When I was a kid, I remember spending as much time as I could at my grandfather's side. He was a larger than life character; a 40-year veteran of southwestern law enforcement, and he was very much committed to trying to teach his grandson everything he could about surviving in a modern world. Most of those lessons were the simple moral ones: to have integrity, to be willing to stand up for what you believe in, to provide for and protect your family, and to always keep an eye out for those in need who might need a helping hand. One thing he felt was very important was teaching me the value of firearms and the importance of developing skill-at-arms for the express purpose of protecting yourself, your family, and your community. He believed in self-determination and self-responsibility, and knowing how to use a gun was one of the most important statements of self-reliance a man could make. He told me that responsible gun ownership was the mark of a strong, independent people. He would talk about the problems he saw in society at the time (this was the late '70's), and he lamented that most of them would be solved if people stopped being irresponsible, self-absorbed sheep and embraced self-responsibility and self-determination as core philosophies. As I've gotten older, I have seen nothing to make me think my grandfather was wrong. I shake my head as I look at the issues this country faces, and at the way the people of this country have turned away from the simple values my grandfather held dear; the very values our Founders hoped to codify in the Constitution. In the end, the issues we suffer from today across this country with crime and violence are due to our failures as a society. We don't expect people to take responsibility for themselves; we let them literally get away with murder, accepting pathetic excuses for the most horrific behavior. Murderers and rapists get off with slaps on the wrist but someone involved in nonviolent drug offenses gets life in prison. They celebrate thug behavior and demonize those who are tasked with protecting society and we wonder why our kids embrace thuggish behavior. We need to drag ourselves back from the brink; get back to teaching our kids about the self-determination and self responsibility intrinsic to Freedom and political Liberty... and get back to teaching our society just how important the right to be armed truly is.
I thought I had commented on this post. Odd.... I just got an N.R.A. Medallion at a yard sale, it has a quote from George Washington: 1790 "A free People ought... to be Armed..." And that is the best reply to many Anti Gun Folks here. The ones that say the Founding Fathers favoured Gun Control.
Did he teach you to hunt, preserve the hides, make clothing or articles of use? Or was it survival of the fittest target plunking?
Actually, a big part of the knowledge my grandfather sought to impart in me included outdoor survival, camping, and responsible hunting; including fieldcraft, tracking, and stalking, which would serve me very well years later during my stint in the US Border Patrol. My grandfather believed that knowing how to survive and even thrive in situations where you had no one to rely on but yourself was a critical life skill. I'm not sure what you mean by "survival of the fittest target plunking", but yes, my grandfather also taught me the fundamentals of how to responsibly (and safely) handle firearms and how to effectively fight with them. What some might call "combat shooting" was a big part of the firearms training.
Good, my Delaware injun uncle and I spent many hours hunting and fishing and the survival part was puking after a nigh of schnapps and beers, he was half German..So am I..
Sad you fail to see the point: "...get back to teaching our kids about the self-determination and self responsibility intrinsic to Freedom and political Liberty." The problem goes to a basic difference between the Left and the Right - The Left believes government can take care of everyone if we just give them the power to do it and trust them. The Right doesn't trust government and believes people should be taught self-reliance. This goes in hand with another idea LW atheists often spout but don't use: teach critical thinking. With critical thinking people, given they are self-reliant, can hunt, preserve hides or just get a job.
No matter who is in charge in D.C. the end result is the same.....Where is this rightist govt.? It damn sure isn't the one we have now because they just awarded 12 billion to farmers through critical thinking skills of self reliance, HA!
Our national government is a mixture of leftist and rightist governance....but mostly leftist. Did you support the GM bailout? Bank bailout? Any bailouts? If so, why is this bailout different? If so, what are the pros and cons, in your opinion, of not bailing those groups out?
I support zero bailouts for fatcat corporatist, let them die on the vine like us small business owners. I like that fact that you did notice that Trump is a leftist.
Misrepresenting a person's views only makes that person look either stupid or dishonest. While I agree that rewarding bad behavior, bad business management in this case, is wrong, it's also wrong to let a corporation fail that is "too big to fail" since it does more harm than good for the nation. The problem isn't bailing out those companies, but failing to take follow up action to prevent it from happening again. Example; Congress passes the Immigration reform and control act in 1986. While it had many great points, it also had a lot of holes in it (e.g. "knowingly"). Congress fails to follow up and correct those holes resulting in 12 million illegals and the exact same problem over 30 years later. We've bailed out the banks, the airlines, the auto companies and now corporate farmers. What have we done to prevent further bailouts? Not a thing.
We've learned that the average citizen is expendable..but not the corporate elite. Thanks for showing how class warfare is alive and well in the USA...
Your war against "the corporate elite" fails to notice that all of those industries provide jobs. How many jobs did Obama claim he saved by bailing out GM? Your conspiracy theory of "class warfare" is as silly as claiming LBJ murdered JFK. While the love of money is far too prevalent in our consumerist society, it would be impossible to turn our nation into a bunch of tree-huggers living in communes without eliminating about 80% of the population.
Nobody mentioned JFK but yous..and there is class warfare it would be too naive to claim otherwise..In a country that claims there is equality, it is not as such when it comes to who gets to ride in the lifeboat and who gets to drown..I have no war against the corporations I refuse to support them as they do me and my business..
I'm about a quarter German; just enough to enjoy good beer here and there. That's something else my grandfather taught me: Moderation in all things... including virtue. He truly enjoyed a good beer or a fine spirit (he was the one who introduced me to the difference between plastic bottle tequila and truly fine tequila for instance) but he never allowed himself more than one (maybe two for very special occasions) and that only here and there as opposed to daily. He believed another critical life skill was keeping one's wits about them at all times.
I don't see Trump as leftist OR rightist. He's a Trumpist, and will do whatever he feels is necessary to support himself.
Didn't some rich guys send their slaves to fight in the Revolution? http://www.history.org/foundation/journal/autumn07/slaves.cfm