When I was awakening to the world of political ideology, I sat with my father one afternoon, and watched a news program about the American Socialist Party, their goals, and their presidential candidate. One of the speakers was a man who had fled Castro, and now promoted socialism in the US.
I was incensed by what I was watching, and I loudly proclaimed that these people, needed to be thrown in jail for treason, specially this Cuban socialist idiot. I made the comment that his father must have been simply mortified at his son's treachery...and waxed on about the dishonor he was bringing to his parents, should rain on him three hundred fold.
My father said something very disturbing to me then, I thought he had gone insane, and left home disgusted at him.
He said: "I brought you here so that if you wanted to, you could become a socialist or even a communist."
It took me years to figure out what he was telling me.
My old man believes in freedom, the freedom to make whatever choices you wish to make, within the confines of the law. He believes that free men can make the choice to become communists, a choice that was taken from us in Cuba, because communism was the ONLY choice.
In this point in my life, I still abhor communism, but I will fight to the death for an American's right to chose communism.
You thread on dangerous grounds when you dismiss anyone and everyone who doesn't think like you do as being brainwashed, or when you argue that the choices free people make when advancing their political ideology are wrong.
Listen to the gospel according to my old man.
The day we take away people's ability to make their own choice in government, is the day that the Republic has truly fallen.
I don't have to convince you of anything other than to respect my choices, as I respect yours.
Well said.
And all this time I thought you played left field for the Diamondbacks. LOL
"I am not going to talk about religious beliefs but about matters so obvious that it has gone out of style to mention them. I believe in my neighbors. I know their faults, and I know that their virtues far outweigh their faults. "Take Father Michael down our road a piece. I'm not of his creed, but I know that goodness and charity and lovingkindness shine in his daily actions. I believe in Father Mike. If I'm in trouble, I'll go to him."
"My next-door neighbor is a veterinary doctor. Doc will get out of bed after a hard day to help a stray cat. No fee--no prospect of a fee--I believe in Doc.
"I believe in my townspeople. You can know on any door in our town saying, 'I'm hungry,' and you will be fed. Our town is no exception. I've found the same ready charity everywhere. But for the one who says, 'To heck with you - I got mine,' there are a hundred, a thousand who will say, "Sure, pal, sit down."
"I know that despite all warnings against hitchhikers I can step up to the highway, thumb for a ride and in a few minutes a car or a truck will stop and someone will say, 'Climb in Mac - how far you going?'
"I believe in my fellow citizens. Our headlines are splashed with crime yet for every criminal there are 10,000 honest, decent, kindly men. If it were not so, no child would live to grow up. Business could not go on from day to day. Decency is not news. It is buried in the obituaries, but is a force stronger than crime. I believe in the patient gallentry of nurses and the tedious sacrifices of teachers. I believe in the unseen and unending fight against desperate odds that goes on quietly in almost every home in the land.
"I believe in the honest craft of workmen. Take a look around you. There never were enough bosses to check up on all that work. From Independence Hall to the Grand Coulee Dam, these things were built level and square by craftsmen who were honest in their bones.
"I believe that almost all politicians are honest. . .there are hundreds of politicians, low paid or not paid at all, doing their level best without thanks or glory to make our system work. If this were not true we would never have gotten past the 13 colonies.
"I believe in Rodger Young. You and I are free today because of endless unnamed heroes from Valley Forge to the Yalu River. I believe in -- I am proud to belong to -- the United States. Despite shortcomings from lynchings to bad faith in high places, our nation has had the most decent and kindly internal practices and foreign policies to be found anywhere in history.
"And finally, I believe in my whole race. Yellow, white, black, red, brown. In the honesty, courage, intelligence, durability, and goodness of the overwhelming majority of my brothers and sisters everywhere on this planet. I am proud to be a human being. I believe that we have come this far by the skin of our teeth. That we always make it just by the skin of our teeth, but that we will always make it. Survive. Endure. I believe that this hairless embryo with the aching, oversize brain case and the
opposable thumb, this animal barely up from the apes will endure. Will endure longer than his home planet -- will spread out to the stars and beyond, carrying with him his honesty and his insatiable curiosity, his unlimited courage and his noble essential decency."This I believe with all my heart."
Robert A. Heinlein wrote this item in 1952. His wife, Virginia Heinlein, chose to read it when she accepted NASA's Distinguished Public Service Medal on October 6, 1988, on the Grand Master's behalf (it was a posthumous award).
Mrs. Heinlein received a standing ovation.
I'm not really sure I understand your post Luis.Even if the "mob" wants Communism there are still us pesky Individuals that stand in their way, and have the Constitution on our side. Communism takes away individuality to take that away is to kill America and all she stands for. This is not a Mob rule country. (It's not suppose to be) However Just to prove my case further.. Things where the "mob rule" didn't get their way.
End of slavery
Women's right to vote
even today with the homosexual agenda as sick as that makes me.
Minority's Matter, Individuals matter. A Republic gives Each man say. So in order to fight for the death for those that want communism.. You will have to surrender the Constitution and all of the God given rights that go with it.
Had saying that, I will not surrender to that, no matter how loud they scream!
Live Free or Die Trying
Remember this...it's a very good point.
redrock
p.s...BTW..your old man was pretty much like mine.
Washington : an abridgement in one volume by Richard Harwell of the seven-volume George Washington by Douglas Southall Freeman
- by Richard Barksdale HarwellAvailable through Barnes & Noble, also Amazon.com.
Also recommended, about the author of the seven-volume George Washington:
Douglas Southall Freeman, by David E. Johnson:
Mr. Gonzalez, I really enjoy reading your thoughts and experiences. What I admire most about you can be summed up in the sentence above.
Don't be too tough on my friend Redrock as he, like many of us others, got tired of fighting the good fight and took the path that led to us giving up on the GOP as the party that represents even the ideology you have.
God Bless you Luis. I which I could share in your optimism. I really do but I have become cynical in my old age. I am past bitterness, but I, as others here really do believe, the GOP at the national level, stands for nothing. They, as our advisaries on the left, will say anything to acquire votes, but once in office they as the left are concerned with but one thing. KEEPING POWER!!! History has proved time and again what a corrupting force "power" can be and is.
While I do admire, respect and agree totally with the "principles" you have time and again stated, I think the republic is beyond the brink.
Those of us who even understand, much less read the constitution, are in a vastly great minority. We are but a remnant of what this country was built upon.
Again, God less you Luis, and keep on ... keepin' on!
