Expressing Gratitude for the Greatest of Sufferings

 As a Catholic, it has always been a little difficult for me to embrace and celebrate the secular Thanksgiving holiday (as it has very anti-Catholic roots). But looking beyond those roots, there is never a bad time to be grateful and reflect on all Our Lord has blessed us with.

Often our American culture views blessings as only those bright shiny moments of life. It’s easy to be grateful for the good things, of course. But as Catholics (and I am a Catholic before I am an American), there is much more to be thankful for than merely those shiny moments.

The saints are our great example of how to live the Christian life. While they had many remarkable attributes, one that perhaps all of them embraced was gratitude—not only in those happy moments, but most especially gratitude in the midst of great suffering. You don’t have to be a saint to be thankful for good health, stable work, and a loving family and friends.

It does, however, take a saint to be grateful for sickness, poverty, and enemies. Every saint knows that gratitude is a fundamental virtue of holiness. But just as Job shows us, in both the calm and the storm, in the moments of joy and sadness, we must have gratitude written upon our hearts.

Today, I suggest that we baptize this secular holiday and flip it upside down by expressing gratitude for our greatest sufferings.

It is becoming more prevalent in this modern age for people to play the victim. They wallow in all that has gone wrong, all the bad and suffering, and tiptoe into despair believing that there is nothing to be grateful for, nothing to be joyful about. But it is in such moments that saints are made. When we are greeted with suffering, we must pray for the grace to be thankful even then.

As Saint Augustine tells us, “All that happens to us in this world against our will (whether due to men or to other causes) happens to us only by the will of God… Show Him respect by accepting it from His hand, believe firmly that He does not send it to us without cause.”

To be grateful for all of life requires great spiritual mettle and prayer. Scripture shows us countless moments when, out of sorrow, God creates something good, though we can’t see it at first. Just as the prophet Isaiah wrote, “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways, says the Lord” (Is 55:8), we must root our faith in God alone.

As Catholics, we are called to be an Easter people, a people of rejoicing and praise for the Lord. We are a verbal Church, singing lauds of honor and thanksgiving to Our Lord Jesus, who is the Word incarnate.

Yet the noise of our modern world is a constant din, making it difficult to sing such praise. It is much easier to bury ourselves in cell phone screens and forget about prayer. It is easier to wallow in our sufferings than to offer praise to Our Lord for it. But why are we afraid to look at our sufferings? Today, let us not be afraid. Instead let us rejoice and give thanks for it.

A great way to incorporate gratitude in your daily life is by using the ACTS method of prayer and contemplation. This stands for: Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving, and Supplication. When we can first give all glory and praise to God, everything else falls in place. We can truly recognize ourselves as sinners and give thanksgiving to Our Lord for His grace.

Saint Thérèse of Lisieux reminds us, “Prayer is an aspiration of the heart. It is a simple glance directed to heaven. It is a cry of gratitude and love in the midst of trial as well as joy.”

Perhaps the greatest aspect of gratitude is that it requires humility. It requires us to set aside our pride and self-interest and open our hearts in a different way. Not only must we approach God with such humility, but our neighbor as well. For how can we give praise and honor to God, thanking Him for all He has given us, if we are still resentful of others? No, gratitude requires humility, and God requires us to learn of Him and be humble of heart.

This Thanksgiving, meditate on the words of Saint Ambrose: “No duty is more urgent than that of returning thanks.” So let us embrace our vocal faith, let us praise our Heavenly Father for all of our sufferings along with our blessings. With God’s grace, let us transform our hearts to become meek and humble, and live our days in gratitude.

May God continue to bless you and your families.

Conor Gallagher

CEO of TAN Books

International Public Notice: Dear Mr. Trump: Regarding QFS

 By Anna Von Reitz

We are aware of how your parent corporations in the District of Columbia are operating to "debank" franchise corporations and using the banking system (and access or non-access to it) as a weapon. 

https://x.com/benaverbook/status/1861511171951542552

We don't approve or agree.  Banking, like the practice of law or medicine, is an Occupation of Common Right, and we uphold the absolute right of all persons to have access to banking services of their choice. 

To settle for anything less in the name of safety or crime prevention leaves the door wide open to naked monopolistic control of vital services and their abuse for purposes of political partisan manipulation and coercive targeting of businesses and individuals on a scale only dreamed of by despots. 

We are endemically opposed to the stated ends of the QFS "System"

which are to force people to sign private Non-Disclosure Agreements and bind themselves to the QFS in order to receive back assets and credit that naturally belong to them and which should be returned to their control free and clear of all and any strong-arm contracting processes. 

We oppose the proposed strong-armed and coercive contracts on another grounds as well; the proposers, authors, and architects of the QFS are aiming to capture a very large portion of the assets and credit for their own use and are intent on defrauding the rightful owners out of 80-90% of their inheritance and restitution. 

This is another criminal scheme being promoted by the USA, Inc. and no amount of Non-Disclosure Agreements foisted off on people will protect the District of Columbia, Inc. and its Principals. 

We, the actual Government of this country, to which you and your British Territorial cohorts owe "good faith service" have already opted out of the QFS and chosen to develop a Third Path for people -- a new global Bilateral Bank System separate from QFS or BRICs, either one, designed to serve the living people of this planet.

It's long overdue.  

So kindly instruct your would-be racketeers to shut down operations and shut down the QFS biometric banking monopoly before it even gets started.  

And assign our recaptured assets to the Global Family Bank --- gold, silver, land, cash, and other physical and material assets are to be assigned to The Global Family International Trade Bank, prepaid credit assets and debt assets are to be assigned to The Global Family Commercial Bank.  

All the people who have invested in foreign currencies in anticipation of the collapse of the Federal Reserve Note can exchange their bonds directly through The Global Family Commercial Bank and Global Family International Trade Bank interface without any need to sign Non-Disclosure Agreements with racketeers pretending to be their liberators.

The American People are all grown up now, no longer depending on any Nanny State, no longer deceived by self-serving mercenaries. 

We have no interest in unjustly enriching corporate entities run by mercenaries promoting themselves as the Good Guys while continuing to run scams like this against the assets and interests of the people that they are supposed to be protecting against all enemies both foreign and domestic. 

We want a clean, simple, transactionally transparent but otherwise private banking system, that is not subject to regulation by private political interests.  So we created one ourselves. 

Welcome aboard. 

As a further note, Mr. Trump, it has come to our attention that Mr. Musk has incorporated a legal fiction entity in Texas calling itself the "United States of America" and that another such entity is attempting to operate in India.  This is yet another infringement upon our Good Name and Trademarks, and most likely represents new attempts to impersonate us, steal our identity, and access our credit.

Let it stand before the world that our Federation of States (referred to as a Confederation with respect to the Union States (1777)) is and has always been and must be Unincorporated.  Let it also stand that we have not granted any permission to any foreign nation or state or state-of-state to use our Good Name in any commercial capacity whatsoever --- including India and the State of Texas. 

We also note that a "State of Israel, Inc." has been created with an agent's address in Kensington Palace, and that it is apparently being staged as the "51st State of the Union".  Let's be very clear that while we are sympathetic to the dilemma faced by the living people we are absolutely opposed to the rapacious, bloody, subhuman Israeli Government with which you have aligned yourself.  

Any Government that could kill over 200,000 unarmed civilians in cold blood and destroy 36 hospitals, plus leave over a million Lebanese homeless, all under the pretext that it "felt threatened" by a False Flag staged by mercenaries hired by Great Britain, is a rogue state being run by criminals, and it would make more logical sense for Netanyahu to attack London than Balbek. 

We have no shred of sympathy for that kind of behavior at all; we wish for it to stop immediately and permanently.  Left to themselves, with proper education, the people will sort things out for themselves. 

Just get the meddling Brits out of the middle of their business and ours. 

As long as we are commenting on international affairs, we will also comment on the Ukraine and the proposed buy-out of Ukrainian Rare Earth Minerals and monopolization of its food production capacity as a means to coercively control Africa by controlling half of Africa's  food supply-- we say: (1) until Puppet Zelensky is removed, and a new and freely elected national government restored, there is no valid spokesperson empowered to act for Ukraine, (2) the use of food as a means to subdue Africa and continue colonialist pillaging of its people and resources, is repugnant, illegal, and immoral.   

We want nothing to do with it, and when we say nothing, we mean that we don't want a penny of ours or any credit of ours to go toward such investments and we don't want our sons and daughters engaged in implementing any such proxy government business deals in Ukraine or anywhere else.  

The Monroe Doctrine needs to be overthrown, as it was promoted by British Corporate interests of the same kind that have been a constant source of war-profiteering, meddling, and fraud schemes throughout the world, and British Territorial "Presidents" have involved and misdirected our unwitting nation in these same sorts of activities well-beyond a simple assertion of having extra-territorial interests.  

Please be advised, Mr. Trump, that these current issues are representative of long-term problems that began with the undue influence of the British Government being promoted via the illegal mercenary occupation of our country, control of what should be our banking system and credit, and misrepresentation of our foreign policies. 

We have unknowingly paid for, but not profited from these violent, cynical, and ill-advised British Territorial commercial schemes, and we have been blamed for them as well.  We consider it your duty to honor the Constitutional contract and its limitations, and to make a clear distinction between initiatives of the British Territorial Government and its corporate activities and those activities undertaken under contract to us exercising delegated authority. 

Please take notice that our contracts are explicitly stated and need to be honored in the same way. 

Issued by: 

Anna Maria Riezinger, Fiduciary

The United States of America

In care of: Box 520994

Big Lake, Alaska 99652

November 27th 2024

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See this article and over 5100 others on Anna's website here: www.annavonreitz.com

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"Some of the Most INSANE Data You'll Ever See" Proves System AT FAULT

 https://youtu.be/qFLI2VeIy5w

Dive into the most eye-opening charts you’ll ever see as we uncover the hidden truths about the monetary system’s influence on prosperity. From skyrocketing trade deficits to the staggering rise in taxation, this video explores how abandoning sound money has reshaped the economy and your day-to-day life. Topics Covered:

• The U.S. trade deficit: Why it's more than just numbers.
• How taxation evolved from 0% to today's crushing levels.
• The untold impact of the Federal Reserve on your wallet.
• Why political parties aren't the real drivers of economic change.
• A case for sound money: The key to freedom and prosperity.

Learn why the monetary system is the ultimate “Kingmaker” and how we can still turn things around.

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We have new ways for you to get silver at great prices. For small orders go to this link:

https://quicksilver.me/296110

 For orders of 100 ounces or more:

1. The old 500 ounce minimum order is gone. The new minimum order will be 100 ounces, and that might go down in a few weeks if everything goes well.

2. They will be very competitive in their price structure, and right now we are offering a price plan based on the volume of metal in each order. See below.

3. The shipping will be faster, and the wait time will be less than it was. Each order will be shipped with full insurance. I made my first 3 orders on the 30th of October, and all those orders have arrived here for local customers and our stock. That was a lead time of just 12 days for those orders. I have been told the wait time depends on how often they run the type of round that is ordered. So because the Divisible Prospector Round has been over 90% of our orders and is so popular, we can say without hesitation that even if they only run them once per month, the orders should come within 30 days or sooner. Here is another picture of the new design for that round.

These will be shipped from Indiana or Nevada depending on where the order is going, by UPS Ground, fully insured, and at some point down the road they have said they will put in a stock of this round ahead of demand, so that I will be able to get almost immediate shipment once they receive the funds.

 We will still be accepting wire transfers, or cashiers checks like always. 

We can only lock an order after we have received the funds. Here is the formula we use to figure your price.

Go to this link on Kitco.com and look up the ask price of silver. https://www.kitco.com/price/precious-metals

It's in the first table on that page. 

For a 100 oz. to 199 oz. order, take the ask price and add $3.75 for the strike fee and insurance from the mint, and our profit per ounce. 

For a 200 oz. to 299 oz. order, take the ask price and add $3.50 for the strike fee and insurance from the mint, and our profit per ounce. 

For a 300 oz. order and larger, take the ask price and add $3.25 for the strike fee and insurance from the mint, and our profit per ounce. 

All orders over 300 ounces will be the same $3.25 over spot ask price.

Take that number times the number of ounces (100 or over) and then add $25.00 for each 100 ounce box for shipping.

Once we have your funds we will run this same formula to finalize the price with shipping.

Be sure to call us when you are ready to order so we can answer your questions.

When you call I will get your email address and send you the bank info for wire transfers and the mailing info for your payment. You can then reply with your shipping address.

If you have any questions here is my contact info,  

Office phone  406 889 3183  8 AM to 2 PM and 4PM to 6 PM weekdays.

Cell  406 253 4257  when I am not in the office. Try the Office line first.

pstramer@gmail.com   or  pstramer@eurekadsl.net

Thanks for your support over the years.  We are now open and taking orders.

If you can't order 100 ounces go here: https://quicksilver.me/296110

Paul Stramer

International Public Notice: Dear Mr. Trump

 By Anna Von Reitz

We aren't fooled.  

We know that you are up against it to try to justify your actions promoting the phony pandemic.  

This is how we see it. 

You had cause to know that the whole thing was evil, that it would cause disease, not prevent it; that it was not a "vaccine"; that the crap would pollute the whole human genome, pollute the blood supply of the world, kill and maim millions of innocent people ---- and what did you do, Mr. Trump?  Operation Warp Speed?  Spent $10 Billion dollars to depopulate this America that you want to make healthy again? 

After you helped so monumentally to destroy our health?  Really?  

Reeks of Hegelian Dialectic, don't you think? 

Obviously, you realized your mistake and the need for some Top Drawer Window Dressing, someone with the credibility you so grossly lack on this issue of Public Concern: RFK, Jr., a man who the people do trust on this issue and will support in his efforts to clean up this dreadful industry and the horrific damage that you and your clubfooted First Administration have done to us, to our children, and the entire world. 

Know that we are watching.  Know that we will be protecting RFK, Jr.  And know that you are not out of the woods just because you have included him in your Administration.  

If you really want to impress us with your double-take you need to destroy the NIH and the CDC, utterly.  Completely.  And the FDA, too. You need to kill those corporations that have killed us, and do a good, solid, permanent job of it. 

They need to be squashed like so many cockroaches in a Five-Star restaurant, and that's what it is going to take for us to take you and your Administration seriously on this issue. 

Nominating a Fauci Wannabe of a different color won't cut it.  Your decision to continue the NIH and the man you have nominated to head this Death Mill is an insult added to profound injury.  

Your Nominee was and is a cheerleader for the Death Jab and the whole sick, ugly, disgusting, useless, self-important, fake-science, for-profit "medical" industrial complex.  These organizations are not in the business of Health.  They are in the business of Chronic Disease --- as the "health" statistics of this country prove, and if you think we are so stupid and so unobservant that we don't know that and see that, then bloody think again.  

The proof is in the pudding, Mr. Trump. 

The pudding says that there have been millions upon millions of innocent people who have died or contracted disease because of you, so don't expect to just waltz in, throw RFK, Jr. up as your storefront, and think that you are getting away with as much as a nanobot more of this crap, because you're not. 

If you and Bill Gates and Keir Starmer want to find yourselves running around Piccadilly Circus like so many naked bulls pursued by mobs wielding hypodermic needles, just keep it up.  

This is it, Mr. Trump, your notification of personal and commercial liability from the American People.  You've used up all your Free Passes.  

Take prompt, definitive, and effective action to correct your mistakes --- if "mistakes" they were --- and do your duty.  

Dismantle and liquidate Pfizer, Johnson and Johnson, Moderna, Astrazeneca, and all other organizations involved in the production, distribution, advertising, sale, or transportation of all mRNA products of any kind whatsoever.  

Dismantle and liquidate the so-called "National Institutes of Health", the so-called  "Center for Disease Control",  the DARPA patent holders, the hopelessly compromised and incompetent Food and Drug Administration, and all the individual laboratories associated with this horrifying debacle. 

It's going to take more than lip-service and a storefront makeover. 

You've killed our sons and daughters, our Mothers and our Fathers, in the name of profit, and now, you think you can turn on your smile and say, oh, I'm here to make America Healthy Again?  After you destroyed our health?  

Oh, come again, sir.  Try passing another blood clot or wooden nickel, whichever you'd prefer. 

We're not buying it.  We're not satisfied.  And we won't be satisfied until this entire horror is removed, root, stem, and leaf --- from the Pirbright Institute and Wellcome Trust to the Rhodes Foundation --- we wish for all of them to be liquidated, dead, and gone, as if they never were, their wealth given away to their victims.   

The offending laboratories at University at Chapel Hill and Fort Detrick need to be razed to the ground, as memorials to the dead, with appropriate Public Recognition of why they are being destroyed. 

Fine every hospital and doctor in this country that received kickbacks related to the pandemic, the whole amount of money they received for going along with the "pandemic", plus interest.    

Dissolve the World Bank as a criminal organization involved in illegal gambling and racketeering, insurance fraud, sale of so-called pandemic bonds, and theft of depositor's assets.  Tear it down. 

The SERCO Employees at the USPTO need to be hauled out into the streets, chained together like the criminals they are, dressed in rainbow jumpers and hospital slippers.  They all deserve this and a helluva lot more  for rubber stamping thousands of criminal patents --- that is, patents for inventions and processes that are clearly criminal in nature and intent.  

They and their clients who have applied for criminal patents should all be finger-printed and identified as the public enemies they are, and tried for their part in all this, which was to allow all these other criminals to profit from premeditated death and destruction and evil. 

Like Anthony Fauci, who made millions doing this to innocent people.  We want his liver.  Make no mistake. 

These "public servants" need to be whipped in public, or worse.  

They need their faces plastered on every post office window from here to Louisiana and from New York to San Luis Obispo.  Everyone needs to know and recognize who these feckless criminals are, because, Sir, they are your employees and we all know who you are.  

Issued by: 

Anna Maria Riezinger, Fiduciary

The United States of America

In care of: Box 520994

Big Lake, Alaska 99652

November 27th 2024

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See this article and over 5100 others on Anna's website here: www.annavonreitz.com

To support this work look for the Donate button on this website. 

How do we use your donations?  Find out here.

International Public Notice: It's a Stage and They Are the Players

 By Anna Von Reitz

Remember how the bar attorneys came to England?  As the Merrie Men, a Theater Company.  In Elizabethan England that had many overtones.  As we know, the black-robed, white-wigged Galli, the devotees of the goddess Cybele, castrated themselves in her honor and collected taxes for Caesar from the second century BC onward. 

And here they are, arrived in England 800 years later, as a theater company.  They were famous for playing the women's roles at a time when public law forbade women actors.  They were also famous for their homosexual romps and ability to speak and sing -- convincingly -- as women, suggesting a mixed-bag of Continentals coming to entertain and defraud the unwitting British Public, because Protestant Elizabeth I was in debt up to her virgin rump to the Pope. 

They were bill collectors for Caesar.  They were and are bill collectors for the Pope.  They've always been bill collectors --- and thespians --- and they still are, right here in America. 

They entertain us with the "appearance" of justice and "courtroom dramas" and produce worn out passion plays about heroes and villains, non-existent debtors and non-existent indentured servants and better still, non-existent slaves, who are all subject to non-existent "laws" that turn out to be codes and statutes and regulations and anything but law, instead. 

So, yes, we have been snookered for a very, very long time, by an ancient network of professional con artists, but instead of getting the joke, we've been taken in by their theatrics. 

As we wake up, we are naturally angry to the bone and looking for someone to blame; let's look at it squarely for who the culprits are. 

(1) The so-called U.S. Military which has been cavorting around the world as a Great Whore, ready for the killing at the drop of a shilling, but of course, never telling the lower ranking soldiers and sailors the score. 

(2) The Roman Catholic Church, in its Secular Offices, which has bilked everyone senseless for hundreds of years, an institution that created all the legal fictions that have been used to defraud everything and everyone in sight. 

(3) The Loyal Opposition, the Bankers and Lawyers of Fleet Street who aren't Catholic, but who nonetheless serve the Church and act as bill collectors of Rome, the Pope, and the Monarchs -- for a hefty cut of the game. 

These are the Players that have encircled and deluded and defrauded the world, together, of course, with many minor players and set designers, vendors, and collaborators. 

So we have a military that isn't a military in the thrall of bankers who are idol-worshipers, who work with attorneys who don't actually follow the law, but make a great show of appearing to--- and all of it designed to bilk and defraud the public for the benefit of all these white-collar gangsters. 

Now imagine that all this has finally been uncovered. People are waking up.  The "audience" isn't fooled any longer.  They've felt the fingers on their purse!  

What can such a colluding bunch of crooks do, but choose new roles and come up with another "narrative" to try and save themselves from the wrath they are owed?  

Now, let's look at the world around us.... 

We are being told that the Great and Glorious Military Earth Alliance is here to save us and usher in a world of peace and plenty; we are told that they are destroying the evil cabal and hunting down the "Vatican" monsters who they portray as pedophiles and murderers and drug dealers of the most depraved kind. 

Or are they just doing what they always do --- demonizing their enemy and trying to make themselves look good?  Passing off the blame to their former partners?  Using all these purported military trials and executions to get rid of the witnesses?  Are they really destroying underground cities and tunnels of the shadowy "cabal" or instead, blowing up the evidence? Tidying up the crime scene and scape-goating the civilian colluders? 

Come on, kids, after all this, you have to be a bit beyond skeptical. 

How does this square with Trump pushing the mRNA vaccines down our throats and spending $10 billion on these products to destroy the human genome and depopulate America?  You may like Trump.  You may admire his business acumen.  But that's what he did. 

Biden, too, a different flavor of the same old munge, a different spin to the same result.  

Both these men had reason to know the truth. 

We had a wonderful video we wanted to share of Ron Paul commenting on remarks made by Senator Lindsey Graham, but unfortunately, that video disappeared, whereabouts unknown.   

The gist of it was Graham describing how rich Ukraine is in Rare Earth Minerals and how Trump will cut a deal with Ukraine to buy all its Rare Earth Minerals (and together with Zimbabwe) establish a monopoly share interest in the world market for these minerals. 

Just like Zimbabwe, they already had a puppet dictator of their own choosing to deal with.  Joe Biden could have cut the same kind of deal, so obviously, he had a different set of instructions, even though he was also thick as thieves with Zelensky. 

Then Graham observed that half of Africa eats because of Ukraine and controlling the food supply of Africa would be very profitable and yield great coercive power over the people.  

Graham didn't know or care what his comments revealed to the folks back home. Or to Ron Paul.  

Some people have suggested that Joe was all about payola to Zelensky in exchange for laundered campaign contributions for Democrats: 

https://x.com/HealthRanger/status/1861489529481261166

No doubt there has been no end of that, too. but we don't believe that was the real leverage.  No, Bigger Fish were in the Ukraine.  Fish that aimed to use Ukraine in all the ways that Trump plans to use Ukraine, and then some.  NATO had big plans to use Ukraine as a new power base and buffer zone, positioned right next to Russia. 

We can still hear U.S. Secretary of State James Baker promising Russia that NATO wouldn't move an inch eastward, if Russia accepted the reunification of Germany.  

Not an inch.  

Several thousand kilometers later..... Russia has fired an Intercontinental Ballistic Missile carrying nine (9) warheads at Mach Nine (9).  

So the hot air steaming down like a fire hose from Washington, DC, has been simply and succinctly answered.  All the empty self-serving lies have been handed back to NATO, and we observe that NATO should be liquidated anyway.  

A club for  monopolistic corporate interests seeking to install puppet governments to ensure market control,  is called a cartel, not a treaty organization. Admiral Bauer should remember that the actual government of this country has its own Admiralty Law, which still allows keel-hauling.  

Issued by: 

Anna Maria Riezinger, Fiduciary

The United States of America

In care of: Box 520994

Big Lake, Alaska 99652

November 27th 2024

----------------------------

See this article and over 5100 others on Anna's website here: www.annavonreitz.com

To support this work look for the Donate button on this website. 

How do we use your donations?  Find out here. 

About the Use of Time Outs and the Value of Our Differences

 By Anna Von Reitz

Here I am explaining --again--- the process of how time-outs are to be used and NOT used:  

Marshals at Arms are required to speak to each individual and explain precisely what they are doing that is disruptive, and then place them on an appropriate first-time-offender time out, of perhaps a week.  If the same person continues the same behavior, the Marshals at Arms may have to address them again, explain (again) what they are doing and why that is disruptive, and give them a second, longer time out to think about it and change their behavior.  A second time out might be for a two week or one month period, and so on. Each time the individual repeats their bad behavior, the time outs get longer.  

Time outs are most typically applied for "brawling" and "drunk and disorderly" behaviors --- people who can't refrain from coming to our meetings and taking them over with their complaints and anger over their personal issues --- usually while under the influence, but not always. 

Refusal to use the agenda process and follow the agenda, chronic refusal to limit one's comments to the allotted time each speaker has, swearing and name-calling in public, malicious physical behaviors at public meetings (slapping, ear-boxing, etc.), refusal to take issues to the appropriate committee once advised to do so, and similar things that detract from the ability of the group as a whole to maintain a positive focus and conduct business in an orderly way can all be grounds for a time out.  

What time outs can't be used for --- includes political differences, differences of opinion, censorship, bringing up unpopular issues, "strong statements" which are not to the level of mud-slinging and name-calling in public, and where the agenda allows for it, public debate.  Americans are free to disagree and our Assemblies are free to be forums for dissenting ideas, because at the end of the day, the group as a whole is seeking consensus and a well-rounded view of the topics under discussion.  

We don't WANT to quell opposing opinions, because we want to consider all possibilities before making important decisions as a group.  Even if what someone brings forward is illogical or wrong-headed in the logical sense, or even immoral --- have the courage to face ideas contrary to your own, and consider them for what they are--- someone else's opinion, to which they have a right, no matter how much you may disagree.  

Individual opinions are not sacrosanct and don't reflect on the group and the expression of contrary opinions is not a "danger" to anyone nor is it grounds for a time out. 

The past five years have shown that in addition to leaving us woefully ignorant, our Public Fool System has left us without basic social and communication skills that used to be commonplace.  

People routinely "take things personally" when they shouldn't, they routinely feel constrained and suppressed and don't express themselves fully or coherently because they are afraid and unaccustomed to doing so, and people no longer appear to know the difference between public and private forums, so they say and do things that are inappropriate in a group setting. 

Helping our members grow and better understand the impersonal nature of debate, improving their communication skills and ability to communicate, and developing a sense of how people conduct themselves "in public" is all part of what should be a gentle and encouraging guidance from the Assembly as a whole.  

Always remember that we want and need to hear opposing ideas in order to know that we are making the right choices.  Just as a penniless beggar offers us the chance to be charitable, opposing ideas offer us the chance to review our own logic and see things from a different point of view.  

We may or may not change our minds, but we will have gone through the process of reviewing data and perception --- and that is what leads to integrity.  When people consider all the possible angles and come to a consensual decision, they know where they stand on an issue and they know why.  This gives their whole decision-making process integrity.  

When you are operating as the Government of an entire State of the Union, you want that kind of integrity to go into every decision-making process and result. 

You want the whole process of discussion to flow forward in an even-handed and reasonably impersonal way, so that the facts and the pros and cons can be considered without a lot of emotion clouding our view.  

Total consensus on every issue isn't possible, so we all have to learn to "agree to disagree" and at a certain point, realize that the group has considered our opinion and made other decisions. That's okay.  That's the way it is, and the way it has always been. We have all had the experience of "I told you so" ---and we just have to accept that there is a certain amount of that no matter what we do. 

Sometimes you're the bug, and sometimes you are the windshield in public discussion forums.  Sometimes people hear and respond to your urgent concerns and sometimes they don't hear you and it works out to everyone's detriment.  As groups and as individuals we all make mistakes and we all pay dearly when we do.  Our best insurance against making mistakes is hearing everyone and really listening to pick out the merit in what they say.  

From the standpoint of the speaker, the trick is to learn how (and having the courage) to present your ideas to the group in an open, easy-to-understand way that isn't confrontational.  

That way, the group gains the benefit of hearing a different view, whether they ultimately agree or not, and you have brought forward your insight and put it on the table. Realize that in the rough and tumble of public debate, leaders often rise to prominence --- not because their ideas were popular, but because they were later proven right. 

Our goal as Assemblies is to provide a safe, open, and fair-handed forum where issues can be passionately but peacefully debated, where group consensus can be sought and hopefully realized, and where the integrity of the decision-making process is upheld. 

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See this article and over 5100 others on Anna's website here: www.annavonreitz.com

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