Read it here and discuss below.

This is a guest post by Nick Galieti, a podcaster for LDS Perspectives and Book of Mormon Central. Nick Galieti was recipient of the 2015 John Taylor: Defender of the Faith Award by FairMormon, is author of the books Tree of Sacrament, and The Exaltation Equation, and has directed and produced the documentaries Picturing Joseph, and Murder of the Mormon Prophet.

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Readers, Editors, and Reporters have different expectations of “the news.” Typically, readers claim to want the truth of events; Editors want what sells the news and ensure that what is presented is compelling; and reporters want to influence the world with stories that can impact change. While this characterization may be oversimplified, the various views of the role and function of “news” does depend on the filter by those who consume, promote, or produce it. This can be problematic as the medium that some suppose should be an unbiased or dispassionate reporting of events, is used as leverage to promote narratives, agendas, or simply to sell the news for revenues sake. In this regard, all news is “fake” in that no one can receive absolute objectivity, even if it is presented.

The song, “Nearly Forgot My Broken Heart” by Chris Cornell played on the radio, and a lyric stood out and gave me pause. The original lyric is “take a picture of the sun and it won’t help you to see the light.” After hearing this lyric my mind connected to a recent news story about a 12-year old Mormon Girl who came out as gay in a Sunday Meeting but was stopped and told to sit down by a local church leader. Much has been written, comments on social media have flared, and every source seems to have the “truth” or is reporting “honestly” or “accurately” while contradicting or giving different information than the next. Continue reading →

Today, we’ll discuss healthcare, since the Senate is debating their bill.

The Senate bill is similar to the House bill in many ways. Neither repeals Obamacare, but do repeal many of the mandates.

Four Senators, Paul, Cruz, Lee and Johnson oppose it so far, because the bill does nothing to reduce costs to people and employers. It is not a free market system, which we have not had in over fifty years.

If the following were added to the bill, I would find it acceptable:

First, allow insurance to be sold across state lines. This may be difficult to do, given the 10th amendment.

Second, allow Walmart, CVS, credit unions and other companies to offer insurance plans to their customers. With risk spread out over hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of customers, prices will drop. Just look at how prescription prices dropped from Walmart offering many for four bucks. It takes health insurance needs from employers, where people risk losing insurance when they lose a job.

Third, give a 2 year period for people with preexisting conditions to get insurance without a penalty. Then, every five years after that, have a three month open enrollment for preexistent conditions as a year of jubilee. In this way, those who choose not to get insurance until something serious occurs will not have that expensive monkey on their backs forever, but will pay a penalty for a few years. It gives them incentive to buy now, or take a risk of their own choice. And it will drive down costs.

Of course, a pure free market system would be awesome, but probably not attainable at this time.

How would you fix the Senate bill?

If I were president, I would do the following in regards to foreign affairs:

1. Re-establish President George Washington’s insistence on no long term alliances, and no adventurism in the world. We are not the world’s police force.
2. Get out of unnecessary wars and conflicts. This would include most of the Middle East. Reduce our 95 overseas bases to about 1/3 that number.
3. Compromise with Russia. We get out of Syria and most of the Middle East, if they remain neutral towards Eastern European nations. I’d rather we were defending those who are clearly allies, than fighting thousand year old wars between nations run by tyrants and terrorists.
4. North Korea: Placating NK no longer works, as it has in the past. Today they have a dozen nukes. A decade from now, NK could have 100 nukes, able to hit America. We must tell China that their past methods to control NK have not worked on Kim Jong Un. With the murders of an American and Kim Jong Un’s brother,, and continual efforts to test nukes and guided missiles, NK has shown itself belligerent and a clear and present danger to all its neighbors. We must tell China that either they must depose Kim Jong Un, or we will.
   1. If we must fight NK, the first thing to do after notifying South Korea and Japan, is to send a huge EMP hit on all of North Korea. With systems fried, most of their equipment, missiles, etc., will not work.Then we hit all of their military and government locations.
   2. With dialogue and agreement with China, we replace the government. I’d rather have a peaceful communist nation like Vietnam, than to continue having a crazy megalomaniac terrorizing the area.
5. Build the wall. Whether electronic or actual wall, does not matter to me. We build it, not to keep good immigrants out, but to control entrance to terrorists and drug cartels.
   1. Create big doors for good immigrants to enter within. Especially encourage young families to enter. Do not give them welfare assistance. Let them work their way up the system, as did my great-grandparents, who came over a century ago from the Ukraine and became farmers in North Dakota.
   2. Require immigrants to being learning English and the concepts behind the Constitution and Declaration of Independence. If they someday wish to be good citizens, they must understand what makes America great (and it isn’t Donald Trump).
   3. Allow immigrants to replace the 50 million aborted babies we’ve had since the early 1970s, paying into Social Security and Medicare. Their numbers will prop up those programs, which currently are on the verge of bankruptcy.
6. Be an Ensign to the Nations of Freedom and Liberty. George W Bush’s idea of forcing freedom onto other nations proved to be a failure. Barack Obama’s Arab Spring proved to be a failure. We must stop trying to impose freedom onto peoples who are not ready for it. Let them cause their own freedom, with us supplying the inspiration.
7. Ronald Reagan stayed out of most wars. Yet, he inspired nations towards freedom. When nations prepared themselves for freedom, we were available to teach them how to use it best. We must do the same.Because of Reagan’s method, a billion people experienced freedom. Since then, new failed methods of intervention have enslaved hundreds of millions. Neo-conservatism has failed us, as have progressive interventions.

Such would be my beginning for Foreign Affairs.

How would you manage Foreign Affairs if you were president?