We have confused "right" and "privilege" just as we have "freedom" and "license." Each of us must examine our own place in the community carefully. As we have fallen increasingly deeply imbedded in the "ME" generation, we have stopped looking at how our own desires and wishes effect others. Unless we do so, we are pretty much doomed.
We have confused "right" and "privilege" just as we have "freedom" and "license." Each of us must examine our own place in the community carefully. As we have fallen increasingly deeply imbedded in the "ME" generation, we have stopped looking at how our own desires and wishes effect others. Unless we do so, we are pretty much doomed.
This is a good spin on what I've called "indifference is the coin of the realm now." Everyone focused on what's good for them at the expense of what's bad for others. This started with the indifference to wealth inequality by the well-off, which seeped into the culture across the board. If you can turn a blind eye to being ridiculously rich while significant chunks of the country are ridiculously poor, that's only a hop-skip-jump away from not giving a fuck about what happens to the planet when your V8 is dumping emissions into the atmosphere or when your weekend shooting hobbies get a bunch of school kids killed every 3-5 months.
We stopped caring about each other a long time ago, which is why we did things like build an oligarchy through low taxes on the rich, farm our 20-year wars out to a small fraction of the population after ditching the draft, and focus everything on making money and blessing your children with better advantages than other families have to ensure that your kid makes it to the top of the pack in the next generation. This country is a rat race defined by money and we wonder why we have people who are indifferent to children dying--among many other social injustices.
I think many of your points are valid, but the rhetoric is such that it tends divide rather than find ways to make your points palatable. We're divided by language as much as by economic and cultural differences. Trying to find ways better to bind us together is a difficult task requiring discipline and thought.
I just canтАЩt find unity without accountability. ItтАЩs a little too much like saying тАЬdonтАЩt point out all the *drastic* social and economic issues we have as a nation in the pursuit of avoiding another civil war.тАЭ Or we could just fix said problems, making unity much easier. Otherwise weтАЩll continue to get what we have now.
Did it ever occur to anyone that once youтАЩre in a two-tier society with a faux-meritocracy that everyone would realize the fix was in economically and socially speaking, and so a lot of the losers on that side of things would just stop cooperating politically with the same people keeping them down socially and economically? Fix the socio-economic problems and the politics will balance itself out. If politics is downstream of culture and our culture is defined by money (capitalism) while enormous wealth and social inequalities exist, then *of course* youтАЩre going to get political divisions and massive social resentment. Our politics are our culture, our culture is about money, and our money is poorly distributed via who does what kinds of specialized labor pays the mostтАФmuch of which is based on how much money your parents had, which schools you could attend, and how wealthy/educated the partner you married was. This is quite literally what determines success in this country, not the merit of your labor or the merit of your intelligence.
I've been thinking along these lines regarding "responsible gun owners" lately. They might be personally responsible, in that they don't point loaded guns at people for a lark and use the safety and keep them stored in a gun safe. However I don't see how you can look at what is happening in our communities and say yep that's just the price of my fake soldier toy. That just doesn't meet the definition of a responsible adult.
I've been hunting since I could walk, we didn't really eat any meat growing up that we didn't butcher on the farm or drag out of the woods ourselves, but gun culture now is totally alien to me. I remember when semiautomatic rifles were sneered at, because if you needed all those shots you weren't good enough to be in the woods.
My dad, who taught me about gun safety and hunting, used to say the same thing. He refused to buy me anything other than a bolt action rifle or side by side shotgun. He always said if you couldnтАЩt kill whatever you were hunting with 2 shots, you were doing it wrong.
I hear ya. Guns were like religion growing up, but utterly alien to today's culture and I'm not even that old. The rules were absolute, honor was everything. I remember my cousin was target shooting and shot down a sapling. The entire family was so utterly disgusted at the wasted ammo (remember when that was a thing?) and principle he couldn't look anyone in the eye for a year.
I went squirrel hunting with some acquaintances about 5 years ago and almost got in a fist fight because apparently their idea of hunting was blasting nests with a 12ga and seeing what fell out...
I'm content with the farming/ hunting lifestyle. People do take Armalites hunting, but it's more an embarrassed after-the-fact. My trusty old lever-action does just fine for deer and appeals to no-one for a mass shooting.
We have confused "right" and "privilege" just as we have "freedom" and "license." Each of us must examine our own place in the community carefully. As we have fallen increasingly deeply imbedded in the "ME" generation, we have stopped looking at how our own desires and wishes effect others. Unless we do so, we are pretty much doomed.
This is a good spin on what I've called "indifference is the coin of the realm now." Everyone focused on what's good for them at the expense of what's bad for others. This started with the indifference to wealth inequality by the well-off, which seeped into the culture across the board. If you can turn a blind eye to being ridiculously rich while significant chunks of the country are ridiculously poor, that's only a hop-skip-jump away from not giving a fuck about what happens to the planet when your V8 is dumping emissions into the atmosphere or when your weekend shooting hobbies get a bunch of school kids killed every 3-5 months.
We stopped caring about each other a long time ago, which is why we did things like build an oligarchy through low taxes on the rich, farm our 20-year wars out to a small fraction of the population after ditching the draft, and focus everything on making money and blessing your children with better advantages than other families have to ensure that your kid makes it to the top of the pack in the next generation. This country is a rat race defined by money and we wonder why we have people who are indifferent to children dying--among many other social injustices.
I think many of your points are valid, but the rhetoric is such that it tends divide rather than find ways to make your points palatable. We're divided by language as much as by economic and cultural differences. Trying to find ways better to bind us together is a difficult task requiring discipline and thought.
I just canтАЩt find unity without accountability. ItтАЩs a little too much like saying тАЬdonтАЩt point out all the *drastic* social and economic issues we have as a nation in the pursuit of avoiding another civil war.тАЭ Or we could just fix said problems, making unity much easier. Otherwise weтАЩll continue to get what we have now.
Did it ever occur to anyone that once youтАЩre in a two-tier society with a faux-meritocracy that everyone would realize the fix was in economically and socially speaking, and so a lot of the losers on that side of things would just stop cooperating politically with the same people keeping them down socially and economically? Fix the socio-economic problems and the politics will balance itself out. If politics is downstream of culture and our culture is defined by money (capitalism) while enormous wealth and social inequalities exist, then *of course* youтАЩre going to get political divisions and massive social resentment. Our politics are our culture, our culture is about money, and our money is poorly distributed via who does what kinds of specialized labor pays the mostтАФmuch of which is based on how much money your parents had, which schools you could attend, and how wealthy/educated the partner you married was. This is quite literally what determines success in this country, not the merit of your labor or the merit of your intelligence.
I've been thinking along these lines regarding "responsible gun owners" lately. They might be personally responsible, in that they don't point loaded guns at people for a lark and use the safety and keep them stored in a gun safe. However I don't see how you can look at what is happening in our communities and say yep that's just the price of my fake soldier toy. That just doesn't meet the definition of a responsible adult.
I've been hunting since I could walk, we didn't really eat any meat growing up that we didn't butcher on the farm or drag out of the woods ourselves, but gun culture now is totally alien to me. I remember when semiautomatic rifles were sneered at, because if you needed all those shots you weren't good enough to be in the woods.
My dad, who taught me about gun safety and hunting, used to say the same thing. He refused to buy me anything other than a bolt action rifle or side by side shotgun. He always said if you couldnтАЩt kill whatever you were hunting with 2 shots, you were doing it wrong.
I miss him, and men like him.
I hear ya. Guns were like religion growing up, but utterly alien to today's culture and I'm not even that old. The rules were absolute, honor was everything. I remember my cousin was target shooting and shot down a sapling. The entire family was so utterly disgusted at the wasted ammo (remember when that was a thing?) and principle he couldn't look anyone in the eye for a year.
I went squirrel hunting with some acquaintances about 5 years ago and almost got in a fist fight because apparently their idea of hunting was blasting nests with a 12ga and seeing what fell out...
Very good reason to become a vegetarian or vegan?!?
I'm content with the farming/ hunting lifestyle. People do take Armalites hunting, but it's more an embarrassed after-the-fact. My trusty old lever-action does just fine for deer and appeals to no-one for a mass shooting.