cjm5874 said:
What we really need:
1. Get the rich out of Congress, Senate and the White House. I make about $60,000 a year and have 3 kids. THESE PEOPLE DO NOT REPRESENT THE MAJORITY!!!!
2. A gun rights organization NATIONWIDE! Sorry NRA, your a lobbyist and have not stepped out for National concealed carry or the rights of people to defend themselves loud enough.
3. A true militia, I'm not talking about rising up against the government. What I want is a group of citizen soldiers who are not deployed overseas and ready to defend our soil.
4. Less government control, I don't believe our founding fathers intended for us to ask permission to exercise our "inalienable rights" except perhaps from God. I sure don't need a permit to go to church, speak my mind, vote etc.
You deserve what you tolerate...and we need to stop taking this crap from the government. Our rights are not given to us by the government, they are not given to us by the Constitution, they are ours when we are born and are only guaranteed by the Constitution.
1. Agreed to a point. I will agree your relative level of wealth skews your perspective and will always alienate you from people that have more or less. However being rich or poor does not imply any sense of morality.
I've encountered some very wealthy people who I think would represent me very well because we see eye to eye on the most important things, and they're what I'd call responsibly wealthy. They realize that the more you have, the more is expected of you and act accordingly.
However, it's the flakes and the seemingly undeserving rich that get all the attention and get our blood boiling. I admit it does make me sad that Tom Cruise has 50 million dollars and his life's work is less important to me than the life's work of a man who makes sandwiches at Subway. However Tom Cruise doesn't represent everyone that has more money than me, thank God.
I've encountered many people that have less than I do who I do not agree with on anything.
I think what you're against is not the wealthy, but rather the professional politician. I've always maintained I want a President who spent his life teaching high school social studies. I'm tired of our officials all being lawyers who create more useless laws to perpetuate their profession. No offense lawyers, but the responsible thing to do would be to use one's legal expertise to minimize the government, not expand it. There is no reason a group of people with that much legal expertise should draft so many ridiculous laws unless they were looking to cater to their interests or someone else's. It's like a gathering of mathematicians who couldn't solve a series of algebra problems between them.
2. Gunowners of America member myself. JFPO. AFA. They're out there.
3. We do have this, we're just in danger of losing it. Thing is, I don't think the citizen militia was ever meant to be used for anything short of combatting a foreign invasion's occupation force. What's paradoxical is that by having such a thing, we almost completely insure that such a thing will never occur. It's brilliant. People do it of their own free will, and thereby insure that their services will never be needed, and it costs nothing. I'm pretty confident that if Iraqi insurgents who never even fired a gun before can make a months long stand against the best military in the world, I could take down a few members of the Chinese military if I caught them marching down my street. When we lose this citizen milita however, it's only a matter of time before something grave does happen.
4. I agree. I realize our society did reach a point somewhere where it did become necessary to expand the government considerably, however past generations have let it go way too far. What kills me is that to fix it, all we have to do is stop it. The BATF and FEMA and the Patriot Act and the '86 Ban and everything we hate could be eliminated in one week with the stroke of a pen. There is no excuse for it not happening right now.
BlueLion said:
This is kind of a hard one to comment on since I am a military veteran and have had the opportunity to see the other side of the coin.
First, yes there is no perfect system, but realize you live in the Greatest Country in the World and it really does love its people. However, there are some things that could be done to tweak the system, but first citizens must stand up and vote and stop being couch potatoes.
Second, and not to bash you but 60,000 a year is really not all that bad I know people such as teacher's who I work closely being that I am a Mental Health Counselor in the School system who make less than that and who are precious because without them we would all be barbarians.
Third, we have an army of citizens the National Guard and those good people like yourself who frequent this site. The real problem in this country is that we are spoiled and we continue to let small things separate us such as color, social status etc. Let's be Americans. In addition, we have people that constantly complain about the system but have not lived in Haiti, have not slept under the cold lit night of Afghanastain and Iraq. Many people say that one does not appreciate life until they almost lose it.
Lastly, and I am not bashing you but I noticed that you and I are very close in age, and all I can say is my time spent defending this country at home and abroad made me really appreciate our homeland with all of its problems. I challenge you to consider the Military Service if you have not, just to experience life a little, not to say you have not. Furthermore, yes you can travel and see things, but nothing changed me more than seeing other places.
In closing, our experiences and world view often causes us to take positions that have not been fully thought out. Moreover, anger and disappointment also tends to warp our thinking and we seek to rally the troops to cause strife in the land. For example all of the marchers and people who are against our current fight overseas. Well, when you stand in the MEPS station and you swear to defend this country you never know if your card is going to get pulled or not but if it does you are fighting for more than the President of the United States you are fighting for a way of life and the people who represent it daily. You are fighting for the right to travel to Wal-Mart at Midnight and not get caught in a Fire fight along the way. You are fighting for the right to worship as you please. You are fighting for the right to voice your opinion here in this open forum without fear of having your kids shot, your wife raped and you tortured and killed You are fighting for the right to be free. "Lock and Load"
True, all is not lost.
The framers of this country had the idea of a yeoman farmer: a nation of people who weren't particularly affluent, but who could work honestly and live life with dignity. Basically people who maybe didn't have a lot of material trappings, but who had what they needed to be secure. The old 50 acres and a mule and a homestead and all that.
The idea was that not everyone would prosper because for someone to succeed, many more must fail, but the idea was you'd still have a stake in the country and in the system no matter what happened so you'd keep trying to succeed even if you never did. What we have instead is a nation of welfare check collectors and people who are subverted to a certain lifestyle they don't deserve.
I work at a necessary and highly demanding service, yet I don't even own any real estate or any hard investments beyond the ones I talk about on this forum. My portfolio has less money in it than I pay for insurance each year, and my retirement fund is property of the state of Texas and can be taken away from me at any time. As a matter of fact, the state just recently took away my ability to decide when I retire and it also took away my ability to decide what I do with my life after I retire.
I have no dignity basically. If I needed a $120,000 operation to save my life, I'd die. My insurance wouldn't pay for it. I don't even have a place to live. I have to rent one. I'm forced to teach a state required curriculum in a very specific way instead of relying on my own expertise. The government has to give me permission to drive a car or own a gun. There is something entirely wrong with this system and it ain't about the money.
And I am far better off than almost all of my friends my age save one.
The aformentioned Tom Cruise entertains and does so poorly and is rewarded greatly. A US soldier who fights and does so bravely is punished greatly. A man who lies and schemes and produces nothing tangible or at least beneficial is often rewarded. A man who does perfectly honest work and produces something tangible and useful is often punished.
That is the problem. I know how to solve it. Stop buying Tom Cruise's service. Eliminate ridiculous programs the government shouldn't even have to pay the soldiers a decent wage. Stop social welfare programs and instead stop making people pay for them so maybe that honest hard working man who flips burgers for a living and thus doesn't qualify for free handouts can have a chance at something better.
Let educators decide what is taught in schools. Let doctors decide what drugs to give their patients. Let parents decide what is good for their children.
If this doesn't happen, the places our combat veterans see, that will be our country. It's a very thin line that separates us from the Third World.
Both of these guys are right. The situation is bleak and rapidly getting worse, but it's not so bad we can't change it.
Change happens one little bit at a time. I think the very worst problem facing us is the failures of the education system. So that's where I work. Whether I am right or not is immaterial. I am trying to fix one little part of the problem that I have the personal capability of addressing. I hope that over the course of my career, I make some kind of meaningful change with longer lasting effects.
An awful lot of us little people just pecking away at it tirelessly is what it'll take.
I've always viewed myself as the bare minimum I think we should all try to do in many regards. So maybe I don't have a million dollars for the GoA. Well I do have $20. Here you go GoA here's my $20, and I hope Ted Kennedy chokes on it.
Now if only 2% of the US population could do that, we'd actually have something. Now imagine if the 60+ million gunowners who should all care so much about their rights did it.
Quite frankly I am convinced my country does not love me, not at all. Hell it doesn't even like me. It's not obligated to however. The USA was here first.
But I love it. And that means being hard, and strict, and mean to it until it gets itself back under control. I don't like being a hardass. It's not my nature. I'm one of the gentle sheep. But the fact is, being a hardass is the only way I'm ever going to get anything accomplished.
The fact is, the real hardasses are the ones over there right now doing the dirty work wimps like me are too soft for. USAF, Navy, Army, USMC, it matters not it's all a part of the big picture.
And then they come home and see this stupidity and dumbassness that I've let happen. Courts that vehemently defend other religions ruling that consulting Bible verses is not a valid means by which a jury should make its decision, places existing in the U.S. where you can't even own a handgun much less carry one, vile terrorist apologists being given accolade, genuinely needy and deserving people being tossed aside like garbage while people who don't work get paid for it... these are all minor problems compared to dealing with bloodthirsty suicidal maniacs with an endless supply of RPGs and IEDs.
It's like when you're a small child and your parents entrust you do to one simple thing while they're gone, and you don't do it, only you have no excuses this time.
No matter how much we try, the veterans will never abandon us or regret their service because their consciences are clear. They have done what is right and thus are accountable to no one.
However my conscience is not clear. There are things in this country that are wrong and I'm letting them happen. Not having the resources to deal with it is not an excuse. The fact that I did not cause it is not an excuse. Just because everyone else is willing to allow the wrong things to happen is not a free pass for me to sit there and throw my hands up.
I realize that I will never, ever, make so much as a dent in it, but the fact is I can either be a piece of crap who does nothing, or I can try to redeem myself somehow...
I do fear that it will get to a point within the next 20-30 years when there will be no hope for change. At such time, it's time for the blood of patriots to water the tree of liberty again. It doesn't have to be that way however. It's entirely preventable and far more practical at this point to fight the tide with what we've already got.
