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John Livingston

Has America Lost its Roots?

Our apple trees are not doing well so I called a “tree doctor” to attend to our problem. He came to the front door wearing a white lab coat—medical doctors don’t even wear lab coats anymore, do they? Each of our trees only produced about a dozen apples this year, when in years past, we […]

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John Livingston

Look Before You Leap – Some Decisions are Irreversible

When I was six years old, I knew that I could fly if I had a red cape. I made such a cape out of a piece of a red curtain in my room. I made a cape for myself and my three-year-old brother who would follow me everywhere, and I set out to FLY. […]

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John Livingston

A Real Leader is Not Afraid to Debate

When I read yesterday that Governor Little was not going to debate prior to the November election for Idaho Governor, I was not surprised, but I was very disappointed. Before I proceed let me say that I have met Governor Little three times and on each occasion for only a few moments. He acts like […]

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John Livingston

Adjusting for the Failures of Management

There is much to learn about our world when we examine different businesses and how basic economic principles apply to situations outside of the world of politics. Any person who has planned for a family budget, or run a business or a farm or ranch, understands that future unintended consequences and opportunity costs need to […]

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John Livingston

Assessing Medical Risk

For the last several weeks I have been reviewing cancer survival statistics from patients that were treated for their disease during the pandemic. My eyes are glossing over from reading Meier-Kaplan curves. The Meier-Kaplan curve is a graphical representation of the survival function. It shows the probability that a subject will survive up to time […]

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John Livingston

Critical Thinking & Moral Leadership

Every week I receive many e-mails about my Gem State Patriot Posts. I don’t even know how people got my e-mail address, but I very much appreciate the instructive, constructive, and even destructive criticisms. One of my best critics is a cross country truck driver named Bill and he said I was getting too negative […]

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John Livingston

Spiritual Economics

We live in a material world and because of that we live our lives in the context of scarcity. We are called on to work by the necessity of having to provide for ourselves, our families, and our neighbors. In the creation story in Exodus God himself is seen as “working”, ultimately creating His greatest […]

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John Livingston

The Idaho Ministry of Plenty (And Still No Audits)

We are certainly living in a dystopian upside-down world that was anticipated in George Orwell’s NINETEEN EIGHTY-FOUR. With that classic novel in mind, I would like to respectfully submit to Idahoans and especially our political leaders a plan to restructure our state government based on the “Orwellian Model” The Ministry of Truth, the Ministry of Peace, the Ministry […]

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John Livingston

Questions That Need To Be Answered

For the past several months I have called for an out brief by State Officials of the Covid Response in Idaho. I respectfully asked for what has traditionally for the past 130 years in medicine been referred to as a Morbidity and Mortality (M&M) review of the State and local health districts response to the […]

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John Livingston

Stewardship

The three pericopes from Mathew and Luke’s gospels—The Parables of The Faithful Steward (Mathew and Luke) and The Expectant Servant (Luke) and The Unjust Servant (Luke) teach us great lessons about fidelity within our households and businesses, but also the responsibility of –FIDUCIARY and agency that applies to those doing the people’s business in government. […]

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John Livingston

Biology Matters? – The Lies We Tell Ourselves

My Quaker grandmother and her mother were “suffragettes” who were early 20th century “feminists” The feminist movement at that time believed in the “uniqueness” of femininity and the unique perspective that a women could give to the civic discourse. It was very much appreciated back then that women were different than men. The needs of “family […]

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John Livingston

A Moral Dilemma for Idaho

We have just been presented a case in point demonstrating the differences in the values between the elites in the ruling corporate classes in Idaho and the “We the People” everyday citizens. In the acute sense this offers an opportunity to ask some important questions. In the long run we must also ask is this […]

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