TexasCajun wrote:All sarcasm aside. I have opposed & will continue to oppose any of the continued attacks on our freedoms. And I'm an ardent supporter of less government in all respects. The last four years have set this country backward & I fear that the next four years could see us at a point where recovery may not be possible. The current potus is doing more damage than any outside threat could have ever hoped to accomplish.
That's why this topic is relevant & important to me. There are some minds & opinions that we are not going to change - much in the same way that the antis won't be able to change ours. But if we continue to publicly debate these issues in a calm & rational way, we just might be able to give someone who hasn't made up their mind something to think about.
Now if you want to disregard this because I have not excommunicated everyone from my life that doesn't see things 100% my way then so be it. To tell you the truth, I kind of pity my friends who've taken for the so-called reasonable solution argument.
anygunanywhere wrote:I don't excommunicate them from my life and in the same vein I do not know everyone's political leanings.
Those that I do know hold different views from me go on different mental lists than those who I consider my friends. My friends are the ones I will rely on when I need to survive.
Anygunanywhere
My mother is an 88 year old ARDENT leftwing multiculturalist atheist gun-grabber. Her 90 year old boyfriend is a Polish neo-comm globalist. They are both dear to me—her because she is my mother, and him because he makes my mother happy. I love her, but I also love my country; and if I have to choose between my country and her, sad to say, I will choose my country. She'll be gone in a few short years, but the country lives on and affects the lives of hundreds of millions, including the life of my son—whom I love even more than I love my mother—the life of my daughter in law, and the lives of grandchildren we are expecting to see in the next few years.
I mentioned in a post yesterday the past friendship I had with a gay black author in NYC, whom I know for a certain fact to be anti-gun. My best friend in California is a liberal "the Constitution is a living changing thing" lawyer. He is not anti-gun, even though his shifting and never-centered-in-the original interpretation of the Constitution will lead to gun banning eventually. I don't abandon my friends
today because they cannot be relied upon when the bad juju hits the fan
tomorrow, but my feelings for these people are freighted with a certain sadness because I know that, unless
they change and come around to my view, I may have to leave them behind some day in order to ensure my own survival and the survival of my line through my son.
I think it is important to distinguish between "friends" and "friendly acquaintances." I have lots of the latter, and very very few of the former. "Friendly acquaintances" are the people I know whom I get along with pretty well, whom I might even like in a superficial way. "Friends" are the ones whom I know, without a doubt, that I can absolutely count on when the chips are down. Since I have a somewhat pessimistic view of the nation's future, the "chips"
are going to be "down" some day, and "friends" will be in the foxhole with me, while "friendly acquaintances" might actually turn me in some day "for my own good."
My neighbor across the street is one of the sweetest guys you'd ever meet.....a genuinely nice guy. He's a conservative, and an evangelical Christian. We have a lot in common. He and his wife are, like us, empty nesters, and he makes a WHOLE lot more money than I do—but he thinks that when the waste matter hits the oscillating ventilation device, he can come over to
my house for protection instead of buying just one, simple handgun with all that money. He suspects that the world is going to get worse, not better, but he doesn't care enough to do anything about it to protect his family. He is a "friendly acquaintance," and he can't be counted on.
AndyC lives a few miles from my house. He and I have done some gun things together, and anybody with a FAL is someone who has considered what it might be like to need one and NOT have one. He has been through all this gun-grabbing stuff before in South Africa. He has combat experience (So. Africa's border wars and Iraq). He respects but totally disagrees with my particular religious perspective. He is decidedly NOT the sweetest guy in the world (I think he'd agree that he can be a bit rasty if he thinks it's called for), but he is a fundamentally decent guy. I'd rather have AndyC in a foxhole with me than my neighbor across the street any day of the week, even though I see my neighbor more frequently, and probably know him a little better than I know AndyC. AndyC is one of my "friends."
The Good Book, (which AndyC takes with a
cup of salt
) says that there will be a time when the wheat is separated from the chaff. In Biblical terms, that means that there will come a time when true believers will be separated from the "nominal" believers and the non-believers ("nominal" and "non" being essentially the same thing). But I think that the separation of wheat from chaff is also an apt metaphor for how I categorize people in the war of constitutional preservation.....or the "culture war" if you prefer that term. My neighbor is chaff. AndyC is wheat. My mother and her boyfriend are chaff. My lawyer friend in California is on the cusp. He has an instinct for always doing the right thing, whatever he professes to believe.....so we'll see....but I think that the reason I haven't discarded him into the chaff category is that his instincts are good.
But anymore these days, as people get added into the list of those with whom I am friendly, I am always taking the mark of the person, and trying to decide if they are wheat or chaff. For those whom I think are wheat, I go out of my way to cultivate that friendship. I did this with AndyC for instance. After having enjoyed his posts for a while, I invited him out for coffee, and that is how our friendship started. For those whom I think are chaff, I'm happy to get along with them in a friendly way....and even to enjoy their company....but I won't count on them when the chips are down because they
can't be counted on.
I think that this little rant may adress what VMI77 and anygunanywhere are trying to express.
