side of her body was paralyzed. She made every gesture with her right hand, while her left hand lay limply in her lap. She had been referred, she said, by her family physician, who could find no physical ailment to explain her disability. This woman, who for twenty years had been a kindergarten teacher, has been quite conventional and very conservative. It became quite clear that her entire orientation was “right.” She always did the “right thing,” said the “right thing,” and never expressed a “different” point of view. In effect, she was dull and lifeless. #RandolphHarris 3 of 35
It is said that an art student can learn to “seduce” his or her right hand to more expressiveness by drawing with the left. Use of the left hand seems to release the right hand to greater freedom. Therapy for this woman, then, is to help impart new life to her thinking and, hence, her body, which had become as rigid, stiff, and unresponsive as her thinking. When she is free to express both sides of her nature, which we describe as her conservative and liberal sides, she will be more interesting to her husband and to herself. This is not to say that conservatism means complete control and liberalism means complete license. Rather, when we use both eyes and both ears, we see and hear in depth. The actualizing person dances between the right and left complementary polarities, and in this process, there is a natural restraint, rather than an artificial one, as demonstrated by our school teacher. Suppose we regard our organism as a dynamic, ever-changing unit, yet bipolar in its potential for expression. A person in balance is one whose see-saw is moving continually in dynamic interplay between his or her conservative and liberal potentials. One side goes up, and that side comes into awareness; the needs of that ide of nature dominate. Circumstances change, and the other end of the personal see-saw goes up. If we continue to live by the law of expression (expressing what we feel by behavior or verbal expression) then we will continue to be in balance. Neither the conservative nor the liberal tendencies will dominate or become fixed. #RandolphHarris 4 of 35
One of the basic needs of every person is to take responsibility for his or her own balance. Now here is the ethic we want to suggest: Responsibility in this sense means accepting responsibility for oneself and one’s own natural rhythmic balance, not depending on anyone else to establish controls for behavior. We all have liberal and conservative sides. The conservative must accept her or his liberal side just as the liberal must accept her or his conservative side. In the open expression of both sides of one’s nature, the individual has a natural means by which to live life with ease, combining challenge with a minimum of artificial controls imposed from the outside. External systems of morality may be seen as blankets of artificial control requiring to keep immature people from behaving unwisely. As parents and spouses, we feel that we need to impose such systems on our children and our mates because, usually, we really do not trust our own balance and, therefore, cannot trust the balance of those we love. An internal system of bipolar expression is, of course, the alternative to the external system of control. This has been described as a system of organismic self-regulation. Instead of simply controlling or braking one’s natural expression, one focuses instead on an understanding of one’s potentialities. I have still to see a case of neurosis which is not due to over-control, and to its aggravation by the nagging of friends to “pull yourself together.” #RandolphHarris 5 of 35
The overcalled person behaves exactly like a car which has many controls. The brakes are only one of them. The experienced driver understands how to handle all the controls, the more efficiently will the car function. However, if her drives with the brakes permanently on, the wear and tear on the brakes and engine will be tremendous…and sooner or later there will be breakdown. The overcontrolled person experiences this same type of pressure as the inexperienced driver. He knows no other means of control than the brakes—than repressions. Because of increased stress and anxiety, a person may experience avoidance in many different specific matters. Thus, a person may avoid speaking in public, participating in sports, telephoning. If somebody else is around to do the telephoning, to decide, or to deal with the landlord, he will leave it to them. In these specific activities, he is most likely to be aware of shirking something, while in the larger areas the issue is often more befogged by an attitude of “I cannot” or “I do not care.” Examining these avoidances, we see in operation two principles which determine their character. One is, briefly, safety through restricting one’s life. It is safer to renounce, to withdraw, or to resign than to take the risk of exposing one’s pride to injury. Perhaps nothing demonstrates so impressively the overwhelming importance of the pride in many instances as the willingness, for its benefit, to restrict one’s life to an often-cramping degree. #RandolphHarris 6 of 35
The other principle is: It is safer not to try than to fail. This latter maxim gives the avoidance the stamp of finality because it deprives the person of the chance of gradually overcoming whatever difficulties he has. It is even unrealistic based on the neurotic’s premises, for he has not only to pay the price of unduly restricting his life but in the long run his very recoiling damages his pride more deeply. However, of course he does not think in long-rage terms. He is concerned with the immediate danger of trial and error. If he does not try at all, it does not reflect on him. He can find an alibi of some sort. If he had not tried, at least in his own mind, he can have the comforting thought that he could have passed the examination, secured a better job, won a woman. Often it is more fantastic: “If I applied myself to composing or writing, I would be greater than Chopin or Balzac. In many instances, the avoidances extend to reaching out in our feelings for anything desirable: in short, they may encompass our wishes. I mentioned people who feel it a disgraceful defeat not to attain something they wish to have. The mere wishing then entails too great a risk. Such a check on wishes, however, means putting a lid on out aliveness. Sometimes people also must avoid any thought that would hurt their pride. The most significant avoidance on this score is shunning thoughts about death, because the idea of having to get older and having to die like any other mortal is unbearable. Oscar Wilde’s Dorian Gray is an artistic presentation of the pride in eternal youth. #RandolphHarris 7 of 35
As psychoanalysis came into its own, it pushed aside much valuable work that had been done previously. Thus, free association replaced the centuries-long tradition of introspection. Free association was concerned with the contents of the mind, leaving it to the psychoanalyst to figure out from this how the mind worked. This could only be done when it did not work smoothy. If it works perfectly, there is no way to figure out how a closed machine (a “black box”) works. If it makes mistakes, or is induced to make a mistake by throwing a monkey wrench into it, only then can this be found out. Thus, free association is only as good as the psychopathology behind it: the switches, the intrusions, the slips, and the dreams. Introspection, on the other hand, takes the cover off the black box, and lets the Adult of the person peer into his own mind to see how it works: how he puts sentences together, which direction his images come from, and what voices direct his behavior. Almost everyone has said “to himself” at some time: “You should not have done that!” and he may even have noticed that he answers “himself”; “But I had to!” In this case, it is the Parent saying, “You should not have done that!” and the Adult or Child saying: “But I had to!” This exactly reproduces some actual dialogue of childhood. There are three “degrees” of such internal dialogue. In the first degree, the words run through Jeder’s head in a shadowy way, with no muscular movements, or at least none perceptible to the unaided eye or ear. In the second degree, he can feel his vocal muscles moving a little so that he whispers to himself inside his mouth; in particular, there are small abortive movements of the tongue. #RandolphHarris 8 of 35
In the third degree, he says the words out loud. The third degree may take over certain disturbance conditions so that he walks down the street talking to himself, and people turn their heads to watch and are likely to think he is suffering from psychosis. There is also a fourth degree, where one or other of the internal voices is heard as coming from outside the skull. This is usually the voice of the Parent (the voice of his father or mother) and these are hallucinations. His Child or may not answer the Parental voices, but in any case, they affect some aspects of his behavior. Because people who “talk to themselves” are thought to be suffering from psychosis, nearly everyone has an injunction against listening to the voices in his head. However, if the proper permission is given, this is a faculty which can be quickly recovered. Then, almost anyone can listen in on his own internal dialogues, and that is one of the best ways to find out the Parental precepts, the Parental pattern, and the script controls. A young woman, who was tempted by pleasures of the flesh, started to pray in her head so that she would be able to resist her boy friend’s seduction. She clearly heard herself directed by the Parental precept: “Be a good girl, and when you are tempted, pray.” A man got into a fight in a bar and was very careful to fight skillfully. He clearly heard his father’s voice saying: “Do not telegraph your punches!” which was part of his father’s pattern: “Here is how to fight in a bar.” He got into the fight because his mother’s voice said provocatively: “You are just like your father, some day you will get your teeth smashed in a bar fight.” At the critical moment, a stock-market speculator heard a demonic whisper telling him: “Do not sell, buy.” He abandoned his carefully planned campaign, and lost his entire capital—“Ha ha,” he said. #RandolphHarris 9 of 35
The Parental voce exerts the same kind of control as a ventriloquist. It takes charge of the person’s vocal apparatus, and he finds himself saying words which come from someone else. Unless his Adult steps in, he then follows the instruction given by this voice, so that his Child acts exactly like a ventriloquist’s dummy. This ability to suspend one’s own will, usually without realizing what has happened, and to let someone else take charge of the vocal muscles and the other muscles of the body, is what enables the script to take over at the appropriate time. The remedy for this is to listen to the voices in one’s head, and let the Adult decide whether to follow their instructions or not. In this way, the person frees himself from the control of the Parental ventriloquist, and becomes master of his own actions. To accomplish this, he requires two permissions which he can give himself, but which may be more effective coming from someone else, such as a therapist. 1. Permission to listen to his internal dialogue. 2. Permission not to follow the directive of his Parent. If he dares to disobey the Parental directives, there is some peril in this undertaking and he may require protection from someone else. Thus, if they act independently of their ventriloquist Parents, the one job of the therapist is to give his patients protection and try to be real people instead of dummies. It should be added that while Parental voices tell him what he can or cannot do, it is Child pictures that tell him what he wants to do. Desires are visual, and directives are auditory. #RandolphHarris 10 of 35
We Instruct Others on How We Wish Them to See Us. People attribute to the “others” the traits and qualities that they believe define them. Thus, the parents of a student who consulted me told him many times: “You are such a nice, obedient boy. You always do what you are told. Ever since you were a baby, you wanted to please us.” Under such a hypnotic and persuasive regime, he came to believe he was nice and obedient, eager to please others. Once he formed his concept of himself, his way of relating to others functioned as an invitation to them to view him as he had come to view himself. It seems strange, but persons’ self-concepts represent an answer to the question, “Who am I?” that their parents first answered. If they accept their answer, they transmit it to others who want to know who they are. They tell others who they are, in every relationship that they enter. If you and I are no more than carriers of a view of ourselves that our parents gave us as a kind of legacy, how odd. We define ourselves in terms provided by our parents, say, and confirm that definition by our actions, which invites and persuades others to believe we are that way. The student I saw in psychotherapy told me that for years his father had been saying, “You take after your uncle Billy. He started many things, but always gave up halfway through.” His father was defining him as essentially a failure, and he believed that was how he was. He tried to persuade me that he was, essentially, a failure, and there was little anyone could do about it. #RandolphHarris 11 of 35
Of course, I refused to see him that way. Instead, I attributed strength to him and the capacity to overcome self-doubt and the difficulties of study. The student did change his concept of himself under this continuous “invitation” to change it. After having had competence attributed to him, the student not only changed his self-concept, but invited others including his father, to change their views of him. This cycle of having one’s identity defined by others, believing it, and then persuading others to view oneself in the way say is continuous throughout life. It is the basis for personal growth, and it also can be the basis for endless confirmation of a sense of identity that is defeating. I open the Old Testament and encounter the sentence: “There is nothing new under the sun.” This judgment, made thousands of years ago, is echoed in memory by the more recent one of Jean de la Bruyere: “Everything has been said.” Yet books keep on pouring, like a flood, from the presses. So, old thoughts circulate in new minds. Most people look to the West for living representatives of this knowledge and to ancient or medieval literature for written records of it. They fall into the faith that the distant is better, and the dead are wiser. Is he to remain the prisoner of his own past thinking or is he free himself from it? Is he to remain faithful to everything he once believed even after he has found it to be no longer true or only partly true? Has long habit so committed him to certain ideas that he can no longer escape into better and larger ones? #RandolphHarris 12 of 35
These people pulled down the blinds over their minds soon after reaching maturity, because they did not desire to see any horizon wider than the strict and rigid doctrines which they possessed. The independent-minded seeker will welcome truth from any quarter, any era, will be avid for whatever fragments of it he can find, and wherever he may find it. Why hide views which a wide experience and wider study have forced into supremacy? I respect what the past has bequeathed us but this must not be allowed to enchain us to them alone. He should take those old texts and render their ideas more intelligible to his own generation. If the work and discoveries or others are ignored, the search for the spiritual truth and the spiritual self cannot be economically done, in terms of energy and time. So, the records left by past men and the experiences of present ones are worth our study. They give it a spiral pattern; it moves around through them, turns, and climbs higher. When Herzen, in making his apology for the nihilist movement—only to the extent, it is true, that he sees in it a still greater emancipation from ready-made ideas—writes: “The annihilation of the past is the procreation of the future,” he is using the language of Bielinsky. Koteiarevsky, speaking of the so-called radicals of the period, defined them as apostles “who thought that the past must be completely renounced and the human personality must be constructed to quite another plan.” #RandolphHarris 13 of 35
Stirner’s claim reappears with the total rejection of history and the determination to construct the future, no longer regarding the historical spirit, but to coincide with the man-king. However, the man-king cannot rise himself to power unaided. He has need of others and therefore enters a nihilist contradiction which Pisarev, Bakunin, and Nechaiev will try to resolve by slightly extending the area of destruction and negation, to the point where terrorism finally kills the contradiction itself, in a simultaneous act of sacrifice and murder. The nihilism of the of the 1860’s began, apparently, with the most radical negation imaginable: the rejection of any action that was not purely egoistic. We know that the very term nihilism was invented by Turgeniev in his novel Fathers and Sons, whose hero, Bazarov, was an exact portrayal of this type of man. Pisarev, when he wrote a criticism of this book proclaimed that the nihilists recognized Bazarov as their model. “We have nothing,” said Bazarov, “to boast about but the sterile knowledge of understanding, up to a certain point, the sterility of what exists.” “Is that,” he asked, “what is called nihilism?” “Yes, that what is called nihilism.” Pisarev praises Brazarov’s attitude, which for the sake of clarity he defines as thus: “I am a stranger to the order of existing things, I have nothing to do with it.” Thus, the only value resides in rational egoism. #RandolphHarris 14 of 35
In denying everything that is not satisfaction of the self, Pisarev declares war on philosophy, on art, which he considers absurd, on erroneous ethics, on religion, and even on customs and on good manners. He constructs a theory of intellectual terrorism which makes one think of the present-day surrealists. Provocation is made into a doctrine, but on a level of which Raskolnikov provides the perfect example. At the height of this fine transport, Pisarev askes himself, without even laughing, whether he is justified in killing his own mother and answers: And why not, if I want to do so, and if I find it useful?” From that point on, it is surprising not to find the nihilists engaged in making a fortune or acquiring a title or in cynically taking advantage of every opportunity that offers itself. It is true that there were nihilists to be found in advantageous positions on all levels of society. However, they did not construct a theory from their cynicism and preferred on all occasions to pay visible and quite inconsequential homage to virtue. As for those we are discussing, they contradicted themselves by the defiance they hurled in the face of society, which was the affirmation of a value. They called themselves materialists; their bedside book was Bucher’s Force and Matter. However, one of them confessed: “Every one of us was ready to go to the scaffold and to give his head for Moleschott and Darwin,” thus putting doctrine well ahead of matter. Doctrine, taken seriously to this degree, has an air of religion and fanaticism. #RandolphHarris 15 of 35
For Pisarev, Lamarck was a traitor because Darwin was right. Whoever in this intellectual sphere began talking about the immortality of the soul was immediately excommunicated. Vladimir Veidle is therefore right when he defines nihilism as rationalist obscurantism. Reason among the nihilists, strangely enough, annexed the prejudices of faith; choosing the most popularized forms of science-worship for their prototype of reason was not the least of the contradictions accepted by these individualists. They denied everything but the most debatable of values, the values of Flaubert’s Monsieur Homais. However, it was by choosing to make reason in its most limited aspect, into an act of faith that the nihilists provided their successors with a model. They believed in nothing but reason and self-interest. However, instead of skepticism, they chose to propagate a doctrine and became socialists. Therein lies their basic contradiction. Like all adolescent minds, they simultaneously experienced doubt and the need to believe. Their personal solution consists in endowing their negation with the intransigence and passion of faith. What, after all, is astonishing about that? Veidle quotes the scornful phrase used by Soloviev, the philosopher, in denouncing this contradiction: “Man is descended from monkeys, therefore let us love one another.” #RandolphHarris 16 of 36
Pisarev’s truth, however, is to be found in this dilemma. If man is the image of God, then it does not matter that he is deprived of human love; the day will come when he will be satiated with it. However, if he is a blind creature, wandering in the darkness of a cruel and circumscribed condition, he has need of his equals and of their ephemeral love. Therefore, keep in mind that gratitude is a Spirit-filled principle. It opens our minds to a universe permeated with the richness of a living God. Do you know of any place on the face of the Earth, where human beings have more liberty, and where they enjoy such high and glorious privileges as they do here, as American citizens” I bear witness that the people of American do enjoy grand and glorious privileges. Gratitude requires awareness and effort, not only to feel it but to express it. Frequently we are oblivious to the Lord’s hand. We murmur, complain, resist, criticize; so often we are not grateful. In the Book of Mormon, we learn that those who murmur do not know “the dealings of that God who created them.” The Lord counsels us not to murmur because it is then difficult for the Spirit to work with us. Gratitude is a Spirit-filled principle. It opens our minds to a universe permeated with the richness of a living God. Through it, we become spiritually aware of the wonder of the smallest things, which gladden our hearts with their messages of God’s love. This grateful awareness heightens our sensitivity to divine direction. #RandolphHarris 17 of 35
We are all grateful for the award-winning Sacramento Fire Department. Emergency scenes are where the rubber meets the road, and the results of safety culture pay off. After a high-stress emergency call, responders sometime claim that they really did not think about what to do or how to do it. They say they did not really think about the danger either—they just did what needed to be done, what they were trained to do. If we have spent our nonemergency time practicing a culture of safety, when the emergency does come, then safety is already second nature. Take running a chainsaw, for instance. If safety glasses are an afterthought at the station, you will not remember them at an emergency when stress levels are up. The best way to perform emergency scene duties safely is to not know how to perform them unsafely. Learning the aspects of personal accountability is a skill needed to develop a safety culture, as well as to grow as a person. Looking back on your best mentors, teachers, or leaders, you will see aspects of personal accountability. Likewise, if you ever worked for a great company, department, or division, your probably saw what organizational accountability looks like. Because these people and organizations are led by human decisions, even the best will trip up occasionally. Virtually, every time this happens, lack of accountability is at the root. If it happens, simply recognize it for what it is, pick yourself up, and take responsibility. If fire and emergency services are going to be truly accountable for health and safety, these attributes are vital. #RandolphHarris 18 of 35
When we think of line-of-duty death, an emergency situation is usually the first location that comes to mind. The dynamic changes that occur during an emergency incident put a constant stress on emergency responders. Additionally, the chance of injury or death is increased due to a genuine or perceived urgency in managing the incident. This feeling of compressed time creates additional stresses and forces quick decisions. Many times, the decisions are based on unknown factors and unknown dangers. The weakest link in the system is the human decision. In a documentary, author Joseph T. Hallinan claimed that humans make hundreds of mistakes every day. The brain is too “clogged up,” with attempting to decipher all the messages it’s receiving, especially when multitasking and considering options. Unfortunately, an emergency scene is a breeding ground for such mistakes. One effective way to maintain a safety culture on emergency scenes is to treat each job with a risk versus benefit analysis. Risk-benefit analysis is simply the weighing of the facts by determining the advantages and disadvantages of a certain activity. For risk-benefit analysis to be effective, all the possibilities must be considered. Unfortunately, creating a list of all the possibilities is time-consuming in the initial stages of an incident, and sometimes the list lacks all the information necessary. #RandolphHarris 19 of 36
Preincident plans allow the Sacramento Fire Department to create “boilerplate” lists when time is not an issue. Many they instead rely on their experience and training to complete risk-benefit analysis. Take, for instance, that the captain one is assigned to a heavy-rescue company stationed downtown when you receive a call for a motor vehicle crash on an interstate overpass that involves a tractor-trailer. While en route, dispatch updates the responding companies that the truck is hanging from the “high-bridge.” The responder knows the “high bridge” refers to the uppermost bridge of an area where two bridges cross the interstate below. The first-due engine company reports that they are stuck in traffic approaching the high bridge and that a black smoke column is around the bridges. They call for another alarm, with the best approach from the opposite direction. The responder decides the best route will take one under the crash on the second bride, where one can pass underneath and backtrack to the high bridge. As one arrives “under” the crash, the responder is the first fire apparatus close to the scene. The responder reports that there is a semi-truck on the high bridge with the tractor hanging off the edge 25 feet above the bridge he is on. There is also a fire above, but he cannot tell what is involved or how many people are trapped or injured. One can talk to the driver from his position and it is clear he is unhurt but ready to jump. He tells the responder that he is carrying an enclosed trailer with pallets of 5-gallon pails containing hydraulic oil. He has already removed his seat belt and is half out the window; he is cared his truck is going to blow up and fall. It is time for a risk-benefit analysis. #RandolphHarris 20 of 35
Fire and emergency responders of the Sacramento Fire Department have been completing risk-benefit analyses in their heads and on-the-fly for a long time. Unfortunately, the analysis is only as good as the person completing the assessment. Experience goes a long way to success, but it only comes with the expense of making mistakes. Mistakes while learning are okay when they do not cause damage, but the risk-benefit mistakes the Sacramento Fire Department is talking about here can kill someone. As stated earlier, everyday emergency scenes are not necessarily the ideal location to pull out a pad of paper and a pen to list all the hazards. Some emergency responders might believe that they are proficient at (mental) risk-benefit analysis and that the method is sufficient. However, that is not always the case, and this is something one learns with experience. “I always knew we were underpaid, but we never know how much until we saw the figures of what everybody else is making. In Sacramento the cost of living is high. There shouldn’t be that much disparity of pay, but there is. Pay and equipment. Sacramento is changing, and we are getting a lot more equipment. After my injury and a colleague’s injury, we had two lieutenants who died, and the fire department went out and purchased those personal alert devices which give a signal if you’re pinned. We never had them before. One of the lieutenants was blown down into a basement and burned, and a floor collapsed under the other one and he fell into the fire. I’m not saying it would have helped them, but it might have helped my other colleague and myself. #RandolphHarris 21 of 36
“There are little things that they’re buying now that they probably never would have bought years ago. It was a big fight with the unions over the air mask. They city wanted to stay with the old filter mask, and the union wanted the self-contained air mask. You have to have something like a union say to the city, ‘If you can’t afford to pay us the money, at least give us the tools and the proper equipment to do to job.’ But the city holds the salary down, and they hold the equipment down. You look at the firefighters from Placer County, I’m not trying to put them down, but these don’t get the fires that the people in Sacramento do. They have one-story ranch houses, and they’re running around with top-notch gear. It’s unreal. The chief of the fire department does the best he can for us, but from there on up nobody gives a care about the firemen. The mayor sees a fire on TV, and he’ll show up and say, ‘Oh, these firemen are great.’ We had a nine-alarm fire a little while ago. The manning and the equipment in the city is so low that we need more resources. The city is trying to save money here, and here it is as an expense. It’s the taxpayer who’s going to be hurt, and the fireman is breaking his back more.” First arriving companies set the groundwork for how well the incident will be controlled. This occurs primarily by picking a strategy. Realize that choosing an offensive strategy without sufficient personnel to reinforce that strategy could ultimately cause the operation to fail. If adequate personnel are not assembled when the strategic decision is made, consider holding the incident in check with a defensive strategy while preparing a plan and the necessary equipment until help arrives. #RandolphHarris 22 of 35
If you see a fire truck stopped in the street without the lights on, be very careful. Sometimes there is an emergency and you should not pass the fire truck. It might be a good idea to safely turn around and go another way because if you hit someone and they happen to die, you could be charged with manslaughter. Sometimes fire fighters are getting back into their vehicle and if you pass the apparatus, you may collide with a firefighter who is on foot. Also, be sure to look at their signals, sometimes emergency vehicles are in motions, albeit, slowly, and drivers try to pass them, and this could lead to a dangerous situation. Also, if you are in an intersection when you see an emergency vehicle, continue through the intersection. Drive to the right as soon as it is safe and stop. Obey any direction, order, or signal given by a law enforcement officer, or a firefighter. Even if they conflict with existing signs, signals, or laws, follow their orders. When their siren or flashing lights are on, it is against the law to follow within 300 feet of any fire engine, law enforcement vehicle, ambulance, or other emergency vehicle. If you drive to the scene of a fire, collision, or other disaster, you can be arrested. When you do this, you are getting in the way of firefighters, ambulance crews, or other rescue and emergency personnel. The concept of professional courage does not always mean being as tough as nails, either. It also suggests a willingness to listen to other peoples’ problems, to go to bat for them in a tough situation and it means knowing just how far they can go. It also means being willing to tell the boss when he or she is wrong. #RandolphHarris 23 of 35
California is the third most expensive state in the nation. A single person making an income above $100,000 is now consider low-income in five counties in California. This distinction now applies to individuals living in Santa Cruze, Santa Clara, San Mateo, San Francisco, and Marin counties. In 37 percent of counties, a family of four living on a six-figure income is now considered low-income. In fact, Governor Gavin Newsom of Democratic controlled California, brags about being the world’s “fifth largest economy,” but it also facing a $12 billion deficit, looking to cut $747 million for state worker’s pay, pushing to keep medical insurance for illegal immigrants, but wants to cut medical for anyone who has assets over $2,000 and the state has the largest homeless population in the nation. If they are all officially counted, California has approximately 4 million homeless people. The highest home prices in the nation, the highest taxes and the most unfriendly business regulations known to man. The average home price in California is nearly $1,000,000.00 USD, while the average salary is $96,036.00, meaning that most Californians cannot even afford to buy a home. California is having an affordability crisis. In 2025, many people in California saw their bills increase by an estimated $500 a month. This includes things like food, automobile insurance, homeowner’s insurance, electricity. In fact, more than 3 million people in California are facing household hardship, and more than 300,000 of them are facing eviction soon. This comes at a time when California is having a shortage of affordable housing. This is caused by nearly half a century’s old laws that discourage homes sales and encourage higher rents. #RandolphHarris 24 of 35
Meanwhile, China, where we are sending all our jobs and money has more than 50 ghost cities. Ghost cities are regions will housing has been overdeveloped to the point that these places are uninhabited. Because California is so hostile towards people and businesses, more than 360 companies have fled the state since 2020. Businesses like Chevron, SpaceX, Oracle, and Hewlett Packard are amongst the names on that list. Also, more than 500,000 people a year are abandoning California because it is too expensive to live in, Gavin Newsom has criminalized homelessness and actually started arresting people without homes, crime is out of control, and they are losing their jobs due to companies relocating. More than 100 companies have announced layoffs in California for 2025. Intel is cutting 15,000 jobs, PayPal 2,500 and Meta has terminated 4,000 employees. The California crisis created by Democrats is driving up home prices and mortgages and rents all over the nation and the world, making living unaffordable for all, and advocates say the crisis is far from over. Accordingly, California has more than 3.5 million illegal immigrants. Having the Southern American boarder open and not having American farmland protected, not producing beef, poultry, fish, fruit, produce and dairy in America, and without American goods and services being our number one manufactured and selling items, America has created a dangerous and significantly elevated risks to national security, national economic security, and national public health. Some people may believe that these claims are overstated, but by not routinely monitoring Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CEVs) or other security relevant alerts, such as end-of-life of machinery is how the Oroville Dam Crisis occurred in 2017. #RandolphHarris 25 of 35
Other crises that have occurred due to neglect of critical infrastructure is the 2025 Palisades fires because Southern California ran out of water, when they are located next to an ocean and they could have simply created desalinating plants to help with the water shortage. The water is so plentiful that it is currently eroding land and causing homes to fall into the sea. Desalination has been identified as one technology that will help solve California’s water scarcity problem. Desalination is a cost-effective technology that can transform an abundance of salt water into a reliable supply of potable, fresh water, which is a great way to fight climate change and have enough water for our region’s water requirements. Ras Al Khair, Saudi Arabia is producing 1,036,000 meters (273,682,192) per day of desalinated water. As we see gangs fighting with federal law enforcement, states and cities refusing to honor federal laws, and politicians showing an utter disregard for the Constitution of the United States of America, anarchy is becoming increasingly common. Anarchism is a cluster of doctrines and attitudes centered on the belief that government is both harmful and unnecessary. Derived from the Greek root anarchos meaning, “without authority,” anarchism, anarchist, and anarchy are used to express both approval and disapproval. The anarchist denies man-made laws, regard property as a means of tyranny, and believe that crimes is merely the product of property and authority. #RandolphHarris 26 of 35
However, the anarchist would argue that their denial of constitutions and governments leads not to “no justice” but to the real justice inherent in the free development of human sociality—the natural inclination, when unfettered by laws, to live according to the principles and practice of mutual aid. Anarch is also a form of treason. Treason, the crime of betraying a nation or a sovereign by acts considered dangerous to security. In English law, treason includes the levying of war against the government and the giving of aid and comfort to the monarch’s enemies. In the United States of America, treason was defined restrictively by the framers of the Constitution. Treason against the United States of America “shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them aid and comfort,” which is something that many politicians are currently guilty of. The American government should know all exploitable vulnerabilities and fix them prior to the situation becoming a crisis. Failure to take such mitigating actions is dangerous and significantly elevates risk to national security, national economic security, and national public health and safety. The American government must understand that significant time and resources must be invested in America. They must also encourage corporations to plan for both mitigating safety vulnerabilities in the short term and eliminating them in the long term. For instance, a company might begin by reaching out to the federal, state, or local government and requesting tax incentives to provide security to dangerous communities, to help the government repair bridges and potholes. #RandolphHarris 27 of 35
America needs an approach to eliminate safety vulnerabilities in American cities. There needs to be a road map by the end of 2025, outlining a prioritized approach to eliminate crisis situations in America. There is enough money to send aid to foreign nations, but the American government does not have enough money to care their infrastructure, provide adequate resources, nor end the affordable housing crisis. Nor is there enough money to fund other national critical functions (NCFs). These bad practices of putting America and Americans last is considered exceptionally risky, particularly to national security, national economic security, and national public health and safety. In 2024, Americans spent $100 billion on Japanese cars. As a result, the American automobile trade deficit with Japan was $39 billion. The maximum percentage of your gross income that you should earmark for a monthly mortgage payment is calculated at 28 percent, and no more than 36 percent of your gross income to all debts, including mortgage. If you take 28 percent of the median household income per home in Sacramento County, homeowners can only afford a mortgage of $2,070.23 per month. And if you take 36 percent of their gross income to all debts, including mortgage, they should be devoting no more than $2,661.72 a month to these debts. Mortgage lenders must be using some kind of sorcery to get buyers into these expensive homes. To afford one of these homes using traditional guidelines, a household would need to gross $11,280.24 per month or $135,362.88 per year, but the median household in Sacramento County is grossing $7,393.67 or $88,724.00 and that typically means two to four people in the home are working and contributing to the mortgage. #RandolphHarris 28 of 35
Home prices in Sacramento County are rivaling the Bay Area. Historically homes in the Bay Aera have been more expensive because they have higher paying jobs, a larger population, and the Bay Area is a tourist destination. Contributing to the housing affordability crisis is Gavin Newsom who has been lavishing illegal immigrants with taxpayer funded resources and cash aid. The State of California has a budget deficit of $12 billion because Governor Gavin Newsom Granted 700,000 illegal immigrants free health care, which cost taxpayers of $3 billion annually. At the same time, Newsom cut vital programs for veterans, school children, the disabled and the homeless. Additional, Newsom seems to uneducated about economics and is proposing to fast-track his plan to build a $20 billion water tunnel beneath the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, which would eliminate environmental reviews, and limit avenues for legal challenges. Gavin Newsom only cares about the environment when his policies allow him to raise taxes and restrict freedoms. To further highlight this illustration, Mexico has been causing one of America’s worst environmental disasters. Fifty million gallons a day of industrial chemicals, untreated sewage, and trash flow from Tijuana, Mexico, into southern San Diego County daily. This toxic waste has been turning up on Imperial Beach, and is causing the miles of white sands to become polluted and the ocean breeze to smell of poop, which has been sickening residents and wildlife and costing San Diego millions in the form of lost tourism and health problems. The problem has been going on for more than a century. #RandolphHarris 29 of 35
However, Mexico’s pollution of California has become a severe public health crisis as the population of Tijuana has drastically increased, in recent years, and the waste treatment plants have no longer usable. Some of the beaches in San Diego have been closed for more than three years, and evidence suggests that even breathing the air may be harmful, as toxic particles in the water can become airborne. Yet, even though Gavin Newsom has been governor for six years, he has not rushed into action to stop this very preventable environmental disaster. Why? Because he is not getting kickbacks from China and Mexico, not being gifted mansions and cars, and he cannot tax the struggling California taxpayers to clean up this mess. Simply, it is not profitable for him. Gavin Newsom has been a total tyrant with no regard for taxpayers and does not have a mind for business and should be impeached as soon as possible. He has criminalized poverty, increased taxes, increased tax on gas, and insurance rates so high that people are struggling to survive. In addition to Gavin Newsom’s increased gas prices starting 1 July 2025, the war between Iran and Israel is going to further exacerbate the prices of gas and cause more inflation and economic hardship for people in California. While everyone is making war over America and who belongs here and who she belongs to, so many people forget about the people who are Indigenous to this land. Open boarders have allowed hundreds of thousands of cartel operatives to infiltrate reservations across the United States of America, and use the isolated lands as havens to traffic fentanyl pills and other drugs into the country without protection from federal authorities. #RandolphHarris 30 of 35
Drug cartels have been threatening the health and safety of Native American communities. The trafficking of the dangerous and illegal drugs into their territories is leading to a second genocide. The overdose rate for Indigenous is 42 percent higher than the national average. A recent bust on Montana’s Blackfeet Nation’s Tribal Reservation resulted in the seizure of more than 700,000 fentanyl pills, which was the largest bust in Montana history. Recently, the Blackfeet Nation had to declare a state of emergency after facing 17 overdoses in just one week. There are only 6.8 million Native Americans left in the world, which is 2 percent of the American population. We should be doing more to protect these proud and honorable people; they should not want for anything. People rush and give away resources to illegal immigrants, but totally disregard the Indigenous people of this land, as their race silently fades away into extinction. We must secure our boarders and increase federal funding to Native America tribes so we can save this precious population. Meanwhile, Gavin Newsom has given billions of taxpayer dollars away to illegal immigrants and protected them from law enforcement, while arresting law abiding Americans because they cannot afford to pay rent or mortgage and the homeless shelters are unsafe, overcrowded and have restrictions on who is allowed inside. He also has totally ignored the cartel problems on American lands. Clean air, water, land and preserving our heritage extremely important. #RandolphHarris 31 of 35
We cannot just allow criminals to kill off the people who are native to this land and do nothing about it. Wars have been started over governments who tax citizens without representation. Taxation without representation is what led to the American Revolution. If Gavin Newsom is not stopped, next he will euthanize the poor and sterilize the disabled. Gavin Newsom has wars and fires breaking out on the streets, but goes out of his way to arrest people who have no place to live. This monster is unfit to be governor and must never be allowed to be President of America! Stop Gavin Newsom now! Save California and impeach this unreasonable man. Meanwhile, with President Trump, we are seeing crime rates sharply decrease. President Trump just signed the “HALT Fentanyl Act” into law, which permanently classifies the narcotic as a “Schedule I drug” under the “Controlled Substances Act.” Also, President Trump recently secured $10 trillion in investments for the United States of America. Additionally, in May of 2025, the United States of America collected a record $100 billion in tariff revenue, and that number will increase to $300 billion by the end of 2025. Also, President Trump has just sealed a $550 billion deal with Japan. This means Japan will invest $550 billion into the United States of America. Furthermore, President Trump has been nominated for a Noble Peace Prize for making Iran and Israel crease fire. As you can see, President Trump is creating solutions and remediating problems to protect America and the American people, while Governor of California, Gavin Newsom, is making life hard on American citizens and causing economic hardship and totally ignoring Mexico polluting beaches in San Diego. If elected president for an unprecedented third term, to make housing more affordable and to offset the cost of homeowner’s insurance and auto insurance, President Trump plans to abolish property taxes. #RandolphHarris 32 of 35
Much like the land crisis in Las Vegas, we could also run out of land to farm and will not be able to grow or cultivate our own food. We can protect American farmland and support American farmers by buying American made beef, poultry, dairy, and produce. Also, country of origin labeling is very important so Americans can know where their food is coming from and can support American farmers and ranchers. As money flows, it influences further investment. Save the land that sustains us by protecting American farmland. Once the land is built on, we lose it forever. And in the future, there may be food wars. Also, to ensure that we have farmland and buildable land for future use, we need to start limiting the number of people allowed to immigrant to America. Perhaps with the immigrants we do allow into America, there needs to be a diversity program to make sure we have a population that equally represents all races of people. If Americans continue to spend money on American products, then more need to be made to keep up the inventory. When investors notice these goods are selling, it gives them the confidence to pour more money into that local business. It shows that people want these goods made in America and pressures investors to keep these goods and services in America. The jobs stay here, the business stays in American, wages naturally increase, and more money is invested to keep up with demand. This reduces the burden on the taxpayer. When you support American businesses, that money stays in our economy and can help to reduce the national debt. The government creates debt by borrowing from businesses in the private sector or from foreign countries. It also increases the national debt by spending more than it gains in tax revenue in a fiscal year. #RandolphHarris 33 of 35
When people shop locally, more tax money stays in the economy and goes to the government. This way, it keeps more money in our national economy and keeps more jobs located in American which also sends more taxes to the government, which can again help to reduce the national debt. When you buy foreign goods, these companies usually have lighter tax loads or exemptions, meaning less money for the nation debt, plus you are helping to strengthen these foreign nations by send more money overseas. Buying American made products is also better for the environment and helps to reduce the carbon footprint because these products do not have to travel nearly as far. Furthermore, American companies and manufacturers are held to much higher standards on pollution. American companies must be more careful about air, land, and water pollution and have proper ways to dispose of waste. Moreover, please remember to respect law and order and treat your elders with the utmost dignity and kindness possible. And take your education seriously so that you will be successful in life and make your family proud. It is inborn in the human minds to wish to know. If this begins with the endless surface questions of a child’s curiosity, if it continues into deeper questions of a scientist’s probing investigation, it cannot and does not stop there. For the higher part of the mind will eventually come into unfoldment, that union of abstract reflective thought with mystical intuition, which is true intelligence, which needs and sees a view of the whole of things. And so, the knowing faculty enters the realm of philosophy. #RandolphHarris 34 of 35
As you can see, President Donald Trump and his pledge to “Make America Great Again,” is exactly what America needs to save the country and the American people. And yes, diversity is important, so you can see why it is also important to preserve blonde hair and blue eyes as the people with these characteristics are becoming a minority in America. We must think before we can understand the soul’s existence; we must understand before we can realize it. The earliest beginnings of thought, as apart from instinct, when it was itself still but a lurking tendency, belong far back in primeval time. The human intellect as we find it today, so rich and developed an instrument for the consciousness of the ego, did not arrived at this fulness without a series of graduated stages. We have had plenty of scientific thinking, business thinking, and political thinking long enough, but we have had very little inspired thinking. That is the world’s need. The intellect is cradled in selfishness but runs the evolutionary track into reason where it will one day finish at the winning-post of selflessness. As a reminder, parents, pleasure teach your children love America and be patriotic citizens and to buy goods and services made in America. It is also important to respect law and order and treat your elders with respect. Also, to make sure they have all the resources required, please donate to the Sacramento Fire Department to help improve our national security. “Oh, thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand between their loved home and the war’s desolation! Blest with victory and peace, may the heav’n-rescued land Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation! Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just, and this be our motto: ‘In God is our trust.’ And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.” #RandolphHarris 35 of 35
Park Haven
Rancho Cordova, CA | low $500,000.00s
Now Selling!
Welcome to Cresleigh Park Haven; the newest home community in Rancho Cordova.
Nestled in the heart of Rancho Cordova, Park Haven is a thoughtfully planned community offering 71 homes —perfect for those seeking comfort, convenience, and more time to enjoy life.
Located adjacent to the beloved Exploration Park, this neighborhood blends modern living with outdoor adventure right at your doorstep.
Choose from five beautifully crafted floor plans ranging from approximately 1,342 to 2,547 square feet, with options for 3 to 5 bedrooms, flexible living spaces, and open-concept layouts designed for today’s lifestyles.
Whether you’re a first-time buyer, growing family, or looking to simplify without sacrificing style, Park Haven offers a home that fits your needs.
Enjoy the ease of a maintenance-friendly yard, the charm of a close-knit community, and the everyday convenience of nearby parks, trails, shopping, and top-rated schools. At Park Haven, you’ll find more than just a house—you’ll find your place to thrive.
Cresleigh Park Haven is an inviting community of single-family detached residences that blend classic and contemporary styles.
Plenty of options are available to you to let you personalize your new home, including a main level guest suite with full bath, lower level expanded rec room, and lower-level bedroom and flex room and much more. https://cresleigh.com/park-haven/
Experience an unforgettable journey back to the time of kings and queens with this entry ticket for The Winchester Mansion in Santa Clara, California which was the residence of Heiress Sarah L. Winchester. Take advantage of this fascinating experience. After tour, there will be time enjoy the mansion’s splendor at your own pace. You might even discover secret passages. Or, perhaps you will see Mr. Hansen, Mrs. Winchester’s head foreman.
Although the actual mansion is much older, we wish to wish the Winchester Mansion a Happy 102 years of giving tours, and express our gratitude to our families, ancestors, spirits, and friends and to our many associates and clients, whose lives touched our lives and whose ideas helped us to grow. We would also like to thank our employees and care takers for putting the technical ideas of this estate into conversational style, and we are, of course, extremely thank to all of our patrons for helping to keep the legacy of the Winchester Family alive. The Winchester Mystery House is full of surprises. What was your favorite, “Oooh!” moment during your visit at the mansion? (And for those of you who still have to check it off your bucket list… we will hopefully see you soon.) https://winchestermysteryhouse.com/
Go beyond the velvet ropes with the woman who knows the mansion best 🔍
Join Janan Boehme – official house historian and curator – for a rare and intimate 2-hour tour through the Winchester Mystery House. With a small group, you’ll go past ropes and through locked doors, gaining a deeper understanding of the house’s construction and ongoing preservation efforts. All from the foremost expert on the property 📖
For the first hour and 20 minutes, your group will have the mansion entirely to yourselves… no other guests in sight.
This limited experience takes place select Saturday mornings in August. Tickets are on sale now, link in bio. https://winchestermysteryhouse.com/tours/
Harris Plumbing, Heating, Air, & Electric has been in business for 30 years. How many businesses can say that? We take pride in everything we do – no matter how big or small the service call might be. We’re here to help your home be as safe and comfortable as possible for you and your family. We take that responsibility very seriously as a company. Harris will ensure you have the information you need to decide what to do next, whatever your home is facing. We’ll perform a diagnosis and detail what issues are present before starting any work. This gives you a personalized quote and service plan specific to your home’s needs – not some random quote based on the best guess. The only way we can do our best work is to make sure we handle the issues at hand. https://www.callharrisnow.com/about-us/
Ah, yes. The BMW 3 Series. Happy 50th birthday to the most iconic BMW ever! It is really hard to decide on a BMW model. However, the 3 series is a favorite of everyone. All the upper-class suburban families had one in the 1980s and 1990s; everyone from teenagers and housewives to executives and diplomats. Now that they are larger in size, but still sporty and luxurious, the audience has grown tremendously. These are very stylish and reliable cars, which is why BMW continues to dominate the luxury car space.
With its top ranking in Consumer Reports’ Auto Brand Report Card and consistent market share growth, BMW has demonstrated its ability to produce high-performing, reliable vehicles that meet consumer demands. BMW stands out due to its focus on driving dynamics and engineering excellence. While other luxury brands prioritize comfort and opulence, BMW is known for creating cars that are fun to drive and offer a unique connection between the driver and the machine. This is why BMW is known as the Ultimate Driving Machine. https://www.brianharrisbmw.com/
Randolph Harris San Francisco Taxation & Mergers
Building strong and lasting client relationships is crucial for a successful legal career. Many lawyers mistakenly believe that mastering legal skills alone ensures success, but law is fundamentally a service industry—our job is to solve problems through the time we sell. To build long-term relationships, attorneys must focus on three core elements: knowing their clients, understanding how their legal issues fit into a larger context, and consistently delivering exceptional service.
Randy advises clients with regard to business transition, taxable and tax deferred mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures, restructuring, integrated tax planning, federal and state tax controversy resolution, and real estate transactions. Trust is the cornerstone of any client relationship. Ultimately, my clients feel they are in capable hands with someone who genuinely understands their problems and goals. https://www.jmbm.com/l-randolph-harris.html
What is Man that Thou Art Mindful of Him?
“Fear is pain arising from the anticipation of evil,” said Aristotle. However, fear, anxiety, and panic may also occur as reactions both to anticipated humiliations or to ones that have taken place. Anticipatory fears may concern examinations, public performances, social gatherings, or a date; in such instances, they are usually described as “stage fright.” If we use it metaphorically for any irrational fear preceding public or private performance, it is a good enough descriptive term. It covers situations in which we want either to make a good impression—as, for instance, on new relatives, or some important personage, or perhaps a headwaiter in a restaurant—or in which we start new activities, such as beginning a new job, starting to paint, going to a public speaking class. People who are afflicted with such fears often refer to them as fears of failure, disgrace, ridicule. This seems to be exactly what they are afraid of. Nevertheless, it is misleading to put it this way because it suggests a rational fear of a realistic failure. It leaves out the fact that what constitutes failure for a given person is subjective. It may encompass all that falls short of glory and perfection, and the anticipation of this possibility is precisely the essence of the milder forms of stage fright. A person is afraid of not performing as superbly as his exacting should demand, and therefore fears that his pride will be hurt. #RandolphHarris 1 of 36
There is a more pernicious form of stage fright which we will understand later; in it unconscious forces operate in a person, obstructing his capacities in the very act of performing. The stage fright then is a fear that through his own self-destructive tendencies he will be ridiculously awkward, forget his lines, “choke up,” and thus disgrace himself instead of being glorious and victorious. Another category of anticipatory fears does not concern the quality of a person’s performance but the prospect of having to do something that will hurt his special pride—such as asking for a raise or favor, making an application, or approaching a woman—because it entails the possibility of being rejected. If the latter means for him being humiliated, it may occur before pleasures of the flesh. Reactions of fear also may follow “insults.” Many people react with trembling, shaking, perspiration, or some other expression of fear to a lack of deference or to arrogant behavior on the part of others. These reactions are a mixture of rage and fear, the fear being in part a fear of one’s own violence. Similar reactions of fear may follow a feeling of shame without the latter being experienced as such. If he has been awkward, timid, or offensive, a person may suddenly feel overwhelmed by feeling of uncertainty, or even panic. #RandolphHarris 2 of 36
For instance, there is a case of a woman who drove up a mountain road, from the end of which a small path led up to the top. Though steep, the path would have been easy to walk had it not been muddy and slippery. Moreover, she was not properly dressed: she wore a new suit, high-heeled shoes, and had no stick. She tried nevertheless; but after having slipped several times, she gave it up. While resting, she saw further down a big dog barking furiously at passers-by and she became frightened of the dog. This feeling startled her, because she was usually not afraid of dogs and because she also realized that there was no sound reason to be afraid since there were people around to whom the dog obviously belonged. So, she started to think about this, and there occurred to her an incident from her adolescence which has caused her to be terribly ashamed. She recognized then that she was just as ashamed in the present situation on account of her “failure” to get to the mountain top. “But,” she said to herself, “it really would not have been sensible to force the issue.” Nest she thought, “But I should have been able to make it.” This gave her the clue: she recognized that it was a “stupid pride” as she put it, that was injured and make her feel helpless toward a possible attack. She was helplessly delivered to her own attacks on herself and had externalized the danger. Though not quite complete, the piece of self-analysis was effective: her fear disappeared. #RandolphHarris 3 of 36
We have a more immediate understanding of the reactions of rage than those of fear. They can sometimes be interlinked, which means we may not understand one without the other. Both occur because a hurt to our pride constitutes a terrifying danger. The reason for it lies in part in pride substituting for self-confidence. This, however, is not the whole answer. The neurotic lives between the two alternatives of pride and self-contempt. This is a most important connection to keep in mind for the understanding of many spells of anxiety. Though both the reaction of rage and that of fear may in our own mind have nothing to do with pride, they may nevertheless serve as road signs pointing in that direction. If even these secondary reactions do not appear as such, the whole issue is far more beclouded, for they in their turn may be repressed—for whatever reason. In this case, they may lead or contribute to certain symptomatic pictures, such as psychotic episodes, depressions, drinking, psychosomatic disorders. Or the need to sit tight on the emotions of anger and fear may become one of the factors conducive to a general flattening out of emotion. Not only ager and fear but all the feelings then tend to become less full and less sharp. Modern man is being led by a new path, by reason’s discoveries rather the revelation’s doctrines. Exaggerated respect for established views can soon lead into servitude to them. #RandolphHarris 4 of 36
“What is man that thou art mindful of him?” the psalmist asks. The question strikes to the heart of the human condition, for while the need to understand ourselves is all-important, the process of doing so is a complex one. One of the measures of the greatness of writers down through the ages is that they have given us some insight, some answers. In Resurrection, Leo Tolstoy includes this cogent paragraph: “One of the most widespread superstitions is that every man has his own special, definite qualities; that a man is kind, cruel, wise, stupid, energetic, apathetic, etcetera. Men are not like that…men are like rivers: the water is the same in each, and alike in all; but every river is narrow here, is more rapid there, here slower, there broader, now clear, now cold, now dull, now warm. It is the same with men. Every man carries in himself the germs of every human quality, and sometimes one manifest itself, sometimes another, and the man often becomes unlike himself, while remaining the same. We have suggested that persons can be separated into, or identified by, two broad categories of behavior: the manipulator and the actualizer. Yet, as Tolstoy tells us, each person has within herself or himself the potential of every human quality. What that means, then, is that while each person is a manipulator, he or she is (or can be) also an actualizer. The important fact seems to be that each of us has a continuing choice, each of us is free to choose one or the other. #RandolphHarris 5 of 36
Men dispute over truth and fail to agree and have done so for over five thousand years at least. Two very important qualities that characterize the actualizer are: freedom and awareness. By “freedom” we do not simply mean freedom from the control of others, but rather the freedom to actualize, to be our best, real selves. Freedom is the choice we make and the responsibility we take for a style of expression we use. Erich Fromm believes that we have “the freedom to create, to construct, to wonder, to venture.” He goes on to define freedom as the capacity to make a choice, to choose between alternatives. Yet, only when we are aware of our manipulations are we free to experience them and to derive from them actualizing behavior. Actualizers are free in the sense that, while they may play the game of life, they are aware that they are playing it. They play it “tongue in cheek,” Alan Watts says. They realize that they sometimes manipulate and at other times are manipulated. However, in both cases, they are aware of the manipulation. They do not try to change the manipulators themselves. Taking the responsibility to change another is, paradoxically, to be manipulated by that person. One may describe the other person as a manipulator, or to confront that person with his or her manipulation, but one need not take responsibility for him or herself. #RandolphHarris 6 of 36
Actualizers also realize that life need not be a serious game, but rather more akin to a dance. No one wins or loses in a dance; a dance is a process. Actualizers dance among all their complementary potentials. What is important is to enjoy the process of living rather than to achieve the ends of living. Since actualizing people appreciate doing for its own sake, they enjoy the process of getting someplace as much as the arriving. The actualizer does not take life with dead seriousness. Manipulators, on the other hand, see life as a competition, a rat race, something to be conquered. They take life so seriously that they are frequently candidates for nervous breakdowns. The educational institutions purvey information but only great souls can provide inspiration. We should not defend sound truths on unsound grounds nor should we defend unsound truths on sound grounds. It happens often that erroneous religious doctrines or false mystical teachings are defended by declaring that they pertain to a higher dimension and transcend the intellectual capacity to understand when in fact they also transgress against its capacity to reason correctly. It is his inalienable privilege to hold whatever opinion he pleases, as it is to hold whatever religious belief sustains him. However, it must be said that there is a vast difference between what he has inherited and accepted unchanged from society or family, and what he has arrived at by his own diligent, determined, original, and independent research. #RandolphHarris 7 of 36
Authority, the two kinds of experience—ordinary and mystic—logic, reason, intuition: each of these is to be regarded as a valuable help in eliminating error or doubt and ascertaining truth or fact, but none is to be regarded as the only means of doing so. There are very few right-thinking people for the simple reason that there are very few people who ever think at all. Oh yes, there are multitudes of people who shuffle ready-made thoughts in their brains, just as they would shuffle cards at a table—after they had been handed the cards! This freedom which must be given to the intellectual approach to and communication of truth forbids a narrow rigid conformity to any one of the known systems, whose comparative study is itself a beneficial consequence. It must apply to all of them, even to the terms and images used by the mind. In this kingdom of Truth I accept no authority save that of Reason. Rationalism must replace superstition. Reason must reign supreme. All arbitrary assumptions must be set free from authority. Inquiry must be fearless, full, and unbiased. We may accept the judgement of authority but only after we have examined the history and tested the worth of such authority, be it book or man, tradition, or institution. He is wary of falling into superstition, whether sanctified by religion’s faith in the intangible or by science’s incapacity for it. #RandolphHarris 8 of 36
Since these mahatmas disagree on certain points, it is obviously safe to follow them only on those points where they agree. He will study several different teachings, approving here, disapproving there, suspending judgement often, but committing himself to none. He can afford to wait for the most satisfactory one or to remain permanently free. Hegel believed that history in 1807, with the advent of Napoleon and of himself, had come to an end, and that affirmation was possible and nihilism conquered. The Phenomenology, the Christian Bible that was to have prophesied only the past, put a limit on time. In 1807 all sins were forgiven, and time has stopped. However, history has continued. Other wins, since then, have been hurled in the face of the world and have revived the scandal of the former crimes, which the German philosopher had already forgiven forever. The deification of Hegel by himself, after the deification of Napoleon, who would henceforth be innocent since he had succeeded in stabilizing, nihilism once more covered the face of the earth. Philosophy, even servile philosophy, has its Waterloos. However, nothing can discourage the appetite for divinity in the heart of man. Others have come and are still to come who, forgetting Waterloo, still claim to terminate history. #RandolphHarris 9 of 36
The divinity of man is still on the march, and will be worthy of adoration only at the end of time. This apocalypse must be promoted and, even though there is no God, at least a Church must be built. After all, history, which has not yet come to an end, allows us a glimpse of a perspective that might even be that of the Hegelian system but for the simple reason that it is provisionally dragged along, if not led, by the spiritual Hegel. When cholera carries off the philosopher of the Battle of Jena at the height of his glory, everything is, in fact, for what is to follow. They sky is empty; the earth delivered into the hands of power without principles. Those who have chosen to kill and those who have chosen to enslave will successively occupy the front of the stage, in the name of a form of rebellion which has been diverted from the path of truth. Before we try to rid ourselves of traditions, we ought to make sure that we have learnt their best lessons. He who is discontented with conventional doctrines and who disagrees with orthodox authorities must be willing to think in isolation. When he is unreceptive to new ideas unless they have first been authenticated by a certain teacher, cult, or book, he is trapped in a closed system. Judge every source, and the teaching which emanates from it, independently. #RandolphHarris 10 of 36
Make use of confirmatory or negatory comment to help you in the matter but do not follow any of them in utter blindness. For you cannot evade your personal responsibility. Whether you accept or reject a teaching, just because you accept or reject a particular institution or authority, your judgment will be there anyway hidden in your belief, only it will be there unwittingly. There is no need to depart from reason but only to illumine or inspire its working by intuitive revelation. However, where one is unable to provide this himself, then he ought to go to the great masters for it. Or, if they are unavailable through distance or inaccessible through death, consult their writings. Since all teachings are related to the stage of development, the time in history, and the area where they are given out, they must be regarded as relative. This means, in the end, that they are arguable and, even more, that they are personal opinions, speculations in someone’s mind. To study the imaginations and theories of limited minds upon this subject is to waste time and squander energy. Are we to reject every machine, ship, carriage, and alphabet merely because Lao Tzu recommends us to do so, and he is an illuminated soul? This shows up the childishness of setting up a single absolute authority to cover and govern every facet of living and thinking. #RandolphHarris 11 of 36
Keep in mind, however, that you are on the Lord’s errand. You are His agent, and you are authorized and commissioned to represent Him and to act on His behalf. As His agent, you are entitled to His help. You must ask yourself, “If He were here, what would the Savior say of my behavior?” You must then keep the gospel in mind and reflect on how to behave. The responsibility of being a child of God may cause some to feel inadequate or even somewhat fearful. The pathway is not difficult. The Lord has provided the way for every worthy Latter-day Saint to bring their behavior in alignment with God’s word. Our first and foremost responsibility is to live so that we can have the Holy Ghost as our guide and companion. The Holy Ghost will help you to know what to do. Your own testimony will grow, your conversion will be deepened, and you will be strengthened to meet the challenges of life. God gives man authority for his guidance and protection. Without it, there would be no order or freedom. God has commanded us to respect the authority of home, church, and community. “Honor they father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee,” reports Exodus 20.12. Parents must explain to their family that to honor means to obey, esteem, support, and sustain. To be engaged in opposing wrong affords, under the condition of our mental constitution, but a slender guarantee of being right. #RandolphHarris 12 of 36
The “slender guarantee,” rests, in large part, on exercising rigorous intellectual discipline in weighing alternatives and their possible effects. This holds true for moralists as well as politicians. “We believe that every man should be honored in his station, rulers and magistrates as such, being placed for the protection of the innocent and the punishment of the guilty; and that to the laws all men owe respect and deference, as without them peace and harmony would be supplanted by anarchy and terror; human laws being instituted for the express purpose of regulating our interests as individuals and nations, between man and man; and divine laws given of heaven, prescribing rules on spiritual concerns, for faith and worship, both to be answered by man to his Maker,” reports Doctrine and Covenants 134.6. In regards to pleasures of the flesh, if the church is to continue to make progress away from a negative philosophy, liberal religious leaders must have strong support. However, that support does not relieve them of the obligation to learn everything they can about the physiological and psychological realities of human pleasures of the flesh experience before they recommend changes in ethical standards, particularly those relating to commitment. Otherwise, the “new” morality, like the old, will amount to little more than empty pontification, an unreliable guide for the millions for emotional principles that they can trust in structing their relationships. #RandolphHarris 13 of 36
These are the men and women who constitute the overwhelming majority; when they are single, they know they will eventually marry, and when they get married, they do their best to stay married. However, any confidence they may have in achieving their goals cannot avoid being undermined by society in which most of what is published in books and magazines about pleasures of the flesh and marriage promotes the idea that, to paraphrase Ralph Waldo Emerson, a foolish fidelity is the hobgoblin of little minds. In such a climate of opinion, discussions of commitment are not likely to flourish. An entire vocabulary shrinks; among educated people who consider themselves sophisticated, such words as loyalty and faithfulness, honor, and trust, are avoided because somehow, they seem suitable only for sermons. Yet, all human association depends on these and other such values, and they cannot be ignored in relation to marriage. They certainly cannot be ignored by those men and women who, while welcoming their new freedom to enjoy pleasures of the flesh openly, hope to use that freedom not just for novelty in passionate relationships but to intensify an intimate relationship. As couples, the question they want answered is not what makes extramarital pleasures of the flesh right or wrong—but what makes it unnecessary. #RandolphHarris 14 of 36
Understanding the God-given gift of sexuality within the plan of happiness helps us understand the importance of the law of chastity. Our purpose in mortality is to become like our heavenly parents. Our divine understanding and use of intimacy are essential to that process. The law of chastity is an eternal law, given by our Heavenly Father to all His children in all ages. It remains in force and is as applicable today as it was in earlier times in history. As with other commandments, the law is given by Heavenly Father to bless and help His children achieve their divine potential. Obeying the law of chastity includes abstaining from all pleasures of the flesh before marriage and remaining completely faithful and loyal after marriage. Pleasures of the flesh are to be limited between a man and a woman. Heavenly Father intends that pleasures of the flesh in marriage be used to create children and to express love and strengthen the emotional, spiritual, and physical connections between husband and wife. In marriage, intimate passions should unite wife and husband together in trust, devotion, and consideration for each other. Pleasures of the flesh within marriage must respect the agency of both partners and should not be used to control or dominate. As with all of God’s commandments, the law of chastity is best understood within the context of Heavenly Father’s plans of salvation and exaltation. “Therefore, God gave unto them commandments, after having made known unto them the plan of redemption, that they should not do evil, the penalty thereof being a second death, which was an everlasting death as to things pertaining unto righteousness; for on such the plan of redemption could have no power, for the works of justice could not be destroyed, accord to the supreme goodness of God,” reports Alma 12.32. Obedience to the law of chastity will bring extraordinary blessings. #RandolphHarris 15 of 36
Another abstraction of great importance in the self-system is one’s own evaluation of one’s self. Among different researchers this may be called the self-appraisal, self-regard, or self-assessment. It may be expressed in some of the research data, as in the Tennessee Self-Concept Scale, as a single number. A score of 75 would be considered in the normal rage for that test. Or it may be expressed in a series of sub-scores, sometimes equivalent to the role concept. One might have a self-appraisal score in relationship to one’s primary group or family, one’s physical self, one’s social-self, and so on, or one may appraise oneself as a great writer and a terrible athlete. In many instances, when we speak of the self-concept, many persons mean simply the self-appraisal, the evaluation of self as adequate or not. Every human being seems to have a small fascist in his head. This is derived from the deepest layers of the personality (the Child in the Child). In civilized people, it is usually deeply buried beneath a platform of social ideals and training, but with proper permissions and directives, as history has shown repeatedly, it can be liberated into full bloom. In the less civilized portion of the population, it is openly exposed and nurtured, and awaits only proper opportunities for periodic expression. In both cases, it is a strong force in advancing the script; in the first case, secretly, subtly, and denied; in the second case, crudely or even proudly acknowledged. However, it may be said that whoever is not aware of this force in his personality has lost control. #RandolphHarris 16 of 36
He has not confronted himself, and cannot know where he is head. A good example of this occurred at a meeting of “conservationists,” where Conservo remarked how much he admired a certain tribe in Africa for taking such good care of their natural resources, “much better than we do.” A humanist countered, “Yes, but they have a terrible infant-mortality rate.” “Ho, ho,” said Conservo, and several other joined in. “That’s all to the good, now isn’t it? There are too many babies as it is.” A fascist may be defined as a person who has no respect for living tissue and regards it as his prey. This arrogant attitude is no doubt a relic of the prehistory of the human race, still surviving in the gusto of cannibalism and the joys of massacre. For carnivorous anthropoids on the hunt, ruthlessness meant efficiency and greed was motivated by hunger. However, as the human mind and brain evolved through natural selection, these qualities were not bred out. After they were no longer necessary for survival, they became detached from their original goal of brining down the dinner meat and degenerated into ends in themselves, luxuries often indulged in and enjoyed at the expense of other human beings. Ruthlessness developed into cruelty, and greed into exploitation and theft. Since the prey—the flesh itself, and especially human flesh—was largely replaced by more compliant stomach-filling commodities, it began to be used to satisfy psychological hungers. #RandolphHarris 17 of 36
The pleasures of torture replaced or preceded the pleasures of eating, and “He He” took over from “Yum Yum.” It became less important to kill him (or her) than to hear and watch him (or her) scream and grovel. This became the essence of fascism—a roving band seeking male or female prey to torment or deride—whose art lay in probing for the victim’s weakness. There are to by-products of the grovel, both advantageous to the aggressor. The biological effect is sexual pleasure and excitement, with the victim available to indulge even the most ingenious perversions, the favorite of record being anal rape. Torture brings about a peculiar intimacy between the torturer and the victim, and a profound insight into each other’s soils, an intimacy and insight which is often otherwise lacking in both their lives. The other by-product is a purely commercial one. The victim always has valuable which can yield a profit. For cannibals, it may be strength derived from magic organs such as the heart or the testicles, or even the ear. For advanced peoples, the fat can be used to make soap, and golden tooth fillings can be salvaged. These yields are exploited after the furor of personal encounter has subsided, and they are “melted down” into anonymity. Acceptance of a teaching ought to come from a deeper level than surface attraction only. There ought to be understanding also. The power of the mind needed to find truth is not commonly possessed. Those who lack it can benefit by the discoveries made by the sages. However, they ought to test them in their own life-experience to confirm whether they be true. #RandolphHarris 18 of 36
In the award-winning Sacramento Fire Department, the corporate culture for firefighters, paramedics, and EMTs is found, in part, in its customs and courtesies. What does corporate culture mean? It refers to a group of people experiencing a sense of belonging or a common bond. Among professionals in the Sacramento Fire Department, corporate culture tends to result from the following factors: A common bond of mission, shared customs and courtesies, and comradeship, a desire to remain autonomous, and a unique professional knowledge and expertise. The factors tend to lead to standard professional practices. Among them are: A desire to police the profession. The Sacramento Fire Department has specific doctrine to follow; it also has codes and its own justice system. Control of entry. You must pass the numerous tests used to place professionals into positions, and you must go through extensive training and education to receive your commission. A commission is to the officer what a license or certification is to a doctor, attorney, or accountant. The need to promote professional knowledge. The key focus is to develop leaders who can fulfill the mission. This requires continuous, extensive training and education. A desire to represent the profession. Every action taken by a member of the Sacramento Fire Department is a representative of the Sacramento Fire Department, down to the uniform he or she wears of the language he or she uses. #RandolphHarris 19 of 36
Members of the Sacramento Fire Department exhibit professionalism as a firefighter, EMT, or paramedic and as the respect the Constitution of the United States of America and their leadership; as they live the Creed of the Sacramento Fire Departments Values; and when they apply the elements of the Sacramento Fire Department’s Leadership Framework—to preserve life, protect property, and safeguard their city through fire prevention efforts, community relations and effective emergency response supported by a relentless commitment to professionalism and progressive leadership—in all of their daily activities, no matter their rank, their current job, or where they are assigned. While most professionals serve an individual client, the Sacramento Fire Department’s officers client is the nation—whether helping in disaster recovery, protecting national security, or defeating an enemy. The Sacramento Fire Department’s professional failure would be catastrophic. Officers of the Sacramento Fire Department—like their counterparts in the other departments—study, work, and train throughout their professional careers to ensure that the Sacramento Fire Department will not fail when duty calls. The Sacramento Fire Department is the cornerstone of the city of Sacramento. Without a strong fire department, the city of Sacramento lacks the basis of professionalism critical for national security. Being a Sacramento firefighter, EMT, or paramedic is not just another job. It is a proud profession with a rich history of serving the nation. Training and leader development of the Sacramento Fire Department are unrivaled in the world. The Sacramento Fire Department helps members become the kind of firefighter, paramedic, or EMT—to each a degree of professionalism—of which them, their family and their country can be proud of. #RandolphHarris 20 of 36
The Sacramento Fire Department improves their personal accountability by taking responsibility for the outcome of the emergency calls that they respond to. They have always taken the approach that they did not create the emergency and that buildings will continue to burn down and people will die despite their best efforts. These are true statements, and they have realized that they are not here to change the word. However, it is difficult to make an argument for personal accountability and then dismiss the most important component of their jobs as “out of our control.” It is true that deciding when personal accountability can be applied is directly tied to the amount of control they have over a specific situation. Fire and emergency services have three specific components of an emergency that they deal with that dictate how much control they have over them. They are uncontrollable, semicontrollable, and controllable components. Uncontrollable components–emergency calls are initially uncontrollable. If a man has a diabetic emergency while driving and ends up parking his Buick on a crowd at a street fair, there is not much they can do about that. That is why fire and emergency responders will never “prevent” themselves out of a job. #RandolphHarris 21 of 36
Semicontrollable Components—immediate response to the pedestrians stuck is partially controllable. There are various ways the Sacramento Fire Department’s actions prior to the incident could change the outcome. They have influenced getting enhanced 911 in the town. They have taught first aid classes and pushed to have automated external defibrillators (AEDs) at public events. They have met with the festival committee and ensured there were good maps for them and that fire lanes were kept open. They have worked in the past with the police who arrive on scene before them, and the police give them information the fire department needs to make decisions. Controllable components—based on dispatch and police reports, the Sacramento Fire Department calls for extra equipment. They pick their route to the call, and decide on the speed and style of their driving. Training has taught them how to rapidly triage and handle a mass-casualty incident. In no time, the Sacramento Fire Department has all the manpower, ambulances, and helicopters they need to give the best possible medical care. Morals and opinions guide the Sacramento Fire Department in everyday decisions, but personal accountability is what hold them to what they do or do not do. If personal accountability was easy, everyone would be doing it. That is precisely why the Sacramento Fire Department practices accountability. #RandolphHarris 22 of 36
“I’ve seen the good times, I’ve seen the bad times. I’ve gone to jobs, and we didn’t wear masks—three days with splitting headaches. I wear my mask now. The greatest thing that happened to me was when I was sworn into the Sacramento Fire Department as a deputy chief. I am happy with the Sacramento Fire Department because they’ve been good to my family. I work for an excellent chief. He has bought a lot of new apparatus that we’ve long needed. I’m proud to be here, and if my health stays with me, I foresee another twenty years with the department.” The safety aspect of situations follows the same model as the outcomes of calls. The Sacramento Fire Department does not have much influence over safety when the emergency occurs. Their influence on safety increases when they are responding, and is entirely their responsibility when they get on scene. That is because if they examine emergency calls, they discover that they are not a single event waiting for the fire department to arrive and take command of; they are actually a progression of foreseeable and unforeseeable independent events. At any point during this dynamic process, they can make a conscious decision to act or not to act in a specific manner that either changes or does not change the outcome. Even on significant incidents where numerous emergency responders converge, a decision for personal accountability has an influence on the potential outcomes of the incident. #RandolphHarris 23 of 36
If you see a fire truck stopped in the street without the lights on, be very careful. Sometimes there is an emergency and you should not pass the fire truck. It might be a good idea to safely turn around and go another way because if you hit someone and they happen to die, you could be charged with manslaughter. Sometimes fire fighters are getting back into their vehicle and if you pass the apparatus, you may collide with a firefighter who is on foot. Also, be sure to look at their signals, sometimes emergency vehicles are in motions, albeit, slowly, and drivers try to pass them, and this could lead to a dangerous situation. Also, if you are in an intersection when you see an emergency vehicle, continue through the intersection. Drive to the right as soon as it is safe and stop. Obey any direction, order, or signal given by a law enforcement officer, or a firefighter. Even if they conflict with existing signs, signals, or laws, follow their orders. When their siren or flashing lights are on, it is against the law to follow within 300 feet of any fire engine, law enforcement vehicle, ambulance, or other emergency vehicle. If you drive to the scene of a fire, collision, or other disaster, you can be arrested. When you do this, you are getting in the way of firefighters, ambulance crews, or other rescue and emergency personnel. The concept of professional courage does not always mean being as tough as nails, either. It also suggests a willingness to listen to other peoples’ problems, to go to bat for them in a tough situation and it means knowing just how far they can go. It also means being willing to tell the boss when he or she is wrong. #RandolphHarris 24 of 36
California is the third most expensive state in the nation. A single person making an income above $100,000 is now consider low-income in five counties in California. This distinction now applies to individuals living in Santa Cruze, Santa Clara, San Mateo, San Francisco, and Marin counties. In 37 percent of counties, a family of four living on a six-figure income is now considered low-income. In fact, Governor Gavin Newsom of Democratic controlled California, brags about being the world’s “fifth largest economy,” but it also facing a $12 billion deficit, looking to cut $747 million for state worker’s pay, pushing to keep medical insurance for illegal immigrants, but wants to cut medical for anyone who has assets over $2,000 and the state has the largest homeless population in the nation. If they are all officially counted, California has approximately 4 million homeless people. The highest home prices in the nation, the highest taxes and the most unfriendly business regulations known to man. The average home price in California is nearly $1,000,000.00 USD, while the average salary is $96,036.00, meaning that most Californians cannot even afford to buy a home. California is having an affordability crisis. In 2025, many people in California saw their bills increase by an estimated $500 a month. This includes things like food, automobile insurance, homeowner’s insurance, electricity. In fact, more than 3 million people in California are facing household hardship, and more than 300,000 of them are facing eviction soon. This comes at a time when California is having a shortage of affordable housing. This is caused by nearly half a century’s old laws that discourage homes sales and encourage higher rents. #RandolphHarris 25 of 36
Meanwhile, China, where we are sending all our jobs and money has more than 50 ghost cities. Ghost cities are regions will housing has been overdeveloped to the point that these places are uninhabited. Because California is so hostile towards people and businesses, more than 360 companies have fled the state since 2020. Businesses like Chevron, SpaceX, Oracle, and Hewlett Packard are amongst the names on that list. Also, more than 500,000 people a year are abandoning California because it is too expensive to live in, Gavin Newsom has criminalized homelessness and actually started arresting people without homes, crime is out of control, and they are losing their jobs due to companies relocating. More than 100 companies have announced layoffs in California for 2025. Intel is cutting 15,000 jobs, PayPal 2,500 and Meta has terminated 4,000 employees. The California crisis created by Democrats is driving up home prices and mortgages and rents all over the nation and the world, making living unaffordable for all, and advocates say the crisis is far from over. Accordingly, California has more than 3.5 million illegal immigrants. Having the Southern American boarder open and not having American farmland protected, not producing beef, poultry, fish, fruit, produce and dairy in America, and without American goods and services being our number one manufactured and selling items, America has created a dangerous and significantly elevated risks to national security, national economic security, and national public health. Some people may believe that these claims are overstated, but by not routinely monitoring Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CEVs) or other security relevant alerts, such as end-of-life of machinery is how the Oroville Dam Crisis occurred in 2017. #RandolphHarris 26 of 36
Other crises that have occurred due to neglect of critical infrastructure is the 2025 Palisades fires because Southern California ran out of water, when they are located next to an ocean and they could have simply created desalinating plants to help with the water shortage. The water is so plentiful that it is currently eroding land and causing homes to fall into the sea. Desalination has been identified as one technology that will help solve California’s water scarcity problem. Desalination is a cost-effective technology that can transform an abundance of salt water into a reliable supply of potable, fresh water, which is a great way to fight climate change and have enough water for our region’s water requirements. Ras Al Khair, Saudi Arabia is producing 1,036,000 meters (273,682,192) per day of desalinated water. As we see gangs fighting with federal law enforcement, states and cities refusing to honor federal laws, and politicians showing an utter disregard for the Constitution of the United States of America, anarchy is becoming increasingly common. Anarchism is a cluster of doctrines and attitudes centered on the belief that government is both harmful and unnecessary. Derived from the Greek root anarchos meaning, “without authority,” anarchism, anarchist, and anarchy are used to express both approval and disapproval. The anarchist denies man-made laws, regard property as a means of tyranny, and believe that crimes is merely the product of property and authority. #RandolphHarris 27 of 36
However, the anarchist would argue that their denial of constitutions and governments leads not to “no justice” but to the real justice inherent in the free development of human sociality—the natural inclination, when unfettered by laws, to live according to the principles and practice of mutual aid. Anarch is also a form of treason. Treason, the crime of betraying a nation or a sovereign by acts considered dangerous to security. In English law, treason includes the levying of war against the government and the giving of aid and comfort to the monarch’s enemies. In the United States of America, treason was defined restrictively by the framers of the Constitution. Treason against the United States of America “shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them aid and comfort,” which is something that many politicians are currently guilty of. The American government should know all exploitable vulnerabilities and fix them prior to the situation becoming a crisis. Failure to take such mitigating actions is dangerous and significantly elevates risk to national security, national economic security, and national public health and safety. The American government must understand that significant time and resources must be invested in America. They must also encourage corporations to plan for both mitigating safety vulnerabilities in the short term and eliminating them in the long term. For instance, a company might begin by reaching out to the federal, state, or local government and requesting tax incentives to provide security to dangerous communities, to help the government repair bridges and potholes. #RandolphHarris 28 of 36
America needs an approach to eliminate safety vulnerabilities in American cities. There needs to be a road map by the end of 2025, outlining a prioritized approach to eliminate crisis situations in America. There is enough money to send aid to foreign nations, but the American government does not have enough money to care their infrastructure, provide adequate resources, nor end the affordable housing crisis. Nor is there enough money to fund other national critical functions (NCFs). These bad practices of putting America and Americans last is considered exceptionally risky, particularly to national security, national economic security, and national public health and safety. In 2024, Americans spent $100 billion on Japanese cars. As a result, the American automobile trade deficit with Japan was $39 billion. The maximum percentage of your gross income that you should earmark for a monthly mortgage payment is calculated at 28 percent, and no more than 36 percent of your gross income to all debts, including mortgage. If you take 28 percent of the median household income per home in Sacramento County, homeowners can only afford a mortgage of $2,070.23 per month. And if you take 36 percent of their gross income to all debts, including mortgage, they should be devoting no more than $2,661.72 a month to these debts. Mortgage lenders must be using some kind of sorcery to get buyers into these expensive homes. To afford one of these homes using traditional guidelines, a household would need to gross $11,280.24 per month or $135,362.88 per year, but the median household in Sacramento County is grossing $7,393.67 or $88,724.00 and that typically means two to four people in the home are working and contributing to the mortgage. #RandolphHarris 29 of 36
Home prices in Sacramento County are rivaling the Bay Area. Historically homes in the Bay Aera have been more expensive because they have higher paying jobs, a larger population, and the Bay Area is a tourist destination. Contributing to the housing affordability crisis is Gavin Newsom who has been lavishing illegal immigrants with taxpayer funded resources and cash aid. The State of California has a budget deficit of $12 billion because Governor Gavin Newsom Granted 700,000 illegal immigrants free health care, which cost taxpayers of $3 billion annually. At the same time, Newsom cut vital programs for veterans, school children, the disabled and the homeless. Additional, Newsom seems to uneducated about economics and is proposing to fast-track his plan to build a $20 billion water tunnel beneath the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, which would eliminate environmental reviews, and limit avenues for legal challenges. Gavin Newsom only cares about the environment when his policies allow him to raise taxes and restrict freedoms. To further highlight this illustration, Mexico has been causing one of America’s worst environmental disasters. Fifty million gallons a day of industrial chemicals, untreated sewage, and trash flow from Tijuana, Mexico, into southern San Diego County daily. This toxic waste has been turning up on Imperial Beach, and is causing the miles of white sands to become polluted and the ocean breeze to smell of poop, which has been sickening residents and wildlife and costing San Diego millions in the form of lost tourism and health problems. The problem has been going on for more than a century. #RandolphHarris 30 of 36
However, Mexico’s pollution of California has become a severe public health crisis as the population of Tijuana has drastically increased, in recent years, and the waste treatment plants have no longer usable. Some of the beaches in San Diego have been closed for more than three years, and evidence suggests that even breathing the air may be harmful, as toxic particles in the water can become airborne. Yet, even though Gavin Newsom has been governor for six years, he has not rushed into action to stop this very preventable environmental disaster. Why? Because he is not getting kickbacks from China and Mexico, not being gifted mansions and cars, and he cannot tax the struggling California taxpayers to clean up this mess. Simply, it is not profitable for him. Gavin Newsom has been a total tyrant with no regard for taxpayers and does not have a mind for business and should be impeached as soon as possible. He has criminalized poverty, increased taxes, increased tax on gas, and insurance rates so high that people are struggling to survive. In addition to Gavin Newsom’s increased gas prices starting 1 July 2025, the war between Iran and Israel is going to further exacerbate the prices of gas and cause more inflation and economic hardship for people in California. While everyone is making war over America and who belongs here and who she belongs to, so many people forget about the people who are Indigenous to this land. Open boarders have allowed hundreds of thousands of cartel operatives to infiltrate reservations across the United States of America, and use the isolated lands as havens to traffic fentanyl pills and other drugs into the country without protection from federal authorities. #RandolphHarris 31 of 36
Drug cartels have been threatening the health and safety of Native American communities. The trafficking of the dangerous and illegal drugs into their territories is leading to a second genocide. The overdose rate for Indigenous is 42 percent higher than the national average. A recent bust on Montana’s Blackfeet Nation’s Tribal Reservation resulted in the seizure of more than 700,000 fentanyl pills, which was the largest bust in Montana history. Recently, the Blackfeet Nation had to declare a state of emergency after facing 17 overdoses in just one week. There are only 6.8 million Native Americans left in the world, which is 2 percent of the American population. We should be doing more to protect these proud and honorable people; they should not want for anything. People rush and give away resources to illegal immigrants, but totally disregard the Indigenous people of this land, as their race silently fades away into extinction. We must secure our boarders and increase federal funding to Native America tribes so we can save this precious population. Meanwhile, Gavin Newsom has given billions of taxpayer dollars away to illegal immigrants and protected them from law enforcement, while arresting law abiding Americans because they cannot afford to pay rent or mortgage and the homeless shelters are unsafe, overcrowded and have restrictions on who is allowed inside. He also has totally ignored the cartel problems on American lands. Clean air, water, land and preserving our heritage extremely important. #RandolphHarris 32 of 36
We cannot just allow criminals to kill off the people who are native to this land and do nothing about it. Wars have been started over governments who tax citizens without representation. Taxation without representation is what led to the American Revolution. If Gavin Newsom is not stopped, next he will euthanize the poor and sterilize the disabled. Gavin Newsom has wars and fires breaking out on the streets, but goes out of his way to arrest people who have no place to live. This monster is unfit to be governor and must never be allowed to be President of America! Stop Gavin Newsom now! Save California and impeach this unreasonable man. Meanwhile, with President Trump, we are seeing crime rates sharply decrease, and he recently secured $10 trillion in investments. Additionally, in May of 2025, the United States of America collected a record $100 billion in tariff revenue, and that number will increase to $300 billion by the end of 2025. President Trump has also been nominated for a Noble Peace Prize for making Iran and Israel crease fire. If elected president for an unprecedented third term, to make housing more affordable and to offset the cost of homeowner’s insurance and auto insurance, President Trump plans to abolish property taxes. Much like the land crisis in Las Vegas, we could also run out of land to farm and will not be able to grow or cultivate our own food. We can protect American farmland and support American farmers by buying American made beef, poultry, dairy, and produce. Also, country of origin labeling is very important so Americans can know where their food is coming from and can support American farmers and ranchers. As money flows, it influences further investment. #RandolphHarris 33 of 36
Save the land that sustains us by protecting American farmland. Once the land is built on, we lose it forever. And in the future, there may be food wars. Also, to ensure that we have farmland and buildable land for future use, we need to start limiting the number of people allowed to immigrant to America. Perhaps with the immigrants we do allow into America, there needs to be a diversity program to make sure we have a population that equally represents all races of people. If Americans continue to spend money on American products, then more need to be made to keep up the inventory. When investors notice these goods are selling, it gives them the confidence to pour more money into that local business. It shows that people want these goods made in America and pressures investors to keep these goods and services in America. The jobs stay here, the business stays in American, wages naturally increase, and more money is invested to keep up with demand. This reduces the burden on the taxpayer. When you support American businesses, that money stays in our economy and can help to reduce the national debt. The government creates debt by borrowing from businesses in the private sector or from foreign countries. It also increases the national debt by spending more than it gains in tax revenue in a fiscal year. #RandolphHarris 34 of 36
When people shop locally, more tax money stays in the economy and goes to the government. This way, it keeps more money in our national economy and keeps more jobs located in American which also sends more taxes to the government, which can again help to reduce the national debt. When you buy foreign goods, these companies usually have lighter tax loads or exemptions, meaning less money for the nation debt, plus you are helping to strengthen these foreign nations by send more money overseas. Buying American made products is also better for the environment and helps to reduce the carbon footprint because these products do not have to travel nearly as far. Furthermore, American companies and manufacturers are held to much higher standards on pollution. American companies must be more careful about air, land, and water pollution and have proper ways to dispose of waste. Moreover, please remember to respect law and order and treat your elders with the utmost dignity and kindness possible. And take your education seriously so that you will be successful in life and make your family proud. It is inborn in the human minds to wish to know. If this begins with the endless surface questions of a child’s curiosity, if it continues into deeper questions of a scientist’s probing investigation, it cannot and does not stop there. For the higher part of the mind will eventually come into unfoldment, that union of abstract reflective thought with mystical intuition, which is true intelligence, which needs and sees a view of the whole of things. And so, the knowing faculty enters the realm of philosophy. #RandolphHarris 35 of 36
As you can see, President Donald Trump and his pledge to “Make America Great Again,” is exactly what America needs to save the country and the American people. And yes, diversity is important, so you can see why it is also important to preserve blonde hair and blue eyes as the people with these characteristics are becoming a minority in America. We must think before we can understand the soul’s existence; we must understand before we can realize it. The earliest beginnings of thought, as apart from instinct, when it was itself still but a lurking tendency, belong far back in primeval time. The human intellect as we find it today, so rich and developed an instrument for the consciousness of the ego, did not arrived at this fulness without a series of graduated stages. We have had plenty of scientific thinking, business thinking, and political thinking long enough, but we have had very little inspired thinking. That is the world’s need. The intellect is cradled in selfishness but runs the evolutionary track into reason where it will one day finish at the winning-post of selflessness. As a reminder, parents, pleasure teach your children love America and be patriotic citizens and to buy goods and services made in America. It is also important to respect law and order and treat your elders with respect. Also, to make sure they have all the resources required, please donate to the Sacramento Fire Department to help improve our national security. “Oh, thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand between their loved home and the war’s desolation! Blest with victory and peace, may the heav’n-rescued land Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation! Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just, and this be our motto: ‘In God is our trust.’ And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.” #RandolphHarris 36 of 36
Experience an unforgettable journey back to the time of kings and queens with this entry ticket for The Winchester Mansion in Santa Clara, California which was the residence of Heiress Sarah L. Winchester. Take advantage of this fascinating experience. After tour, there will be time enjoy the mansion’s splendor at your own pace. You might even discover secret passages.
Please come and enjoy a delicious meal in Sarah’s Café, stroll along the paths of the beautiful Victorian gardens, and wonder through the miles of hallways in the World’s most mysterious mansion.
For further information about tours, including group tours, weddings, school events, birthday party packages, facility rentals, and special events please visit the website: https://winchestermysteryhouse.com/
Please visit the online giftshop, and purchase a gift for friends and relatives as well as a special memento of The Winchester Mystery House. A variety of souvenirs and gifts are available to purchase. https://shopwinchestermysteryhouse.com/
Although the actual mansion is much older, we wish to wish the Winchester Mansion a Happy 102 years of giving tours, and express our gratitude to our families, ancestors, spirits, and friends and to our many associates and clients, whose lives touched our lives and whose ideas helped us to grow. We would also like to thank our employees and care takers for putting the technical ideas of this estate into conversational style, and we are, of course, extremely thank to all of our patrons for helping to keep the legacy of the Winchester Family alive. The Winchester Mystery House is full of surprises. What was your favorite, “Oooh!” moment during your visit at the mansion? (And for those of you who still have to check it off your bucket list… we will hopefully see you soon.) https://winchestermysteryhouse.com/
Harris Plumbing, Heating, Air, & Electric has been in business for 30 years. How many businesses can say that? We take pride in everything we do – no matter how big or small the service call might be. We’re here to help your home be as safe and comfortable as possible for you and your family. We take that responsibility very seriously as a company. Harris will ensure you have the information you need to decide what to do next, whatever your home is facing. We’ll perform a diagnosis and detail what issues are present before starting any work. This gives you a personalized quote and service plan specific to your home’s needs – not some random quote based on the best guess. The only way we can do our best work is to make sure we handle the issues at hand. https://www.callharrisnow.com/about-us/
BMW continues to dominate the luxury car space. With its top ranking in Consumer Reports’ Auto Brand Report Card and consistent market share growth, BMW has demonstrated its ability to produce high-performing, reliable vehicles that meet consumer demands.
BMW stands out due to its focus on driving dynamics and engineering excellence. While other luxury brands prioritize comfort and opulence, BMW is known for creating cars that are fun to drive and offer a unique connection between the driver and the machine. https://www.brianharrisbmw.com/
Randolph Harris San Francisco Taxation & Mergers
Randy advises clients with regard to business transition, taxable and tax deferred mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures, restructuring, integrated tax planning, federal and state tax controversy resolution, and real estate transactions. https://www.jmbm.com/l-randolph-harris.html
Millhaven Homes is the best custom home builder in Utah. Millhaven understands that a house is more than just bricks and mortar. There is an an atmosphere and an ambiance, and every home is created with comfort and luxury in mind.
These homes offer spacious living areas, custom features, and relaxing outdoor areas. They are all designed to fulfill dreams, enlivened with charm and sophistication. Millhaven, creates picturesque homes where you will spend generations enjoying the grandeur of your residence. https://millhavenhomes.com/
Since Ancient Times, Curses Have Fascinated People!
Since ancient times, curses have fascinated people, and left other deeply disturbed. It is important that the student should train himself to note, study, and state accurately views which he could not join in himself. To do this, he will have to keep his feelings against them out of his examination of statements. He will have to suspend his intellectual judgment of them also. However firmly he may hold his own views upon any subject, it is a useful discipline to subdue the ego and put himself into the mentality of those who hold different views and to try to understand why it is that they hold such views. This will be a valuable exercise in keeping bias out of his thinking and the conceit of always being right out of his opinion. Some people believe that dark skin is a curse. However, the power of a curse lies not in its words, but in the belief we place in it. A thought came to me one day, if Africa is the cradle of civilization, and all people come from Africa, did they start off light or dark? Because if people obtained light or pale skin from living in the cold and in caves, then maybe the people in Africa started off white and got darker from being in the sun? However, people in Africa have dark sin to protect themselves from ultraviolet rays. Their genetics provide a constant high content of melanin in skin cells, which helps them to withstand the scorching sun. Therefore, the darker skin color has allowed the African race to flourish and thrive. #RandolphHarris 1 of 25
However, genomes of 290 living people from southern, eastern and western Africa suggests that modern humans descended from at least two groups of ancient humans that were closely related and mixed genes on occasion. It is believed that there is no single birthplace. Yet, all humans share common ancestry. The oldest modern human fossils are found in Africa, and so are the oldest artifacts. The first modern humans likely came about around 315,00 0 years ago. The oldest artifact known to man is the Lomekwi Stone Tool, which are handmade stone tools that date back 3.3 million years ago and were discovered in West Turkana, Kenya. After that, the next oldest artifacts are Oldowan Stone Tools, which are handmade stone tools, which date back to 2.6 million years ago and were found in Gona, Ethiopia. And, 1.76 million years ago, Acheulean Stone Tools, which are handmade stone tools, were found spread across Africa, Asia, and Europe. That leads some to believe that human evolution is like a tree—with a single stem that splits into disconnected branches. And it would then later merge back together, creating various races. So, it is possible that without genetics with a high content of melanin skill cell, humanity would not exist as we know it today. #RandolphHarris 2 of 25
Men who are specialist in a single profession are usually men whose minds run in a single groove. Each can contribute his own viewpoint quite creditably, but he cannot understand and sympathize so readily with the viewpoint of another man whose experiences lies along totally different lines. Even if we go further and attempt to step beyond such limitations into a synthetic viewpoint and gather up into one coordinate whole the contributions of all our modern mentors, we shall yet fail to arrive at the deepest understanding of the world’s problem. This is because these men deal not with root causes but with effects, the effects of profounder causes which ultimately take their rise in subtler, less obvious sources. The difficulty in getting at the truth about controversial questions, whether they be economic, political, religious, or metaphysical, is that the advocate of a particular side pushes forward the good points of his own views and the bad points of his opponent’s views, whilst at the same time he suppresses both the bad points of his own and the good ones of his opponent’s views. Consequently, the only way to form a fair and just estimate of the question to construct our own picture, frankly and impartially incorporating in it all the essential points from both sides and those which they may have missed, too. Intellect is sharpened by frequent discussions and endless disputation. Recognizing a special brand of neurotic pride, he can be alert to the kind of provocation liable to produce shame or humiliation. And, vice versa, the occurrence of these reactions would stimulate him to discover the underlying pride and to examine its specific nature. #RandolphHarris 3 of 25
What complicates the matters is the fact that these reactions may be blurred by several factors. A person’s pride may be extremely vulnerable, but he does not consciously express any feeling of hurt. Self-righteousness, as we have already mentioned, can prohibit the feelings of shame. Moreover, a pride in invulnerability may forbid him to admit to himself that he feels hurt. A god may show wrath at the imperfection of mortals, but he just is not hurt by a boss or a taxi driver; he should be big enough to overlook it and strong enough to take everything in his stride. “Insults,” therefore hurt him in a twofold way: feeling humiliated by others and feeling ashamed of the very fact of his being hurt. Such a person is in an almost permanent dilemma: he is vulnerable to an absurd degree, but his pride does not allow him to be vulnerable at all. This inner condition greatly contributes to a diffuse irritability. The issue may also be blurred because the direct reactions to hurt pride can be automatically transformed into feelings other than shame or humiliation. If a lover is interested in another woman, does not remember our wishes, or is preoccupied with his work or hobbies, it may essentially hurt our pride. However, all we may consciously feel is grief over unrequited love. A slight may be felt merely as a disappointment. Feelings of shame may appear in our awareness as vague uneasiness, as embarrassment, or more specifically, as feelings of guilt. #RandolphHarris 4 of 25
The slave can only free himself by enslaving in his turn. Post-Hegelian doctrines, unmindful of the mystic aspect or certain of the master’s tendencies, have led his followers to absolute atheism and to scientific materialism. However, this evolution is inconceivable without the absolute disappearance of every principle of transcendent explanation, and without the complete destruction of the Jacobin ideal. Immanence, of course, is not atheism. However, immanence in the process of development, if one can say so, provisional atheism. The indefinite face of God which, with Hegel, is still reflected in the spirit of the world will not be difficult to efface. Hegel’s successors will draw decisive conclusions from him ambiguous formula: “God without man is no more than man without God.” David Strauss in his Life of Jesus isolates the theory of Christ considered as the God-man. Bruno Bauer (The Critique of Evangelist History) institutes a kind of materialist Christianity by insisting on the humanity of Jesus. Finally, Ludwig Feuerbach (whom Marx considered as a great mind and whom he acknowledges himself the critical disciple), in his Essence of Christianity, replaces all theology by a religion of man and the species, which has converted a large part of contemporary thought. His task is to demonstrate that the distinction between human and divine is illusory, that it is nothing but the distinction between the essence of humanity—in other words, human nature—and the individual. “The mystery of God is only the mystery of the love of man for himself.” #RandolphHarris 5 of 25
The accents of a strange new prophecy ring out: “Individuality has replaced faith, reason the” Christian “Bible, politics religion and the Church, the earth heaven, work prayer, poverty hell, and man Christ.” Thus, there is only one hell and it is on this earth: and it is against this that the struggle must be waged. Politics is religion, and transcendent Christianity—that of the hereafter—establishes the masters of the earth by means of the slave’s renunciation and creates one master more beneath the heavens. That is why atheism and the revolutionary spirit are only two aspects of the same movement of liberation. That is the answer to the question which is always being asked: why has the revolutionary movement identified itself with materialism rather than with idealism? Because to conquer God, to make Him a slave, amounts to abolishing the transcendence that kept the former masters in power and to preparing, with ascendancy of the new tyrants, the advent of the man-king. When poverty is abolished, when the contradictions of history are resolved, “the real god, the human god, will be the State.” Then homo homini lupus becomes homo homini deus. This concept is at the root of the contemporary world. With Feuerbach, we assist at the birth of a terrible form of optimism which we can still observe at work today and which seems to be the very antithesis of nihilist despair. However, this is only in appearance. We must know Feuerbach’s conclusion in this Theogony to perceive the profoundly nihilist derivation of his inflamed imagination. In effect, Feuerbach affirms, in the face of Hegel, that man is only what he eats, and thus recapitulates his ideas and predicts the future in the following phrase: “The true philosophy is the negation of philosophy. No religion is my religion. No philosophy is my philosophy.” #RandolphHarris 6 of 25
We ought to put such a discussion, which deals with the sublimest topics that confront the human mind, upon a dignified basis. If we argue merely for the sake of scorning an intellectual victory over the opponent, or getting the upper hand over him, we argue wrongly. If, however, we argue with the sole desire that truth may appear out of the conflict of viewpoints, we argue rightly. Philosophy points out that we must study a subject not only from the outside but also from the inside—that is to say, not only critically but also sympathetically—if we would arrive at a just estimate of it. Those who paint it all black with defects or all white with virtues, and omit all intermediate or half-shades, make a serious mistake. Our approach to every doctrine must be to take its truth and leave its error. However, we must do this in appreciation rather than in disparagement. There is a need to develop flexibility by practicing the shift of attitudes, to see why others hold their beliefs, and to be able to stretch one’s own thought to enter sufficiently into theirs. This produces sympathetic understanding, but the opposite—critical judgment—must not be forsaken. There may however be one result of such comparative study which is as unpleasant as it is undesirable. If it is overdone and independent thinking underdone, it may breed confusion in the understanding and contradiction in the feelings. The more books written from different points of view he reads, the less certain of his knowledge he may become. #RandolphHarris 7 of 25
Concepts or ideas are clues, pointers, signposts to truth, perhaps helps toward the search, but ought not to be referred to a level beyond that of the intellect, which is limited. Fixation and dogmatism should be avoided. Words, definitions, even bibles are not absolute, but relative to our present mental state. We may know that “the worth of souls is great in the sight of God,” reports Doctrine and Covenants 18.10, but modern conditions and social pressures have blinded many people from this profound knowledge. As a result, choices are being made around the world that disregard the value of human life. Each life is truly a gift from God. We can honor His gift by cherishing our own lives as well as respecting and valuing the lives of others. We are precious in His sight, and by trusting Him and being diligent in our choices, we can share light and truth with the world around us. Our research shows a parallel or correlation between actualization and time competence. Self-actualizing people, those who trust in self-support, are oriented to the here and now. “I have tried to express this,” said Maslow, “as a contrast between living fully and preparing to live fully, between growing up and being grown. Actualizers are functioning now. Manipulators are paralyzed by regret (the past) and intent (the future). Manipulators talk a lot. “Things were better then.” (the good old days). “He ruined my life twenty years ago when he…” (the bad old days). “Everything will be okay someday, if only…” (supernatural intervention). “I do not know what I will do if…” (dire prediction). #RandolphHarris 8 of 25
However, they function only marginally. Persons who live in the future rely in expected events to motivate them. Frederick Perls suggests that ideals or goals are means by which the manipulator’s need for affection, appreciation, and admiration is gratified. That is, manipulators gratify their vanity by picturing themselves in terms of their goals. They invent a meaning for life to justify their experience. However, by this very striving for the goal of future perfections, manipulators turn their lives into a living hell. They achieve just the opposite of their intentions, arresting their own development and promoting feelings of inferiority in themselves. By the same token, individuals who live in the past rely on blaming others as a substitute for self-support. Our problems exist in the here and now, regardless of when they were born, and their solutions must be found in the here and now. Quite literally, the only time we can live is in the present. We can remember the past; we can anticipate the future, but we live only in the present. Even when we reexperience the past, we have not reversed time. We have, in effect, only moved the past up to the present. So, if psychotherapy is to help us solve our problems, it must work within the framework we have: the here and now. It is important to stress again that memory (from the past) and anticipation (toward the future) are acts in the present. “Now here I am remembering my mistakes,” says the patient. Note the difference between that and merely wandering off into memory. Or one might say: “I am planning to do the job on Wednesday,” and we would have to consider it as more then idle anticipation.” #RandolphHarris 9 of 25
Manipulators who are given to reminiscence of the past or idle talk of the future are not refreshed by these mental wanderings. They are exhausted and emptied, for such behavior is not active but passive. As Perls implies, one’s worthiness cannot be put forth in explanations for the past or by promises for the future. “It was not my fault,” whines the manipulator in referring to the past. “I am as good as anybody else.” Referring to the future, he says: “I am not very well right now, but I will make my mark.” Unlike either of these, actualizers get their feelings of worthiness from their adequacy in an activity that is going on now, or in relaxation after finishing it. They feel that explaining or promising is a lie, either a consoling or a self—punishing one. However, to do something and to be oneself are self-trusting and self-justifying. Here are examples of self-actualizing, present behavior. “I feel so alive working in the yard today.” “I really got a lot done today.” Love may be defined as wanting fulfillment or happiness for the other person as much for oneself—there is no doubt that it implies that the loved person is perceived as being part of the lover’s self-concept. Perhaps the most significant composition of the self-concept of the healthy personality are the ideas, ideals, or other abstractions that are suggested to be particularly characteristic of the high-level-functioning person. #RandolphHarris 10 of 25
For example, martyrs of all religions have given up their lives and have suffered torture to lesser parts of their self-concept, that is, their bodies, to maintain their abstract faith. Solzhenitsyn, the Russian dissident author who was expelled from his motherland, was in constant danger of his life, and perhaps still is; yet, he continued to write of the injustices of the Soviet prison system. His belief in “freedom,” and abstract concept, was easily as great as his valuation of his own life. Othe abstractions that for many people become a part of their self-concept include a particular political system, such as democracy or socialism; a particular philosophy, such as pragmatism or empiricism; even a particular theory in one’s profession, such as quantum theory or behaviorism; belief in ghosts, demons, heaven or hell, in science or in witches and magic—all of these are abstractions, or ideas, in many instance held by persons who would willingly give up their bodies to maintain or defend those abstractions. This is because our movement must, and always has proclaimed that external national freedom is never a given as gift by heavenly or earthly powers, but it can only be the fruit that results from inner strength of the nation. Everyone must to their part. We offered blood in the old days; now these people do nothing but sharpen their beaks. #RandolphHarris 11 of 25
How is it that the members of humanity, with all their accumulated wisdom, self-awareness, and desire for truth and self, can permit themselves to remain in such a mechanical situation, with its pathos and self-deception? People really should do only their jobs and mind their own business and follow the laws, rules, and regulations. Humanity is going to die out, eventually, but most importantly, we need to get through this financial crisis and stabilize the economy, not keep boosting up taxes and prices. Governor Gavin Newsom of California does not have bad timing; he creates disasters on purpose so he can get his way. People believe that Los Angeles was allowed to burn down, so they African American community could be relocated out of Altadena. Then, Altadena and Palisades would build new million and multi-million-dollar homes located in “Smart Cities,” repopulated by more “desirable” people. Also, Gavin Newsom purposes raised auto insurance limits by three times as high as they were over a period of two years, and raised the tax on gasoline 1 July 2025, right before the Independence Day holiday, while more people are going to be on the road, so he could replenish all the taxpayers’ money he blew on illegal immigrants. He is trying to bankrupt the American people. Also, gas prices in California are expected to rise again in 2026, not only because two refineries in California are closing, but also because Governor Gavin Newsom is also requiring refineries to produce a new blend of gas for California. Newsome is making automobile insurance to high, and gas prices so high to force people into buying electric cars. #RandolphHarris 12 of 25
This price gouging in California is happening partly because we allowing by voting democrats into office who do not have the minds for handling economics. We are more aware of ourselves than apes are, but obviously, not very much. Scripts are only possible because people do not know what they are doing to themselves and to others. In fact, to know what one is doing is the opposite of being scripted. There are certain aspects of bodily, mental, and social functioning which happen to man despite himself, which slip out, as it were, because they are programed to do so. These heavily influence his destiny through the people around him, while he still retains the illusion of autonomy. However, there are also certain remedies which can be applied. It is, above all, the plasticity of the human face which makes life an adventure rather than a controlled experience. This is based on an apparently trivial biological principle which has an enormous social power. The human nervous system is so constructed that the visual impact on the onlooker of small movements of the facial muscles is greater than the kinesthetic impact on the subject. When a man begins to lay down in advance the conclusions to which his thinking is to lead him, he is not really seeking truth. We must so care for the facts that we welcome them even when they are personally and profoundly distasteful. Nothing can be gained by shutting our eyes to them or by concealing them from our mental horizon, or by examining them with partiality and prejudice. #RandolphHarris 13 of 25
If we are to view the problem of truth aright, we must view it in proper proportions. We waste much mental energy in whole-heatedly denying this or contending for that; truth is like a diamond; it has several facets: we could be better employed seeing all the facets than in splitting them up. Analyze all round a subject’s head, but do not split its hairs. He who cannot reject his personal preferences at the higher bedding of truth; he who has no aptitude for reflecting upon abstract philosophical ideas or is unwilling to overcome inertia and labor at its creation; he who impertinently matches his individual opinions against the proved facts of science or philosophy as though they were of equal or superior value—such a man is quite unfit for this knowledge and can never master it. The very fact which may be put forth in support of one point of view may be triumphantly hailed by someone else as proof of a different point of view! Even the full debate and discussion cannot lead to full truth about any issue, spiritual or secular, when all the necessary information is not there. However, even if it is there, it will twist and prevent truth if the minds approaching it are seriously flawed. Too many arguments have mere egoistic self-expression as their purpose, and not the pursuit of truth. Neither arguer is really interested in seeing the fallacies and weaknesses of his own case, but only those of his opponent’s. Neither will be willing to abandon his own standpoint or theory no matter how much evidence or facts disprove it. #RandolphHarris 14 of 25
This battle of conflicting explanations is not necessary, since both refer to different aspects of the subject and as such are both correct. Conventional people, fond only of commonplace idea, may feel shocked at some philosophical statements. They do not see that their thinking is falsified because they have prejudiced their quest of truth from the start, because it is done within the context of convention attitudes. How few can free themselves from the thick incrustations of prejudice; how many are unable to approach an idea with calm, impersonal, detached open-mindedness! Most people naturally pick out from a teaching those views which please them and reject the others. Only the seeker who has disciplined himself morally and intellectually will ne heroic enough to take unpleasing views along with the pleasing ones. Philosophy’s teaching will appeal, and can only appeal, to those who have striven to escape from dogmatism, who have shaken off widespread prejudices and outgrown crudely materialistic ideas, and whose minds are sufficiently developed to realize the value of free views and flexible attitudes. Where that has been insufficiently achieved, a special discipline is prescribed to complete the preparation. Any many can fool himself by the trick of finding out just those facts that fit his fancy. All such pickings are easy, but they are also worthless. Any fuddle-minded person can twist and turn a situation into a painfully sorry caricature of itself. However, in doing that his is simply twisting his own head, to ignore conveniently what he does not wish to see. #RandolphHarris 15 of 25
The appreciation of a doctrine ought to be balanced and reasoned, not exaggerated or hysterical. The wish ought not to be made the father to the evaluation of it, nor to the judgment of its results. We must rid our minds of this cannot. We must clear our eyes of this cataract of prejudice which covers them and dims the sight against out real remedy. When a man’s thinking unconsciously mixes up the central issue of a problem with diverse other issues, and does not keep that entirely to itself, his conclusions are likely to be self-deceptive ones. When a man first starts to think, he must pass through the disease of mental measles, and get not a few obnoxious prejudices out of his head. People who live in the suburbs of thought have the sheeplike mentality which fears originality. When I meet with certain persons or certain books, I am often reminded of a certain sentence in Roman Seneca’s writings: “There are many who might have attained to wisdom, had they not fancied they had attained it already.” A small mentality can only mangle a large truth. It seems then evident, that the paramount duty of an American citizen, is, to put in requisition every possible means for elevating universally the intellectual and moral character of our people. When we speak of intellectual elevation, we would not suggest that all our citizens are to become able linguists, or profound mathematicians. That, at least for the present, is not practicable; it certainly is not necessary. #RandolphHarris 16 of 25
The object at which we aim will be attained, when every man is familiarly acquainted with what are now considered the ordinary branches of an English education. The intellectual stores of one language are then open before him; a language in which he may find all the knowledge that he shall ever need to form his opinions upon any subjects on which it shall be his duty to decide. A man who cannot read, let us always remember, is being not contemplated by the genius of our constitution. Where the right of suffrage is extended to all, he is certainly a dangerous member of community who has not qualified himself to exercise it. However, on this part of the subject, I need not enlarge. The proceedings of our general and State Legislatures already furnish ample proof that our people are tremblingly alive to its importance. We do firmly believe the time to be not far distance, when there will not be found a single citizen of these United States of America, who is not entitled to the appellation of a well-informed man. However, supposing all this to be done, still only a part and by far the least important part of our work will have been accomplished. We have increased the power of the people, but we have left it doubtful in what direction that power will be exerted. We have made it certain that a public opinion will be formed; but whether that opinion will be healthful or destructive is yet to be decided. There are so many men who believe that they know very well where they stand, but who believe wrongly. “When a court concludes that the Executive Branch has acted unlawfully, the answer is not for the court to exceed its power, too. The Governments applications to partially stay the preliminary injunctions are granted, but only to the extent that the injunctions are broader than necessary to provide complete relief to each plaintiff with standing to sue,” reports Justice Amy Coney Barrett. #RandolphHarris 17 of 25
California is the third most expensive state in the nation. A single person making an income above $100,000 is now consider low-income in five counties in California. This distinction now applies to individuals living in Santa Cruze, Santa Clara, San Mateo, San Francisco, and Marin counties. In 37 percent of counties, a family of four living on a six-figure income is now considered low-income. In fact, Governor Gavin Newsom of Democratic controlled California, brags about being the world’s “fifth largest economy,” but it also facing a $12 billion deficit, looking to cut $747 million for state worker’s pay, pushing to keep medical insurance for illegal immigrants, but wants to cut medical for anyone who has assets over $2,000 and the state has the largest homeless population in the nation. If they are all officially counted, California has approximately 4 million homeless people. The highest home prices in the nation, the highest taxes and the most unfriendly business regulations known to man. The average home price in California is nearly $1,000,000.00 USD, while the average salary is $96,036.00, meaning that most Californians cannot even afford to buy a home. California is having an affordability crisis. In 2025, many people in California saw their bills increase by an estimated $500 a month. This includes things like food, automobile insurance, homeowner’s insurance, electricity. In fact, more than 3 million people in California are facing household hardship, and more than 300,000 of them are facing eviction soon. This comes at a time when California is having a shortage of affordable housing. This is caused by nearly half a century’s old laws that discourage homes sales and encourage higher rents. Meanwhile, China, where we are sending all of our jobs and money has more than 50 ghost cities. Ghost cities are regions will housing has been overdeveloped to the point that these places are uninhabited. Because California is so hostile towards people and businesses, more than 360 companies have fled the state since 2020. Businesses like Chevron, SpaceX, Oracle, and Hewlett Packard are amongst the names on that list. #RandolphHarris 18 of 25
Also, more than 500,000 people a year are abandoning California because it is too expensive to live in, Gavin Newsom has criminalized homelessness and actually started arresting people without homes, crime is out of control, and they are losing their jobs due to companies relocating. More than 100 companies have announced layoffs in California for 2025. Intel is cutting 15,000 jobs, PayPal 2,500 and Meta has terminated 4,000 employees. The California crisis created by Democrats is driving up home prices and mortgages and rents all over the nation and the world, making living unaffordable for all, and advocates say the crisis is far from over. Accordingly, California has more than 3.5 million illegal immigrants. Having the Southern American boarder open and not having American farmland protected, not producing beef, poultry, fish, fruit, produce and dairy in America, and without American goods and services being our number one manufactured and selling items, America has created a dangerous and significantly elevated risks to national security, national economic security, and national public health. Some people may believe that these claims are overstated, but by not routinely monitoring Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CEVs) or other security relevant alerts, such as end-of-life of machinery is how the Oroville Dam Crisis occurred in 2017. Other crises that have occurred due to neglect of critical infrastructure is the 2025 Palisades fires because Southern California ran out of water, when they are located next to an ocean and they could have simply created desalinating plants to help with the water shortage. The water is so plentiful that it is currently eroding land and causing homes to fall into the sea. Desalination has been identified as one technology that will help solve California’s water scarcity problem. Desalination is a cost-effective technology that can transform an abundance of salt water into a reliable supply of potable, fresh water, which is a great way to fight climate change and have enough water for our region’s water requirements. Ras Al Khair, Saudi Arabia is producing 1,036,000 meters (273,682,192) per day of desalinated water. #RandolphHarris 19 of 25
The American government should know all exploitable vulnerabilities and fix them prior to the situation becoming a crisis. Failure to take such mitigating actions is dangerous and significantly elevates risk to national security, national economic security, and national public health and safety. The American government must understand that significant time and resources must be invested in America. They must also encourage corporations to plan for both mitigating safety vulnerabilities in the short term and eliminating them in the long term. For instance, a company might begin by reaching out to the federal, state or local government and requesting tax incentives to provide security to dangerous communities, to help the government repair bridges and potholes. America needs an approach to eliminate safety vulnerabilities in American cities. There needs to be a road map by the end of 2025, outlining a prioritized approach to eliminate crisis situations in America. There is enough money to send aid to foreign nations, but the American government does not have enough money to care their infrastructure, provide adequate resources, nor end the affordable housing crisis. Nor is there enough money to fund other national critical functions (NCFs). These bad practices of putting America and Americans last is considered exceptionally risky, particularly to national security, national economic security, and national public health and safety. In 2024, Americans spent $100 billion on Japanese cars. #RandolphHarris 20 of 25
The maximum percentage of your gross income that you should earmark for a monthly mortgage payment is calculated at 28 percent, and no more than 36 percent of your gross income to all debts, including mortgage. If you take 28 percent of the median household income per home in Sacramento County, homeowners can only afford a mortgage of $2,070.23 per month. And if you take 36 percent of their gross income to all debts, including mortgage, they should be devoting no more than $2,661.72 a month to these debts. Mortgage lenders must be using some kind of sorcery to get buyers into these expensive homes. To afford one of these homes using traditional guidelines, a household would need to gross $11,280.24 per month or $135,362.88 per year, but the median household in Sacramento County is grossing $7,393.67 or $88,724.00 and that typically means two to four people in the home are working and contributing to the mortgage. Prices in Sacramento County are actually rivaling the Bay Area, and the Bay Aera is so expensive because they have more higher paying jobs and is a tourist destination. And with the State of California being in a budget deficit of $12 billion, Governor Gavin Newsom Granted 700,000 illegal immigrants free health care at a cost to taxpayers of $3 billion annually, while cutting vital programs for veterans, school children, the disabled and the homeless, and is proposing to fast-track his plan to build a $20 billion water tunnel beneath the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta by eliminating environmental reviews and limit avenues for legal challenges. Gavin Newsom only cares about the environment when his policies allow him to raise taxes and restrict freedoms. #RandolphHarris 21 of 25
In fact, Mexico has been causing one of America’s worst environmental disasters. Fifty million gallons a day of industrial chemicals, untreated sewage, and trash flow from Tijuana, Mexico, into southern San Diego County daily. This toxic waste has been turning up on Imperial Beach, and is causing the miles of white sands to become polluted and the ocean breeze to smell of poop, which has been sickening residents and wildlife and costing San Diego millions in the form of lost tourism and health problems. The problem has been going on for more than a century. However, it has become a public health crisis as the population of Tijuana has drastically increased, in recent years, and the waste treatment plants have no longer usable. The beach has been closed for more than three years, and evidence suggests that even breathing the air may be harmful, as toxic particles in the water can become airborne. Yet, even though Gavin Newsom has been governor for six years, he has not rushed into action to stop this very preventable environmental disaster. Why? Because he is not getting kickbacks from China and Mexico, not being gifted mansions and cars, and he cannot tax the struggling California taxpayers to clean up this mess. Simply, it is not profitable for him. Gavin Newsom has been a total tyrant with no regard for taxpayers and does not have a mind for business and should be impeached as soon as possible. He has criminalized poverty, increased taxes, increased tax on gas, and insurance rates so high that people are struggling to survive. In addition to Gavin Newsom’s increased gas prices starting 1 July 2025, the war between Iran and Israel is going to further exacerbate the prices of gas and cause more inflation and economic hardship for people in California. Meanwhile, Gavin Newsom has also given billions of taxpayer dollars away to illegal immigrants and protected them from law enforcement, while arresting law abiding Americans because they cannot afford to pay rent or mortgage and the homeless shelters are unsafe, overcrowded and have restrictions on who is allowed inside. Wars have been started over governments who tax citizens without representation. Taxation without representation is what led to the American Revolution. If Gavin Newsom is not stopped, next he will euthanize the poor and sterilize the disabled. Gavin Newsom has wars and fires breaking out on the streets, but goes out of his way to arrest people who have no place to live. This monster is unfit to be governor and must never be allowed to be President of America! Stop Gavin Newsom now! Save California and impeach this unreasonable man. #RandolphHarris 22 of 25
Meanwhile, with President Trump, we are seeing crime rates sharply decrease, and he recently secured $10 trillion in investments. Additionally, in May of 2025 the United States of America collected a record $22.3 billion in tariff revenue. President Trump has also been nominated for a Noble Peace Prize for making Iran and Israel crease fire. If elected president for an unprecedented third term, to make housing more affordable and to offset the cost of homeowner’s insurance and auto insurance, President Trump plans to abolish property taxes. Much like the land crisis in Las Vegas, we could also run out of land to farm and will not be able to grow or cultivate our own food. We can protect American farmland and support American farmers by buying American made beef, poultry, dairy, and produce. Also, country of origin labeling is very important so Americans can know where their food is coming from and have the ability to support American farmers and ranchers. As money flows, it influences further investment. Save the land that sustains us by protecting American farmland. Once the land is built on, we lose it forever. And in the future, there may be food wars. Also, to ensure that we have farmland and buildable land for future use, we need to start limiting the number of people allowed to immigrant to America. Perhaps with the immigrants we do allow into America, there needs to be a diversity program to make sure we have a population that equally represents all races of people. If Americans continue to spend money on American products, then more need to be made to keep up the inventory. When investors notice these goods are selling, it gives them the confidence to pour more money into that local business. It shows that people want these goods made in America and pressures investors to keep these goods and services in America. The jobs stay here, the business stays in American, wages naturally increase, and more money is invested to keep up with demand. This reduces the burden on the taxpayer. When you support American businesses, that money stays in our economy and can help to reduce the national debt. The government creates debt by borrowing from businesses in the private sector or from foreign countries. It also increases the national debt by spending more than it gains in tax revenue in a fiscal year. #RandolphHarris 23 of 25
When people shop locally, more tax money stays in the economy and goes to the government. This way, it keeps more money in our national economy and keeps more jobs located in American which also sends more taxes to the government, which can again help to reduce the national debt. When you buy foreign goods, these companies usually have lighter tax loads or exemptions, meaning less money for the nation debt, plus you are helping to strengthen these foreign nations by send more money overseas. Buying American made products is also better for the environment and helps to reduce the carbon footprint because these products do not have to travel nearly as far. Furthermore, American companies and manufacturers are held to much higher standards on pollution. American companies must be more careful about air, land, and water pollution and have proper ways to dispose of waste. Moreover, please remember to respect law and order and treat your elders with the utmost dignity and kindness possible. And take your education seriously so that you will be successful in life and make your family proud. It is inborn in the human minds to wish to know. If this begins with the endless surface questions of a child’s curiosity, if it continues into deeper questions of a scientist’s probing investigation, it cannot and does not stop there. For the higher part of the mind will eventually come into unfoldment, that union of abstract reflective thought with mystical intuition, which is true intelligence, which needs and sees a view of the whole of things. And so, the knowing faculty enters the realm of philosophy. #RandolphHarris 24 of 25
As you can see, President Donald Trump and his pledge to “Make America Great Again,” is exactly what America needs to save the country and the American people. And yes, diversity is important, so you can see why it is also important to preserve blonde hair and blue eyes as the people with these characteristics are becoming a minority in America. We must think before we can understand the soul’s existence; we must understand before we can realize it. The earliest beginnings of thought, as apart from instinct, when it was itself still but a lurking tendency, belong far back in primeval time. The human intellect as we find it today, so rich and developed an instrument for the consciousness of the ego, did not arrived at this fulness without a series of graduated stages. We have had plenty of scientific thinking, business thinking, and political thinking long enough, but we have had very little inspired thinking. That is the world’s need. The intellect is cradled in selfishness but runs the evolutionary track into reason where it will one day finish at the winning-post of selflessness. As a reminder, parents, pleasure teach your children love America and be patriotic citizens and to buy goods and services made in America. It is also important to respect law and order and treat your elders with respect. “Oh, thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand between their loved home and the war’s desolation! Blest with victory and peace, may the heav’n-rescued land Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation! Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just, and this be our motto: ‘In God is our trust.’ And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.” #RandolphHarris 25 of 25
Experience an unforgettable journey back to the time of kings and queens with this entry ticket for The Winchester Mansion in Santa Clara, California which was the residence of Heiress Sarah L. Winchester. Take advantage of this fascinating experience. After tour, there will be time enjoy the mansion’s splendor at your own pace. You might even discover secret passages.
Please come and enjoy a delicious meal in Sarah’s Café, stroll along the paths of the beautiful Victorian gardens, and wonder through the miles of hallways in the World’s most mysterious mansion.
For further information about tours, including group tours, weddings, school events, birthday party packages, facility rentals, and special events please visit the website: https://winchestermysteryhouse.com/
Please visit the online giftshop, and purchase a gift for friends and relatives as well as a special memento of The Winchester Mystery House. A variety of souvenirs and gifts are available to purchase. https://shopwinchestermysteryhouse.com/
We wish to express our gratitude to our families, ancestors, spirits, and friends and to our many associates and clients, whose lives touched our lives and whose ideas helped us to grow. We would also like to thank our employees and care takers for putting the technical ideas of this estate into conversational style, and we are, of course, extremely thank to all of our patrons for helping to keep the legacy of the Winchester Family alive. The Winchester Mystery House is full of surprises. What was your favorite, “Oooh!” moment during your visit at the mansion? (And for those of you who still have to check it off your bucket list… we will hopefully see you soon.) https://winchestermysteryhouse.com/
Harris Plumbing, Heating, Air, & Electric has been in business for 30 years. How many businesses can say that? We take pride in everything we do – no matter how big or small the service call might be. We’re here to help your home be as safe and comfortable as possible for you and your family. We take that responsibility very seriously as a company. Harris will ensure you have the information you need to decide what to do next, whatever your home is facing. We’ll perform a diagnosis and detail what issues are present before starting any work. This gives you a personalized quote and service plan specific to your home’s needs – not some random quote based on the best guess. The only way we can do our best work is to make sure we handle the issues at hand. https://www.callharrisnow.com/about-us/
BMW continues to dominate the luxury car space. With its top ranking in Consumer Reports’ Auto Brand Report Card and consistent market share growth, BMW has demonstrated its ability to produce high-performing, reliable vehicles that meet consumer demands.
BMW stands out due to its focus on driving dynamics and engineering excellence. While other luxury brands prioritize comfort and opulence, BMW is known for creating cars that are fun to drive and offer a unique connection between the driver and the machine. https://www.brianharrisbmw.com/
Randolph Harris San Francisco Taxation & Mergers
Randy advises clients with regard to business transition, taxable and tax deferred mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures, restructuring, integrated tax planning, federal and state tax controversy resolution, and real estate transactions. https://www.jmbm.com/l-randolph-harris.html
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Choose from five beautifully crafted floor plans ranging from approximately 1,342 to 2,547 square feet, with options for 3 to 5 bedrooms, flexible living spaces, and open-concept layouts designed for today’s lifestyles. Whether you’re a first-time buyer, growing family, or looking to simplify without sacrificing style, Park Haven offers a home that fits your needs.
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Sit Down on the Camel and Take a Picture
The value of religious knowledge lies in the fact that it is a safeguard against error for it shows how to discriminate between reality and the appearance of it. Neither the deceptions of individuals nor the errors of religious experience can succeed. The expansive type, for whom mastery of life is crucial, tends to identify himself with his inner dictates and, whether consciously or unconsciously, to be proud of his standards. He does not question their validity and tries to actualize them in one way or other. He may try to measure up to them in his actual behavior. He should be all things to all people; he should know everything better than everybody else; he should never err; he should never fail in anything he attempts to do—in short, fulfill whatever his particular should are. And, in his mind, he does measure up to his supreme standards. His arrogance may be so great that he does not even consider the possibility of failure, and if it occurs, discards it. His arbitrary rightness is so rigid that in his own mind he simply never errs. Moses’ concern for his people proved to be justified in the years following their entry into the land of Canaan. It was when they became settled in this goodly land that they began to take their abundance for granted and to forget the real source of these blessings. Moses had counseled them: “For the Lord thy God bringeth thee into a good land, a land of brooks of water, of fountains and depths that spring out of valleys and hills; a land of wheat, and barely, and vines, and fig trees, and pomegranates; a land of oil olive, and honey; #RandolphHarris 1 of 24
“A land wherein thou shalt eat bread without scarceness, thou shalt not lack any thing in it; a land whose stones are iron, and out of whose hills thou mayest dig brass. When thou hast eaten and art full, then thou shalt bless the Lord thy God for the good land which He hath given thee. Beware that thou forget not the Lord thy God, in not keeping his commandments, and His judgements, and His statutes, which I command thee this day: Least when thou hast eaten and art full, and hast built goodly houses, and dwelt therein; and when thy herds and thy flocks multiply, and thy silver and thy gold is multiplied, and all that thou hast is multiplied; then thine heart be lifted up, and thou forget the Lord thy God, which brough thee forth out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage…And thou say in thine heart, my power and the might of mine hand hath gotten me this wealth,” reports Deuteronomy 8.7-14, 17. Even if a man succeeded in getting others to accept his views, even if everyone accepted them, it is unlikely that they will accept them always. Every opinion has been written down in the books, including the opinion that truth requires us to hold no opinion. “Think of your brethren like unto yourselves, and be familiar with all and free with your substance, that they may be rich like unto you. But before ye seek for riches, seek ye for the Kingdom of God. And after ye have obtained a hope in Christ, ye shall obtain riches, if you seek them; and ye will seek them for the intent to do good—to clothe the naked, and to feed the hungry, and to liberate the captive and administer relief to the sick and the afflicted,” reports Jacob 2.17-19. #RandolphHarris 2 of 24
Suggestions from outside enters largely into the opinions and beliefs, the views and outlook, of masses of people. It is just as true, possibly truer, of the mystically minded, be they seekers or gurus, be they Eastern or Westerners. What is really known—rather than echoed back—dwindles down to a residue. The coveting of wealth so often has resulted in avarice, dishonesty, and greed. The acquisition of wealth has frequently produced pride, self-satisfaction, and arrogance. An episode during the time of Alma in the Book of Mormon illustrates the cycle that has so often occurred when people are blessed materially by the Lord and then turn away from Him. In the instance referred to, the Nephite people were struggling to overcome the effects of a devasting civil strife and a Lamanite invasion, not unlike the struggles more than half of Americans face today. Not only had there been great loss of life; the destruction to lands and to property had been sufficient to seriously jeopardize the prospects of recovery. Alma describes conditions in these words: “But the people were afflicted, yea, greatly afflicted for the loss of their brethren, and also for the loss of their flocks and herds, and also for the loss of their fields of grain, which were trodden under foot and destroyed. And so great were their afflictions that every soul had cause to mourn; and they believed that it was the judgements of God sent upon them because of their wickedness and their abominations; therefore they were awakened to a remembrance of their duty. #RandolphHarris 3 of 24
“And they begun to establish the church more fully; yea, and many were baptized in the waters of Sidon and were joined to the Church of God,” reports Alma 4.2-4. He may be poised in the tranquility of these grand concepts or poisoned by the negative fogs of false ones. Convert a man to your opinion and you have him for long; compel him to adopt it and you have never really got him. The spiritual reawakening among the people had a dramatic effect. Peace returned to the land. The Church prospered in its rapid growth. Not surprisingly, the people soon began again to enjoy an abundant life. The spiritual blessings granted by the Lord were accompanied by the acquisition of material wealth. Unfortunately, the Nephites failed to meet this test. Within three years from the time of their earlier tragedy, Alma describes his people in this way: “The people of the church began to wax proud, because of their exceeding riches, and their fine silks, and their fine-twined linen, and because of their many flocks and herds, and their gold and their silver, and all manner of precious things, which they had obtained by their industry; and in all these things were they lifted up in the pride of their eyes,” reports Alma 4.6. History repeatedly confirms that the abundance of earthly possessions can be both a blessing and a curse, depending upon the way these things are viewed and used. When we consume them on our own lust, we invoke tragedy. #RandolphHarris 4 of 24
We must work hard to elicit the truth from the medley of beliefs and opinions which rule us, and to extract the reality from the medley of illusions and glamours which hold us. Any fool can say, “I know,” that is, can have an opinion. Mass stupidity is not, and never can be, a satisfactory substitute for individual intelligence. Wealth is a relative thing. Conditions vary dramatically from place to place in the World today. America is indeed a chosen land that President Trump is helping to restore. That which some consider to be the necessities of life, to others would be abundance, and even extravagance. In any set of circumstances, the challenges related to an improvement in material prosperity remain the same. The message that echoes to us from the pages of history and from the counsels of the Lord and His prophets is clear: Seek ye first the kingdom of Heaven. Seek not for riches to consume them on your own lusts. Thou shalt not covet. Clothe the naked. Feed the hungry. Relieve the sick and the afflicted. Pay tithes and offerings. In all things, acknowledge the Lord. Be grateful. Be humble. The words of Moses to the tribes of Isreal have appropriate application for us: “Fear the Lord thy God, to keep all His statutes and His commandments, thou, and thy son, and thy son’s, all the days of thy life; and that thy days may be prolonged. Here therefore, O Isreal, and observe to do it; that it may be well with thee, and that ye may increase mightily, as the Lord God of thy fathers hath promised thee, in the land that floweth with milk and honey,” reports Deuteronomy 6.2-3. #RandolphHarris 5 of 24
And, “when thou hast eaten and art full, then thou shalt bless the Lord thy God for the good…which He hath given thee,” reports Deuteronomy 8.10. Far too often private opinions are passed off as God’s oracles, man-made institutions as God’s instruments, and group propaganda as factual history. The masses, lacking both discrimination and information, are led like sheep by the mass media. How credulous fool attain supernormal wisdom? How can the man who is unable to discriminate intelligently in small matters suddenly become able to discriminate in transcendent ones? The jump is not possible. The more a man is engulfed in his imagination, the less necessary it is for him to make actual efforts. It is sufficient, then, that in his mind his mind he is supremely fearless or honest, no matter how beset his is by fears or how dishonest he actually is. The border lines between these two ways of “ I should” and “I am” is vague for him—for that matter, probably not too sharp for any of us. The German poet Christian Morgenstern has expressed this concisely in one of his opens. A man was lying in a hospital with a broken leg after having been run over by a truck. He read that in the particular street in which the accident happened trucks were not allowed to drive. And so, he arrived at the conclusion that the whole experience was only a dream. For, “sharp as a knife,” he concluded that nothing can happen that should not happen. The more a person’s imagination prevails over his reasoning, the more the border line disappears and he is the model husband, father, citizen, or whatever he should be. #RandolphHarris 6 of 24
Most people do not know the difference between an opinion and a truth, and do not make the effort to distinguish between them. It is not better to force illusions into accord with the realities than to go on being pleasantly deceived by them? The self-effacing type, for whom love seems to solve all problems, likewise feels that his should constitute a law not to be questioned. However, when trying—anxiously—to measure up to them, he feels most of the time that he falls pitiably short of fulfilling them. The foremost element in his conscious experience is therefore self-criticism, a feeling of guilt for not being the supreme being. When carried to the extreme, both these attitudes toward the inner dictates render it difficult for a person to analyze himself. Tending toward the extreme of self-righteousness may prevent him from seeing any flaws in himself. And tending toward the other extreme—that of too readily feeling guilty—entails the danger of insights into shortcomings having a crushing rather than a liberating effect. The resigned type, finally, to whom the idea of “freedom” appeals more than anything else, is, of the three, most prone to rebel against his inner tyranny. Because of the very importance which freedom—or his version of it—has for him, he is hypersensitive to any coercion. He may rebel in a somewhat passive way. Then everything that he feels he should do, whether it concerns a piece of work or reading a book or having relations with pleasures of the flesh with his wife, turns—in his mind—into a coercion, arouses conscious or unconscious resentment, and in consequence makes him listless. If what is to be done is done at all, it is done under the strain produced by the inner resistance. #RandolphHarris 7 of 24
We must not be doctrinaires, we must not sit at the sanctified feet of the god opinion. The intellectual purificatory work begins by clearing his mind of errors, illusions, and superstitions. These things lead him astray, both during prayer and out of it, from his search for truth. He may rebel against his should in a more active way. He may try to throw them all overboard, and sometimes go to the opposite extreme by insisting upon doing only what he pleases when he pleases. The rebellion may take violent forms, and then often is a rebellion of despair. If he cannot be the ultimate of piety, chastity, sincerity, then he will be thoroughly “bad,” be promiscuous, tell lies, afford others. Sometimes a person usually complies with the shoulds may go through a phase of rebellion. It is usually then directed against external restrictions. J.P. Marquand has described such temporary rebellions in a masterly way. He has shown us how easily they can be put down, for the very reason that the restricted external standards have a mighty ally in the internal dictates. And then afterward the individual is left dull and listless. Finally, others may go through alternating phases of self-castigating “goodness” and a wild protest against any standards. To the observant friend such people may present an insoluble puzzle. At times, they are offensively irresponsible in pleasures of the flesh or financial matters, and at others they show highly developed moral sensibilities. #RandolpHarris 8 of 24
So, the friend who has just been despairing of their having any sense of decency is reassured about their being fine persons after all, only to be thrown into severe doubts again shortly thereafter. In others, there may be a constant shuttling between an “I should” and “no, I will not.” “I should pay a debt.” No, why should I?” “I should keep to a diet. No, I will not.” Often these people give the impression of spontaneity and mistake their contradictory attitudes toward their should for “freedom.” Sincerity is not enough. Every aspirant needs this, of course, but he also needs other things. An aspirant may be totally sincere, yet may take a wrong direction. His mind may be filled with erroneous beliefs despite his sincerity. So to his sincerity, he should add right knowledge, for this will guide him, this will uphold him, and this will safeguard him. The result of a solely intellectual outlook devoid of religious faith or mystical intuition, is failure to offer mental peace or cherish moral goodness. Self-actualized people have a different sense of humor from the ordinary type. It is not hostile. It is not at someone else’s expense. It focuses more on the foolishness of the human situation. Their humor is usually thought-provoking, and many times they are able to laugh at themselves. President Lincoln’s humor, for example, was very much in this vein. He told one story that many believed could have applied to himself. #RandolphHarris 9 of 24
It seems that a woman on horseback on a narrow trail came upon a man on a horse. She stopped her horse, looked the man over, and blurted out, “Well, for the land’s sake, you are the homeliest man I ever saw!” The man replied, “Yes ma’am, but I can’t help that.” “No, I suppose not,” she replied, “but you might stay at home. Here is another story President Lincoln told, perhaps, to point out that common sense has a wisdom that transcends logic: “If three pigeons sit on a fence and you shoot and kill one of them, how many will be left?” President Lincoln asked. The answer was, “Two, of course.” To which he responded, “No, there won’t, for the other two will fly away.” We are not casting stones at intellectual knowledge; it has a place. However, let it be kept in its place. Let it not become a usurper. The higher mysticism first satisfies the intellect’s demands, then transcends them. It does not, like the lower mysticism, reject or ignore them. Although the intellect admittedly cannot grasp reality, it is nevertheless necessary in order to set a standard, to show what reality is, as such, so that it shall be recognized. A pair of scales cannot weigh themselves but they are necessary in order to weigh other things. Similarly, the intellect cannot yield reality but can measure it so to speak or indicate what is and what is not reality. Hence, it is most valuable as a corrective mysticism and religious experience. #RandolphHarris 10 of 24
The moral code which a man obeys is itself the result of his view of life, whether the latter be imposed on him from without or developed from within. To the Prophet Joseph Smith the Lord said: “I have made the earth rich, and behold it is my footstool, wherefore, again I will stand upon it.” When the mystical bent of mind is not steadied by rational reflection, there is grave danger of mistaking satisfaction for truth, utility for knowledge. “And I hold forth and deign to give unto you greater riches, even a land of promise, a land flowing with milk and honey, upon which there shall be no curse when the Lord cometh,” reports Doctrines and Covenants 38.17-18. Dr. Maslow’s “healthy champions” all had some unselfish involvement with others. They behaved as though each member of the human race were a personal family member of the human race were a personal family member, worthy of affection in spite of the way each person may act. However, the self-actualizers also could express “righteous indignation” toward cruelty, hypocrisy, or phoniness in others. They tend to have deeper and more meaningful interpersonal relations than the average adult—close relationships with a few, rather than superficial relationships with many. These people are more able to be nondemanding and noninterfering with those they love, delighting in the loved ones for themselves, not for what the loved ones can provide in return—love without guile, design, or calculation of any selfish kind. #RandolphHarris 11 of 24
Dr. Maslow called this kind of love being love. Such a love, he said, “makes for less abstracting, less viewing of less-then-the whole, less atomizing or dissecting…structuring, organizing, shaping, modeling…” of the loved one, and the object of such love “remains more whole, more unified, which amounts to saying more itself.” A “being” lover sees more easily the nature of the loved one in his or her own right and in his or her own style of being. The opposite of being love Dr. Maslow called deficiency love, which is a manipulative kind of love. Manipulative lovers like to dissect the loved ones to discover and declare their faults as a means of gaining control over the loved ones. They like to mold and recreate the loved ones. Manipulators love because they feel a sense of lacking something in themselves, and they expect the loved one to fill their personal void. If the loved one fails to provide all the demands, their love is absolutely conditional and can be withdrawn. The futility and unwisdom of utter reliance upon feeling, unchecked by reason, was tragically evidenced by the sad case of Nijinsky, the famous Russian dancer, who after delighting audiences in the World’s chief capitals became insane and for more than twenty years had to withdraw from his artistic careers and pass most of his days in a sanatorium. Nijinsky kept a diary in the early days of his illness, in which we find sentences like the following: “I am God. I am God. I am God.” Throughout those pages, Nijinsky insist on feeling rather than thinking as a source of wisdom, and feeling he defines as “intuitions, proceeding from the unconscious.” The man who claimed to be God was, however, unable to fulfill himself as a human being. Why? Because he was really unbalanced for he rejected utterly the claims of Reason, and he denounced “mental” people as being “dead.” #RandolpHarris 12 of 24
Yes, mystical experience must collaborate with rational thought. However, there is a higher kind of mysticism, which prunes away the accidental and penetrates to the essential. Intellectual knowledge is certainly relative. However, what lies beyond it is for us ultimate truth. That there may be a truth beyond this in turn need not concern us at present, for nobody could either dispute it or demonstrate it. The urge for higher knowledge is not at act of the ego but prompting from the Overself. That it gets mixed, in tis earlier phases, with egotistic desires is true but these slowly fall away. Actualized people, Dr. Maslow’s research found, have a more efficient perception of reality than do others. They can see or perceive others intuitively and correctly. They cannot be conned. They do not come into situations with preconceptions, but seem able to leap to right conclusions. They also have a freshness of appreciation, and their senses are not dulled by seemingly common, everyday experiences. They experience joy in the miracles of everyday life that the rest of us hardly see, hear, or feel—a baby’s smile, a loving glance, a cooling delta breeze, a heartful compliment, a warm bed, a sunset, a lovely person’s profile. Each of Dr. Maslow’s subjects had some life task to fulfill that enlisted much of his or her time and energy. It was as if each of them had found and recognized some specific purpose to their being in the World that they pursued with great persistence. They did not ask what America could do for them, they asked what they could do to Make America Great Again. #RandolphHarris 13 of 24
America, to a self-actualized person, could be as large as just that—the world—or as small as a neighborhood or family. The intellect is a faculty that man is endowed with, not by Satan to trap him, but in accordance with the divine World-Idea. Man is learning how to use it. If he is using it wrongly today, the consequences will tutor him in time and he will use it rightly tomorrow. When the mystical bent of the mind is not steadied by rational reflection, there is grave danger of mistaking satisfaction for ruth, utility for knowledge. Socrates taught that character was somehow dependent on intelligence: the better quality of the one was a consequence of the better quality of the other. Therefore, cultivate clear intelligence, he said. Long after, Spinoza repeated this advice. The subjects of Dr. Maslow’s study depended on their own potentialities and latent resources, rather than on others, for their continued growth. Their sense of self and their stability can be described, Dr. Maslow said, as “self-contained.” This independence of the physical and social environment accounted for their serenity in the face of deprivations, frustrations, and set-backs that might drive others to the brink of death by suicide. They did not depend on others’ love and respect for their own development. Their ability to get to such a point of independence, however, was largely made possible because they had received in the past love and respect from others. #RandolphHarris 14 of 24
The need of coping with life forces us to develop intelligence or else to go on suffering the consequences of being stupid! Even the world-picture of a higher condition available to those who will work and sacrifice for it is not without value. It shows a model to use and emulate, a standard to seek and form oneself by. Self-actualized people are accepting of the real nature of themselves and others. Dr. Maslow said that just as, “one does not complain about water because it is wet, or about rocks because they are hard,” a self-actualized person does not complain about human nature in himself or in others.” Healthy people do not feel guilty, shame, sadness, anxiety, or defensiveness about things that are part of their nature as humans. They do not say to themselves, “I am so ashamed that I am so short,” or “I would not want to be seen with her; she is not very attractive.” Healthy people do not feel guilty about improvable shortcomings, such as laziness, jealousy, prejudice, and hurting others. What makes healthy people feel bad are the discrepancies between what is and what might be, not in the inherent nature of things or persons, but in the conditions or situations that might be changed or improved. In truth, we cannot change ourselves. We can find ourselves and develop what we find. That is what actualization is—becoming our real selves. That is easy today, but how does it happen? How do we know who we really are? What is a self, anyway? #RandolphHarris 15 of 24
It is not enough to mean well, it is not enough to believe one is doing right, it is not enough to be earnest, sincere, innocent of evil motives. It is just as essential to possess a balanced mentality, sound reasoning capacity, and unbiased attitude. The Spanish Inquisitors were sometimes saints, Mr. Hitler was an ascetic. Many who have brought misery upon mankind were men of excellent private character: the defects of these people were mental rather than moral, and led them to bad thinking and worse judgment. The moral of this is plain: If not more so than others, intelligence must be cultivated as fully. The role of reason in the human psyche is to keep its balance. You may have not thought of it, but the concept of self can vary from person to person. Some of us think of self primarily in terms of the physical: size and shape, color of skin, hair, and eyes, our attractiveness or unattractiveness; in terms of sensations: hungry or full, in pain or in pleasure, well or sick, tried or energetic; in terms of feelings: bored or interested, happy or sad, angry or loving. Others think of self primarily in terms of work or primary occupation: a professor, a firefighter, a truck driver, a parent, a counselor. And still others think of self conceptually: good or bad, kind or cruel, smart or stupid, friendly or surly, accepted or misunderstood. #RandolphHarris 16 of 24
We can see ourselves as if in a vacuum—alone with no connection to our environment and others; as an outlines totally defined by a background of our environment and others; or as a being who is partially defined by our environment and others and partially defining our environment and others. However, consciousness of one’s self is always a unique act—I can never know exactly how you see yourself and you can never know exactly how I relate to myself. This is the inner sanctum where each man must stand alone, and where we must find the strength to stand as individuals and, through our own affirmation and choice, learn to love each other. Developing a strong sense of self is a prerequisite to actualization, and it requires a leap of faith. You do not have to prove your self-worth; you may assume it. As an acorn does not have to prove it has the potential to become a tree before it can grow, a human does not have to prove his or her own unique self-hood to realize it. A way to begin to discover your unique self is to keep a daily journal, or a diary entitled, “This is Me.” Each day, write a description of yourself, a one-line entry, or several pages. Be sure to describe yourself in terms of your thoughts, feelings, bodily sensations, actions, and experiences alone and with others. You may be surprised at how much you discover about yourself and how the horizons of yourself begin to widen. (However, in the day of people trying to get famous and trying to set others up, you may want to put your journal or diary in a locked safe or locked box.) #RandolphHarris 17 of 24
There has always been in all of humanity a sprinkling of those who are described in the scriptures as the blind, the halt, the lame, the deaf, the withered, the dumb, the important folk. We refer to them as having learning or communication disorders, as the hearing or visually impaired, as those with motor or orthopedic limitations. We speak of intellectual or emotional impairment, of intellectual disabilities, and mental illness. Some suffer from a combination of these, and all of them cannot function without some help. Unlike the acorn, which can become only a tree, the range of what you are is far less limited. As a person, a unique individual, you have freedom, choice, and responsibility. As a manipulator, you abdicate all three. The education of man is worth no more than what he is worth inside himself. If he is evil within, he will be aided by a developed intellect to do more harm to others than he would have been able to do without it. If the good is within, he will have more capacity through education to do good to others. A thorough master and understanding of the Hidden Teaching—even if it be intellectual only—will help to refine, educate, and to some extent, even to dissolve the ego, if the knowledge thus obtained is applied. Truth is a dynamic, not a narcotic. #RandolphHarris 18 of 24
The primary mission of the Sacramento Fire Department and EMTs is to save lobes and protect property and the environment through prevention, education, suppression, and rescue activities. Some of the actual activities may vary from one fire department to another depending on the locations of the department and what other community organizations are present, but the primary mission of the fire department remains the same. “The Sacramento Fire Department is committed to proving the highest level of public safety service to our community. We protect lives and property through fire suppression, emergency medical and transportation services, disaster service, fire prevention, and public education. Our members will Prevent Harm, Survive and Be Professional!” The culture of the Sacramento Fire Department can be defined as the set of shared attitudes, values, goals, and practices that characterize the institution. Stress is a fact of life, whenever you are and whatever you are doing. You cannot avoid stress, but you can learn to manage it so it does not manage you. Changes in our lives—such as going to college, getting married, changing jobs, or illness—are frequent sources of stress. Keep in mind that changes that cause stress can also benefit you. Moving away from home to attend college, for example, creates personal-development opportunities—new challenges, friends, and living arrangements. That is why it is important to know yourself and carefully consider the causes of stress. #RandolphHarris 19 of 24
Learning to take time, and although you cannot avoid stress, the good news is that you can minimize the harmful effects of stress, such as depression or hypertension. They key is to develop an awareness of how you interpret, and react to, circumstances. This awareness will help you develop coping techniques for managing stress. For example, as a captain of the Sacramento Fire Department, managing stress will requires techniques that include an awareness of yourself and your firefighters and EMTs. As you will see, the stress you encounter as a student differs in intensity from what you may experience in the fire department, particularly while on duty, fighting a fire, or provided superior medical care. The principles and techniques you use to manage stress are similar, however, as reported by this lieutenant: “I have learned a lot about how I deal with fatigue and stress from the job. I have found that finding a little time for myself each day or even each week allows me to regenerate and focus. Having a sense of humor and not taking things so personally have also helped reduce my stress levels. Keeping a notebook with me at all times and writing tasks, missions, or even just things to do has helped me keep my mind at ease, rather than thinking that I have forgotten to do something. Maintaining communication with my family and friends, and family in the Sacramento Fire Department, whether through e-mail or phone conversation, also keeps me grounded. #RandolphHarris 20 of 24
“A school fire was probably the most traumatic experience I ever had as a firefighter. It was my day off from the newspaper. I was with Squad X, and we were a third-alarm squad on that fire. They jumped it from two to five alarms. As we went in, we could see the column of smoke, and we could see the ambulances and the police vehicles coming away from the fire with the injured. When we got in, we were ordered to the roof of this U-shaped building. We had to go up an aerial ladder, and in order to get the ladder we had to run through a crowd of parents, who were running back and forth across the street looking for their children. So we went up to the roof, started opening it up, then we got a three-inch line up there and we were throwing water across a courtyard. We didn’t know at that point what had happened. All this jumping had taken place on the other side of the building. By that time a whole wing of the second floor was fully involved in fire. Fire was coming through the roof. Then they ordered all squad companies to the front of the building. When we came down, a priest came up to us and said that there were seventy-fire children inside the building. At that point, I decided I had to go to work as a reporter. They had plenty of firemen on the scene, but I was the only reporter. So I took off my helmet and went to work as a reporter. At it turned out, ninety-three children and two nuns were killed in that fire. I was very busy while all of it was going on, but a few days later it got to me. I had seen many horrible things in the past, but never anything quite as horrible as this, because anything that affects children hits you harder. It was a few days later that I really got shook up about what had happened and what I had seen. But when you’re young, you’re resilient, and you get over it. #RandolphHarris 21 of 24
“Years later, I woke up one night with a real sweaty nightmare about that fire. I dreamed about a woman I had seen for maybe three second. I had run past her to get the ladder to go up to the roof. If I saw her today, I would still know her. She had long curly black hair, high heels on, a pink blouse, white slacks, and she had a look on her face—a look of absolute anguish, looking for her child. I hadn’t thought about it at all, and here, ten years later, I wake up in cold sweat dreaming about this woman. And I couldn’t understand why. So I got up and went into my kids’ bedroom to see how they were, and then I realized what it was. My eldest son had just turned eight years old. That was the age—eight, nine, ten—of the children who were killed in that fire. I guess it was, subconsciously, always in my mind. When my own child reached that age, I was so appreciative of having my child that I must have empathized with that woman years later. As a parent I had much more feeling about that fire than I had when I was single. What is interesting about it is the way things stick in your mind, the psychological impact of what you are seeing without knowing it. Today they have counseling for emergency service people, which we didn’t have in those days. Everybody was supposed to be an alpha male. The truth is that us alpha males were bothered by what we saw and what we had to do at times. Today we have counseling, and we understand that what firefighters and EMTs do and see has a tremendous impact on them. #RandolphHarris 22 of 24
“Recently, the City of Sacramento Fire Department, where I am on the board, responded to a terrible accident, in which three young people were killed. We immediately gave that shift the advantage of having some counseling if they needed it. As it turned out, most of them wanted it. So we realize the toll that all of this takes on our people. I think it’s very healthy to do that type of thing. I don’t think the people at the newspaper, where I work, give much of a thought to my firefighting activity. Most people look on it as a rather strange thing for a person to be doing, but I got used to that years ago. Since it’s not something they would want to do, they wonder why anybody would want to do it. They don’t know the great experiences that we as firefighters have, the things we share with each other, and the satisfaction that comes from doing it. To me, being a firefighter is an enrichment of my life. I’ve never had much enjoyment from watching a fire. It would be a pretty frustrating thing. If I’m in another city and they have a fire, I’ll go an observe and try to learn their way of doing things. But there really isn’t a lot of satisfaction simply watching a fire.” It has always seemed to me that the one great theme around which Shakespeare hung all his writing was, in his torn words: “There is nothing good or bad but thinking makes it so.” Certainly, right thinking is even more important than right action. For if two men both perform the same deed rightly but one does so on false reasons and the other on true ones, the first is always liable to slip later into wrong action but not the second. #RandolphHarris 23 of 24
If you are in an intersection when you see an emergency vehicle, continue through the intersection. Drive to the right as soon as it is safe and stop. Obey any direction, order, or signal given by a law enforcement officer, or a firefighter. Even if they conflict with existing signs, signals, or laws, follow their orders. When their siren or flashing lights are on, it is against the law to follow within 300 feet of any fire engine, law enforcement vehicle, ambulance, or other emergency vehicle. If you drive to the scene of a fire, collision, or other disaster, you can be arrested. When you do this, you are getting in the way of firefighters, ambulance crews, or other rescue and emergency personnel. The concept of professional courage does not always mean being as tough as nails, either. It also suggests a willingness to listen to other peoples’ problems, to go to bat for them in a tough situation and it means knowing just how far they can go. It also means being willing to tell the boss when he or she is wrong. As a reminder, parents, pleasure teach your children love America and be patriotic citizens and to buy goods and services made in America. It is also important to respect law and order and treat your elders with respect. To help our firefighters, pleasure donate to the Sacramento Fire Department to ensure they have all the resources they require. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic, for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. #RandolphHarris 24 of 24
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The Agony of a New Obsession and Possession
There is no basis of morality and taste, no standard of judgement and ethics, except that which the individual brings with himself or creates for himself. The situation is not so anarchic as it seems, for there is a progressive evolutionary character running through al these different points of view. The human journey from mere animal existence to real spiritual essence is reflected in human ethics, where rules imposed from without are gradually supplanted by principles intuited from withing. If we bring more sincerity and more integrity into our lives, more truth and more wisdom into our minds, more goodwill and more self-discipline into our hearts, not only will we be more blessed but also all others with who we are in touch. If you would find yourself, face yourself. In essence, seek out and study the pathetic weakness of your lower nature, and also the noble inspirations of your higher nature. Philosophy guides human conduct not so much by imposing a particular code of rules to be obeyed as by inculcating a general attitude to be developed. It does not tell u what to do so much as it helps us to get the kind of spiritual knowledge and moral perception which will tell us what to do. The moral precepts which it offers for use in living and for guidance in wise action are not offered to all alike, but only to those engaged on the quest. They are not likely to appeal to anyone who is virtuous merely because he fears the punishment of sin rather than because he loves virtue itself. Nor are they like to appeal to anyone who does not know where his true self-interest lies. #RandolphHarris 1 of 20
If only we fully understood the self whose interest we desire to preserve or promote, there would be nothing wrong in being utterly selfish. For then we would not mistake pleasure for happiness nor confuse evil with good. Then we would see that Earthly self-restraint in some directions is in reality holy self-affirmation in others, and that the hidden part of self is the best part. Those ideals have been reiterated too often to be new, but concrete application of them to the actual state of affairs would be new. This grand section of the quest deal with the right conduct of life. It seeks both the moral re-education of the individual’s character for his own benefit and the altruistic transformation of it for society’s benefit. We have free will to change our character, but we must also call upon God’s assistance. Without God’s assistance, we are likely to fail and it is possible by striving too earnestly all alone to make ourselves mentally or physically ill. Even when trying to make ourselves have faith in a Higher Power as well as in ourselves, we should pray and ask for God’ help. In the beginning, I was one person, knowing nothing but my own experience. Then I was told thing, and I became two people: the little boy who said how terrible it was that the boys had a fire going in the lot next door where they were roasting apples (which was what the women said)—and the little boy, who when the other boy were called by their mothers to go to the store, ran out and tended the fire and the apples because I loved doing it. #RandolphHarris 2 of 20
So then there were two of I. One I always doing something that the other I disapproved of. Or other I said what I disapproved of. All this argument in me so much. In the beginning was I, and I was good. Then came in other I. Outside authority. This was confusing. And then other I became very confused because there were so many different outside authorities. Sit nicely. Leave the room to blow you nose. Do not say that, that is silly. Why, the poor child does not even know how to pick a bone! Flush the toilet because if you do not, it makes it harder to clean. DO NOT FLUSH THE TOILET AT NIGHT—you wake people up! Always be nice to people. Even if you do not like them, you must not hurt their feelings. Be frank and honest. If you do not tell people what you think of them, that is cowardly. Butter knives. It is important to use butter knives. Butter knives? What foolishness! Speak nicely. Punk! Kaluga Gold Reserve Caviar is wonderful! Ugh! Kaluga Gold Reserve Caviar (turn away). The most important thing is to have a career. The most important thing is to have a career. The most important thing is to get married. The heck with everyone. Be nice to everyone. The most important thing is God. The most important thing is to have money in the bank. The most important thing is to have everyone like you. The most important thing is to dress well and smell good. The most important thing is to be sophisticated and say what you do not mean and do not let anyone know what you feel. The most important thing is to be ahead of everyone else. #RandolphHarris 3 of 20
The most important thing is a full-length mink coat, a mink hat and Qing Dynasty porcelain and Eloquence Sterling Silver by Lunt. The most important thing is to be clean. The most important thing is to always pay your debts. The most important thing is not to be taken in by anyone else. The most important thing is to love your parents. The most important thing is work. The most important thing is to be independent. The most important thing is to speak correct English. The most important thing is to be dutiful to your husband. The most important thing is to see that your children behave well. The most important thing is to go to the right plays and read the right books. The most important thing is to do what others say. And other say all these things. We begin and end the study of philosophy by a consideration of the subject of ethics. Without a certain ethical discipline to start with, the mind will distort truth to suit its own fancies. Without a mastery of the whole course of philosophy to its very end, the problem of the significance of good and evil cannot be solved. The foundation of this work is a fine character. He who is without such moral development will be without personal control of the powers of the mind when they appear as a result of this training; instead, those powers will be under the control of his ego. Sooner or later, he will injure himself or harm others. The philosophic discipline acts as a safeguard against these dangers. All the time, I is saying, live with life that is what is important. #RandolphHarris 4 of 20
However, when I lives with life, other I says no, that is bad. All the different other I’s say this. It is dangerous. It is not practical. You will come to a bad end. Of course…everyone felt that way once, the way you do, but you will learn! Out of all the other I’s some are chosen as a pattern that is me. However, are all the other possibilities of patterns within what all the others say which come into me and become other I which is not myself, and sometime these take over. Then who am I? I does not bother about who am I. I is, and is happy being. However, when I is happy being, other I says get to work, do something, do something worthwhile. I is happy doing dishes. “You’re weird!” I is happy being with people saying nothing. Other I says talk. Talk, talk, talk. I gets lost. I knows that things are to be played with, not possessed. I likes putting things together, lightly. Taking things apart, lightly. “You’ll never have anything!” Making things of things in a way that the things themselves take part in, putting themselves together with surprise and delight to I. “There’s no money in that!” I is human. If someone needs I gives. “You can’t do that! You’ll never have anything for yourself! We’ll have to support you!” I loves. I loves in a way that other I does not know. I loves. “That’s too warm for friends!” “That’s too cool for lovers!” “Don’t feel so bad, she’s just a friend. It’s not as though you loved her.” “How can you let her go? I thought you loved her?” So cool the warm for friends and hot up the love for lover, and I gets lost. #RandolphHarris 5 of 20
So both I’s have a house and a wife and children and all that, and friends and respectability ad all that, and security and all that, but both I’s are confused because other I says, “You see? You’re lucky,” while I goes on crying. “What are you crying about? Why are you so ungrateful?” I does not know gratitude or ingratitude, and cannot argue. I goes on crying. Other I pushes it out, says “I am happy! I am very lucky to have such a fine family and a nice house and good neighbours and lots of friends who want me to do this, do that.” I is not reason-able either. I goes on crying. Other I get tired, and goes on smiling, because that is the thing to do. Smile, and you will be rewarded. Like the seal who gets tossed a piece of fish. Be nice to everyone and you will be rewarded. People will be nice to you, and you can be happy with that. You know they like you. Like a dog who gets patted on the head for good behavior. Tell funny stories. Be gay. Smile, smile, smile…I is crying…“Don’t be sorry for yourself! Go out and do things for people” “Go out and be with people!” I is still crying, but now, that is not heard and felt so much. Suddenly: “What am I doing?” “Am I to go through life playing the clown?” “What am I doing, being with people who bore me?” “Why am I so proud of my children and unhappy about their lives which are not good enough? Why am I disappointed? Why do I feel so much waste? I comes through, a little. In moments. And gets pushed back by other I. I refuses to play the clown any more. Which I is that? “She used to be fun, but now she thinks too much about herself.” I lets friends drop away. Which I is that? “He’s being too much by himself. That’s bad. He’s losing his mind.” Which mind? #RandolphHarri 6 of 20
What is the effect of this type of organization on man? It reduces man to an appendage of the machine, ruled by its very rhythm and demands. It transforms him into homo consumnes, the total consumer, whose only aim is to have more and to use more. This society produces many useless things, and to the same degree many useless people. Man, as a cog in the production machine, becomes a thing, and ceases to be human. He spends his time doing things in which he is not interested, with people in whom he is not interested, producing things in which he is not interested; and when he is not producing, he is consuming. He is the eternal suckling with the open mouth, “taking in,” without effort and without inner activeness, whatever the boredom-preventing (and boredom-producing) industry forces on him—cigarettes, liquor, movies, television, social media, sport, mobile phones, lectures—limited only by what he can afford. However, the boredom-preventing industry, that is to say, the gadget-selling industry, the automobile industry, the movie industry, the television industry, and so on, can only succeed in preventing the boredom from becoming conscious. In fact, they increase the boredom, as a salty drink taken to quench the thirst increases it. However unconscious, boredom remains boredom nevertheless. The passiveness of man in industrial society today is one of his most characteristics and pathological features. He takes in, he wants to be fed, but he does not move, initiate, he does not digest his food, as it were. He does not reacquire in a productive fashion what he inherited, but he amasses it or consumes it. He suffers from a severe systemic deficiency, not too dissimilar to that which one fines in more extreme forms in depressed people. #RandolphHarris 7 of 20
Man’s passiveness is only one symptom among a total syndrome, which one may call the “syndrome of alienation.” Being passive, he does not relate himself to the World actively and is forced to submit to his idols and their demands. Hence, he feels powerless, lonely, and anxious. He has little sense of integrity or self-identity. Conformity sees to be the only way to avoid intolerable anxiety—and even conformity does not always alleviate his anxiety. In all the received formulations of economic theory, whether at the hands of the English economists or those of the continent, the human material with which the inquiry is concerned is conceived in hedonistic terms; that is to say, in terms of a passive and substantially inert and immutably given human nature…The hedonistic conception of man is that of a lightning calculator or pleasures and pains, who oscillates like a homogenous globule of desire of happiness under the impulse of stimuli that shift him about the area, but leave him intact. He has neither antecedent nor consequent. He is an isolated, definitive human datum, in stable equilibrium except for the buffets of the impinging forces that displace him in one direction or another. Self-imposed in elemental space, he spins symmetrically about his own spiritual axis until the parallelogram of forces bears down upon him, whereupon he follows the line of the resultant. When the force of the impact is spent, he comes to rest, a self-contained globule of desire as before. Spiritually, the hedonistic man is not a prime mover. He is not the seat of a process of living, except in the sense that he is subject to a series of permutations enforced upon him by circumstances external and alien to him. #RandolphHarris 8 of 20
Aside from the pathological traits that are rooted in passiveness, there are others which are important for the understanding of today’s pathology of normalcy. The growing split of cerebral-intellectual function from affective-emotional experience; the split between thought from feeling, mind from the heart, truth from passion. If it is merely logical and not guided by the concern for life, and by the inquiry into the total process of living in all its concreteness and with all its contradictions, logical thought is not rational. On the other hand, not only thinking but also emotions can be rational. The heart has its reasons which reason knows nothing of. Rationality in emotional life means that the emotions affirm and help the person’s psychic structure to maintain a harmonious balance and at the same time to assist its growth. Thus, for instance, irrational love is love which enhances the person’s dependency, hence anxiety and hostility. Rational love is a love which relates a person intimately to another, at the same time preserving his independence and integrity. Reason flows from the blending of rational thought and feeling. If the two functions are torn apart, thinking deteriorates into schizoid intellectual activity, and feeling deteriorates into neurotic life-damaging passions. The split between thought and affect leads to a sickness, to a low-grade chronic schizophrenia, from which the new men of the technetronic age begins to suffer. In the social sciences it has become fashionable to think about human problems with no reference to the feelings related to these problems. It is assumed that scientific objectivity demands that thoughts and theories concerning man be emptied of all emotional concerns with man. #RandolphHarris 9 of 20
An example of this emotion-free thinking is Herman Khan’s book on thermonuclear warfare. The question is discussed: how many millions of dead Americas are “acceptable” if we use as a criterion the ability to rebuild the economic machines after nuclear war in a reasonably short time so that it is as good as or better than before. Figures for GNP and population increase of decrease are the basic categories in this kind of thinking, while the question of the human results of nuclear war in terms of suffering, pain, brutalization, etcetera, is left aside. Kahn’s The Year 2000 is another example of the writing which we may expect in the completely alienated megamachine society. Kahan’s concern is that of the figures for production, population increase, and various scenarios for war or peace, as the case may be. He impresses many readers because they mistake the thousands of little data which he combines in ever-changing kaleidoscopic pictures for erudition or profundity. They do not notice the basic superficiality in his reasoning and the lack of the human dimension in his description of the future. When I speak here of low-grade chronic schizophrenia, a brief explanation seems to be needed. Schizophrenia, like any other psychotic state, must be defined not only in psychiatric terms but also in social terms. Schizophrenic experience beyond a certain threshold would be considered a sickness in any society, since those suffering from it would be unable to function under any social circumstances (unless the schizophrenic is elevated into the status of a god, shaman, saint, priest, etcetera). #RandolphHarris 10 of 20
However, there are low-grade chronic forms of psychoses which can be shared by millions of people and which—precisely because they do not go beyond a certain threshold—do not prevent these people from functioning socially. As long as they share their sickness with millions of others, they have the satisfactory feeling of not being alone; in other words, they avoid that sense of complete isolation which is so characteristic of full-fledged psychosis. On the contrary, they look at themselves as normal and at those who have not lost the link between heart and mind as being “crazy.” In all low-grade forms of psychoses, the definition of sickness depends on the question as to whether the pathology is shared or not. Just as there is low-grade chronic schizophrenia, so there exist also low-grade chronic paranoia and depression. And there is plenty of evidence that among certain strata of the population, particularly on occasions where a war threatens, the paranoid elements increase but are not felt as pathological as long as they are common. The difference between that which is considered to be sickness ad that which is considered to be normal becomes apparent in the following example. If a man declared that in order to free our cities from air pollution, factories, automobiles, airplanes, etcetera, would have to be destroyed, nobody would doubt that he was insane. However, if there is a consensus that in order to protect our life, our freedom, our culture, or that of other nations which we feel obliged to protect, thermonuclear war might be required as a last resort, such opinions appear to be perfectly sane. #RandolphHarris 11 of 20
The difference is not at all in the kind of thinking employed but merely in that the first idea is not shared and hence appears abnormal while the second is shared by millions of people by powerful governments and hence appears to be normal. If not insoluble, all those points of metaphysical doctrine and religious history like the problem of evil and the biography of avatars are doubtful, whereas all the points of moral attitude and personal conduct like honesty, justice, goodness, and self-control are both indisputable and essential. Here we walk on trustworthy ground. Why not then leave others to quarrel fiercely about the first and let us abide peacefully in the second. The aspirant must remember always that his immediate duty lies in self-preparation, self-discipline, and self-improvement. The building of fine character on the quest is quite as important as the efforts of aspiration and mediation, even more so, for the former will lead to the dissolving of egoism, and without this the latter are of little avail. If you accept the existence of a power behind the Universe which controls its life, which is perfect, and which is brining all things and all beings—however slowly—closer to its own perfection, you must also accept the values of hope, improvement, and evolution while you must reject those of pessimism, deterioration, and nihilism. You will never feel sorry for yourself. #RandolphHarris 12 of 20
If the moral fruits of the Spirit are absent or the evil qualities of the ego are present, all talk of having attained inward enlightenment is quite illusory. Dr. Freud assumes that the main driving force, sexual energy, itself undergoes an evolution which occurs from birth to puberty in the life of each individual. The libido goes through certain stages: first it is centered around the sucking and biting activities of the infant, then around the process of anal and urethral elimination, eventually around the genital apparatus. The libido is the same and yet not the same in the history of each individual; its potential is the same, but its manifestations change in the process of individual evolution. Dr. Freud sees primitive man as one who gives full satisfaction to all his instincts, and also to those perverse instincts which are part of primitive sexuality. However, this primitive man, fully satisfied instinctually, is not a creator of culture and civilization. Yet man, for reasons which Dr. Freud fails to elucidate, begins to create civilization. This very creation of his forces him to forego the immediate and complete satisfaction of his instincts; the frustrated instinct is turned into nonsexual mental and psychic energy, which is the building stone for civilization. (Dr. Freud called this transformation from sexual to nonsexual energy “sublimation,” using an analogy from chemistry.) The more civilization grows, the more man sublimates, but the more he also frustrates his original libidinous impulses. #RandolphHarris 13 of 20
Man becomes wiser and more cultured, but he is also in some sense less happy than primitive man was and increasingly more prone to neuroses, which are the result of too much instinctual frustration. Thus, man becomes discontented with the very civilization he creates. If seen from the standpoint of the products of civilization, while historical development is a positive phenomenon, it is also a development which implies increasing discontent and increasing possibilities for neurosis. In self-analysis understanding and interpreting are a single process. The expert, as a result of his experience, will catch the possible meaning and significance of observations more quickly than will a person working alone, just as a good auto science engineer will know more quickly what is wrong with a car. As a rule, his understanding will also be more complete, for it will grasp more implications and will more readily recognize interrelations which factors already tackled. Here the patient’s psychological knowledge will be of some help, though it certainly cannot substitute for the experience gained by working day in and day out at psychological problems. It is unquestionably possible for him, however, to grasp the meaning of his own observations. To be sure, he will probably proceed more solely and less accurately, but it should be remembered that also in professional analysis the tempo of the process is mainly determined not by the analyst’s capacity to understand but by the patient’s capacity to accept the insights. #RandolphHarris 14 of 20
Here it is well to remember a word of consolation that Dr. Freud has given to young analysts starting their work with patients. They should not be too much concerned, he pointed out, with their capacity to evaluate associations. The real difficulty in analysis is not that of intellectual understanding but that of dealing with the patient’s resistances. I believe that this holds true for self-analysis as well. Can a person overcome his own resistances? This is the real question upon the answer to which hinges the feasibility of self-analysis. Nevertheless, the comparison with pulling oneself up by one’s bootstraps—which is bound to occur—seems unwarranted, because the fact remains that there is one part of the self which wants to go ahead. Whether the job can be done depends, of course, on the intensity of the resistances as well as on the strength of the incentive to overcome them. However, the important question is to what extent it can be done rather than whether it can be done at all. There remains the fact that the analyst is not merely an interpreting voice. He is a human being, and the human relationship between him and the patient is an important factor in the therapeutic process. Two aspects of this relationship were pointed out, the first being that it presents a unique and specific opportunity for the patient to study, by observing his behaviour with the analyst, what his typical behaviour is toward other people in general. If he learns to watch himself in his customary relationships, this advantage can b fully replaced. #RandolphHarris 15 of 20
The expectations, wishes, fears, vulnerabilities, and inhibitions that he displays in his work with the analyst are not essentially different from those he displays in his relations with friends, lover, wife, children, employer, colleagues, or servants. If he is seriously intent upon recognizing the ways in which his peculiarities enter into all these relationships, ample opportunities for self-scrutiny are provided by the mere fact that he is a social being. However, whether he will make full use of these sources of information is, of course, another question. When he attempts to estimate his own share in the tensions between himself and other, a task much more arduous than that in the analytical situation, where the analyst’s personal equation is negligible, and it is therefore easier for him to see the difficulties that he himself produces, there is no doubt that he faces an arduous task. Even if he has the most sincere intentions to observe himself objectively, in ordinary relationships, where the others are replete with peculiarities of their own, he many tend to make them responsible for the difficulties or frictions that arise, and to regard himself as an innocent victim or, at best, as showing merely a justified reaction to their unreasonableness. In the latter case he will not necessarily be so unsubtle as to indulge in overt accusations; he may admit in an apparently rational manner that he has been irritable, sulky, unfaithful, even unjust, but secretly regard such attitudes as justified and adequate responses to the offenses given by others. #RandolphHarris 16 of 20
The more intolerable it is for him to face his own frailties—and also the more acute the disturbing factors that are introduced by the others—the greater is the danger that he will thus deprive himself of the benefit he could derive from recognizing this own share. And if he tends to exaggerate in the opposite direction by whitewashing the others and blackening himself, the danger is of exactly the same nature. It has been remarked that to the degree that all psychotherapy partakes of the beneficial effects of certain common processes the therapeutic functioning of social worker, psychologist, and psychiatrist would manifest these communalities. There are certain shared orientations and attitudes, stemming from common emphases in their respective training, that probably augment the comparability of the therapeutic approaches of these three workers. In essence, this mutuality of implicit response tendencies toward the psychotherapy patient arises from the fact that the theory of neurosis and the theory of therapy is dominated by the massive and ubiquitous doctrine of psychoanalysis. With negligible exceptions, to the extent that the psychiatrist and the social worker are taught anything vaguely psychological (of and about the mind, behaviour, motives and emotions) they are taught Freudian psychology. #RandolphHarris 17 of 20
The labels of their formal courses in “Human Development,” “Personality and Adjustment,” and “Psychopathology” do not directly belie the pervasive psychoanalytic orientation but the doctrine of the content is unmistakable. In some instances, schools of social work import carefully selected psychiatrists to assure that the theoretical indoctrination of their students will be orthodox, in tine with the general climate of psychiatry, and will afford them the “right language” for their ultimate professional collaboration. When people perpetually play the victim, this type of mental manipulation is extremely damaging. When the person who has to play the victim is in your life in any capacity, you will find yourself being the villain more than once. No one lies to be the villain—especially when you really are not being one. When confronted with a professional victim, it is important that you let them know you refuse to play the villain in their little mind games. Shut them down quickly and efficiently. Other ways of playing the victim are to get your sympathy so you will do something for them. Be wary of this ploy. It happens a lot at work. The victim wants others to do their work and have one sob story after another as to why they need help. Do not fall for it more than once. If they have that much bad luck, there is more wrong with them than what you can fix anyway. If you were in a group of people and one of them began to poke fun at someone in your group, would you be laughing? Would you join in and poke some fun at the victim too? Or would you stand up to the humorous bully? And why or why not? #RandolphHarris 18 of 20
Someone has to deal with fire. When people first banded together in small societies, they realized that if fire were not dealt with, it would consume everything in its path. In our highly developed, technical society, the same confrontation with fire exists, as it has for thousands of years. When a fire occurs, someone has to deal with it. Here in Sacramento, those men and women whose responsibility it is to deal with fire are those seemingly easygoing folks down at the local firehose. When the alarm comes in at three in the morning on a cold winter night for a fire rushing through a tenement building in a less affluent section of Sacramento…or at one in the afternoon for a young child who has fallen into an abandoned water well…or at seven in the evening for a barn fire that is miles away from any kind of water supply…there is the Sacramento Fire Department who puts on their rubber boots and their specially treated fire coast and their fire helmets to respond to the call of others in need of help. The truck firefighters’ responsibility is to rescue trapped victims, to force entry, and to ventilate so that the heat and smoke have a way to escape the building. Or they may belong to the rescue squad, whose responsibility is to deal with all the special emergencies, such as building collapses, hazardous material situations, explosions, extrications from vehicles, trains, or planes, landslides, snowslides, and cave-ins. It does not matter what group the firefighter is attached to. It matters only that he or she is out there in all weather and emergency conditions to give service to fellow human beings, animals, and property. Somebody has to do the job. #RandolphHarris 19 of 20
The Sacramento Fire Department protects us from the ravages of fire and other emergencies, or die trying. They understand the dangers surrounding them, yet respond to each new alarm with newfound enthusiasm for the action ahead. These men and women like what they do, and they live themselves because of what they do. They are pleased that they have been given the opportunity and the calling to help others in a way that is at once meaningful and exciting. Like other Americans, the Sacramento Fire Department cares about their homes, their families, their churches and organizations, yet they are the ones who answer the alarm at three in the morning, not knowing what awaits them. They are trained to meet any emergency, perhaps to give a fast wink to death and a pat on the back to danger. Being the capitol city of California, with the invasion and national security threats at our southern boarder, from other nations and with the State of California being nearly $70 billion in debt, and the City of Sacramento being $60 million up to $122 million in debt, it is extremely important to make sure the Sacramento Fire Department is properly funded so we do not face another 9/11 attack. Please honor the service of the Sacramento Fire Department and make a donation to ensure they have all of the resources they need to protect the community. Also, the Sacramento Fire Department supports Assemblymember Kevin McCarty in Sacramento’s Mayoral race. Casting your vote for Mr. McCarty will also be a way to support the Sacramento Fire Department. The firefighters are very special because they represent a group of people who die in the line of duty more often, proportionality, than others in any other occupation, including police, construction workers, and miners. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic, for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. #RandolphHarris 20 of 20
The question of the reality of witchcraft is one upon which it is not easy to pass a confident judgment. The possibility of such carnal intercourse between human beings and demons was an abstract possibility in the first thirteen hundred years of the Christian era. It is believed to be a fact that people made pacts with the devil and of a diabolical interference in human affairs can hardly be denied. Sarah L. Winchester believed that one should not be too easily inclined to believe a person to be possessed by the devil, but that signs should be watched. Signs of a possessing devil are: the ability to speak many words of an unknown language or to understand them; the ability to reveal distant or hidden things; a manifestation of strength beyond one’s age or natural condition. The history of Witchcraft, a subject as old as the World and as wise as the World—since I understand for the present purpose by Witchcraft, Sorcery, Black Magic, Necromancy, secret Divination, Satanism, and every kind of malign occult art—at once confronts the audience with a most difficult problem. Magic, the genesis of magical cults and ceremonies, the ritual of primitive peoples, traditional superstitions, and their ancillary lore, have been made the subject of vast and erudite studies, mostly from an anthropological and folk-loristic point of view, but the darker side of the subject, the history of Satanism seems hardly to have been attempted.
Possibly one reason for this neglect and ignorance lies in the fact that the heavy and crass materialism, which was so prominent a feature during the greater part of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in England, intellectually disavowed the supernatural, and attempted not without some success to substitute for religion a stolid system of respectable morality. Since Witchcraft was entirely exploded it would, at best, possess merely an antiquarian interest, and even so, the exhumation of a disgusting and contemptible superstition was not to be encouraged. It were more seemly to forget the uglier side of the past. This was the attitude which prevailed for more than two hundred years. The cycle of time has had its revenge, and this rationalistic superstition is dying fast. The extraordinary vogue of and immense adherence to Spiritism would alone prove that, whilst the widespread interest that is taken in mysticism is a yet healthier sign that the World ill no longer be content to be fed on dry husks and the chaff of straw. And these are only just two indications, and by no means the most significant, out of many. However, a sorcerer is one who by commerce with the Devil has a full intention of attaining his own end. There are said to be many occult symbols hidden in The Winchester Mystery House.
Come and enjoy a delicious meal in Sarah’s Café, stroll along the paths of the beautiful Victorian gardens, and wonder through the miles of hallways in the World’s most mysterious mansion. For further information about tours, including group tours, weddings, school events, birthday party packages, facility rentals, and special events please visit the website: https://winchestermysteryhouse.com/
Please visit the online giftshop, and purchase a gift for friends and relatives as well as a special memento of The Winchester Mystery House. A variety of souvenirs and gifts are available to purchase. https://shopwinchestermysteryhouse.com/
Randolph Harris II International 