Read and Heed........

[Cane Pole]

My generation didn’t do this and I am not a Boomer.


We didn’t take:

The_**_ melody_**_ out of music,
The_**_ pride_**_ out of appearance,
The_**_ courtesy_**_ out of driving,
The_**_ romance_**_ out of love,
The_**_ commitment_**_ out of marriage,
The_**_ responsibility_**_ out of parenthood,
The_**_ togetherness_**_ out of the family,
The_**_ learning_**_ out of education,
The_**_ service_**_ out of patriotism,
The_**_ Golden Rule_**_ from rulers,
The_**_ civility_**_ out of behavior,
The_**_ refinement_**_ out of language,
The_**_ dedication_**_ out of employment,
The_**_ prudence_**_ out of spending,
The_**_ ambition_**_ out of achievement.

Not my world anymore. I just have weight and occupy space.

The new world rulers..........

[Gadget Man]

Age wise I am at the end of the "boomers" and am very concerned about where we are headed. I greatly appreciate your post and agree with it wholeheartedly (I don't always agree with Cane Pole)!

In my humble opinion the cornerstone of this great nation are various rights that we enjoy.

My great concern is that we are becoming a group of individuals that are in tune to their "rights," but not willing to respect everyone else's rights and willing to do what is necessary to protect the whole.

[Cane Pole]

Age wise I am at the end of the "boomers" and am very concerned about where we are headed. I greatly appreciate your post and agree with it wholeheartedly (I don't always agree with Cane Pole)!

In my humble opinion the cornerstone of this great nation are various rights that we enjoy.

My great concern is that we are becoming a group of individuals that are in tune to their "rights," but not willing to respect everyone else's rights and willing to do what is necessary to protect the whole.

We disagree, but we don't scratch each others eyes out.

[LBM]

In my humble opinion the cornerstone of this great nation are various rights that we enjoy.

I would tend to not agree with your use of 'various rights' though I hold as the highest value the phase 'Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness' which is fundamentally an individual's liberty to freely take actions in the absence of coercion from fellow citizens. One of the primary functions of a good government is for having it to be the only legitimate user of force where that force is only used against and in response toward the citizen who first initiated the use of force. That doesn't take away in anyway the moral right of an individual to use force in exercising his moral right of self defense since he is responding to the initiator of force (in a free country the 'initiator of force' as always being wrong) knowing that government force will not be available for assistance in time. No one can claim a right that results in denying another of some right of liberty. My rights of liberty that I claim in no way imposes obligations on another other than they don't have any right to my stuff I legitimately earned and acquired. I have no problems paying taxes for constitutionally legitimate government functions.

My great concern is that we are becoming a group of individuals that are in tune to their "rights," but not willing to respect everyone else's rights and willing to do what is necessary to protect the whole.

I may be wrong here but I kind of think your plural use of the word rights is a total misunderstanding of the concept of a right as intended by our founders. You are not alone in your holding the view of a right as meaning a result of or an outcome for some action or inaction taken by an individual. I think with your pluralization of the word rights what you are really meaning to say is that folks have a right to food, shelter, education, healthcare and etc and if those folks are unable to acquire those values then others who have acquired those values must be coerced into supplying those values i.e. a slave master relationship with various members of society with the productive being slaves to the non-productive. To my notion that results in a vary unharmonious societal relationship. JMHO here.

[Billbob]

cp i have met a lot of good boys down south that are stand up glad i know them

[Pomoxis]

I think the whole problem is folks using the word "Rights" when it's not applicable. People running around saying they have the "right" to free <healthcare, education, housing..etc>.

prob need to continue this on the other OT forum? *shrug*

[Gadget Man]

Cane Pole, LBM, and Poxmosis (not sure what billbob meant) -

I agree with Cane Pole's initial statements. Many items on the list are almost non-existent in society today.

LBM when I stated "rights," I did not mean to imply "entitlements." I respect rights, but do not believe permanent entitlements are the right thing for the country.

By the way in the quote Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness (I think I see more than one "right," wouldn't that be plural?).

The Constitution and Bill of Rights give us a number of "rights" for lack of a better term that all US Citizens are to receive.

I have many issues with the way things go today, but two of my two big problems with society today are; 1) the vociferous ones we see in the media that are all about their "rights," but unwilling to acknowledge the rights of others; 2) failure to accept the responsibilities that come along with the rights (i.e. freedom of speech does not include the right to scream "fire" in a crowded theatre).

Hundreds of thousands of US Citizens have given the ultimate sacrifice (starting with the Revolutionary war to preserve the society). In my opinion the least the rest of us can do is respect the aforementioned Constitution and Bill of Rights.

I know you guys have plenty of opinions of our government leaders (mostly critical of the current group), but I do not remember reading anything any of you have written on this board that would indicate you have disdain for the country.

It is late...sorry to ramble...thanks for your sharing your opinions...

[sliles]

Those are some Missouri folks