The Old Man's Tears

I was walking through the park the other day when I came across an older gentleman sitting on a bench. Every time I walked by him, I noticed there were tears streaming silently down his stubbled cheeks.

On my third lap around the park, I decided to sit down and try to console the man. Perhaps he was mourning his wife or a child and the least I could do was sit with him for a spell.

"Sir," I said, sitting on the bench next to him. "Are you OK?"

He turned and looked at me, as if surprised that I even noticed him.

"Young man, I'm in mourning.

"My wife is healthy, and all my children and grandchildren are living happy and healthy lives, but still I mourn."

"A good friend?" I asked, thinking back to how I felt when a few of my friends had passed over the years.

"Oh, I wish it was that simple," he said, laughing bitterly.

"What else is there to mourn this much for?" I thought to myself.

"Son, let me tell you a short story.

"I fought in a war that freed a continent from evil and stopped the wholesale oppression and slaughter of a people only to see much the same thing here a home.

"I watched as a great man marched peacefully in far too many cities to bring equality and freedom to people long held as 'inferior.' In fact, I marched with him when I could, and was there in spirit when I couldn't.

"I worked hard to bring financial security for my family so that they would never know the deprivation we now know as the 'Great Depression.' For us, it was just 'hard times.'

"I've watched as people have come and gone, making unfulfilled promises along the way.

"I've wondered at the technological marvels and medical miracles our society has produced for all mankind - jet fighters and passenger jets, helicopters, prosthetic limbs, diseases cured. All of that brought about by free-thinking, freedom-loving people with a will to break from tradition and convention.

"I watched with fascination as mankind slipped free the bonds of Earth and traveled to the moon and focused their eyes on the stars.

"I watched with amusement as science chases God with intent to destroy Him, and laughed as He wriggled free of their grasp and created more of His wonders for them to study.

"I've seen evil come along on gilded wings, yet be rejected, defeated, when good people took a stand.

"I've seen more good than bad in my days here.

"And yet...." he trailed off, staring off into the distance.

As he had spoken, the tears had dried. Now, they returned full force.

"What?" I asked, spellbound. This man knew how to tell a story. "Why do you cry?"

"I don't weep for myself. I've had a long and mostly happy life.

"I don't cry for my friends, who are more like me than not.

"I don't cry even for you. You're old enough to have fought for the right things. Whether you did or not is immaterial - you should have.

"I weep because that which we have fought so long for, that which we have gained, we are losing! Worse, we are giving them away!

"What has happened to the only nation where the freedom to speak your mind is guaranteed? When did we devolve into a nation of sissies, afraid to hear a viewpoint opposite of our own?

"When did we decide that giving up our own rights was the 'safe' thing to do?

"I weep for the United States of America I used to know out of the fear that my grandchildren will never know what it means to be truly FREE." ~ Hunter

The "Participation Trophy" Generation Comes Of Age And It's Not Pretty

This is what our future looks like if we don't slap the stupid out of our children today.

People say conservatives are "greedy, selfish, uncaring" because we believe people should have to actually work for what they want in life.

I, however, submit that it's the Left that's greedy for wanting to take something that I work very hard to receive from me and give it to someone who didn't work for it.

I submit that it's the Left that's selfish for dictating to me what my "fair share" should be. If they want more to be paid to the government for their pet projects, there's no law against voluntarily paying more, as far as I know. Get to writing those checks, you insufferable imbeciles.

I submit that it's the Left who are uncaring, because they can see that their handout programs DO NOT WORK yet they don't want to change them. Their schools don't work (as evidenced by the video), yet they refuse to allow parents to choose to what school they wish to send their kids. Their economics don't work, yet they refuse to cut spending more than we take in, driving this nation more and more bankrupt every day.

As for this moron in the video - and make no mistake, she is a moron of the highest magnitude - how is it not considered greedy and selfish to expect to receive the fruits of someone else's labor without fair compensation? How is it not uncaring to expect others to pay more in taxes than what you, yourself, are willing to pay?

This insipid idiot actually believes that she - and others like her - are entitled to a "free" education, no debt for receiving that education, and to get paid more money per hour working low- and unskilled positions than I make as a machinist - a job that actually requires at least a modicum of skills.

Get over yourself, window-licker. Nobody "owes" you anything that you didn't work to get. That's life, and guess what - LIFE ISN'T FAIR. Not everyone gets a trophy in the real world, some people really are better/smarter/faster/stronger than you in whatever you choose to do, and not everyone starts out as The Boss.

We, as parents, need to wake up to the damage the Left has done to our children, the nation, the very future. There are no "participation trophies" in the real world, regardless of your definition of "real world." Our primary job as parents is to prepare our children for life after we're gone. Frankly, and as much as i hate to say it, we are failing miserably. ~ Hunter

We're Running Out Of Time, America...

I have long said that the Constitution is my guide, that I will never accept another, except God. It's fortunate that the Constitution is based upon, and follows, God's Law faithfully. Well, it does when it's followed the way it was intended to be followed.

I believe that - as Thomas Jefferson stated in the Declaration of Independence, and is codified in the Constitution - that all mankind are created equal and are endowed by our Creator with certain inalienable rights.

Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness - these thing mean something very real to me, and others like me. There's a reason the United States, still one of the youngest nations on the planet, became so powerful, so rich, so influential as quickly as she did. That reason - the freedoms guaranteed us by the Constitution.

No nation of which I am aware has a Constitution like ours. People flocked to our shores BECAUSE our Constitution guaranteed the rights their home countries would not. People STILL come here for that reason.

This is the only nation on Earth where someone who took the Oath of Citizenship an hour ago be considered just as much a part of the nation as someone whose family has been here since the 1600's - because America is an idea just as much, if not more, than a nation of borders.

This nation, this great experiment in self-governance, was built upon the foundation of the Constitution. On that foundation, two cornerstones were laid - individual liberty and the Rule of Law. These two cornerstones are interrelated, or they used to be, because of one thing - personal responsibility.

Sadly, however, a great number of people no longer believe in personal responsibility, individual liberty, and the Rule of Law. Where we were once a moral people, a nation based on Judeo-Christian values with a strong moral code, we are a nation of moral relativism, moral ambiguity.

More and more people have the view that individual liberty must be supplanted by the "greater good." What this means - to me, anyway - is that the many count more than the few, or the one. But who decides what's best for the many?

I utterly reject the notion that the majority is greater than the individual. In a morally strong society, what's best for the individual is also what's best for the group. When all are individually strong, the whole is made stronger. What's best for group is all too often NOT what's best for the individual.

We, as a nation, have to reestablish the principles of individual liberty and adherence to the Rule of Law. We must enforce the idea of personal responsibility - that ALL people are responsible for their own life, their own liberty, their own happiness, and not to depend on the government for everything.

We are failing the future generations of this nation. We have not been good stewards of what we were given. We have allowed too many people to muck about for far too long and change things that should never have been changed.

We stand upon the precipice. We are on the brink of losing everything. We sit on the verge of a failure so huge the world may never recover. We can either watch it happen and lament its happening, or we can do something about it.

What's it going to be, America? We're running out of time. ~ Hunter