*RIP* Charlton Heston

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who is a religious or political radical?

I happen also to be an appliance collector.

And if you think I'm a religious radical, you're absolutely wrong.

If you think I'm a political radical, well, I suppose you also mean that free speech is radical? Being safe and secure in your home and possession is radical?

Give me a break.
 
a new low!

I have just about had it with the name calling around here.
First, I'm a "Bully" and a "Nazi" - me a nazi???
Then folks drag the name of one of the less pleasant but long since gone ex-members through the mud.
OK, I admit - I have a sharp tongue and sometimes I say things I regret. When I apologize, it is genuine and I make my best effort not to repeat it.
Calling Conate a radical or whatever because he happens to enjoy a right guaranteed to him by an amendment to the American Constitution is more than over the top, it is just plain wrong.
I firmly believe that there is a place here for everyone as long as we respect Robert's rules. We are, after all, in his living room here.
Would you attack me for being gay? Am I an object of your hatred because my murdered husband was black? The records were lost in the war, but with 99% certainty, my father was adopted out of Nazi Germany by good Catholics who, at their own risk, took Jewish babies, called them their own and smuggled them out. Israel might not consider me Jewish, but does my Jewish blood offend you?
Nope, of course not - you would rather bite your tongue off than to say anything nasty against one of the politically correct groups. But may the gods forfend that a member have a view of things which is not on the official "liberal" list.
I live in a city of over one million people. Our violent crime rate is so low that it takes us decades to equal the shootings and nastiness any American city our size achieves in one month - some in one weekend. Yet we have more citizens trained in the use of firearms and more firearms here than "officially" in the US.
Guns don't kill people - people kill people.

Calling me a Nazi because I am German, calling Nate a radical and saying he is unwelcome because he dares to be something besides a lap-dog-Democrat (card carrying since my 18th birthday) is inexcusable. I don't agree with all of his views, but I don't recall him ever having been rude or nasty to anyone - especially not to me when we have disagreed. Frankly, I'd rather have him, armed, at my side walking down the streets of Denver than an intolerant person whose approval is dependent upon my following his narrowly defined code of political correctness. At least I could, then, walk the streets. Last time I was in Denver, we had to be sure to get out of the downtown area before sundown because our language and skin color were inappropriate to survival.
If you disagree, fine. But keep a civil tongue in your mouth!
 
Panthera, thank you!

Panthera, thank you for your great comments.

The fact of the matter is, folks, none of you know me. Heck some of you have met each other, but I daresay most of the board has never met.

Having said that, it is very dangerous for anyone to draw conclusions based on erroneous data. And when you have inadequate facts, your data is erroneous.

I do not have to agree with everyone. Everyone doesn't have to agree with me. However, name calling is not appropriate in any way, shape, or form. Bludgeoning with words is a bludgeoning, just as folks who commit crimes with baseball bats etc. But,a s panthera pointed out so nicely, a civil discourse is always appropriate.

You know, when I was growing up in the '60s and '70s, I used to believe that liberal meant 'You do your thing and I'll do mine, and we'll be happy together' and conservative meant 'You do my thing and I'll do my thing and I'll be happy.' But as the years have gone by, BOTH liberal and conservative have grown to mean 'You do my thing and I'll do my thing.' Two of the saddest things in the USA these days is that BOTH the Republican and Democrat parties have been co-opted by radical elements, and portray each other as evil horrors - when in reality there is so little difference between them, when all is said and done, to be laughable. BOTh believe in ever increasing state control of every aspect of our lives - except the Ds want to control money and business first, then personal behavior and the Rs want the other way around.

Before anyone calls anyone a fanatic, learn where they are coming from. You might find that decent people who support freedom are much more similar than different.

It might also surprise some -- those who think me a radical conservative bigot -- that i SUPPORT gay marriage (Hell if 'n' people love each other and are attracted to each other and are of legal age and can consent, GO FOR IT), I SUPPORT racial equality and integration, I SUPPORT the ERA. Some of us believe that freedom is not 'choose one from column A, one from Column B' -- it means freedom, freedom to be what you wish, to choose, to do. It means that others must leave you unmolested, even if they disagree. Indeed, engaging in spirited discussions is great, but use of force - through the gun or written word - is inappropriate in civil discourse.

Nate
 
I collect both appliances and --guns.And of course vacuum cleaners.
Anyway-I beleived in Mr Heston when he was president of NRA-I am a card carrying member-and proud of it.The 2nd Amendment is one of our MOST precious ones in the Consitutuion next to the 1st.If the 2nd Amendment is taken away-many politicians are trying and the NRA is fighting them like a pit bull.If the 2nd is taken away it is then MUCH easier to take away others.Folks have to WAKE up to this.The Democrat presidentual candidates want to try to take away YOUR 2nd Amendmet rights.Don't let this happen!I think most folks in the US want to have the choice of owning and using a firearm up to THEM--not the politicians.Think CAREFULLY before you vote-Your RIGHTS may be at stake!
I admired Mr Heston when he held up his rifle that was presented to him and Says"From My Cold Dead Hands!"I agree with him 100%.Now back to appliances!
 
I would never entertain the suggestion that I MUST own a gun and make no mistake about it, the NRA does NOT in any way shape or form speak for me and I find it insulting that anyone would suggest that they do. Once my dad passed away we got rid of every gun he owned. The toughest one to unload was a German machine gun he brought home as a trophy from WWII. As much as I respected his sentiment behind nabbing that gun from a presumably dead enemy soldier, as I looked at that gun all I could feel was bad karma from an instrument that killed who knows how many allied soldiers. What a hot potato that gun turned out to be. It was illegal in California, and most states for that matter even though ammunition is no longer available, and my mom ended up giving to a law enforcement acquaintance so we could just be rid of it. I hope that thing was melted down post haste.

Did I make myself clear? The NRA does NOT speak for me!
 
Ralph,

I am walking a pretty tight line here. It is sad fact that in the US today, things have become so polarized, that one is pretty much either so or so.
I am most definitely a liberal, closely aligned with the Democrats when it comes to human rights (especially Constitutional Rights like habeas corpus), my right to marry and love the man I care for, a woman's right to decide what to do with her own body, the right of black people to be treated with the same humanity as white people.
But, having grown up in the Rocky Mountain West, not the crime filled violence of big American cities - and living in Western Europe where, although we are armed to the teeth, guns and violence just aren't a problem, I can't do the knee-jerk thing on gun control.
That does not mean I support the NRA, I resigned my life-long membership a long time ago, back when they started looking like the dictionary definition of paranoid.
I think I understand your feelings on the matter, really I try to. I just think it is up to us on the "left" not to fall into the black and white thinking which has let the Republicans win so many folks over to them in the last years.
There is no way in hell you are ever going to get guns out of American society. It's like prohibition. Even if you succeeded in taking them away from people who legally own them, the criminals would still have them. All we can succeed in doing there is in driving otherwise sane people further into the arms of the wing-nut right. And please, even if you only view guns as instruments of crime and evil - for many folks in the West, they are necessary tools. I'm a vegetarian, I don't hunt. But I truly enjoy target shooting.
Of all the issues which separate the east and west coast liberals from the independent and moderate voters in the West and South, this is the one where the folks on the coasts are just going to have to buy a clue - it's a non-starter.
What is much more worth spending time on is the question of why there is so much violent crime in the US. I've said it about a million times, but we are armed to the teeth here and yet we just do not have the problems you have. Sure, the occasional whack job will get a gun and murder people. But it takes us years to equal one bad weekend in Detroit. That is so wrong!
Can we have a dialog - you, me, everyone on this and leave our resentments ("only from my cold, dead hands" "all democrats want to take away our rights" on the one side and "all guns are evil, anybody who carries one is sick" on the other?) I truly don't believe anyone, not even Rex is trying to make you join the NRA.
But if I, one of the most liberal folks on this board can be notional, well, can't we all try a bit?
Huh?
Please?
(Oh, and Rex, I gotta say it - it was the Republicans and not the Democrats who took away your right to habeas corpus. That right was fundamental to what made America free. And your only hope for getting that right back is, hold your nose, the democrats. Just a thought.)
 
Thanks Keven. This forum isn't really the place for such a discussion but after reading Rex's post I had to add my $.02 even though I swore I wouldn't get involved. Statements like those made by Rex demand a response. Yours was far better than mine. Especially the parenthetical portion at the end of your post. The polarization in the U.S today is disturbing, the current administration is force feeding this cancerous condition in an attempt to maintain power via Mc Cain and will continue to do so right up until November and beyond to 1/20/09 regardless of who wins the general election.

So much for what I just said in my e-mail to you, eh Lawrence?

Ralph
 
interestingly enough...

I see both sides of the political coin in the USA trying to keep the polarization going.

The dems are always saying the repubs are evil and vice versa.

What the current Bush admin has done to the country is truly, truly, criminal. However, you can dig up dirt like that in any administration - though perhaps not to the magnitude of what we are seeing now.

Having said that, perhaps we should stop saying "Party X is wrong" and start saying "How can we build bridges between the different factions in the country today?"

When I was insulted here, should I have huffed out saying 'oh you leftists have no clue as to what freedom is like!" ? Don't be ridiculous.

We ALL want the same things - a safe a secure society, good food, nice reasonable places to live, etc.

What we need to do is have a dialog. For example, I'm very comfortable as a shooter, and around firearms of many different types. For those who are not, why not? Perhaps we can discuss why this is the case. Some people have been victimes of violence and a firearm has been involved. Yet, if you have a car accident does it mean that all cars are bad? Or if you're working to restore an old washing machine and get an electric shock, does it mean that electricity is evil?

More people in the USA are killed by medical errors than by firearms in a given year, and the carnage on our road is SO BAD that it dwarfs every other cause of death in the country. Yet I do not see suggestions that automobiles should be banned.

Regarding machine guns, I've never shot one. But is a machine gun any worse than an electric wire? I doubt it. It's the intent of the person involved.

Now, regarding the NRA, I have never once seen anything in any of their literature that implied that people should be compelled to own a gun. As far as I know, the only people in the world who are compelled to own guns are the Israelis and the Swiss - who as I understand it mostly all have machine guns at home since most men are members of their version of the national guard.

What is tiring about the NRA is that they seem to believe that every republican 'endorses freedom' while every democrat 'hates freedom' which is ridiculous. What you can say is that far more democrats than republicans endorse gun control, something which I don't understand why it goes by party line. However, there are many anti gun republicans and pro gun democrats.

The issues we have here are the US Society no longer seems to believe in self control and personal responsibility for individual actions. THAT is the root of crime and violence, in my opinion. Forcing people even further down the road to a police state is not the answer. Heck you could have everyone shackled and violence would still be an issue - look at prision populations. (Actually, you don't want to- you don't meet the better class of people there).

Nate
 
The issues we have here are the US Society no longer seems t

~self control and personal responsibility for individual actions.

I agree. I see this every day.

I'm a gun owner, and I live near a bad area of town, so I keep my guns readily accessible. When visitors with children come over the guns are unloaded and put away. I enjoy shooting and have even gone hunting (although I have never shot anything except a squirrel when I was a kid). I decided not to join the NRA simply because they started getting more "militant" with their language, almost like some extremist groups. Charlton Heston may have been president, but the executive vice-president Wayne LaPierre is the one responsible for most of the rhetoric that turned me off. When you get that combative, it ultimately hurts the cause instead of helping it.

My way of fighting gun control: I write my congressmen and senators when gun control legislation comes up, and I have a college friend who worked for Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, and is still working in D.C., whom I can give correspondence to that I know it will be read by the senator, and not a staffer.

In college I wrote a few editorials for the college rag that were printed. I researched decades of the FBI's official annual crime report "Crime in the U.S." to determine the rise and fall of gun related crime versus other weapons, and the murder rate (number of victims per 100,000 people - takes into consideration population growth) in which guns, knives, and other weapons were used, and compared these stats with car accident deaths, and medical deaths (heart disease, cancer, etc.). Now, I haven't done this research since 1998, so I don't have a firm handle on the last decade. But my research up until 1998 found that basically, the gun murder rate on a nation-wide basis peaked in the 1970's and has declined since with notable exceptions for individual cities such as L.A. and D.C. Texas adopted a concealed handgun license law and our crime rate dropped, despite the gun conrol people's claim that we would become like the Wild West, same claims were made when Florida adopted a concealed gun policy and their crime rate dropped too without any Wild West shootouts.
 
I agree. Until you get rid of the "right VS left" dialog, this country and people will continue to be divided.

I'm a gun owner, but NOT a member of the NRA, for some of the same reasons David mentioned. The NRA, in my opinion, is another political action committee, just like AARP, many unions, etc. They chastise anyone who disagrees with their stance, have Washington higher ups in their pockets, and make the leaders of the PAC's well compensated, at the members expense.

The Democrats have as many problems as the Republicans do. If a Democrat is elected President, we'll see how bad they are, just as the Repubs in office these days have shown their faults.

'nuff said
 
In general, I believe...

...the government that governs best, governs least.

I don't understand why so many people, on the right and on the left, who profess to mistrust government, wants to yield so many powers to it.

Huh? Isn't this counter intuitive?

Nate
 
Nate,

I think it is because they don't see it as "yielding" but, rather, as "wielding". They can't force me to stop loving my partner themselves, but if the government takes me at gun point, tortures me and murders me, well, that would sure put a stop to it.
Same with the knee-jerk liberals. They can't force people to stop driving 1989 Cadillac Fleetwoods...but if only the cops were empowered to pull me over, spread my legs and cart me off to the stocks for a week of fun in the sun, then surely the trade off of my (unimportant because I am a sinner) civil rights is more than justified.
In both cases, the Christianists and the Eco-terrorists, they aren't thinking of being, themselves, subservient to the government. Oh, no - just us other "bad guys."
And that is the real problem with the current administration. Emboldended by the Christianists and wing-nuts, they have tried and largely succeeded in stripping Americans of their constitutionally guaranteed rights.
But since they are "pro-gun", "pro-life" and "patriotic" and "Christian", the red-necks in my family let them get away with it - and would vote for them again.
It is interesting to note that the super politically correct eco-terrorist arm of the Greens here in Germany broke with the party once they were in power. They were furious that the Greens did not use their governmental powers to coerce and compel. Left the greens a pretty stable, relatively sensible group who did a lot - and whose closest allies are the Conservatives, who'd a thunk it?
 
How about that!!

Panthera,

Your comments are exactly why I believe the American Right and American Left are exactly the same.

"Green" and "Conservative" aren't that far apart - both seek to CONSERVE -- the world itself.

Too bad that in the USA 'green' is a marketing phenomena, not really an attempt to use less resources.

I do disagree with your comment that implies that this current administration is the first to strip your rights away. It's been going on far longer than that. Indeed it was Eisenhower who attempted to warn Americans about the dangers of the military-industrial complex and what it meant for freedom.

Nate
 
Nate,

I don't mean this is the first. Just, this is the first to go this far since Abraham Lincoln - and he repented.
It is unfortunate that Americans are so horribly isolated - the country needs the rest of the world and we need the US.
Ike couldn't run for the Repbulicans today. He was a pragmatist economically=Socialist!
He believed that gays should be left alone=Destroyer of Marriage!
He believed that the military-industrial complex was taking over the duties of the soverign state, ruled by the people: French!
He believed that each individual was responsible for his/her own actions, period=Godless, Apostate!
He considered environmental protection relevant and wanted to limit leveraged finaccial ventures=Marxist!

Nope, today he'd be an out-there, far left commie-pinko-liberal-fag-anti-Christ-tree-hugger for the Republican party.
Hell, Richard Nixon would be to the left of the Republicans, today. Not to mention more constitutionally sound.
Now 'that' is scary.
If Ike were running today, I'd vote for him in a heartbeat.
 

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