Ted Nugent's Advice To Grads

Gather around, high school and college graduates, and listen good -- real good. What I am about to tell you will help you immensely throughout the rest of your lives if you commit to practicing Uncle Ted's proven modus operandi for a quality of life.

Nobody owes you a thing. Everything you will get out of life will be based solely on what you put into it.

As humorist Mark Twain said, "Don't go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It was here first."

The only free lunches are at the homeless shelter. If you want to dance, you have to pay the band. And you will get what you pay for.

Get a job. If you work hard, real hard, at your favorite craft, you will ultimately succeed. If you are lazy, you will not succeed. Expect to be fired over and over again and aimlessly drift from job to job, your soul as empty as your bank account.

Find your passion in life, your calling, something you crave, that special thing that makes you giddy. Set a goal and never, ever quit. When you get close to the brass ring, move it farther away from your grasp.

Do not complain. Any spineless whiner can do that. Instead, look for solutions to tough problems. This will earn you respect from your boss and get you promoted.

Never do anything for money. Do what you do exceedingly well and thoroughly enjoy, and money will come looking for you.

Be frugal. Live responsibly within your means. Bling-bling is not making ends meet.

Never be afraid to let yourself go and exhibit unbridled raw emotion and enthusiasm. Emotions need exercise. March to the beat of making your own loud and obnoxious guitar breeding noises no matter how many times they tell you to turn down and stop the feedback. Following trends and peer pressure is for mindless sheep that are never happy.

Avoid negative people and slobbering hippies like the plague. They never accomplish anything. Surround yourself with positive people who are better than yourself and will mentor, help and guide you honestly.

If you want to know how others perceive you, look around at whom you associate with. In the end, all you have is your character and integrity. Do not ever compromise or sell them.

Take care of your precious, sacred temple. Eat smart and stay clean. Do not smoke, use drugs, eat or drink too much or chew on glass sandwiches. Partaking in these mindless misadventures will shorten your life.

Find a relaxing hobby to recharge your batteries that has nothing to do with your profession. I have found that peaceful time with family, friends, loved ones and my dogs, fishing, hunting, shooting, setting rocks on fire, giving birth to brass rainbows by shooting machine guns till barrels burn up, and killing sacred protein with sharp sticks recharges my batteries beyond redline. I cleanse my soul as I cleanse the good mother earth by eating her surplus.

Take the time each day to show love and affection for your family and loved ones. The smallest gesture goes straight to the heart.

Never miss an opportunity to say thank you to the men and women in our military and law enforcement. They are the defenders of freedom putting their lives on the line for you so you can reach your American Dream.

Be intelligently and effectively defiant. Defiance is the very spirit that gave birth to this country when our forefathers fought against overwhelming odds, signed the Declaration of Independence and fired the "shot heard 'round the world." Lock and load. Really.

Remember Rosa Parks. Be prepared to defy stupid laws and regulations wherever you find them. Raise hell. Vote smart.

If you have not made a few well-deserving idiots boil over in anger by the time you are 25, get busy. We live in a target-rich environment of liberal denial.

Famous philosopher and legendary San Francisco police detective, my hero Dirty Harry, once said, "A man has got to know his limitations." This is good advice.

Stand up for what you believe. Remain polite and courteous, but never back down. You have an obligation to leave America in better shape than when you arrived. Work to ensure that future generations of America have a better shot at the American Dream as well as more freedom, more liberty and more pursuits of happiness than you did.

Trust your gut feelings. Only trust people who have earned your trust. Trust but verify. Never trust the French.

Ted Nugent is a rock musician who runs a safari and hunting operation and is a board member of the National Rifle Association. Write comments to Letters, Editorial Page, The Detroit News, 615 W. Lafayette, Detroit, MI 48226 or e-mail: letters@detnews.com.

I know this is way out there but it comes to mind with regard to the discussion, which really has to do with skills required versus admiration received. Disciplined creative people (as opposed to high-earning abstract managers and directors) in my experience tend to be leave-me-alone conservatives who think liberalism is expensive and insulting.

Folks able to be persuaded that a big green dot on a canvas is "art" deserving of praise (though there are demonstrably very few skills involved in conceiving or producing the "artwork") who will pay tens of thousands of dollars for it, are ... willfully scammed in the name of "defiance" and more than likely big-government liberals, republican or democrat, who indulge for all the wrong reasons. It just seems that way to me. There's a correlation between actual skills and production and natural affinity with conservatism.

I like that Nugent reminds us about defying stupid rules. Yeager, an ultimate survivor, wrote "The rules are for people who aren't willing to make up their own." There are a lot of laws higher than the laws of man. Such as freedom from slavery and the God-given right to refuse work at will. Liberals threaten that with every step they make. Republican and Democrat.

There's a fail-safe mechanism in our human make-up, I suppose. In order to achieve great technological and living condition superiority, a society must first achieve great civilization superiority and ability to thrive and sparkle, as we've had the good fortune of experiencing over the past several centuries. When that civilization degenerates, so does its ability to produce tech superiority.

Being skilled requires being civilized; in our reality, Christian civilized. Western Judeo Christianity wiped out the slave trade. Nine-year-old girls don't get married under WJC ethics, gossip is frowned upon, and envy repressed because it is counterproductive. Being honest and honorable and treating others the way you'd like to be treated includes leaving folks alone as you'd like to be left alone. I look at some of the finest people I know, and so many don't call themselves Christian yet they are the backbone of this nation because they by default embrace the Judeo Christian ethic and this is the most important: they are PRODUCTS of 3 or 4 thousand generations of it dominating Western civilization, the most free and prosperous acheived yet. But they don't see it -- they call themselves atheists and think it's sensible. Yeah, right. *sigh*

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