The "O" Word
Conservative by Nature, Christian by Choice
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Remember Back Then?

January 14th, 2013 . by Cary

I’m not as old as some of my friends, but older than a lot of people I know (or remember, that’s an age thing). I ran across this post, and figgered I could borrow it. I give full credit to the author, Edward L. Daley.

When I was a kid…

If you mouthed off to an adult – even a teacher in school – you’d more than likely get the taste slapped out of your mouth, and anybody who saw you get smacked would assume you had it coming.

Doctors made house calls, and they were usually paid in cash for that service.

Boosting a kid’s self-esteem was maybe the last thing any teacher cared about. Forcing their students to study and get good grades was the top priority, and accomplishing that goal naturally led to kids feeling better about themselves.

Climate change was a concept we were keenly aware of, although, back then we just called it weather.

Black folks were called blacks, colored people or negroes by most whites and blacks alike. There was no such thing as an African-American. Even immigrants from Africa who had passed their citizenship tests weren’t called African-Americans, they were just Americans like the rest of us.

There wasn’t a single kid in my school who couldn’t read, write, do basic math or recite the Pledge of Allegiance by the time they were eight years old… not one.

The word gay just meant cheerful.

Wearing a helmet while riding your bike was far more dangerous than not wearing one, because if other kids saw you in sissy gear like that, they’d beat the crap out of you.

Israelis were known as the survivors of the worst genocide in modern history, and Palestinians were thought of as just a bunch of Arab Nazis pretending to be the victims of Jewish tyranny.

A rich person was somebody you aspired to be like, not somebody you sought to punish.

Communism was an almost treasonous concept that only doped-up, America-hating hippies experimented with.

Every classroom in my grammar school had a Christmas tree in it at Christmas time, and if any parent had complained and tried to force us to remove them, that person’s car would have ended up with sugar in its gas tank, a busted windshield, four flat tires and the words ‘Merry Christmas’ spray-painted on its hood.

Our heroes were people like George Washington, Neil Armstrong, Mother Teresa, Thomas Edison, Amelia Earhart, Martin Luther King Jr., Susan B. Anthony, General George S. Patton and Albert Einstein.

We understood that the Vietnam War wasn’t lost by U.S. military forces, it was lost by incompetent politicians in Washington DC.

Only wimps played tee-ball.

Most folks had home computers, although they were more commonly known as calculators.

After school, on weekends and during the summer months – unless the weather was particularly bad – kids could be found outside playing with their friends. We didn’t hang around inside, watching TV or playing board games before dinner, and even if we’d wanted to do that, our parents would have forbade it.

Most black voters were Republicans.

Popular music was incredibly diverse, and most performers knew how to play instruments, compose complex melodies and lyrics, and sing entire songs without proving to their audiences that some notes can, indeed, be strangled to death.

Able-bodied people who received public assistance were pitied by other folks, and most of them felt shame for allowing themselves to become dependent on the government for their sustenance.

Nobody played any game just for the fun of it. That’s why we always kept score. If you weren’t playing to win, the game was pointless.

If you saw a grown man cry, it was probably because either his mother or his dog had just died.

It was mostly Europeans who thought of Hitler’s Nazi party as a right-wing political movement. Americans generally understood what the term National Socialist implied.

Reality TV shows included Mutual Of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom, Candid Camera and The Undersea World Of Jacques Cousteau.

We didn’t need government warming labels on everything. We knew that electrical appliances were dangerous if used improperly, that smoking was bad for you, that swallowing things like marbles and those little, plastic, toy soldiers could choke you to death, and that placing a scalding hot cup of coffee between your thighs while riding in a car was as good a way as any of proving to emergency room staff just how freakin’ stupid some people can be.

Books were more popular than food stamps.

Respect was something that your parents were entitled to, your friends earned, and politicians pretended they deserved.

Gas station attendants didn’t just take your money, they pumped your gas, washed your windshield, checked your oil level and even applied a pressure gauge to your tires if you asked them to. And their service didn’t cost you a penny extra.

Only teenage boys bragged to their friends about having sex, especially when they hadn’t. Most teenage girls denied that they’d had sex, especially when they had.

Heavy drinkers didn’t have a disease, they simply lacked self-control. Diseases were things you had no control over.

A liberal was an open-minded, intellectually honest individual who looked at all sides of an issue before arriving at a thoughtful conclusion, not a scatterbrained, reactionary jackass whose natural inclination was to spout socialist theory as a default position on practically every topic.

Everybody who was born in America was a native American.

Men were builders, risk-takers, hunters, warriors, protectors and heads of their households. Women were refiners, nesters, nurturers, teachers and disciplinarians who were usually willing to let their male counterparts delude themselves into thinking that men were the heads of their households.

Most folks understood the difference between discrimination and bigotry.

Marriage was an institution that a man and a woman entered into when they wanted to exhibit their commitment to one another, their willingness to accept adult responsibilities, and their desire to legitimize their offspring. It had nothing to do with making a political point.

Teenagers bringing guns to their high schools was commonplace – especially during hunting season – and anyone who complained about such a thing was generally considered a nutcase.

Illegal aliens were called illegal aliens by practically everyone, because that term best described foreigners who’d snuck into our country in defiance of our laws.

The greatest movie ever made was The Great Escape.

On the scale of human trustworthiness, the vast majority of politicians fell somewhere between used car salesmen and coke whores. In fact, the only people who ever exhibited any level of trust in politicians were the people who had enough money to buy them off.

Plumbers were more respected than Harvard law students.

My friends and I genuinely cared about nature because we spent a lot of time hanging out in it. We went into the woods and built forts, fished in streams, and made campfires, employing the lessons we’d learned in the Boy Scouts and from studying American Indian cultures. We respected nature because we knew what nature really was; a hostile, unforgiving place that would kill you if you didn’t know your way around it. We loved the challenge of the wilderness, and soldiering through it made us appreciate our cushy home lives all the more.

Making fun of other kids or calling them names – while generally frowned upon – wasn’t considered bullying. A bully was a guy who punched you in the head and took your lunch money.

The President of the United States wasn’t a father figure to anybody but his own kids.

Mainstream news reporters were pretty much the same sort of biased, dim-witted, arrogant, assclowns that they are today, only we didn’t have the internet at our disposal to easily prove just how unreliable they were.

Video games were things you played at arcades, unless you were lucky enough to get an Atari Pong console for Christmas.

Abortion wasn’t a privacy issue, it was a moral issue, and people who committed abortions weren’t “pro-choice”, they were baby killers.

The application of oil and its byproducts to run machinery and generate electricity was widely understood to be as important to the advancement of human civilization as the discovery and utilization of fire, the practices of cultivating crops and breeding livestock, and the development of a written language.

Nobody I knew gave half a damn what people in other countries thought about anything.

Concepts like honor, integrity, courage and chivalry were alive and well.

The United States of America was the greatest nation in the history of the world, bar none, and just about every American school kid knew why. Our brilliantly conceived Constitution, Judeo-Christian ethic, free market economic system, adherence to the rule of law and willingness to embrace people from every culture on Earth made us great, and we were conspicuously proud of that fact.

By Edward L. Daley

I know what he means – I grew up in the same environment.

Chat ya later…

cary

Thanks for stopping by, In GOD We Trust, and Wear Red on Fridays!

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Red Friday for Sadie

January 11th, 2013 . by Cary

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Are you wearing red today? Show your support of the troops!

Sadie, the Dalmointer of the group, has been diagnosed with cancer. She has had benign growths on her body (fatty deposits, basically) for a while now. This latest is tough. The cancer is around her colon, pressing on it in various angles. This makes it difficult for her to have a proper BM. We are administering stool softener and a laxative-like medicine, this is followed with Pepcid for the upset tummy that follows the laxative.

Surgery isn’t really an option – to remove the cancer a lot of the muscles around the colon and tail would be removed also. This would cause huge problems, like not being able to wag her tail. Or control her bowels.

We are told she has between three and six months without surgery; up to a year with it – but with a greatly reduced quality of life – and that is important. If she’s not comfortable, it isn’t worth trying to make her comfortable.

She will be missed. She will be going to join Sarah and Logan at the Rainbow Bridge, where they will be waiting for us.

Please keep her FurMom, The Most Beautiful Woman in the World, in prayer. She is taking this really hard.

Chat ya later…

cary friday

Thanks for stopping by, In GOD We Trust, and Wear Red on Fridays!

The Second Amendment

January 5th, 2013 . by Cary

A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.

I have been thinking about the recent events that are leading to more restrictive/outright bans on weapons. I happened to stumble across this blog entry while perusing the Facebook group, United States Gun Owners Association. Please read it.

As a responsible firearm owner (read: I’ve never let my gun attack innocent victims), and a formerly active-duty Marine, I’ve always been aware that it may come to the government ruling that my guns must be turned in. I have also been of the mind set that if they insist I turn in my weapon, then I will do so 180 to 240 grains at a time. This article has pointed out to me that I am not only expected to defend my ownership, I am constitutionally protected to do so.

Thought you could use some good news to start off the New Year.

Chat ya later…

cary

Thanks for stopping by, In GOD We Trust, and Wear Red on Fridays!

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Shocked. Shocked, and Surprised.

January 3rd, 2013 . by Cary

“We need to pass the medical marijuana bill so the poor people who suffer from various cases of cancer can get this pain-relieving medicine and live a full life” they said.

Marijuana is an illegal drug, and we don’t want untold and untraceable amounts loose on the streets, where anyone can get hold of it, we said.

“Vote Yes!” they said.

We voted NO, we said.

“Why? What could possibly go wrong?” they said.

Lots, we said. (source: azcentral.com)

Chat ya later…

cary

Thanks for stopping by, In GOD We Trust, and Wear Red on Fridays!

Be It Resolved:

January 1st, 2013 . by Cary

I posted a couple of resolutions on Facebook earlier. A couple of them were jokes. Several were not.

I do resolve to live for God more and for myself less.

I do resolve to actually back up giving up the soda with an increase in physical fitness, with the intended result of losing weight. Lots of weight. This morning I was at 228. That’s about fifty more than I should be carrying around. And, of course, I feel it every step of the way. Although to be sure, I am down from the 250 I was about three or four years ago.

And the most controversial resolution so far: I resolve to carry concealed wherever I go. Yes, even where open carry is acceptable, I will still keep it concealed. Why? Because the bad guys don’t deserve any more warning than what they give their intended target.

Chat ya later…

cary

Thanks for stopping by, In GOD We Trust, and Wear Red on Fridays!

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