[ARCHIVED THREAD] - Fear for our future. (Page 1 of 2)
Posted: 5/22/2008 12:41:44 PM EDT
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I was born in 1979; my earliest memories have Ronald Regan as president; the best movie I remember seeing as a child was Red Dawn. My parents never honestly spoiled me; they didn’t have the money for it, as nearly every dollar went back into the business to keep it afloat. Growing up, I had images of a “bright future” that most sheltered kids had built around themselves, but unlike most children, it wasn’t my parents who sheltered me the most, it was me. I grew up as a tubby computer geek who didn't give a rat's ass what he looked like and really only cared about computers. I hated dealing with people, and chose the ordered existence inside a shell of my own making, avoiding people I didn’t trust already trust, and not caring enough for the outside world to trust more. I went to the University of Missouri-Rolla with the intention of getting a Computer Science degree and I was interested in possibly working on an Electrical Engineering degree with a focus on microprocessor design. That "bright future" came crashing down with the combined efforts of my dad's business declaring bankruptcy and my inability at the time to deal with social reality. Out of money and depressed as hell, returned home and got a job working as a computer tech and going to a local community college. I worked my ass off, and gained valuable experience and a good portion of an associate’s degree. At that point in my life, I had always looked at the military as a last resort, something I could do if nothing else worked. I maintained that view not because I didn’t think it an honorable profession, but because I knew the reality that no one joined the military for the money and money was always short. My car seemed to wait until I'd gotten ahead on my bills so it could break and gobble up every spare dollar I'd saved. When I was 21, I tired of that life and I joined the military, and ended up in the Navy for 6 years active, and next month ends my obligation to the reserves, bringing my time in the military to technically 8 years. Looking back, it was one of the best things I could've done for myself, regardless of the headaches I've endured. Joining the military bashed the remains of my shell open. I learned to deal with most types of people, and I got to see how other people saw things. Instead of being stuck on how people were unreliable, I saw another layer of complex logic to it all. The most important question I asked was no longer the "What's new?" but instead became "Why?" I'm still stuck on that question, trying to understand why people do what they do and slowly making sense of it all. From my hard-core geek days, logic is still my mainstay, and I shake my head daily at what I see. Everything is logical, if approached from the right direction with the right understandings, even women (but don't quote me on that!) I was slightly conservative before, and my friends here at home say that I'm hard-core almost-fringe right wing now, which I find funny. I'm not against abortion, but I'm all for capital punishment. While I think "intelligent design" has merit as a personal philosophy, I don't believe it should be taught in schools. I'm not Christian; in fact, I don't really know what anyone would call me other than Agnostic, but I do believe the liberal idea of separation of church and state has been taken too far. I think unions have their purposes, but at the same time I'm pretty sure most of them are shake-down jobs that hurt both the worker and the company. The only point I can agree with my friends about being right-wing is that I believe in this country, not necessarily people in general, but as an ideal, the system we're supposed to have is better than anything I've seen elsewhere. I believe that a man has a right to the fruits of his own labor; that all men were created equally and our actions from that point forth determine who we are; that each of us has a duty to act honorably, and bear responsibility for our own actions. The government never does thing better than the individual, and every intrusion into our lives only makes things harder. It is not our parents, it cannot be our friend. Everything worth having is worth working for. Every idea worth defending is worth fighting for. Anything worth fighting for is worth dying for. While a few of my friends disagree with a these point or two; our main bone of contention lies with another idea, one that has lead them to jokingly refer to me as the crew's armory. I've always believed that every person had a right to self-defense, but after arriving in New Orleans hours after the hurricane hit and staying for a month while I was active duty; I have seen how thin the veneer of civilization can be. Because of this, my mild interest in firearms probably best described before then as a teen-aged boy's uninformed infatuation with weapons became more serious. Guns ceased to be fun toys that made loud noise and punched holes in things, rifles ceased simply being a fun object that let me see just how far away I could reliably hit something without using a scope. Firearms became tools, each with its own purpose. I banished the idea of having one of whatever caught my fancy and replaced it with utilitarian purposes; streamlining logistics by eliminating ideas of owning expensive guns that used even more expensive rare ammunition; dropping the idea of having separate guns for hunting and self-defense, everything had to be able to do both; everything had to have a purpose, clearly defined and overlapping as little as possible with anything else. As I traveled down this path, defining what I would purchase, outlining to myself why I wanted a specific weapon or piece of gear, my circle of friends took notice. They asked, Are you sure you're not getting paranoid? and I answered, "Paranoid? Something woke me up from the daydream that everything here will always be nice; something I saw in New Orleans. It might not ever happen, things may never get that bad again; but if it does, I intend to survive.” It was not so much a departure from the way of thinking I subscribed to before I joined the military, so much as I had traveled much farther down that road of thought and much of it in a short amount of time. How much things had changed to me did not go unnoticed. I watched what I was doing and frequently stopped to question myself. Was this paranoia? I didn't think everyone was out to get me, I just saw the edge of civilization and the gibbering maw of madness beyond it scared me. Was I crazy? Everything I was doing had a reason behind it and it all seemed logical, but the fact that I was even asking these questions made me stop again and ask, "Why? What started this?" As long as I can remember, I've always had a sense of tension that I couldn't place; one that steadily got stronger. It wasn't until recently that I could begin to identify the source. Nearly every day, I see things that make me shake my head, and I'm not talking about some idiot weaving in and out of traffic at 10+ over the speed limit with a cell phone attached to his head in rush hour traffic. While that certainly is a dumb thing to do, an individual display of idiocy doesn't make me ponder the future and what I've seen, taken to its logical conclusion frightens me. The only reason why I am not more frightened than I am is because I know that I am only human, that I could be blowing things out of proportion, that everyone else is also human, and that this country is much like the Navy I served in, there is a dedicated minority working tirelessly to keep things from falling apart despite the best efforts of some above them to break everything. We live in a culture quickly changing, where ignorance is becoming a cornerstone. Ignorance of science, logic, and reason, where one can be denounced as worse than a holocaust denier for questioning For many, living in ignorance and dodging personal responsibility by becoming lifelong victims beats having to face the hard fact that life isn't easy, that sometimes the reason you don't get ahead is because you don't measure up, that someone else had better connections, that sometimes really no one has time to care, and that the only person responsible for you is you. Instead, many chose to dodge the responsibility every adult has and blame anyone but themselves. For many it's easier to believe that "the man" is holding you down or "the man" owes you because of your gender, because of your skin tone, or because of your ancestry, than to face any of life's hard truths. Surely, there are cases where "the man" really is holding someone back, but the volume of accusations points to discrimination on a cultural level that I’ve never been witness to. Always, it’s “the man” holding someone back, and in many cases “the man” usually seems synonymous with "typical white men." There are groups like La Raza who claim victimhood on the grounds that the "Evil White Man" stole their land whose stated goals include attempting to wrest control of the American southwest away from America to form their own state, all based on lies, yet no one will do anything about it. There are groups outside this country, who call for our destruction on a daily basis, bent on getting access to nuclear weapons, and yet there are many who would cheerfully block any attempt to deny them that access while happily telling you and I that we are the cause of the problem, that we are to blame for them even wanting such weapons. Discrimination issues, real or imagined, aside, there's a very real culture of incompetence that will cost us in the long run. I ran into a mild version of it before I joined the Navy and dealt with a crippling version of it at my last command. It seems that every person capable of actually doing something is busy trying to keep things working while the incompetents are promoted away from screwing things up only to end up being put in charge and screwing everything up instead. I look around and I see the average American no longer seems to care, and I find trouble blaming them. Every day it is beaten into our heads by the media and the education system that we aren't responsible for our actions, that we aren't powerful enough to affect our own destinies, that it is better to surrender everything to the government so that it can take care of everything for us, that is easier to just not think, to surrender our will, our reason, to blindly feed at the trough like cattle. As if that weren't enough, our lawmakers happily accept We elect people whose ignorance of what America has stood for, where freedom and the constitution can be "interpreted" to mean anything people in charge want it to mean, have slowly eaten away at the institution of America. Many lawmakers have forgotten the basic tenets behind the creation of the Constitution and pretend that socialism will somehow save us, despite the fact that socialism as an idea is antithetical to many of the Founding Fathers' beliefs; never mind the fact that every country that has tried communism or socialism eventually sputtered out into a worn, tired husk of its former glory. Many of the same lawmakers seem detached from reality, constantly blocking any form of solution to any problem; insisting that the solution to oil problems is to tax the producers in this country instead of increasing the supply by authorizing more exploration and production facilities, insisting that the solution to violence is to ban the weapons used instead of dealing with the root causes; insisting that wealth is always a sign of corruption, not a sign of success; insisting that the lawmakers know better than the individual what is best for them; insisting that nothing is worth fighting for, that defeat is really victory; insisting that every culture is equal, that every idea is worthy of consideration, where no one is judged because we are all equal and we can’t hurt anyone’s feelings. Our leadership in many ways no longer seems to belong to two schools of thought; instead opting to "reach across the aisle," more and more to compromise what is right to "get something done." They all seem to subscribe to a school of thought bent on heavy socialism to keep the masses satiated with bread and circuses along with a hearty dose of liberal fascism to keep dissenters in line, all the while doing their best to appease our enemies abroad by carving off a pound of flesh to appease them on demand. They seem to think that it is easier to sacrifice who we are instead of facing reality. I see this and I worry: The bread and circuses will not last forever, the money and food must come from somewhere, and if you’re not working, you’re not making either. Appeasing the enemy never worked, weakness never solved any problem for the weak. We are surrendering logic, reason, and honor to the false gods of modern liberalism and receiving nothing but false promises and a fleeting sense of security in return... and worse yet, when it comes apart, those in charge will never take responsibility for their failures; it wasn't their fault, it was our fault. My friends have asked me "How can you be so worried about our future?" I see Rome burning, only it isn’t Rome, it is America with enemies at the gates and traitors within. I see the ignorance, the apathy, the incompetence, the ignorance, all continuing unchecked and ask them, "How can you not be?"  ETA: Grammar FTL |
Nah, I just witnessed some rediculous stupidity this morning along with a "My you're being paranoid about stuff" comment. Spun me off and instead of dwelling on it all day, I typed my thoughts into notepad... and figured it'd make a decent post. |
damn good essay, even though the point of everyone not reading it, kinda makes your point.
The swirl continues. |
Hahah, when I was in college I was walkin around in a green windbreaker and some mirrored sunglasses. Buddy of mine said I looked like the unibomber sketch except for the facial hair.  Don't particularly care for the deluded abortion of thought he produced though. 
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Hopefully the ATF won't arrest me for a malfunctioning web-browser and declare it a machinegun.
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FIXED_BAYONETS_FORWARD was at least terse. Half pretty good, half like the guy on SNL that has an intro phrase for everything he about to, but never actually, says. ETA: Nicholas Fehn on SNL Not really like the OP, but still funny. |
Read and comprehend what I wrote and you'll understand, assuming you haven't already and just being a PITA... which is something I normally am 
Nah, the whole intro part is outlining that I wasn't born with a silver spoon in my mouth and that I wasn't some crybaby college emokid who is crying about how the world is so unfair. ETA: The point of being descriptive to this degree is to make sure you know what I'm talking about... if I chainsawed too much out (and trust me, there was plenty of chainsawing to get to the posted version) then it loses focus, supporting information, and simply doesn't hit the target. The downside is that the tl;dr; sound-byte crowd would probably choke on it like a python eating a gator. |
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You've got some good thoughts there. I began to see things differently after taking a CCW class as an easy way to figure out how to handle firearms. Less than a year (and many rounds of ammunition) later, I've learned (at least for me) that the philosophy of gun owners to be able to take care of themselves extends far beyond guns. Many start storing food, water, reading and training for the situations that can happen so very easily. There is a reason that arfcom has a survival sub-forum. Those who are prepared need not fear, though watching one's six is always appropriate. :-) Paranoia? No. Unusual? Possibly. Healthy? Yes. Good on you for explaining your feelings. Admittedly, it is a bit longer than the attention span of many will last. :-) Hopefully someone reads it and considers their own opinions. |
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Holy fuck that was one of the most worthwhile things i have read in the past 5 years. I couldent have put all that into words if i tried, and you sir i admire for doing so. The sad truth, and when they strip us of all our rights and drive us to communism i will die fighting for my rights rather then surrender them and see how fucking disgusting this country will become. |
Which indeed emboldens your point.
who said no civil war? ill be at war (or happily dead) while you take it up the ass from obama... |
If you haven't read atlas shrugged I'd be happy to have one sent to you as a 'thank you' for your service. You seem like a worthwhile human being. A rarity these days. Good post. |
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Bla Bla Bla... This is a forum...not a library. All I can say is that I don't fear the future. Maybe it is because I am NOT agnostic? That has something to do with it because I have faith in God and his ability to help me. Go ahead and laugh....we'll see one day who gets the last laugh.  Anyhow, fear is propelled due to lack of knowledge, wisdom, and preparation. Rush Limbaugh said that "Luck is the result where opportunity meets preparation." I prepare for the future by using my wisdom, and knowledge of the past, to predict what will happen in the future. I do not fear the future...I have no doubt that I will survive and overcome whatever is thrown at me. The benefits of a belief in God is faith, hope, and love. The curse of a lack of faith is a lack of direction The curse of a lack of hope is despair and fear The curse of a lack of love is selfishness and loneliness I share many of your observations, though, and concerns. But I view my situation differently. So in summary....concerned, but not afraid. |
My fear,respect, and belief in God should do me fine , when I finnaly end up facing him..........its what happens between now and then that worries me  If your not afraid , your not payin attention. |
Exactly. This post is a very articulate expression of how a lot of us feel, myself included. I took the time to read it. Thank you for taking the time to write it. 
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I would agree with much of what you wrote but for some reason this jump off the page at me , I couldn't agree more with the above quote . BTW that's a good sign line . |