Re: My Point.....game, set, match! -- Lafcadio T. Lion and Strawberry Sage and Friends Fun Forum

[ Show ]

Support VoyForums

[ Shrink ]

VoyForums Announcement: Programming and providing support for this service has been a labor of love since 1997. We are one of the few services online who values our users' privacy, and have never sold your information. We have even fought hard to defend your privacy in legal cases; however, we've done it with almost no financial support -- paying out of pocket to continue providing the service. Due to the issues imposed on us by advertisers, we also stopped hosting most ads on the forums many years ago. We hope you appreciate our efforts.

Show your support by donating any amount. (Note: We are still technically a for-profit company, so your contribution is not tax-deductible.) PayPal Acct: Feedback:

Donate to VoyForums (PayPal):

[ Login ] [ Main index ] [ Post a new message ] [ Search | Check update time | Archives: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, [8], 9, 10 ]

[ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ]

Date Posted: 07:35:09 03/01/03 Sat
Author: Z-Dr.
Author Host/IP: pool-151-196-238-129.balt.east.verizon.net / 151.196.238.129
Subject: Re: My Point.....game, set, match!
In reply to: Z 's message, "Re: I guess to uninformed conservitives an insult is the only way to make a long winded point!." on 04:59:18 03/01/03 Sat

Sir Lion in the past you have state how you like to educate the ingnorant, if they will listen.

Seems you can teach real good, yet have a learning disability of your own.

I shall end our most recent "disagreement" with this and then, this being your board, allow you last rant and return to whatever new threat striles my fancey.

In the past i have accused you of being arogent, self serving and long winded. I will now add rude to the list and offer the follwing as undeniable proof!

A very nice lady from Dreamers wrote the follwing,

"By the way, Happy Mardi Gras, everyone! This may be the first one I avoid completely. My husband has a hurt leg, today is my birthday and I'm just not in the mood for gaity or fun...lol...guess I'm depressed."

Your responce to this was as follows, word for word and unedited.

"As I indicated in my prior post, I have been making a living with words- both written and spoken - for many years now, but your kind words do mean much to me.

Oddly, I despised dry-bones "History" as it was taught in school, yet found myself enthralled at listening to my grandfathers, paternal and maternal, talk of times and people who had gone before. They talked about REAL people, doing REAL things in REAL places and times and they made it meaningful. A few trips to clean up family burial plots with headstones dating back into the early 1700s kindled a fire in me to learn even more. I have been busily about that task since.

While "History" was not my favorite academic subject in school, I understood its value to today and tomorrow, so I dutifully memorized what appeared to be, at the time, meaningless snippets of information that now serve me well and have all my working life. As a youngster, I read of Thomas Paine, Alexander Hamilton, George Washington, John and Samuel Adams, Patrick Henry, Nathan Hale, Benjamin Franklin, John C. Calhoun, Francis Marion.. "The Swamp Fox" of Revolutionary War fame... (a family friend on the maternal side, it appears) and many others who became my heroes instead of the standard youthful Roy Rogers, Hopalong Cassidy, Lone Ranger and Tom Mix panopoly of young boy role models in those days.

Even then, I was struck by the statesmanship and moral certitude of those men. I could hardly imagine the human courage and pride and dignity it took for Nathan Hale to stand on a gallows and proclaim his regret that he had but one life to give for his country. Now there was a man worthy of adulation and respect... a man of honor, dignity, pride and character!

I remember hoping that I would have that same strength of will were I ever faced with such a situation. Many years later, I actually had to confront those choices in a madhouse world in southeast Asia. The experience was not pleasant by any stretch of the imagination, but I took away from those days of abject terror and mind numbing pain inflicted at the hands of, and by, some of the most proficient torturers in the world at the time a tranquility of spirit. I had measured up. I had been tested and I met my own standards. That knowledge has sustained me in many difficult times since then.

Those feelings and qualities of character are no longer taught to our young people. In the early days of these colonies and new nation, EVERYONE, from the most humble farmer eking out a living on a mountainside patch of ground in New England or the sandy soil of a Carolina lowcountry tobacco and corn farm to the most sophisticated (for the day) city dweller was conversant with, and aware of, such matters for they were significant to his continued prosperity or even his very existence. Children in those days and times learned by observing first hand and listening to adults discuss these matters.

I guess I was lucky enough to be partially raised on a backwoods South Carolina lowcountry farm in the days before the one-eyed babysitter took over child rearing and education.

Politics is not necessarily a mindless pursuit of the power hungry for pervasive means to dominate the lives of others, though that is what it has sadly become. The only hope this nation has of saving itself is for average, everyday people, liek each of us here, to learn, educate themselves, return to the finer aspects of life in this nation and the character it took to succeed in those days. We still had pride in those days. We knew what shame was and did not want it for ourselves. We were able to think beyond our own selfish wants and desires and support what was best for us all as a society.

Those days are sadly gone. We now smirk and snicker about a sexual predator who is an admitted liar, claiming "any man would do the same thing if he had a chance." I disagree. A REAL man would not, and a few of us do still exist. What greater insult can anyone pay to any woman worthy of the labels, "lady, wife, mother, friend, partner?" A leader these days to far too many folks is the guy who finds out which way the parade is headed then jumps in front and claims to be leading it.

Ronald Reagan was the last President in my memory who actually took a stand on principle and ignored all the "conventional politiical wisdom." James Earle Carter stole the American dream from our people. He represented the first political leader of this nation to claim that tomorrow would not be better. It would probably be worse. Then he set about making it that way. Reagan did many things, but the most significant of these is that he reinstilled pride in Americans and relighted the flame that LBJ and Carteer had extinguished... that Nixon had sullied so badly.

No, it is wise to not argue details with me, for I am a stickler for them. I demand hard and provable facts, not mindless twaddle of "what ifs" and "someone ought to do something..." I still believe that *I* may be that "someone" and that I can make a difference, however minor. I shun party labels completely and all other such designations imposed by others upon me. In some things I am a self-confessed and proudly so, hide-bound conservative. In yet others, I have been called a flaming liberal.

Again, I am proud when that is said of me. It indicates that I think, consider and try to most often choose the side of right.

I reject sliding scale morality as is the standard in our society these days. "Good" and "Bad," "Right" and "Wrong," "Moral" and "Immoral" or "Evil" are, for me, absolutes, fixed points not subject to referenda of the self interested. We have gone from trying to mold ourselves to these fixed standards to moving the fixed points to meet our needs and we are none the better for this, in my opinion.

JFK set our nation's eyes on the moon and we made it. Truman said, "We have no right to discriminate against people because of the color of their skins," and he was right. We aren't all the way there yet, but look how far we have come since that decision in 1948.

Then, we have the example of Clinton. He set our sights on kneepads and we allowed ourselves to kneel in supplication to the false gods of dishonesty, political expediency and lack of moral fiber.

President George W. Bush has an opportuityt o prove which kind of "leader" he is. So far, he has a mixed bag of grades on my scorecard, but he is far and above others who wish to be seen as our "leaders." To my way of thinking, his greatest failure so far has been listening to the counsel of those who would infringe on all our individual rights as a means of combatting terrorism. As far as I am concerned, this simply hands those who would steal our freedoms in the name of a fanatical religious dogma an undeserved victory. President Bush needs to stand up to these Big Brother miscreants and say, "No more. We cannot protect the freedom we claim to cherish by stealing it from our people. Neither the government nor the airlines need to do a credit check on potential passengers to fight terrorists. Profiling is simply intelligent application of reality when we impose tightened security measures on young Arab males travelling alone and with little baggage. Strip searching a grandmotherly type of obvious Swedih or Norse extraction and her four year old grandson so that we don't offend someone who fits the general description of those who are most likely to be terrorists is insanity and it has to stop NOW!" He has not done that yet, but he had better do it soon if he hopes to be re-elected.

See what studying history and paying attention to politics will do to you? It makes you think and rise above your lowest common denominator, if you allow it to do that for you. Now I shall retire quietly to the back of the class and henceforth remain silent.

Thanks for letting me vent here."

First off, your welcome.
Second, you were so imeresed in yourself to have even payed attention to what that nice lady posted.

If you are going to respond to a post, where someon has gone out of her way yo say it is her birthday, and that she is depressed.

It is only polite to wish her a happy birday yet through your arogence you didnt even notice what she said..or didnt care, how sad for you that your favorite topic, is you.

[ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ]

Replies:

It's not wise to play with yourself... -- TRUTH TELLING LION, 13:26:53 03/01/03 Sat