It's pretty scary how many gun owners support governmental parentalism. It's not a good sign how many posts I had to scroll through before somebody (c_yeager) finally called a spade a spade.
I have long noticed that "gun owner" does NOT necessarily mean a person is pro liberty, which many assume it does.
Particularly frightening are the rationalizations (they expose what is REALLY in people's hearts) for mis named governmental parentalism like "national service":
You don't get to vote until you do your federal(and/or state) service.
*shudders*
HOW did we go as a nation, from "only land owners may vote" to the above abomination?
Folks, I was young, once, and I remember how shallow and self-centered I was. I find exactly the same traits among modern youth. Oh, I know, they can't help it, it's the way and the society in which they've been raised: but it needs correction, and I think national service of some kind is a very good way to do it.
*sighs* Let me translate the above: "I'm going to use government force to do what I couldn't otherwise force you to do, under the guise of making
YOU less selfish." Holy smoke, I honestly can't believe I'm reading this among gun owners. I expect to hear preacherman's posts on the campus of my local government university. Preacherman, how do you NOT realize that such a program would only make them young wipper snappers "less selfish" when it comes to GOVERNMENT? They will be turned into the kind of livelong government loyalists that we've seen and continue to see in Europe (which is not far from the American public today, no wonder it's taking hold among people who used to know better).
By the way, those of you who have this idealized fantasy about so called "national service" can take heart in the future. The powers that be have made no bones about the fact that this is a long term goal of theirs. Every administration (including this one) has floated their own version of the same animal. UN connected organizations salivate at the very thought of compulsory government "service."
I believe we already have something GOOD in the "military service" department for 18 yr olds that is systematically ignored, even among gun owners. We suffer from a lack of real courage within men in this country, otherwise you would see functional and unique *gasp* local militias all over the land. They would be meeting, training, teaching, discussing, preparing, and many other good things that narrow minded militia bigots could never conceive of. Whenever someone like me dares to point this out, there is an inevitable chorus of the comfortable gutless among us who ask, "Well what are YOU doing to accomplish this?" These guys aren't reconstituting their local militia, they simply A. want someone to do it for them, and B. feel real big by focusing on the one
pointing it out instead of the subject itself.
If you are too whatever, to join/reconstitute your local militia, you have no moral right in the universe to use government as your mercenary to compel your fellow citizen to do what YOU think is "best" for him, or will make
him "less selfish"
. No one will come along to forcibly compel you to reconstitute your local militia (despite the fact that it IS the state's responsibility), so doing the right thing will take personal initiative and backbone of a different sort than hanging Christmas lights, and WON'T involve backwards government programs.