Homestead mailing list

[Gene GeRue <genegerue AT ruralize.com>]

On Apr 14, 2008, at 10:08 AM, Clansgian AT wmconnect.com wrote:

> The point is this ...There are a lot of people who put confidence in  
> their
> guns and in their religion.  You can count me in that and don't ask  
> what my
> religion is because I won't tell you.  And there are a lot o people  
> who are
> discontent (and you may NOT count me among those).  But the two have  
> NOTHING TO DO
> WITH EACH OTHER.  Obama's tragic flaw is that he thinks they do.  He  
> is saying
> people put confidence in guns and religion BECAUSE they are  
> politically
> discontent.  That is not only unwise an bigoted, but it is extremely  
> stupid.

For those following this discussion, here is a transcript of Obama's  
full remarks, with all the uhs and ums included. Looks like a true  
transcript:
http://thepage.time.com/transcript-of-obamas-remarks-at-san-francisco-fundraiser-sunday/
> Let me recap before I go on.   Yes, there are people as he describes  
> who put
> confidence in guns and religion, do not put confidence in  
> government, and are
> politically discontent.   But the conclusion that the one is BECAUSE  
> of the
> other is his bias and mindset.  And it is deeply offensive.

Only if YOU have THAT bias, that take on meaning. How is it deeply  
offensive to you--he did not refer to someone in your circumstances at  
all.

I do not have a bias except for truth and I find his remarks  
discerning and far from offensive. Perhaps it is because I have no way  
except imagination to closely relate to the people about whom he  
referred. Perhaps you do. I read it as him saying that people feel  
they have been lied to about jobs by their government for twenty-five  
years and they are beyond frustration and so they cling to the  
positive things that sustain them. Sounds right to me. Sounds to me  
like he is sensitive to their feelings.
> Years ago, many years ago, I decided that it was better to BE more  
> than to
> HAVE more and set out to develop skills and abilities I needed for  
> homesteading
> rather than buying them.  This meant learning to do things by hand  
> and with
> hands tools.  In the case of cutting wood, it meant getting some  
> crosscut and
> frame saws, some files and guides, and learning how to sharpen and  
> set the saws.
> It also meant avoiding becoming a middle-aged blob of breathless lard,
> developing a tai-chi like movement that would allow chopping and  
> sawing for an
> extended time without exhaustion due to inefficient movement.  It  
> meant studying
> trees, studying stoves.  Much more than any of those things it meant  
> creating
> an atmosphere so that my sons and daughters developed dense bones,  
> strong
> frames, and a poise and orientation to pleasureable work.  I have  
> time, sweat,
> blood, and a very great deal of effort invested in this turn.   
> Compared to when I
> started this venture (wood cutting being only one example of it)  I  
> can report
> honestly that I indeed HAVE less.  Whether I AM more will be for  
> time to
> determine, but I am not dispeased.
>
> So in the last gig in the industrial world I held, I was talking  
> with a man
> exactly my age and grotesquely overweight and out of shape.  He was  
> commenting,
> as so many do, that it is insane to not use a chainsaw.  In fact, he
> proclaimed, it was obvious that the ONLY reason I used an axe and  
> framesaw was because
> I'd had some bad luck with a chainsaw at some point in my past and was
> sulking over it.
>
> A whole well thought out change in lifestyle dismissed as  
> insignificant and
> only steming from a fit of  frustration over some imagined problem  
> with a
> chainsaw.  It didn't bother me.  I wonder if it bothered him that I  
> pointed out
> that we two, the same age to a week, each had a waist line that was  
> more than ten
> inches different from our chest.
>
> LIke that almost every fundamentalist friend and relative I have are  
> sure
> that we don't attend a church ONLY because someone hurt our feelings  
> and ruffled
> our feathers at some point in the past.
>
> (Lynda will have heard this one) Like that, we can show that  
> homeschooled and
> unschooled children have a tremendous advantage over their government
> schooled counter parts.  We can recite the history of government  
> education in this
> country, its effects, and why children in those schools are being  
> prepared for a
> world that hardly exists any more.  It is a very deeply held  
> conviction in
> which we have invested a great deal of our lives.  And yet it is  
> routinely
> dismissed with, "Oh, you only homeschool because you had some bad  
> episode or the
> other with a teacher, that's all."
>
> Like the people in rural Pennsylvania, I put more confidence in my  
> guns to
> protect my family than put in the government.  I did so before Obama  
> was born.
> I will do so long after he's a footnote in history.  Likewise my  
> religious
> beliefs are a better guide to a decent life than all the government  
> leadership
> that ever existed.  It was before Obama was born and will be long  
> after his
> influence passes away.
>
> Yet Obama has look at those things and said "you only CLING to those  
> things
> becaue you are politcally frustrated".

No, he did not say that. Please show me where he said that.

>   His offensiveness is exceeded only by his offensiveness.

Well, now I see your sensitivity to some of the issues involved.  
James, I happen to admire your chosen lifestyle. I think you and  
Denise are doing a great job of showing your children a good way to  
live. But I am sure you know that many if not most people have not a  
clue to your logic for living as you do. And surely you have an  
understanding that your lifestyle biases how you see the far different  
choice made by the rest of the population.
> That's what Obama means by "change".  Glad to finally have it in the  
> open.
> He means that self reliance, our trust in our own courage and  
> ability and
> beliefs, is to be replaced by a reliance on HIS form of government.

I fail to find him saying or intimating that any place. I find a great  
many places where he has said much the opposite, encouraging people to  
take charge of their lives.

>  We will, in his estimation, give up our clinging to guns and  
> religion just as soon as he
> gives us some relief from our frustration.

James, that is a helluva stretch. You are now reading volumes into one  
or two sentences. Gonna have to start calling you Freud.

>  After all those are not values that
> have been thought out and tested and refined though generations of  
> free
> Americans, we only hold those because we are frightened rural half- 
> wits.

Hey, when you get on a roll you can extrapolate with the best of them.

> Unsuitable for president.

Well, we get to vote for any reason we choose. From pure instinctive  
gut feelings to vast research.

Is this a great country or what?