My commentary on a variety of issues that interest me including gun rights, individual liberty, illegal immigration, politics, religion, taxes, aviation, judicial activism, journalistic bias and laziness, environmental activism, education, family, health, gardening, history, Scouting, genealogy, etc.
I am a retired international airline captain. In real life, I strike fear into the US Department of Homeland Security as a right-wing extremist (in other words, I believe in God, go to church regularly, own a gun or two, oppose Al Gore and the environmentalist fraud, expect the government to aggressively enforce immigration laws, believe English should be established as the nation's official language, believe the US Constitution says what it says, seek a return to the limited federal government described in the US Constitution, and as a military veteran have sworn to support and defend the Constitution). To quote one of my heroes, Captain Moroni: "I seek not for power, but to pull it down. I seek not for honor of the world, but for the glory of my God, and the freedom and welfare of my country." (Book of Mormon, Alma 60:36) In my spare time, I serve on the local Boy Scout District Training Committee. I coach a 4-H Shooting Sports club (see 4-H link below). I also teach the Utah Hunter Education Course, the Utah Concealed Firearm Course, and various other gun safety classes including most NRA courses (see Firearm Training link below).
Here's a segment of a recent press release from the US Department of Agriculture:
WASHINGTON, Oct. 6, 2015 – The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) today announced the availability of $4 million in assistance for farmers, ranchers and forest landowners working to improve food sources for honey bees on private lands in Midwestern and northern plains states. The targeted conservation effort by USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) aims to improve the health of this critical pollinator in a region where more than two-thirds of the nation’s honey bee population spends the summer months, pollinating crops and building strength to survive winter.
Am I the only one who asks how much each seed will cost under that $4 million government program?
I'm a beekeeper and have been since my youth. I encourage people to plant more flowers and flowering crops in their gardens.
But I can't understand why over-taxed Americans expect, ask, and allow government to do everything for us. Paying farmers to plant flowers (or anything else) is not a proper role of government nor is it a proper use of the taxpayers' money. Instead, let's vote for severe cuts in government power and spending while cutting taxes so that farmers (and everyone else) can afford to buy their own flowers!
"Would you be willing to give up your favorite federal government program if it meant never having to pay income tax again?" -- Harry Browne
You want to save the bees? Get your head out of the sand and plant flowers! Stop waiting for government to do it for you at greatly inflated prices!
The Washington Post (G Gordon Liddy's favorite news source) recently published an article based on their own polling claiming that "Most gun owners don't belong to the NRA — and they don't agree with it either". The article was discussed in an online forum of gun owners, some of whom also don't agree with the NRA. Here is my response to those dissidents:
1 - Gun owners who don't agree with the NRA and who are not members have no voice. If you want the NRA leadership to listen to you, join!. Get everyone you know to join. (Every member of my family, including 15 grandchildren, is a Life member. Beat that!)
2 - Although a Benefactor Life Member, I also don't agree with the compromises the NRA has made or the support they've given to the likes of Harry Reid. (Compromise with evil always moves in the direction of evil.) NRA fingerprints are on every federal anti-gun law on the books. But, think about how much worse those laws would be if the NRA weren't involved to mitigate the damage.
3 - Why does the NRA compromise? Because it has to! With only 5 million members ("somewhere between 6 and 7 percent of American gun owners" according to the Washington Post article) it does not have the power to dictate what Congress, the president, the courts, and bureaucrats do. The NRA is grossly out-gunned (no pun intended) by the numbers of voters represented by anti-rights organizations. (see partial list.) If only 20% of gun owners were NRA members, the NRA would have the influence it needs to out-lobby the anti-gun groups.
4 - The other gun-rights organizations (I'm also a life member of CCRKBA, GOA, JPFO, and SAF), as good as they are, all have a small, insignificant percentage of membership that the NRA has. Without huge membership numbers, they have no clout. Nobody in Congress listens to them. At least they listen to the NRA enough to hate the NRA. Nobody in Congress hates CCRKBA, GOA, JPFO, and SAF because they don't know who they are! (If any purportedly pro-gun-rights organization is an enemy of gun rights, it is NAGR.)
5 - In the end, I place the blame for every gun-control law squarely at the foot of every gun owner who doesn't vote like a gun owner. If the "between 73 million and 81 million adult gun owners" claimed by the Washington Post don't dominate every election by electing pro-rights politicians and voting out the bums, they deserve to lose their rights. And they are, while taking the rest of us down with them.
I can almost hear Hillary's cackle every time a gun owner rejects the NRA.
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