I’m running through some of my older posts today, as I burn a lot of the older columns off to CD…. It’s interesting how relevant some of the columns I wrote then are today.
A few years ago, when I wrote this one, gun grabbing was all the rage on the left. But I pointed up that there was a bit more going on. The bearing this has on the politics of today will be obvious, once you read this. It also gives a little perspective of what was hot, pre-9/11 attacks. It’s from March of 2001. Enjoy.
/Bit
03-05-01 –Rochester, NY—
With the events out in California today, it’s time to address the issue of Guns and the liberals intent to remove them from the hands of the people.
Travel back in time with me, to a few summers ago.. Way back when the Lewinsky scandal was under the surface, Remember? We were inundated with more and more news reports about kids going out and breaking out massive firepower, and using it to deadly result. The left was screaming (as usual) that it was all because guns were too easy to obtain, and that the only salvation was Clinton’s new gun controls. It got to the point where even President Clinton, apparently seeing a diversion from his legal problems, took a stab at it. (Pun intended.)
Clinton at the time said, among other things, something which I can actually agree with; (A fairly unique happening, I assure you…) He stated that these violent attacks the result of a changing culture, and the pressure that those changes bring to bear.
As has been pointed out by me in this medium previously, the left gets an occasional point right, but refuses to come to the only logical conclusion that such discoveries offer. Clinton it seems, is no exception, apparently understanding that at the core of the problem is the social agenda that liberals have been pushing for decades. It’s all come home to roost, now, and the left doesn’t know what to do about it, or, more likely, is unwilling to do what’s needed. What Clinton to this day doesn’t get, is that it is he, and those on his side of the political and social isle, who have been generating and encouraging those changes in our culture, which have resulted in such destruction. Each are cultural changes which, alas!, even ostensibly conservative people have been caving in on for years, now. Instead of dealing with the cultural problems he’s identified as being causal, Clinton went on to attack not that problem, but GUNS… something which despite his best efforts, we Americans can still legally own, and use.
The classes in proper gun use and care being given to young people today, including the NRA’s Eddie Eagle program have come under attack from the left, as being the cause, not the cure for such problems. This is because, we are told, in one case in Oregon the young man in question was a part of those classes. (Notice it’s usually young boys?)
But the connection is less direct than the left makes it; There are many myriad self-defense and martial arts classes going on at any time in our country; my son attends one of the better ones. Given that one commonality they and the NRA’s gun classes share is training on the /proper use/ of their training and the tools given, why do we not see attacks by martial arts students in the news? Could there be an agenda, here, do you suppose? Now, it is not unlike the left to use a well-publicized issue to work it’s will on another, totally unrelated issue. Race, and welfare rights, are two such. (I.E.; There are more whites than blacks on welfare, but when someone proposes a cut of welfare payments, liberals will invariably scream about how it’s racial bias against blacks.) So, I suppose I shouldn’t be overly surprised when they pull that same stunt regarding guns. One need not look too deeply to find their over-riding concern. It is, of course, the same concern expressed by every other socialist in history including Adolph Hitler; the removal of guns from society, altogether… except for the representatives of government, thereby placing the power in the hands of the government alone. (Let’s not kid ourselves; the founder put the second amendment in place to defend us from tyrants within government.)
Let’s not let the left divert us into thinking that the solution to violence is simply removing guns. Let’s hold them to the core issue; violence vis a vis cultural changes… There has been quite a bit over the last few years, said and written, about the culture’s values, and the effect the change of those values would have on the people within
the culture.
Of the people affected by cultural change… a change of the roots, if you will, it is younger people, whose roots have not been established, who would be the most affected. No shock, therefore, that the largest number of crimes, particularly the massive violence under discussion, would be teenagers.
Simply put:These teenagers have lost hope.
And why?
Let’s look at the agenda of the modern America, as driven by the left. Perhaps we’ll find a pattern there. We’re told that man is destroying the earth. The problem is that too many of us exist, we’re told. We’re told that man is a problem for the further existence of the earth. We’re told that we can’t make it without that government handout. We learn quickly, thereby, that we have no real say in our lives, and therefore, no future. As if to give credence to the thinking that life is worthless, abortion has become commonplace. Jack Kevorkian is teaching us that killing ourselves is a valid option, and the government is at least powerless if not unwilling to deal with the issue. Every value we have ever had as a culture is now being abandoned by the government.. Indeed, the government has become outright hostile to the traditional values of the culture that built said government. Can such things be without consequence? The evidence suggests not.
Both parents now work regardless of wanting to or not, simply to pay the taxes… because the taxes imposed by the government consume upwards of 60-65% or our annual income. What kind of basic value will children hold of themselves when parents find they have to work? I understand well the forces that drive such choices, (being driven by them myself;) but can such choices be without consequence? The evidence suggests not.
Mothers who stay at home are universally castigated by the feminist left, as ‘not being in touch with themselves’ and ‘being a burden on the sisterhood’ whatever the hell THAT is. Can this kind of disdain for traditional family values be without consiquence? The evidence suggests not.
Remember when America used to have leaders whom you could look up to? Political leaders, ball players, and to a larger degree than today, even film and TV stars were people which could be held up as examples. Granted, many were never perfect, but they were trying to live up to the then universally held American ideals. Who do we have to hold up in their place today? PeeWee Herman. Tupac Shakur. Madonna. Dennis Rodman. The Spice Girls. Larry Flynt, Bill Clinton. Can this be without consequence? The evidence suggests not.
Is anyone of sound mind, foolish enough to suggest that our governmentally induced transition from a values-based society to what is now an essentially valueless society, which provides little if any hope on an individual level, has no effect negative on the people within it?
History, I think, will record the greatest failure of the governments of the last 60 years, to be not in the financial or political areas, and not with it’s law enforcement, regarding guns, but in the cultural… I.E.; support of the majority culture, and the values that it holds dear. Because in the final view, it’s this which is causing the violence, not guns, per se’. Guns are simply a tool. What people do with guns, and for that matter, what they do with all other weapons
of every type, and indeed, how they deal with all conflicts, and live their lives , is a product of their environs, as focused through their values.
And when you remove the values, our sense of right and wrong, the rest falls away.
What we need to reduce the violence, therefore, is a reinforced value structure, that, unlike what the left has been forcing on us, does not run afoul of traditional American culture.. Liberals of the last 40 years are afraid of this, they don’t want to be seen as being ‘judgmental’. This is not an issue that is going to be solved by ‘finding the middle path’. If we really want to stop the violence, instead of making political points from it…it’s time to move those of the left who have for decades been neutering our value structure, in the name of ‘cultural diversity’, out.
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