Category → Family
Some thoughts on MLK’s “I Have a Dream” speech
Our family just sat down to watch Martin Luther King Jr. deliver one of America’s most powerful speeches, his 1963 I Have a Dream speech at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC. Thank you to YouTube for publishing this historically important footage.
We had a discussion about it, and here are some thoughts that resulted:
MLK’s face is clearly moved, the righteousness of his words providing a passion that cannot be ignored then, or now. How refreshing is that.
The causes of justice, freedom, voting rights, and integration were true tests of just how honest America was going to be, how accurately it was going to live up to its promises. Genuine race and fairness issues are almost gone today, due to that passion.
How refreshing it is to hear true righteousness, and dignity, and careful measure. Few leaders since MLK have been able or willing to lead listeners down different paths simultaneously.
In the context of Georgia Congressman John Lewis’s crazy comments about November’s election results, MLK stands out as a real outlier. Race hustlers like Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson are phonies, and Congressman John Lewis has been riding on his one real achievement from fifty years ago. Are there any honest brokers remaining on race issues? What I would give to have MLK back with us today. America could use his gentleness, his insights, his vision. His truthfulness.
After all, a great deal of the goals MLK put forth in his speech have been achieved. What has not been achieved could easily be ascribed to the destructive methods of Sharpton, Jackson, and now Congressman Lewis, whose personal attack on the president elect brought a swift and accurate rebuttal. American blacks are more the victims of their regressive “leaders” than they are of any racism.
One of my favorite bits of knowledge is that MLK was an ardent gun owner. He was not politically correct. Oh, I don’t believe he was a violent man, bitterly clinging to his Bible and guns in preparation for some racial Armageddon. Rather, he was a hunter, a target shooter, and a practical self-defense-oriented American who believed it was better to defend one’s home from violent intruders than it was to die unarmed.
Unfortunately, this great man left America far too soon, but like all righteous martyrs, MLK’s murder inspired great change in the greatest nation ever on Planet Earth.
Thank you for your many gifts to us, Martin Luther King, Jr. We thank you for the biggest one, your ultimate sacrifice that America might live up to its best hopes and dreams.
Is America like Samson?
Ancient Jewish hero Samson was so strong he could use the lower jaw of a donkey to fight against men who were using edged weapons. It was almost a dismissiveness to use such a low-tech tool under circumstances where failure was not an option. Because it meant death.
From where did Samson get his incredible strength? Obviously he was physically capable, meaning strong and cat-like quick. But he also had a deeper power, a power every human possesses. A spiritual power. It enabled him to rise far above his physical limitations and perform remarkable, superhuman feats of mortal combat.
Samson was a Nazirite, a person who denies himself physical pleasures like wine, meat, fancy clothes, and sex. By abstaining, Nazirites are able to disconnect from worldly distractions and focus on spiritual development. Samson’s strength was not just physical.
The town in northern Israel called Nazareth was evidently a city where many men took on the stringencies which guided them on their spiritual paths through an innately physical and material world. Like Samson before him, Jesus was also a Nazirite. The long hair and beard are famous symbols of the Nazirite oath.
The story of Samson is tragic, because he forgot who he was, forgot his vows of abstinence, and allowed himself to be led astray and into bed by Delilah, who was understandably attracted to his manly qualities.
Once Delilah had conquered Samson sexually, she took the symbolic step of cutting his long hair. Removing the symbol of his abstinence signified his end of being a Nazirite and the beginning of their physical relationship.
Samson lost his strength and was eventually captured by the Philistines not because his hair was cut. It was because his reason for existence had ended. His cut hair was as much a symbol as it had been when it was long. It said he had lost his way, lost his focus, and lost his purpose. He had broken his vow, and the pain of his spiritual failure drained him of physical strength.
The Bible has always been the bedrock of American and Western civilization. After all, religion gives humans basic essential values. It informs how we make choices, how we relate to one another, how our societies function.
But biblical beliefs are lagging these days, with resulting cultural chaos. Americans seem to have forgotten who they are (independent citizens with individual liberty, not serfs), and their purpose (run their own government). This complacency has invited vile intruders to take advantage and control of our many freedoms. Like Samson before us, we have been led astray, forgotten our vows to our fellow citizens, and as a result we are greatly at risk.
Let’s hope America has a spiritual renewal that strengthens our resolve to live by the divine laws spelled out in our Constitution, and not by the whims and laws of mere men.
Did Liberals become Lawless by Nature? Or Habit?
Part of the 1960s counter-culture and protest fuel was a strong sense that ossified American culture and morality were “just, because.” To counter-culture activists, the war in Vietnam was perhaps the best example of this inconsiderate mindlessness. It became a galvanizing centerpiece in the display of Everything That Is Wrong With America.
So both bras and draft cards alike were burned as acts of moral or legal defiance became part and parcel of the movement.
Fast forward fifty years, and the liberal culture is deeply rooted in brazen acts of defiance and protest. Sit-ins, occupations of offices, “die-ins,” stormy public protests are all regular scenes as liberals make their point public.
Somewhere underlying the actions is that old sense that ‘because these things I oppose are immoral, I can engage in immoral and illegal acts of protest’.
Or said another way, ‘I vote the right way, so my actions are infallible’.
Half a step away from this thinking is the idea that whatever politically correct issue du jour is up next, illegal and violent acts are a necessity or at least justified. Heck, people even argue they are the cause. Could be the candidacy and then election of Donald Trump “causing” demonstrators to destroy private and public property, assault fellow Americans, bully co-workers, and accuse anyone who disagrees with them of being violent, hateful, etc.
And here is where a lot of Americans are lost and confused, including me.
Protesting is understandable. Violent protests are not (think of the many recent cry-bully protests against displeasing electoral outcomes).
Strongly disagreeing with someone’s politics is understandable. Assaulting someone over it is not (especially when the assailant claims to be “for love” and “against hate”) (think of the mass violence by liberals committed against Trump supporters for the past year).
Writing a letter to the editor, like Bob Quarteroni did a few weeks ago here in the Patriot News is all-American. Go for it. But trespassing, vandalizing and stealing private property, and threatening landowners with physical harm to make a vague political point, as Mr. Quarteroni gleefully admitted to in his letter, is not OK.
Asking a young lady yesterday to please stop at the stop sign in our neighborhood, and not barrel through it as she did, because two small kids play at that intersection, netted my son and I this response: “I did stop at the stop sign”
“No, you did not, we watched you drive right through.”
“I’ll bet you voted for Trump,” said the dashing young lady, who then gave us the finger and marched on in to the Wells Fargo bank to get her money. Apparently Trump made her drive recklessly.
And then there is the sanctuary city thing, a naked play for votes by one political party that seems to always need a permanently angry underclass. Illegal aliens will do for them, never mind that the rest of America wants them to follow the law.
If a bunch of gun owners decided to ignore gun laws in one of these sanctuary cities, because they believe the gun laws are unconstitutional, punitive, unfair, backwards, and causing crime rather than limiting it, you just know what the city fathers would do: Lock ’em up!
It is interesting, isn’t it, that neither Barack Hussein Obama nor Hillary Clinton nor Bernie Sanders asked their rampaging supporters to stop…. The liberal political leaders actually encouraged the illegal and violent behavior. And in fact, in state houses and the US Congress there is one political party whose elected members continue to hold illegal “sit-ins” and other forms of partisan protest in public, taxpayer-owned places.
So what happened here?
When did liberals go from staking out some intellectual or moral high ground, to destructive, illegal, and criminal acts as a matter of daily behavior?
Somewhere, that old sense of just cause got blurred. All of the burned draft cards and other little illegal acts of defiance morphed into a culture of perpetual violence, destruction, and openly flouting the law (when it suits them).
I know a lot of liberals. How could I not, having graduated from America’s flagship Quaker school? Our high school class grew up together and we are like a big family, so we stay in touch. And of course I continue to maintain relationships with as many liberals as will have me as their friend (apparently not easy for PC people, a subject for another essay).
I look at these otherwise great people about whom I care a great deal, and I wonder, did they willingly and consciously allow their nature to become corrupted and lawless? Did they get here by habit?
Are their goals so pure that any means are justified, no matter the unfair high cost, the immorality, the injustice, the personal loss by innocents? That was a Lenin and Stalin thing. Not that American liberals would ever follow in those paths….nahhh.
I cannot answer this question, and I wish liberals would.
A question and a wish
First the question. Is there a reasonable explanation for Brooklyn lawyer Dan Goldstein’s aggressive harassment of Donald Trump’s daughter yesterday?
After all, the young mother was sitting in a plane with her three kids, minding her own business. Bystanders credited her with being cool under fire, while Goldstein and his partner were escorted off the plane for their disruptive behavior
Goldstein’s partner, Matt Lasner, joked about it on Twitter, then deleted his Twitter account altogether.
What is it about two gay Jewish guys from New York that they have missed out on the meaning of life, the meaning of the holidays, and the joy that comes with treating people nicely?
These two guys are a minority of a minority of a minority. You’d think they would be the most sensitive to not bullying other people. They’re highly educated (which actually probably explains some of this event, given the low quality of most PC academia). They’re financially secure. Where did they leave their manners?
I have a theory: So many urban elites are so completely cut off from the rest of the populace that they really cannot relate, and their disdain simply pours out when they do make contact. After decades of indoctrination by academia and liberal activist media, these folks are so filled with acid hatred for others that they cannot control themselves. In short, they are bigots.
If you want evidence that liberalism is failing, this is a good example. If your beliefs cause you to behave in inhumane ways toward innocent people, then you have bad beliefs.
Dan Goldstein and Matt Lasner are most likely atheists, so it’s tough to say what their core beliefs are or could be. But they make their aggressive liberalism clear to everyone, and that includes being vile and disrespectful to moms with kids minding their own business.
Gentlemen, Daniel and Matthew, if I may be bold enough to call you gentlemen, maybe you can take a hint here for how to treat everyone you meet over the next week, if not your lifetime: Merry Christmas, happy Hanukkah, and have a wonderful New Year!
Bear and Deer Seasons in the Rearview Mirror
The old joke about Pennsylvania having just two seasons rings as true today as it did fifty years ago: Road construction season in the Keystone State seems to be a nine-month-long affair everywhere we go, a testament to how not to overbuild public infrastructure, if you cannot maintain it right.
And the two-week rifle deer season brings out the passion among nearly one million hunters like an early Christmas morning for little kids (I doubt the Hanukkah bush thing ever took off). All year long people plan their hunts with friends and relatives, take off from work, spend lots of money on gear, equipment, ammunition, food, and gas, and then go off to some place so they can report back their tales of cold and wet and woe to their warmer family members at home. These deer hunts are exciting adventures on the cheap. No bungee jumping, mountain cliff climbing, jumping through flaming hoops or parachuting out of airplanes are needed to generate the thrill of a lifetime as a deer or bear in range gives you a chance to be the best human you can be.
Both bear and deer seasons flew by too fast, and I wish I could do them over, not because I have regrets, but because these moments are so rare, and so meaningful. I love being in the wild, and the cold temperatures give me impetus to keep moving.
One reflection on these seasons is how the incredible acorn crop state-wide kept bear and deer from having to leave their mountain fortresses to find food. Normally animals must move quite a bit to find the browse and nuts they need to nourish their bodies. Well, not this year. Even yesterday I was tripping over super abundant acorns lying on every trail, human or animal made.
When acorns are still lying in the middle of a trail in December, where animals walk, then you know there are a lot of nuts, because normally those low-hanging fruits would be gobbled right up weeks ago.
After still hunting and driving off the mountain I hunt on most up north, it became clear the bear and deer were holed up in two very rugged, remote, laurel-choked difficult places to hunt. Any human approach is quickly heard, seen, or smelled, giving the critters their chance to simply walk away before the clumsy human arrives. All these animals had to do was get up a couple times a day, stretch, walk three feet and eat as many acorns as they want, and then return to their hidden beds.
This made killing them very difficult, and the lower bear and deer harvests show that. God help us if Sudden Oak Death blight hits Pennsylvania, because that will spell the end of the abundant game animals we enjoy, as well as the dominant oak forests they live in.
The second reflection is how we had no snow until Friday afternoon, two days ago, and by then we had already sidehilled on goat paths, and climbed steep mountains, as much as we were going to at that late point in the season. With snow, hunting is a totally different experience: The quarry stands out against the white back ground, making them easier to spot and kill, and snow tracking shows you where they were, where they were going, and when. These are big advantages to the hunter. Only on Friday afternoon did we see all the snowy tracks up top, leading over the steep edge into Truman Run. With another two hours, we could have done a small push and killed a couple deer. But not this year. Maybe in flintlock season!
And finally, I reflect on the people and the beautiful wild places we visited.
I already miss the time I spent with my son on stand the first week. He was with me when I took a small doe with a historic rifle that had not killed since October 1902, the last time its first owner hunted and a month before the gun was essentially put into storage until now.
And then my son had a terrible case of buck fever when a huge buck walked past him well within range of his Ruger .357 Magnum rifle, and he missed, fell down, and managed to somehow eject the clip and throw the second live round into the leaves while the deer kept moseying on by. When I found my son minutes later, he was sitting in a pile of leaves where the deer had stood, throwing the leaves around and crying in a rage that we needed to get right after the deer and hunt them down. The boy was a mess. It was delightful to watch.
I miss the wonderful men I hunted with, and I miss watching other parents take their own kids out, to pass on the ancient skill set as old as humankind.
It is an unfortunate necessity to point out that powerline contractor Haverfield ruined the Opening Day of deer season for about three dozen hunters by arriving unannounced and trespassing in force to access a powerline for annual maintenance in Dauphin County. We witnessed an unparalleled arrogance, dismissiveness, and incompetence by Haverfield staff and ownership that boggles the mind. I am a small business owner, and I’d be bankrupt in three days if I behaved like that. Only the intervention of a Pennsylvania Game Commission Wildlife Conservation Officer saved the day, and that was because the Haverfield fools were going onto adjoining State Game Lands, where they also had no business being during deer season.
Kudos to PPL staff for helping us resolve this so it never happens again.
Folks, we will see you in flintlock season, just around the corner. Now it is time to trap for the little ground predators that raid the nests of ducks, geese, grouse, turkey, woodcock, and migratory songbirds. If you hate trapping, then you hate cute little ducklings, because the super overabundant raccoons, possums, skunks, fox, and coyotes I pursue eat their eggs in the nests, and they eat the baby birds when they are most vulnerable.
is “racism” now dead?
Like the little boy who kept falsely yelling out “wolf! wolf!,” and who was then eaten by one when his genuine cries for help were ignored, false accusations of racism, sexism, etc have burned out the audience they were aimed at.
Politically motivated fakes are a dime a dozen.
So ludicrous have accusations of racism become, that Caucasians have been told they are racist merely because of their skin color.
Not their actions. Not their words. But just their skin color.
This is the most racist thing possible, of course. Ascribing character traits based on skin color is nothing but racism.
And the self-appointed arbiters of and supposed guardians against racism said nothing about this hypocrisy. Many of them encouraged it overtly or by acquiescence.
Likewise, the accusation of sexism is applied to just about any man, regardless of his actions. It’s silly, but it’s routine. Those of us with daughters in college are not sexist. We are bankrupting our families so our daughters can be all they can be.
And of course there’s the unreal “islamophobia” accusation, now part of the politically correct package of false failings.
Westerners are naturally phobic (afraid) of beliefs and the people who hold them, when they are associated with cruelty, violence, injustice, unfairness, and hypocrisy. Islam’s book, the Koran, calls Christians, Jews, Hindus and Buddhists cows, donkeys, apes, pigs, and so on. The Koran mocks and denigrates over half the global population, and enslaves all of its own women, and yet we are bad people for resisting it? For being afraid of it? I am terrified of Islam!
The “wolf! wolf!” shouting also includes environmental policy these days. Apparently a reasonable person cannot think for herself, and judge all the facts on her own, without running the risk of being negatively labeled a “climate denier.”
Of course the truth is that our free-thinking woman here is in fact denying fake, politicized science that is about 10% science and 90% shouting. She is entitled to be skeptical.
Today a video is circulating the Internet. It shows a “white” man being dragged from his car and brutally beaten by a raging mob of “black” people, incensed that he dared to vote for a candidate they did not approve. He voted for Trump, apparently. His attackers repeatedly accuse him of this failure.
And the national media, politicized as they are, have ignored it. The Jesse Jackson Klan has ignored it. This video does not support their false narrative that white people are violent racists.
The video shows just the opposite, that racism and violence are epidemic in the American black community.
Most of the American public distrusts or disbelieves the establishment media, and the self appointed guardians of social causes, with good cause. Like in the 1700s, when governments held the communication channels, citizens now communicate facts and ideas around the censors at ABC, NBC, CBS, NPR, BBC, NYT, etc. The more these fake “news” outlets engage in social engineering, and lies, the more the citizenry will push back and ignore them.
What is sad about this is problems like real racism will then be generally ignored, or worse, allowed to grow, like among African Americans. Racism, as an accusation, is now almost dead, because it cannot be taken seriously, except in very narrow circumstances. The white guy beaten by the black mob is a good place to start.
You cannot keep crying wolf and expect good people to come running. Eventually they think you’re a fraud.
Outdoor sports starting to ramp up now
Outdoor sports are well under way here in Pennsylvania. This is the “Christmas in October” season soo many of us dream about since the last hunting season ended months ago.
Archery season started a month ago, and the rut (primary breeding season) is now in full swing. That is evidenced by the “deer storms” that go crashing through the woods at any time of day or night now, as well as the increasing numbers of dead deer lying on the side of the roadways. Chasing is a main part of rut activity, and deer of both sexes will blindly run right out into the middle of a suburban lawn or a road as their hormones and instincts take over their better judgment.
Bowhunters take full advantage of that mindlessness, and they are now starting to really spend time on stand, trying to lure in the otherwise wary whopper trophy buck. Estrous doe pee is the number one deer lure, and it is what I use with very high success rates. One problem is that so many eager hunters jump the gun and start putting out doe pee, in huge quantities, too early in the season. A few drops on a tampon or cotton ball hung from a branch is all you need in early November.
Although furbearer trapping season started a week ago, the unseasonably warm weather has many people, myself included, holding off laying out steel until mid-November, when mink season starts. What is the point of catching a predator with patchy fur? The colder it gets, the more their fur fills in, the softer it becomes. The softer the fur, the more luxurious it feels. The better the fur, the happier I feel about spending late nights skinning, fleshing, and boarding pelts in the cold.
I will say this, however: Most of my predator trapping these days is aimed at reducing the over-abundant populations of skunks, opossums, and raccoons, all of which are voracious bird nest raiders. To my eye and ear, cute little birds are always entertaining and pretty to watch, and they deserve a chance to enjoy a comfy nest with a successful brood of hatchlings. Wild turkeys and grouse especially are vulnerable to these insatiable varmints that have few natural predators and a lot of suburban habitat in which to unnaturally propagate.
Having never sold a pelt, trapping is not a commercial or financial effort for me. Rather, it is the joy of being outside, being an integral part of the natural predator-prey chain, helping balance wildlife populations, and obtaining something useful, pretty, natural and biodegradable. The wild caught furs that adorn our home and cabin reflect the wild places we enjoy visiting, and the ancient skill set needed to catch these wary hunters.
Earlier this year a long time dear friend nastily chided me for hunting and trapping. Asking her how she could criticize me on the one hand, while on the other hand she regularly eats stone crabs (claws torn off of living crabs), other shellfish (taken from their cozy homes, jailed, then boiled alive), and all sorts of meats from suffering animals living on unsavory factory farms elicited no response at all.
This shallow, careless, hypocritical approach to life bothers me, but I doubt there is anything I can do about it, other than continue to live my own life well. Why or how people find pleasure from interfering in other people’s lives is a constant source of mystery. They get a sense of purpose, I suppose.
As a hunter and trapper, I am fulfilling a purpose that is as old as our species. The hunter-gatherer purpose is as old as humans, heck it is human, and is as old as the last ice sheets that covered the northern hemisphere. This lifestyle is eminently more natural than the artificial life of food from tin cans, huge monoculture “farms,” and sad feed lots that blot out habitat and wildlife, not to mention crushing the spirit of the animal.
Good luck this season. Enjoy living like a real human being, fellow hunters and trappers.
NFL is Just too Masculine for Media Sissies
NFL is Just too Masculine for Media Sissies
By Josh First, www.joshfirst.com
National Football League player Colin Kaepernick has put on a moron show for the past couple of weeks, unwilling to stand for the national anthem, and wearing socks picturing pigs wearing police uniforms.
Millions of Americans are angry at him for being so gullible, selfish, and shallow, and they are buying his team jersey so they can publicly burn it. But his behavior is only a symptom of the larger problem facing America, and the rest of the West, too.
The problem is that more and more men are effete sissies, and more and more men think that being a rough and tumble guy is just so un-hip. Why, it is an obstacle to world peace. This message is seen not only in day to day life, but in the media, from which so much of the Hollywood entertainment and politically correct culture is broadcast.
Let’s face it, with the onset of Second Wave and Third Wave feminism, it wasn’t enough for women to have equal access, equal rights, equal opportunity, and equal pay. Nope, feminism is now an assault on man-ness, on guys being guys, on masculinity.
Note the popular male fashions being pushed today: tight pants and tight shirts on a lanky, thin body housing an effete metrosexual attitude, neither male nor effeminate enough to be called flaming gay. Being a guy is just not in fashion with the people who are looked to for fashion direction. Guys must be more feminine, more female, softer, gentler, we are told. We have to share our bathrooms. Our military, police, and firefighters no longer have to be the strongest and toughest possible, which are innately male physical standards. Some kooks even now bizarrely assert that men menstruate, and wallow in weakness.
When liberal activism outlet Mediaite spends time lamenting the potential injuries a quarterback might have sustained in a game, it is a sign that the left’s mainstream media is gearing up for war against masculinity with the NFL front and center. As the NFL is probably the last bastion of real masculinity remaining in popular culture and the entertainment world, it is presently the most important symbol in the left’s crosshairs.
Yes, we have wrestling (not the fake “pro” wrestling), but it is not a widespread fad, nor is it a big moneymaker, or a team sport with jerseys. I wrestled from grade school into college, and despite the many injuries my body sustained from it, I would not have given it up for anything. It is a true test of a guy’s individual masculinity, a controlled test of buried savage and primitive battle urges residing under the thin veneer of civilization. It is painful, and pain helps you grow, find your limits, and be stronger. It is good stuff, necessary stuff and I miss it. But it is a thing for redneck kids and a few urban schools. No one really pays attention to wrestling, yet.
Now, the NFL has been infiltrated by basic political correctness, with players like Kaepernick serving as Trojan Horses for the bigger assault to come. First NFL players start with actions that are openly anti-America, which is classic political correctness. After that becomes the standard behavior, then the team owners and players will go along with whatever feminizing, “cultured and refined” norms are demanded by the tiny speck that is the mainstream media.
Kaepernick and the rest of the NFL will still get paid millions of dollars a year, but the masculine, competitive, fighting spirit will be gone from the game, and with it a symbol of America’s own fighting culture.
Right after that is a kumbayah hand-holding session with Russia, China, and ISIS, where we can be told how to behave and what to do by our enemies, because that is what good little effete sissies do. They play nice. They do whatever is necessary to avoid pain, to avoid conflict, to not be “mean.”
And you can guess what I have to say about that pain-free play-nice stuff: F#ck that!
BRING IT ON, Mediaite sissies.
Taking Oscar’s Advice
Oscar Wilde was and remains renowned for being wild. Too much wild for his own day, and probably even by today’s standards he would be too wild. He got it from being too liberal.
But, Oscar Wilde was funny, witty, and a careful thinker on many subjects, not all, for sure, and on many he lazily fell back onto his witticisms, which themselves were pretty good and quickly made one forget what it was he was being lazy about. So when one of his famous admonitions had taken ahold in my head and would not go away, should anyone be surprised?
It was his bit about not buying anything made in a factory, but rather buying only handmade things, especially things that were for home decor.
Wilde was reacting to the massive industrialization and standardization then taking place in England and America. He who did not believe in souls talked about created things having a soul, and the souls of their human owners being damaged by mass-produced things.
We get the point, especially today, when cheap Chinese crap surrounds everything we do and own and live.
The smell of Chinese formaldehyde permeates nearly everything we buy at the big box stores like Lowes and Home Depot. Formaldehyde is toxic stuff. Embalmers use it to stop the decay of human flesh, in preparation for wakes and open casket burials. If massive machines, dark windowless drudgery in brick factories, and densely choking coal smoke bothered Wilde, how much more so would the invisible snake of Formaldehyde!
While a great deal of my enjoyment comes from natural things, including hunting, trapping, fishing, gardening, and being outdoors as much as possible, I have never been very accomplished at making things, especially the natural things I like to have with and around me. Clumsy and slow, being artistic in ways that fit my physique and capabilities just never happened. I have always had to acquire those hand made things I liked.
And so that Wilde admonition would not quit.
Watching my son play in the ashes of bonfires, rooting around for bits of melted glass and aluminum, brought Wilde to light. Two years ago the boy brought aluminum nuggets he had fished out of one of our fires on a camping trip, and he spent a lot of his time hammering these into a crude knife blade. No, not a very hard or useful blade, but his creation nonetheless. He was proud of it and continued to make stuff. And he has really gone farther this past summer, making all kinds of things in fire, like glass paper weights.
And so we now have an anvil of Jymm Hoffman’s construction (of cast H13 impact tool steel, made here in Pennsylvania) and a bunch of tools. The forge is under way. Hopefully my heavy physique will find a way to channel my artistic desire, and my son’s budding artistic talents. We might be able to make things together, things that are organic, folksy, natural, ergonomic, fun, useful, and definitely not mass produced.
Bear with us as we begin to explore Oscar Wilde’s guidance.
Who, Me? No, You!
America has been in the grip of moral relativism since the 1960s, and nowhere is this corrosive belief system more evident than among Politicians-Gone-Wild who get caught.
Pennsylvania’s Attorney General Kathleen Kane was just found guilty on all counts, including perjury, and her answer (she has been consistent on this from the beginning of her investigation) is something like “it is not my fault, I am the victim, everyone is out to get me, it’s not fair, and everyone does bad things so my bad actions are no worse than anyone else’s so I am therefore not guilty.”
This “Everybody does it, so I am not guilty” mindset has now filtered down from guilty politicians to nearly everyone in America. Seems to be almost a lifestyle, where people take whatever they want or think they can get away with, and then cry foul when they are caught and held accountable in even small ways.
Basic examples found daily in the news include shoplifters who then destructively run amok in the store they are caught in, decrying their “unfair” treatment by causing thousands of dollars in damage to prove their aggrieved status.
The most egregious example of this is the Black Lives Matter movement, where mostly hardened crooks are elevated to innocent hero status in the effort to attack civilization and the citizens who undergird it, our wonderful police officers.
More common is the trespassing for firewood theft and recreation that I frequently experience on properties we own or manage.
One guy had his teenaged children riding their ATVs on our property, and when I finally begged him to make them stop, his response was “I can’t control them.” Never mind that he had put up so many No Trespassing signs on our common boundary, and quite a few were way over that boundary deep into our land, that you could not look through the woods without seeing a sea of yellow marring the scenic beauty. In other words, he zealously guards against anyone trespassing on his land, but he casually lets his people trespass on our land, and makes no real effort to stop it.
Recently I received a brutal call from an angry local man I do not know, who really chewed me out, calling me every bad name imaginable. He ended his tirade with “A lot of people out here in the valley hate you.”
Despite efforts to have a lucid conversation with the man and inject actual facts to rebut his wild accusations, he denounced me one more time and then hung up the phone. Sitting there contemplating this strange call, I began recounting the run-ins we have had with his trespassing and thieving neighbors. Indeed, a great many of his neighbors had attempted to steal some of our land, or were serial trespassers after recreation and deer, or were thieves stealing commercial quantities of firewood and mountain stone.
Yes, we have had run-ins with people around him, and when I investigated with one of the confessed trespassers, he informed me that the caller was one of the people we had inadvertently netted in our anti-trespassing efforts.
Ah hah! went my brain. Here we have a man who has been trespassing on our land for years, stealing from us firewood and mountain stone for business purposes, and he is mad as hell that his free gravy train has come to an end.
And in fact, this guy was not alone in his angry denunciation of his imaginary oppressor.
One of the other trespassing locals we caught stealing red-handed two and a half years ago was so mad, he began denouncing me to anyone he met. I guess this is a customary defense mechanism, where guilty people try to pre-empt any negative information about themselves, but it is remarkably brazen nonetheless. We declined to press charges against him, because he probably would have lost his job as a result. And his partner in crime, a local attorney, could have lost his law license.
None of our largesse was appreciated or rewarded by these criminals. In fact, they took it as a sign of weakness and lack of resolve, and they went on the offensive, personally maligning the person who they blamed for their misfortune. That being “caught.” No taking responsibility, no admitting guilt, no owning up to doing something wrong, but instead blaming others for their moral failures.
One of the things I dislike about one of the presidential candidates is that she has zero morals, no ethics, no moral compass. She refuses to take responsibility for her many failed policies and legal failures as a senior American official.
One of the things I like about her opponent is that he stands for basic decency, defined by weak 2016 standards, mind you, not the 1940s Norman Rockwell ways by which we used to run this country, and which I grew up with and miss very, very much.
Americans must elect political leaders who set a basic standard for good behavior, who represent a return to basic good values, and who help us get away from corrosive moral relativism, a culture eating away the foundations of human relationships.