"In any moment of decision, the best thing you can do is the right thing, the next best thing is the wrong thing, and the worst thing you can do is nothing." - Theodore Roosevelt

"Move or die is the language of our Maker in the constitution of our bodies." - John Adams

"It's the job that's never started as takes longest to finish." - J.R.R. Tolkien (The Lord of the Rings)

Today in History On October 23, 1981, the U.S. national debt hit $1 trillion for the first time.

"Determine never to be idle. No person will have occasion to complain of the want of time, who never loses any. It is wonderful how much may be done, if we are always doing." - Thomas Jefferson

"Take time to deliberate, but when the time for action has arrived, stop thinking and go." Napoleon Bonaparte

Canning chicken breasts from the freezer to make room for new.

“Were we directed from Washington when to sow, and when to reap, we should soon want bread.” – Thomas Jefferson

"I think it better to do right, even if we suffer in so doing, than to incur the reproach of our consciences and posterity." - Robert E. Lee

A pipe gives a wise man time to think and a fool something to put in his mouth.

"When a resolute young fellow steps up to the great bully, the world, and takes him boldly by the beard, he is often surprised to find it comes off in his hands, and that is was only tied on to scare away timid adventurers." - Oliver Wendell Holmes

"When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle." - Edmund Burke

"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing." - Edmund Burke

"You have not lived today until you have done something for someone that can never repay you." - John Bunyan

"Only one who devotes himself to a cause with his whole strength and soul can be a true master. For this reason, mastery demands all of a person." - Albert Einstein

"It is not the cares of today, but the cares of tomorrow, that weigh a man down." - George MacDonald

Texas Scorecard

Words Matter

The language we use to define issues often determines how we will solve them.

### Words Matter by Michael Quinn Sullivan The key to winning a fight isn’t found in the fight itself, but in defining what the fight is even about. The great military philosopher Sun Tzu understood this, warning his students not to let their enemies pick the times and locations of battles. He wrote, “The clever combatant imposes his will on the enemy, but does not allow the enemy's will to be imposed on him.” When you fight on your enemies’ terms, it rarely works out well. You’d think this would be self-evident, but time and again, American conservatives have allowed liberals to define the fights. It is no wonder the war for our culture and republic has been in such shambles! Words matter; they shape how we approach the world and its problems. In culture and government, language also determines how we will solve them. And all too often, conservatives have allowed themselves to be backed into rhetorical corners, letting the left define the debate by dictating the very words used. Conservative politicians will say they are adopting the language employed by the cultural and political left as a reasonable concession to civic dialogue. In many cases, though, they are instead revealing their own insecurity or laziness … Or, maybe, they are just revealing their true beliefs. Take the barbaric practice of surgically and chemically mutilating the sex organs of children to achieve the appearance of the opposite gender. The left wants to call this “gender modification,” leaning into a worldview that devalues human life to little more than a knock-off Lego set. Nothing is being modified on those children, but rather mutilated. Only by calling the practice of gender mutilation what it is can we hope to see it stopped. That culture has been at war with marriage for a long time is not news. From “no-fault divorce” to “gay marriage,” holy matrimony has devolved into little more than a casual legal arrangement. The latest verbal assault is on the way spouses are referred to culturally. Gone are “husbands” and “wives.” Now they are “partners,” putting your husband on the same rhetorical footing as the fellow who services your office’s copy machine. The examples go on and on. Consider the invasion at the southern border … or the problem of “undocumented migrants.” “Undocumented migrants” is addressed in a vastly different manner than “illegal aliens.” One presumes a paperwork problem created by a bureaucracy; the other defines an existential threat to our national survival. How we describe any problem goes a long way in dictating how we will solve it. If conservatives want to be competitive in the war for culture and government, they must stop letting leftists define the terms used to describe the world. Conservatives must discipline themselves and not allow the manipulated language of the left to cross their tongues.  Conservatives must impose on the national conversation honest language to describe the issues of the day if we are to save the republic.

"He who stops being better stops being good." - Oliver Cromwell

"Justice will not be served until those who are unaffected are as outraged as those who are." - Ben Franklin

Quote-Unquote "The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted." – James Madison