Standing on the Shoulders of Giants.

I have done a lot on heroes, on philosophy of admiration of certain people, on role models and rocks to base ones morality off of or to use as a model to base yourself off of.  Models of great peace and great morality.

I have wondered about this for a long time now but I have been connecting this to something, something that to me at least has been rather obvious.

We are standing on the shoulders of giants.  This to me is obvious.

But just what does that mean?

I think it has more to do with the last blog that I wrote about 1632, one of the last ones anyways:

We need something to hold onto, a rock, a plumb-line, something to hang onto and use as a guide star in an ever changing world and ever-changing political climate.  Or in this case we need someone to stand on as we move on through the world, someone to stand on as we move higher.

Now this concept as with many things depends on the shoulders you stand on, where you stand.  If there moral compass is small, if their shoulders are small and they are not too tall, then you will not be able to reach higher and higher in to the air.

For example I have some pretty small idols that I lock onto.  A famous actress, a Political commentator and two science fiction characters.  And my Dad, the best of that group I think.

But it’s no one like MLK, or the founders or anything.  Sure I ADMIRE these people, and greatly, but those are not my idols or role models that I am aspiring to be.

But that is the key.  What will be the guidelines, the heroes, and what will we base ourselves on.

Marx or Madison?  Jefferson or Stalin?  Franklin or Wilson?  Washington or Mao?

Who will we choose?  What will we choose to be?

Will we base our society off of, what I believe to be, small men, or will we choose to do giants?

Because yes there are mistakes, yes the founders made their mistakes but I believe them to be giants compared to the moral character of people who want nothing BUT violence and control.

And the point of being able to reach higher, to build a better future, and reach for the stars is having a strong framework, and a higher place to shoot from.  Is that Marx or Madison?

That what would be better, that we have a launch platform for our rocket of state and morality that will stand up to the massive forces, or do we have one that is flimsy and will fall apart at the merest whim?

I contend it is the latter and I contend that the framework that they built for us, as long as we can keep it in mind, will suit us well as we try to go throughout lives and into the future.  Reaching for a brighter tomorrow.

Rights.

Last Week,well maybe a little longer.  I came across two points of interest on Facebook.

First was a Facebook post.  Now I do not know if she was doing this, advocated doing this, or was just reporting something she had heard but basically she wanted to tell a specific guy that she was pregnant so she could get abortion money, and then to use it for something totally unrelated.

She was going to lie, maybe, and game the system and do something that is quite probably illegal.  Not to mention immoral.

Have we come so far?

And then on another Facebook page I saw a video, a comedy video, from I think the Jon Stewart show.  But they were likening, and parodying, ‘open carry’ people.   Now they were likening it to the oppression felt by gay people, and that they were oppressed by others who would feel the behavior to be odd.

Now it was funny but I paused to think in the middle of it.  Now towards the end the guy who was doing the parody went into a coffee shop, one or two guns holstered, what I hope was an AR-15, slung over his back.  The people looked at him oddly and he yelled at them, something about him having the right to carry weapons and he was still a person too.

Now this was just a comedy sketch on a comedy show but it still got me thinking because there is an element of truth to this.

We live in the United States of America.  A Country born on the philosophy of being able to defend yourself from invasion, attack, or an over reaching government.  A Nation with that enshrined in its founding documents that we have the right to ‘bear arms.’  That right is now under attack.

The fact of the matter is that if we have the right to do so, then it should hardly be a surprise when people go out into public armed.

Now you can be nervous about it, I sure am…or was when I saw a cop with a firearm, at the same time I found it really neat.  But, that does not change the fact that we have the right, and the responsibility to bear our arms and defend ourselves.

In so much that a Gun Rally in Washington DC was carried out.  People with weapons, some of them loaded, gathered around Washington and Virginia.  No shots were fired and they even wore yellow stickers to proclaim that their guns were safe, and had legal ammunition compliant with the law.  And this is according to the LA Times.

A gun rally, no shots fired.

I will state this, again, Guns being showed out in the open is not a real danger to anyone like the President or anyone else, it is those who try to hide their weapons or sneak around with them concealed are the ones that we should be worried about.   At least more so then the ones in the open.

If this is odd behavior then there is something wrong, and it is not with the people doing it, they are exercising their rights and as far as I know own their weapons.

But this can go out to many areas of our rights, everything from our right to a fair trial, to our right to speech, to almost anything.

Cass Sunstein has advocated that we ban ‘conspiracy theories’.  What is a conspiracy theory? Anything that the Government defines as one?

Conspiracies are speech aren’t they?

And meanwhile we are called racist, violent, homophobic, haters of minorities and children, that we do not want the disabled to have their rights, this that and the other thing.  All for speaking out against a Government that we believe to be out of control.

We are attacked by our Government, said we should thank them, and have boycotts led against people that they perceive as our public figure-head.

Where will this end?  All this has happened before.

Woodrow Wilson threw people in jail for speaking out against his government, the Japanese were interned in Camps during World War 2, McCarthy led a crusade against supposed enemies of the state, and MLK was called crazy for speaking out and his actions caused some in the press to wonder if we were heading for violence.

We all know because of history that did not happen, now MLK is called a hero of peace, and rightfully so.

But the fact remains if we do not use our rights, if we do not constantly excercise them when we think there is something wrong…or just because we can.  Then we will lose them.

Rights are like this nation’s muscles.  Without them we would be nothing and without them being constantly strengthened and improved they will disappear.

And then the people who have let their rights atrophy will be like, oh my gosh where did this happen.  And then they will engage in acts of violence.

Remember, we are not racists, we are not violent,  but we are no longer silent.

We are exercising our rights and giving it all for our freedoms.

On a wide variety of issues.

We must continue to use these rights lest the government decree they are not needed anymore.

Generation We

This week I discovered, through the Glenn Beck program, a new movement.  A movement that has the name of a generation.  Specifically the generation leading up to the millennium.

Its called: Generation We.

Now I cannot call myself a member of this movement since I do not support many of it’s  objectives, and a lot of the language.

I am a conservative and a libertarian and cannot consider myself a part of this movement.

However, certain aspects of it require praise, while others deserve my condemnation.

Now in the end I do not care what your issues are.  If you care about the environment and think we are heading for an environmental catastrophe, then all the more power to you.

Go out and invent something clean and efficient that we can all use, and there will be a market for it.

And getting the debt down, restoring America and the American dream, these are noble causes and should be explored to the fullest extent.

But it cannot be a us versus them battle, let us all work together, as Americans, to solve the problems that we face.

And there are right ways and wrong ways of attempting to solve these problems.  If we go in the wrong direction then we will create larger problems than what we have ‘inherited’.

We cannot keep on doing what past generations have done and keep on handing control over to people whose only interest is their own power.

We cannot keep on doing what humanity does during countless generations and revolutions in the past.  We cannot keep on handing power over to people with little difference then the ones they are replacing promising us one thing, and delivering something different than what they have promised.

Just using any crisis to gain more power.

And we cannot take control for ourselves.  We cannot take control over the political landscape and seize power.  That is not the way out.

We cannot allow ourselves to think that taking control is our birthright, that we deserve it, that we are entitled because of what we think we have inherited from previous generations.

We must take responsibility for ourselves, our fortunes, and our lives before we can help anyone else.

Even if we could seize power, we should not.

I do not want that kind of power.

But for us to continue on our path, if we really want to make lasting change for the future, if we as a people want to continue to exist and solve our problems, then we must answer some questions.

And let me say, that Progressivism is not the answer, going back to our founding principles is.

We must decide what we want.

Do we give solutions based in freedom, or oppression?

Do we have financial well-being, or spend  money on everything expedient?   Can we have  our cake and eat it too?

Do we demand what we are ‘owed’ because we have suffered and we have inherited a ‘declining’ society, or do we come together with freedom in mind, ready and willing to do the hard work before us?

Do we fight tooth and nail for what we believe in, for what we believe to be right under the principles of this nations founding, and under the belief in hard work, or do we give in and let other masters tell us what we can and cannot do?

And in light of the events in Texas this past week, in light of everything about Joe Stack and his manifesto:

Do we give into our emotions, do we fall?

Do we say we are owed it, and we are entitled to certain things and we MUST have them?

Do we give into our hate, and decide the only way to solve our problems is with a body count?

Can we find a better way,  can we let go of the things we feel we are entitled to?

Can we begin to strive to repair this great nation peacefully, with respect and solidarity?

Can we fight for the rights of freedom for all, and not just our selfish interests and power?

Can we join the great philosophers of the past, like Gandhi and Martin Luther King and Jesus to say, no matter the challenges we face, we can overcome, for this is what we believe?

Can we respect everyone’s belief system, while clearly articulating and living up to our own?

Do we continue to sacrifice our future generations financial stability, and way of life on the altar of political expediency, or do we rise up as americans in one voice and say, enough is enough?

These are only a few of the questions that I believe we must answer.  For this generation, and generations yet to come.

Because our answers to  these questions, and all of the other questions facing us, will determine the fate of generations yet to come.

The choices that we make now, between liberty and tyranny, between prosperity and debt, between freedom and death,  will resonate, far into the future.

As our history,  our mistakes, and our greatness affect our lives today, we need answers to these and other questions as they come up. For if we are to continue as a free people we can no longer to be silent.

And when people look back from a hundred years in the future, we want them to be grateful, grateful that we held the line and kept this country prosperous and free.

Lessons from History Part 1: Fighting for Ones Rights.

There is a huge difference between how, and for what causes, people used to fight for in the past in this country, and how we do so now.

In essence in the past people were fighting for their rights as human beings, as guaranteed under the US Constitution.  With no dependence or trust to any group except for those that were willing to help in their own interest and in their own rights.  Now we have people basically going out for their ‘cut’ what they feel they are due by a society that has treated them poorly.  Not their rights, and that everyone must conform to them because they feel that they have a legitimate grievance.

Which is their right to do so, they have the freedom of speech, the press, and to assemble.  But, I can wonder at the difference that it is causing in the national debate right now.

Through every other time in our history we have had movements based on fighting within the law, within due process, and with peace and humility to try to get the rights…that they already had, under the US Constitution.  All of the big debates.  Tragically the Civil War was the exception to the rule.

Sometimes they had to use the power of the law to help them, and sometimes the ‘law’ and the power of the Federal and other Governments were against them.  And yet they fought.  For the rights that were afforded them as humans, and as American Citizens.

Martin Luther King, and the Civil Rights movement through the 50s, and 60s, are an important example of this.  Fighting for their right to not be discriminated against by government institutions, to be afforded the same right to a seat on the bus, to get the choice of whatever they wanted to do.  They were fighting mainly for their right to choose, what to do and where to go.

To not be discriminated against by any perspective organization.

Or in the case of labour they were fighting for their right to make the wages that they thought that they should make.  To work, or not work, if they so chose until conditions had improved for them.  And often it was the Government who stood in the way of such change as that.

But now in a good part of society, and by a lot of different groups of minorities are now being fighting for the things that they are owed.  That they feel that they have been owed since the beginning.  Through things like affirmative action, reparations, redistributing the wealth, giving someone else something so that we may make up for all of our sins.

Or they are fighting for their own rights, but with no regard to the rights that they may be taking away from others.

It’s an interesting difference, one that I am not sure of the full implications of.  I blog, you decide 😛