Hello again, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to another episode of Freedom's Creed. I hope that whatever time of day that you are listening, that you are doing well, and that you're making it the best day that you can, that you are living life to the fullest. Because is there any other way? There is, I suppose. But if you're like me, you always try to see the glass as being half full, and that's the way to live. I get it. We're all challenged here and there with various things in life, but in my mind, we ought to be making the best effort that we can to live the most full life that we can live, and to be as happy as we can be. A very optimistic friend of mine once told me that he noticed that a lot of people seem to have been weaned on sauerkraut and dill pickles because of all the long faces that he would always see. And I've always remembered that. And whenever I get a little down, I tend to think of that statement of my friend. And I think it's true. We should definitely smile as often as we can, not in a phony way, of course, but and not even necessarily sending a message to someone else, but smiling just because we are happy and because we know that it's the right thing to do. And if it helps somebody else, then that's all the better. And furthermore, on that note, I think that when we're unhappy, that's the time when we have to dig down inside and smile even more. As I said, it's not an easy thing to do, and we should genuinely do it, not in a phony way or a way to impress somebody or whatever. I don't know. It's just a good thing to do, I think. I know sometimes I struggle with being self-aware if I'm driving in my car or if I'm at home or anywhere else. I don't often think about the expression on my face. And especially when I'm in the car and I look in the rearview mirror, and I think, oh my goodness, people are looking at me, and I got the biggest frown on my face. Like life is the worst thing ever. So it's something that all of us need to work on. I'm not trying to say that I'm better than anybody else. I'm certainly not, but it's certainly something to think about. Speaking of self-aware, I'm talking about laws today. If I were to ask you how many laws are on the books in the United States, what would you say? What would be your answer? In reality, I'm not sure any of us can really answer that question or that any of us really know. In fact, I did a quick internet search and it's difficult to find an answer to how many laws are actually on the books. Certainly, no one in the government wants to divulge that information, I don't think. Needless to say, there are good laws, or are there? I mean, how many laws do we have that are designed to regulate behavior? All of them? And how effective are all of these laws in curbing behavior? None of them. Think about any instance of law breaking. And I would bet you'd be able to think of a situation, likely dozens of them, when the law made no difference to the lawbreaker whatsoever. People will do whatever they want irrespective of any law that's created. So what's the purpose of our laws? I mean, presumably to keep somebody from doing something that they ought not do. Yet in reality, the majority of people don't really need a law to be law abiding citizens. They choose to be good and decent every single day of their lives, treating other people or at least trying to treat other people with respect and a little dignity. I guess if I really thought about it, a law abiding citizen is synonymous with just being a good person. Does a good person really need any law that's going to govern their behavior outside of what they would already do anyway, regardless of the law being in place? I think most people choose to do good no matter what the law says. It seems to come down to the old adage that a few bad apples ruin the whole bunch. Though I suppose the Osmonds might disagree with that statement, given that they sang a song about one bad apple doesn't necessarily spoil the whole bunch, but hey, we're not talking about that right now. So it's safe to say that laws don't really govern behavior, but good personal choices govern behavior. Again, in my search for how many laws we have on the books in our country, it's a daunting task to find the right answer. I did see a whole lot of no one really knows, quote unquote. But in all seriousness, it's interesting that our lawmakers, who are elected by the people, seem to often campaign on doing something. And that something is to create a law. That's their job. That's why they're called lawmakers. The assumption is that if they're not creating laws, then what are they doing? Personally, I'd like to see less creation of laws and greater emphasis on what it takes to become a more perfect union, for instance, establish justice, ensure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty, as opposed to the creation of any new laws. Interestingly enough, in part of the preamble that I just read, it doesn't mention anything about the creation of one single law. Interesting, don't you think? Do we really need the government to create laws regarding what we do in our private life? Like marriage or contraception or drug use, alcohol consumption, how fast we can drive, where we send our kids to school, or a host of other laws? It seems abundantly clear to me that the creation of any law is not necessarily a deterrent to crime. In fact, there's likely evidence that supports the notion that the creation of a law has created the need or the want for the breaking of that law. Now, that may sound a little oxymoronic, but think about it. If there were no speed limit laws, then there would be no law to break. But because there are laws governing how fast we can drive, particularly on the highway, when someone is caught driving well over that posted speed, then they're simply held to the consequences of breaking the law in the first place. You could play that scenario over and over again in your own mind regarding just about any other law. The point in all of this is that because of the myriad of laws that are on the books, it's almost as though it were a self-fulfilling prophecy. Laws are just waiting to be broken. Believe me, I understand. You might even be asking yourself, well, Rex, I always hear you talking about civilized society and what that entails. It would seem that law-abiding citizens is an integral part of a civilized society. And I again I understand that. And this may be even somewhat of a controversial topic, but what's going to be the solution? That's what I'm asking. Is it too late? Is the genie out of the bottle? And there's nothing we can do to put her back? And no sooner than I say that do I think there's probably a law against saying that the genie's out of the bottle. Wow. If anyone in law enforcement is listening to this and they happen to know that there is a law against saying that the genie is out of the bottle, this is just for illustrative purposes, for educational purposes. I'm not advocating that we should have genies in bottles. Okay? May I just say that I consider myself to be a reasonable individual. And I'm not trying to be naive here. However, isn't the easy solution to all these laws that have been created for individuals to govern their own behavior? It seems to me that it's not any more complicated than that, but again, there's probably a law that says, no, no, no, you can't talk like that. You can't say that people should govern their own behavior. That's against the law, Pa Lee's. Unfortunately, it seems to be the society that we are living in today. Is it too much to ask for people to do the right thing, to be kind, to play nice with others, to share your things with others, to love your neighbor? I mean, didn't we all learn this in kindergarten? Or more specifically, what our parents try to teach us when we first learned how to talk, and even before. Most parents model good behavior from the time that their children are infants. The challenge is that sometimes when children get older and are on their own, they get subjected more to the things that happen in society. And sometimes, unfortunately, they tend to go that way and they tend to forget sometimes the things that they were taught at home. And that's, I don't know, that's a sad thing. But I'm super proud of my own kids because all four of them have super big hearts, and the ones who are married, their spouses are equally big in the heart department. So that does me good. Does my wife good. In fact, it is due to her and not to me. And I'm not trying to be condescending or patronizing, it's just the truth. Please believe me when I say that I'm not trying to be naive. I'm not advocating for some kind of utopian society. I'm simply saying that if people treated each other like they'd like to be treated, then we'd have a lot less use for all of these laws, and some of them, in fact, probably a lot of them, are just the stupidest things I've ever seen in my life. Look it up. You'll probably find some that are just dumb. I won't go into them now because as I say from the very beginning of the podcast, I'm not a spoon feeder. You should probably take it upon yourself to do some research on your own, look at the idiotic laws that we have on the books, and realize, unfortunately, that Congress never met a law it didn't like. When's the last time you saw a law rescinded? Mm-hmm. Oh, wait a minute. Wrong show. Rest in peace, Alex Trebek. Ladies and gentlemen, in any case, truly the best way to live in a civilized society is for people just to do good to one another. I want to close today's episode with some information from somebody who did just that. He went around doing good. The Bible calls it the Sermon on the Mount, or it's also commonly referred to as the Beatitudes. The word beatitude comes from the Latin beatis, and it means to be fortunate, to be happy, or to be blessed. I'd like to read some of these suggestions or invitations that were given by a man named Jesus. He said, Blessed are the poor in spirit, or humble. Blessed are they that mourn, or those who have sorrow, who mourn for other people, particularly at a time of loss for them. Blessed are the meek, or those who are gentle and forgiving. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness, or those who are good or teachable. Blessed are the merciful, those who have the ability to show mercy to others. Blessed are the pure in heart, those who are in a mode of cleanliness or striving to be more pure. And finally, blessed are the peacemakers. That one really doesn't need a whole lot of explanation. If we want to see peace in the world, we first have to start by being peacemakers at the house. Ladies and gentlemen, as always, thank you so much for taking this ride with me today and in the past. And please come back again to tune in to another episode of Freedom's Creed. And as always, if you can think it, you can plan it. If you can plan it, you can do it.